Thanksgiving

Lydia enjoying her dad's favorite Thanksgiving Tradition. Apple Crisp... 

And she loves being a big girl and eating with a spoon. 

Thanksgiving Weekend for Us was Warm. So we had a pre-Thanksgiving picnic :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that during the holidays you do not feel the need to run and hide (crying!) from your family. If you do feel the need to run away crying, I hope your family does not chase you with a camera laughing :) Happy Thanksgiving!

Lessons from the Middle of the Night

Lesson 1: The tooth fairy was invented by an exhausted mother that did not want to re-visit the teething days with her elementary age child. AND if I could explain a magical creature to my 1 year old to make all the teething discomfort go away, I would!

Lesson 2: Grand children seem like a great way to enjoy children. You can love them, play with them, spoil them, never tell them no, and at the end of the day send them away!

Lesson 3: I am going to have to adopt grandchildren because Lydia's thresh hold for pain and discomfort is non-existent.

Bag Baby!

Not the greatest picture BUT as a child my dad convinced his sisters to run around the house with bags on their heads (can you tell that he was the oldest???). It must run in the family because Lydia spent the weekend running around the house with a bag on her head. Thankfully, she did not fall down the steps and the bag is safely put away!

First Ear Infection

I feel very fortunate that Lydia made it 16 months (and 3 weeks!) before getting her first ear infection. But she got her first ear infection last week. After 6 days of a fever, many boxes of tissues, an entire bottle of infant Motrin, 2 visits to the doctor, hours and hours of TV, and her first antibiotic - Lydia is healthy and well again. Thankfully James and I just got little colds :)

Sadly, we had to re-enter real life today. Bittersweet. I am glad she is feeling better but was sad to rush out the door this morning and drop her off with a babysitter. (Last week we watched cartoons and cuddled on the couch before getting our day started. And didn't really leave the house!).

She is awfully cute when sick ;) 

Saga of Purchasing a Kitchen Table

Some things I figure will be simple. Buying a kitchen table, I thought would be simple. Find the one you like, pay for it, arrange to get the perfect table home, and prepare a lovely home made meal to eat at the table. Easy peasy right???

Well, a month ago we found the perfect table. Paid for it. And began waiting. Table was supposed to arrive in 14 days. A little slow on the delivery, but ok. A week before the table is supposed to arrive, I get an email stating that the table is back ordered - 3 weeks now. Really slow delivery but ok. A week later, I get an email stating that the table has shipped! Whoohoo!!!!!!! Three days later I realize my credit card has been charged and the tracking number is incorrect. No deal. I call the company to get the correct tracking number. Long story and many phone calls later, the company has NO idea where the table is, NO idea what the tracking number is, NO idea when the table might arrive, and after many more phone calls the company finally cancels the order.

So now we are 1 month into this saga and have no table.

I go back to Craigslist and still can't find a table with any life left in it (not interested in bringing home a project right now!).

I go back to the Internet. Increase how much money I am willing to spend. And resume my search. I come back empty handed.

And then my husband finds a similar table that we had ordered from company A at a different store for less money. My husband unwilling to stop at a good deal, continues searching for other discounts to company B. In the end, we are purchasing similar table that we wanted for $100 less than we were purchasing the table originally.

We then decided that since the table was going to be coming in three different orders, we could just pick up the items ourselves - no need to rent a truck! The comical part of this decision is my husband drives a Nissan Sentra and I drive a Saturn.

Picking up the bench was not a deal at all. Flat box. Fit perfectly in the trunk of my husband's car.

The four chairs. First of all, I called the store to see if the chairs were assembled or not assembled in boxes (do we need to bring both cars or just one???). I was informed that the chairs were in boxes. I do a silent cheer that the chairs are not assembled. We drive to the store, pick up our items, and then the items are brought to the front of the store. Yes, the chairs are in boxes. Yes, the chairs are assembled. No, we can not take just two chairs home at a time. Yes, we have the Nissan, baby, and two adults. But, we got FOUR chairs, one baby with large car seat, and two adults inside the car.  No, we did not get any pictures. But I am sure that the high school student who got to walk these chairs out to our car is still laughing at the event!

The table... OH MY! James decided since the table was 5 feet long that it could easily fit in his Nissan :) Just to be safe, Lydia and I drove my car up with him so if needed one of us could stay with the table and one of us could go rent a truck. Just incase ;) The table comes out and doesn't fit in his car. After trying and trying and trying to get the table to fit by fitting the rectangle peg in the small square hole, the store employee volunteered his brother who has a TRUCK to come help. James reluctantly agrees. The employee's brother lives less than five minutes away and comes to the store to load the truck and take our table to our house. The brother was paid well and we got the table home :)

What I thought would be a super simple task, evolved into a much more complicated task. BUT we now have a kitchen table that can seat more than three people :)

Happy Veterans Day, Dad

guhgammmmhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhydddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddn                 hhbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb  jykmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Translation:
Happy Veterans Day, Dad. I think you are great! Sorry for waking you up in the middle of the night by the way...

Love, Lydia

PS Will you share any of your free meals with me??? Please :)

PSS I think you are pretty awesome too! DeAnna

Snack Cups

I have heard that these are super cool. I purchased a set for Lydia thinking they would be great when we go out to eat for her to have an appetizer. In the car on Tuesday afternoons for a quick snack. Road trips.

Can I say that Lydia loves them??? Dinner out number 1, Lydia was unable to eat her dinner because she was going to eat every single Goldfish out of the snack cup. So it was a nice dinner out and she was very content and happy but she was VERY hungry by the time we got home. Snack number 1, Lydia sat in her car seat holding the cup with the Goldfish inside for a very long unsure if she could actually eat in the car. She eventually ate the snack and I learned that maybe my child actually needs to be given more opportunities to eat outside of a high chair!

I am undecided if I love them because Lydia tends to obsess over the food that is in the cup a little much. And the snack falls out in the diaper bad. But Lydia approves...

Movie Night

We are really enjoying having a toddler in the house. She is so much fun and has finally learned that we are not evil (I really do believe that she held a very long grudge against us because she did not want to be born!). We decided that it would be fun to have a pretend camp out and movie night with her. Often when in the woods, people watch movies right??? Our plan was to grill hot dogs, make smores, and watch a movie.

When we planned our camp out, we did not check the weather. But we were not deterred with the rainy weather! By the time James got home from work, it was raining cats and dogs and COLD. So instead of hot dogs we made pizza. Equally tasty to a one year old. But James really wanted to introduce Lydia to smores, so he fired up the grill and ran outside to roast marshmallows.

Excited but unsure what Dad is excited about! 

Stick and marshmallows, hmmmm, looks fun people! 

Roasting marshmallows...

Lydia outside with dad in the cold and rain...

Playing with fire :) 

And when the rain started coming down harder, two of us went inside!

Watching Dad from inside and thinking that this adventure must equal FOOD!

Lydia meet Smore. Smore meet Lydia's tummy!

For a long time, Lydia could not believe that we had actually given her this treat and just kept it in her mouth! 

This is love to take that messy treat in my clean hand... 

Lydia meet the bathtub!

And then we had our movie night. We thought that since we gathered up many blankets and Lydia's special cuddly/sleeping blankets/bears that she would actually be still and watch the movie. HAHAHA, we were so funny! She watched her ten minutes of the movie and then played toys, climbed on mom, wrestled with dad, and had a great time. At 8:00, she asked to go to bed. So James and I finished Toy Story after she went to bed :)

The one and only picture from Movie night...

Lydia's Declarations

People! I have arrived!!!!!!! My peeps introduced me to the most wonderful invention ever this week! Can you say, "night light".

When  I was little this entire night light concept irritated me. I would scream and scream and scream if there was a light on in the upstairs part of my world at night. Come on I spent months and months in my safe dark cocoon and slept just fine. Why now that I am in the world and just struggling to get used to EVERYTHING do you all think that I need a light to sleep? Just one more thing to learn to like and I couldn't handle it.

But now that I am a big girl, I hear noises at night. I see shapes. I know bad things could happen (did I mention that we were OUT of Goldfish for a couple hours last week???). Dad wanted me to have a energy efficient night light (it glowed blue?!?!?). Mom gave me a pretty purple night light with star cut outs though. This pretty night light casts a warm and cozy glow through out my bedroom. Mom won and I got a pretty night light that turns off during the day so it is energy efficient too (Dad says that his night light will just cost pennies to operate in a year!).

When I roll over at night I can check out my world and see that all is right in the world. My bear can find me. My blankets can make sure they stick close to me. When cars turn around on our street, I don't even notice the light because my room is all lit up like a Christmas Tree! I love my pretty purple night light. I just wish that I would have learned to like it earlier in life :)

Some Pics from Marbles

Lydia loves Marbles (a children's museum). Can you tell???

Being a fireman (who was very busy and moving!)

"In the Dog House" hahahahaha

Ladybug on the Stage

Doing something special in the pet store

Force Feeding the Dog (maybe we need to show her how dogs eat!)

Walking a freshly washed cat. (Maybe we need to also show her how cats really wash themselves...)

Lacing Activity

Lydia adores her busy bag activities (adores may not be a strong enough word - it is all she ever plays with!). I went looking for some new activities for her because once again she was destroying her old ones and finding dangerous but NEW ways to play with them.

She has been lacing random objects from around the house but they have been just a bit difficult for the one year old's hands. (The curlers off of sponge rollers, pasta, the plastic shaker piece off of spice jars, etc...). She tries and tries - amazingly never gets frustrated - but also never succeeding...

And then Grandma gave Lydia a bag of credit card tape machine rollers. The perfect lacing tool for the one year old's hands! Lydia was so excited to finally have success :)

Yard Work!

My goal for the summer was to get the front yard cleaned up. We have made great progress (this project was bigger than I dreamed and became a bonding experience for James and I!).

The huge overgrown front bush is cut down. I am not sure where the neighborhood teenagers make out now but it is not by our mailbox!

The bushes along the sidewalk have been trimmed. Did you know that two people can actually walk down our portion of the sidewalk side by side??? WOW! Maybe this is where the neighborhood teenagers make out now...

The butterfly bush has been trimmed. Sadly it is still dead and is coming down soon :( But we will have more grass to play chase in.

Two of the four flower beds have been transformed into GRASS!

And we have a great anonymous neighbor who very kindly edges the sidewalk for us every couple weeks. Hurray!!!!!!!!! I am not 100% sure which neighbor is doing this for us and since it is always done we are out of the house I think the neighbor wants to be anonymous (but my scouts have told me who it is!). And I edge the rest of the yard when I get time... Kinda nice to be outside alone - Lydia is scared of the weed eater.

So this fall, the butterfly bush is coming down :( The small, overlooked, and dead tree in the yard is coming down. And a rock path/garden down to the backyard (because eventually we do have to do something with that jungle!). And we really are going to tackle the last two of the flower beds. And sadly we can not make every flower bed in our yard grass. But the next best thing is a ROCK GARDEN!!!!!!! We decided that we should not be totally anti-flowers and we are going to plant 2 or 3 small, impossible to kill, slow to grow bushes. Hmmmmm, wonder if I can plant a rubber bush????

The progress from this week...

My Helper Learning Her Boundaries (no, you may not go play in the street!)

The weeds are gone... 

The Old Mulch is Raked Up

The view before the weed barrier goes down... 

Slide!

This week I was very exasperated with my dear little girl. She had spent the day turning toys upside down, walking on them, throwing them, destroying them, and getting hurt.

I figured that she would eventually learn that when you play with your toys this way, then you get hurt. She was getting this message but was still determined to play with her toys in unsafe ways.

We had played outside for HOURS as I was hoping to get this energy out of her little body. 

She had gotten in time out (really, not supposed to tear books up just for the fun of it!). 

We had done art projects. Taken walks. Re-organized every low cabinet and closet in our house. And still one of us was destroying her toys systematically. 

James brought up a good point. Maybe she has outgrown her toys. I was a bit skeptical but went with it. Lydia got to pick out big girl toys from the closet. Within minutes we were nicer to our toys. (Not nice just nicer!) 

And then our very sweet neighbors offered Lydia their old slide. I think the slide was just what Lydia needed. Hours and hours and hours and hours of play. Up the slide. Down the slide. Around the slide. Scooting down the slide. Standing on the slide. Getting all that energy out of her little body. So I guess she is no longer a baby and is truly a toddler! 

Did I mention we can scoot the slide around the basement???

I think that is a look of victory! 

A towel and we can't scoot the slide (i.e. mom can leave you  and fix lunch!)

Playing Ball With Dad

Their new nightly ritual... Why this calms Lydia down for a great nights sleep I really don't understand. But a quick game of football, sends Lydia to bed with giggles, a smile, AND she sleeps all night. So football it is!

Dad chasing the ball. 

Lydia throwing the ball and cheering dad along! 

And she gets off her throne to be chased! 

And after all that play, a quick game of felt board fun is in order!