Ashlyn Love

We were all excited on Saturday at Lydia's birthday party to see our little niece/cousin.  Lydia is quite enthralled with her.  She kept pointing out the fact that she had a head, ears & tights!  She also wanted her to get down on the floor to play with her.  Thanks for coming to see us Ashlyn, Luke & Barbara... we loved getting to see you again.

Happy 2nd Birthday Lydia!

One Month

One Year

Two years ago today our little lady was born.  I still can't believe it!  She's grown so fast.  This morning we gave her a few small gifts... Evan had made a little bag for her with MaMa {grandma K} & we also gave her 3 Sesame Street books {which we had to read RIGHT AWAY} & an Elmo, a Cookie Monster & a Grover stuffed toy.  She had to feed Cookie some of her Cheerios at breakfast.  Now she's off to the babysitter & she took some strawberry cupcakes to share with her friends.  Unfortunately, it didn't work out for me to spend the day with her today, but her & the boys will be home tomorrow.  I think we're going to take her out for a special birthday dinner tonight.  I baked a little cake along with the cupcakes last night, so she'll get to blow out her 2 candles.

Thought I'd post to show how much she's changed.  The first pic was her baptism, when she was about a month old.  I remember I searched everywhere for a white dress & finally ended up finding the smallest one I could find & since she was so tiny, my mom had to make alterations because it was so big!  The second is at her first birthday party & the third was just last week at her mini photo shoot with Aunt Carol.

We are so blessed to have this little girl in our lives.  She has brought more joy to all of us than we could have ever imagined.  While she can be strong-headed & test our patience {remember she is 2}, she always finds a way to melt our hearts with her sweet ways.  It will be interesting to see what the next year brings.  So, Happy Birthday, Sweetie.  Love You.  MMMMMMMaaahhhh!  xxxooo.

A few more of the cutie & Elmo withdraw

Thought these were sort of cute... her prancing up & down the ramp & how her hair started swinging! Tomorrow we'll have a mini celebration for Lydia's birthday day.  I think I'll make some cupcakes for her to take to share with her girlfriends at the babysitter.  Still having a hard time believing she's almost 2.  I took her in for her checkup the other day & Doc Situ says she's perfectly proportioned... a little over 50th percentile for both h & w.  To the best of nurse Christi's abilities, she found her to be about 34 inches & 27.9 lbs.  Since her hernia is so small & hasn't changed, we're not going to mess with it right now & she's got some eczema on her cute little face.  That's about all the news from the health scene.  It was a pretty quick visit, as Lydia wasn't too thrilled about anyone trying to mess with her! She was quite disturbed by the fact that they wanted her to undress & that Doc was trying to touch her with those strange objects!  

Another thing we've been struggling with this week is Elmo withdraw.  In Lydia's world, she should be able to "Elmo watch" all hours of the day.  We've gotten her a few Elmo dvds & it was harmless at first, but quickly spread to having to repeatedly watch over and over and over.  So, I hid Elmo in a place where Lydia could not find them & am trying to keep the elmo watching to a minimum.  Trying to divert her attention only the Elmo dvd we have in the car & when SS is actually on PBS.  She is not dealing well.  We've had many fits about this one, but I have to keep telling myself that this too, shall pass.  I've been trying to get her mind off it by playing dolls with her or reading her books, which are 2 of her very favorite things.  If only Elmo only knew how riveting he was to toddlers... 

That dress...

Carol got so many cute pics of miss Lydia, I'll have to post a few at a time for everyone to look at!  The dress she's wearing I got off Ebay.  I've been drooling over it for probably a year or more on the web & finally got the deal I wanted... it was WAY too expensive new!  I'm so glad I finally found one though, it is sooooo cute!  I'm planning on her wearing it for her birthday party & probably Easter too & I'm sure I'll have to get it on her a few other times besides.  {BTW... the dress is by My Vintage Baby}

Ly-i-a

that's how she pronounces her name.  Very cute.  I can't even keep up anymore with all the words & phrases Lydia can say right now.  She basically repeats anything anyone says... at least once!  Her favorite things to do right now is to finish sentences from her favorite books, favorite songs & to boss the boys if they're not being good.  Over the weekend she's also changed her "YES" from "YA" {sounds truly German} to ""YESH".  She is truly a girl who know what she wants!  Lydia is also doing good at pronouncing her brothers names.  Collin is simply "COLL" & Evan is "EYAN".  Today she called daddy on his cell phone & when he answered "this is Dan", she replied "DAN" & kept repeating that it was Dan {we don't need to start that!}.  She also decided to call aunt Carol & when she answered, Lydia says "HEY-yo".  Oh, if we could just freeze her in this stage!