The Stats

Lily had her 15 month appt. yesterday with the doctor-meaning MORE shots! OUCH! She did such a good job. AJ actually held her on his lap this time instead of laying her on the table and she seemed more calm. Oh she still cried, but not as long. I think it helped having her daddy be with her. And thank goodness he comes to all those ouchy appts! I know I can do it, but it's hard to be the only one there. And I feel so bad when she screams bloody murder, and her face and body turn red, and she cries so hard it's that silent cry, but her body is shaking you know? The doc. said no more shots until kindergarten! YAY! He's pleased with her progress, especially because she's sort of walking. She weighed in at 23 lbs. 8 oz. and is 32 in. tall. She's in the 50 % for weight and the 90 % for height! Meaning out of 100 girls her age, she is taller than 90 of them and shorter than 10. CRAZY! It'll be fun to see how tall she's going to be! Things she enjoys at her 15 months of age are:

1. Eating graham crackers whole-no more breaking them in smaller pieces!

2. Eating whenever, wherever, all the time. This girl loves food!

3. Walking behind her car- and she figured out how to get on it on her own-without my help

4. Other kids! This girl is fascinated by other kids, babies, toddlers, etc. She has so much fun-especially with her favorite Steiner boys!

5. Singing, babbling, talking. She loves to say "boo" and then laughs as soon as she says it. I think it's from us playing peek-a-boo with her.

6. She is picking up on everything we do! She'll clap when we do, smile, laugh, pretend to cough when we cough!

7. She loves to pull herself up onto the furniture and is moving like crazy!

8. She learned how to sign "more" and "all done". It's fantastic!

9. She loves her baby and blanket. Those are a must when it's bed time.

10. She loves cups and straws. We might as well throw her toys out because if you just give her a cup and straw she's entertained for a long time!

I can't believe my baby is 15 months old. I still remember the day we found out we were pregnant! God is soo good! And I'm so thankful for a growing, healthy, baby girl!

By the way, these are old pictures-but they went with what I was saying!

We're Back!

Warning: Tons of pictures and quite possibly the longest post I've ever done!! What a week we had in Disneyland! It was soo much fun! First off, I'd like to give yet another shout out to my mom who turned the big 50 last Saturday-Happy Birthday Mom!! Of course we went on this fun excursion for her 50th (she LOVES Dland) and wanted her family to be there with her. We left Tuesday morning and got back Saturday night. My dad travels a lot so he was able to upgrade our tickets to first class on the plane rides! It was wonderful having the space and we basically took up half of first class with our family! Lily did WONDERFUL the entire time! I'm so blessed to have an easy going baby. She was such a little trooper with everything we did. Never did she do any crying fits-just when she was tired. So instead of pushing her to do more we just went back to the hotel and took naps. My parents stayed at the Grand California Hotel that's attached to California Adventure (it's across from Dland) and my brother, sister, and us stayed a couple blocks away. Anyway, we just used my parents room for Lily to nap in since it was right there! Such a treat! After arriving in California us girls (minus Lily of course) went to this amazing nail salon and got pedicures. This place is stinking cheap for what you get! I wish they were where we are! Anyway, my mom treated my sister and I and it was wonderful. After that we just settled into our hotel. The rest of the week we were in Dland. Of course it had to RAIN Thurs. afternoon and Fri. morning! California is not supposed to rain-EVER! But we made the most out of it and got soaked while riding the water ride 5 times! We just stayed on and on since no one was in line! (Lily was not with us, don't worry. She was napping and my dad was with her!) Then we were so cold after riding it that we jumped in the hot tub at my parents' hotel in our CLOTHES! AJ even wore his socks in it! Our clothes were already wet so no sense in going to change into our swimsuits. Plus, no one was there so we didn't get in trouble. I wish we got a picture of it but we didn't!

In the lobby of the Grand California waiting to go into the park on the first day! Lily is excited!

Me and the hubby

Me and my beautiful sister Leandra

And my beautiful mom on her scooter! As you know she had knee surgery two weeks ago and there would be no way she'd be able to walk around Dland for 5 days on her hurt knee with her cane. So she rented a scooter and it was wonderful. She felt great and Lily loved riding on it with her :) She did well driving it and only had a few crashes! :)

I'm going backwards a bit with the pictures but they go with the story I'm telling. Lily fell asleep as we were running in the poring rain from Dland to the hotel. The only wet part on her was her blanket. She was tired! And I love a sleeping baby!

This is the before picture (no after picture!) of us from being outside trying to get to the hotel from Dland. After we took this we immediately went on the water ride at California Adventure. We were way more soaked later! Back to the first day in the park, we (the girls) got Dland hats to wear.

My mom chose these sparkly Mickey ears and wore them the whole week. It was quite cute!

Lily trying on her Nana's ears. We didn't buy any for her because she immediately took them off. But she kept them on long enough for us to take a picture.

Lily also got some walking time in with her daddy. They have this giant ball in one of the lands at DLand that has water pouring over it. It's definitely a kids attraction. Lily loves balls right now and whenever she sees them freaks out and points and says "the ball". It's really cute. So here she is walking to her ball.

And with my mom's scooter we were able to go to the front of the lines! It was amazing. We all couldn't ride together because of Lily, so here we are waiting until the rest of the family gets off Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's my favorite ride and it's the best at night! See, we did have sunny weather part of the time! This was actually the same day it poured-crazy!

Lily even got to go on some of the rides! She loved them-even though she's not smiling in this picture. This is on the Winnie the Pooh ride.

And on the carousel. She loved it-that's her excited face! It's the same look when she sees balloons or balls or dogs.

She loved it!

This is Main Street in Dland right as you walk in. They have fun shops and old fashioned ice cream parlors, buggy rides, double decker buses, etc. It's a magical place! :)

Another storefront on Main Street-notice the icky color of the sky!

And in front of Cinderella's Castle. OK, I know you're all wondering "what the heck is that about?" It's quite a funny story. First of all, a little history behind it. Last Christmas we took a family picture (just us kids and Lily) for my mom's Christmas letter. Well, she wasn't there when we took it. She's got like 20 Christmas sweaters/vests that she wears every Christmas season. And we're mean and we kinda make fun of her-she's got a good spirit! So in that picture we took we wore her Christmas sweaters. She of course didn't know we were doing it until we showed it to her and she loved it and sent it out! People to this day laugh at it-especially at AJ because he was wearing my mom's Christmas turtleneck and sweater! Back to this picture, we thought it'd be funny to sneak out my mom's Christmas vests (we were in sunny California so vests made more sense than sweaters!) and made her and my dad go do a ride while we took a picture! FUNNY! Even Lily had one that I bought for her to wear this Christmas season, but as you can see it fits her great now so I'm sure it won't by the winter time! Oh well. Also, we gave my mom little gifts each day of the trip for her to open since it was her birthday week. And we bought a professional picture of us in the sweaters and put it in a mickey frame and that was a gift for one of the days. She loved it! And it was fun to do!

Joel being goofy and posing!

And my silly husband. I think he's taking it a bit far but that's what he does! :)

And of course he has to roll up his sleeves! Check out the farmer's tan!

This is Toontown. A fun place for the kiddos.

We waited in line for Lily to see Minnie. I wasn't sure how she'd react, but Minnie was very calm and gently waved her hands toward Lily. Finally she leaned in and Lily grabbed her nose! She was fascinated by it! She never cried either thank goodness!

The girls!

And she had to grab the nose one more time!

Lily and her grandpa in Mickey's house. You can kinda see my dad's shirt-it says Cindy is 50. We surprised my mom with all of us-even Lily-wearing these shirts one of the days we were there. Unfortunately, I don't have a pic. of us all in them, but my mom does and we're with Mickey. And of course the day we wore them it rained so we all had our jackets on! Oh well!

"A" is for Acker! Standing in front of California Adventure.

My mom ended up buying a poncho so we could put it over Lily and her stroller for when it rained. It sure helped! And she actually loved it!

On another ride in C-A. Lily doesn't look happy but she did like it. We were riding on a giant caterpillar (from the movie "Bugs Life") and on this ride they had giant things that the caterpillar ate. Well, at one point there was a half eaten giant apple and Lily points to it and says "ball"!! Too cute.

And with a character from Bugs Life. Lily didn't love him nearly as much as she loved Minnie!

Cinderella's Castle at night! Dland is the most fun when it's dark because there are lights everywhere! We were waiting for the fireworks show to start.

Lily sleeping in her stroller! My camera is not good at taking night pictures. And basically right after I took this (it had a giant flash!) she woke up. I know, I'm a terrible mom. But not even 5 min. later did the fireworks start and she would've woken up anyway because they were LOUD! She was great during it too and just stared at those fireworks.

And Lily is WALKING!! So, she's been walking for a while now-taking like 6-1o steps on her own. I haven't blogged about it because I personally don't call that walking-just taking steps. As we're waiting in the airport to come home I leave to go get coffee at Starbucks with my sister and come back and she's walking towards me! Are you kidding me?! I missed it! She took like 20 steps I guess-all over the place. By herself! Look at how she's just standing there like it's no big deal. Unbelievable. The funny thing is she doesn't do it on her own account. We literally have to put her on the floor and walk a bit away, crouch down and say "come here!" She always does it too. But we have yet to see her stand up and walk. But we're for sure getting close! YAY! And she's only 15 months! :)

On the ride to come back home and all tuckered out! She loves her baby. And I promise you every time she holds her baby she always sucks on the inside of her bottom lip. It's like a binky to her I guess. She knows it's time to calm down and go to sleep! WOW. What an amazing trip and I'm sad it's over. We've been looking forward to this trip for over a year now! I wish we would've gone this week because it's supposed to be nice in California! Lily did great, the family did great, it was a TON of FUN! I always hate it when trips like this are over-it's such a let down! But now I get to look forward to my sister-in-laws wedding in 2 months! You'll be seeing lots of pictures from upcoming showers and her bachelorette party in a couple weeks! Sorry for such a long post too! And I didn't even put up all the pictures! :)

Oh Happy Day!

Great news! AJ's tests came back completely normal-praise God! Everything was fine and none of it was a worrisome to his doctor. The doctor suggested AJ may be having "nocturnal seizures"-meaning seizing in his sleep-which is why he's so tired/drained throughout the day. He suggested for AJ to go on seizure medication for 3 months as a trial period and follow-up with the doctor after those few months of being on medication. The pill he takes is at night and it actually causes drowsiness-which will hopefully make him sleep a bit better! There are no side effects so we're just kind of at the point of trying anything. The doctor is still puzzled as to why he had those 2 seizures, but says this may solve it. Or at least, after 3 months, if AJ's feeling great than he probably was having those nocturnal seizures. He started the medicine on Wednesday and yesterday he woke up at 6:30 am feeling great! That is crazy to me! I get out of bed (it's only 7:00) and I see my husband isn't sleeping beside me. He's outside weeding! He says he was feeling good and energized. Maybe it's all in his head, but either way it's better than feeling lousy! God is so good to us and His plan is perfect. We will continue to trust in Him as we try this medicine and we know He's got us in His hands. Thanks again for your prayers!

So, now on to Lily Mae. This week has been so HOT that we decided it'd be fun to buy one of those plastic kiddie pools for $10-can't beat that price! Lily has had such a fun time in the water. This girl is a water lover! She splashes, plays, loves to throw her toys out of the pool and then always wants us to get them for her-then she does it again. It's a fun game to her! It's been a nice treat for us because she's happy and it's fun for her! Here are some pictures of her pool time:

Trying on her new hat we got for our Disneyland trip-she actually put it on like this!

And wearing some cute sunglasses-this girl has got like 4 pair of them! We'll see if she'll actually keep them on for longer than 10 seconds!

In her pool playing with a balloon! It was left over from my birthday and she loved it!

I love this action shot! You can see how happy she is flapping her arms and kicking her legs! We've used this pool everyday since we got it! The only problem now is I think she's teething because she's cranky and snotty. And we leave in a couple days for Disneyland-on a plane. Oh dear, please pray for us! And her of course, that she'd get better and her ears won't bother her. Thank goodness my whole family will be there to help out =) And a shout out to my Dad for turning the big 52 yesterday! Happy Birthday Dad! Love you!

Mother's Day celebrations!

I LOVE being a mom, and I LOVE being celebrated :) But first, we got to celebrate my mother-in-law and my mom. Saturday night we went to dinner with AJ's parents, sister and her fiance' to the Spaghetti Warehouse. It's soo good and you get tons of food. We had lots of fun. We then went back to the Acker's for presents. Lily did great considering she was up past her bed time-and she even learned how to crawl up stairs! That girl is just moving! Here's a picture of her standing-she pulled herself up! This isn't from the Acker's but I thought it went with her doing new 'tricks' :) Standing up on her own! And that's a tall table! Smiley girl so proud of herself! And I'm proud too! I also love her little heart pockets on her bum in those pants :)

Anyway, yesterday after church we went to my mom's house for lunch (because she had knee surgery on Friday-it went very well!) and did gifts and dessert. I played Wii with my sister while Lily napped-and I'm terrible at it. Good thing I don't have one because they are addicting! Then later that night Lily and I went to my good friend Kaytee's graduation open house. She just got her Masters! She's a friend from high school although we were talking yesterday and we knew of each other in middle school. Anyway, it was fun to see her and Lily did well playing with Kaytee's niece and the dog :) Lily loves dogs! When we got home it was 7ish and I was hungry so AJ took me out to Taco Bell-my choice! We got home and he gave me this adorable card 'from' Lily. I had to take a picture of it because it was so cute! This was the front of the card and the ribbons are real-so fun!And the inside of the card. I know it's hard to read but it says "Mom hugs are the bestest, bestest thing in the whole world, ever." And then "Happy Mother's Day from your daughter." AJ did so good picking it out and even had Lily 'sign' or draw on the card! She definitely has figured out a pen and wants to draw on paper if it's around. I'm not sure I'm ready for that step yet-I can just imagine pen art all over my walls! AJ also gave me this beautiful necklace:

This too is hard to see but it says Lily Mae and the little gem next to it is her birthstone-or the color of it-which is amethyst. I tried doing a close up with the necklace laying on the table, but it just came out blurry and this was the best I could do. Anyway, this gal makes these necklaces and she lives here in town. I found her from another friend who has one and I basically emailed AJ all the info and hoped he'd get the hint! :) He sure did! You see, he's still very forgetful so this is what I have to do for him-he doesn't mind it and neither do I! He also let me choose a chick flick to watch and I chose Say Anything-an old 80's movie with John Cusack. Not sure how it ends because we were so tired we couldn't finish it-and it was only 10pm. I'm getting OLD! :) Speaking of old, we noticed today that AJ has gray hair! And it's not just 1 hair but a ton! All over! Oh man, he's getting old :) The big 32 is coming later this year. Crazy! Anyway, that's how my mother's day was and it was wonderful and I'm so grateful to be a mom! God has truly blessed me and AJ with Lily Mae!
PS AJ's neurology appt. got moved up to this Thursday morning. I basically called to see if they had a cancellation and they did. Yippee! I'll let you know the results of his tests once we find everything out!

Missing Cat!

Seriously, 2 days after I post about my cats I look on craigslist for fun (and to see if this so-called family is giving away the cats we gave them are on there) and what do I see but a big old headline reading "Missing black cat with white on chest". Yes folks, this is or WAS my cat! Horrible. I know you're all thinking, "How do you know it's yours?". Well first of all, these people live in Monmouth and that's where the post said it was in, second, they said they only had the cat for 3 weeks and it is a female, declawed cat. And that she was scared and hid under furniture but she must've gotten out because they can't find her! Are you kidding me?! So basically I killed my cat. I'm a terrible person. She's declawed and has never been outside. And now she is and is probably dead! I'm secretly hoping a nice family saw this sweet kitty and how nice she is and picked her up and have her in their home. Wishful thinking right?! Again, can't believe I posted not one but TWO things about my cats....but I did. I'll post pictures of Lily when I feel up to it :(

So Long Kitties

We finally did it-we got rid of our kitties. It took a while but we found a loving family to take 2 cats! It was sad (for me, not AJ!) and I still think about them. You see, they were my 'babies' before I actually had MY baby. They filled that void that I needed while we were trying for so long to have Lily! And now I abandoned them! :) Really though, it's for the better. It's cleaner! And I don't have to worry about Lily finding the kitty litter! We already know she found something cleaner than that when she got into the laundry soap! It's actually been a month since they left, but we told the girl that took them to feel free to call us if for some reason it didn't work with their family. Basically, I was worried if I posted about this then they'd come back to us! But I think were safe! So far at least! And even though Lily's first words were "hi kitty" we still got rid of them. I actually can't believe I'm blogging about my cats! Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the cats I used to post them on craigslist-seriously the best website ever!This is Belle-she was my cat and tolerated Lily soo well! Why did I get rid of them then?!!This is Zoe-she was AJ's cat and would run if Lily came near her! Anyway, life is nice now with just a dog-a lot simpler that is! And you might have noticed I took the Disneyland countdown off. Basically, I got to thinking that some weirdos and/or creepies could be looking at this blog and find our name on it, find where we live, and know when we're going on vacation and come rob us when we're gone! I overreact just a bit I think :) But I just thought it was safer this way. So I'm not going to say exactly when we leave-but it's getting close and I can't wait! My mom is actually having knee surgery this Friday! (and we're going to D-land for her 50th!) Great timing huh? She actually has a torn meniscus and it's arthroscopic.....so in and out in a day. She'll have a little time to heal and the way I look at it, she can rent a wheelchair and we can go to the front of the lines at Disneyland-yay! Hopefully it'll be a normal surgery and she'll heal really well and take it EASY (that's right mom, I know you're reading this! Let me take care of you for once! :) Anyway, last but not least, a picture of Lily because well, this is her blog!

Not the best face she has but she's got her sunglasses on and is ready for sunny California! I think she's cute!

Oh and I keep forgetting to talk about AJ's health. He had both his MRI and EEG done the last couple of weeks and we don't get to see the doctor for a follow-up until May 27th! He's apparently booked. (I'd think if he had brain cancer or something wouldn't they call us to come in sooner? I'm taking this wait as a good thing then!) But I'm gonna call every week and hope they get annoyed with us and move us up on the cancellation list! He's feeling as good as he can. Still the normal tired, forgetful self. But no seizures or anything. So as soon as we hear I'll let you all know.

Say "NO"

Lily is learning new tricks every day! And it seems after she hangs out with her friend Zoe she is encouraged to pick up on new things! (Since Zoe is older she walks, runs, etc.) Lily isn't walking yet, but she can pull herself up by holding onto the coffee table, or rocking chair, couch, our legs....you name it and she can do it! Of course I haven't been able to snap a picture of her doing it but she does! And since she does that she's also realized how to walk along the furniture! And I know there are some of you out there who say "That's no big deal, my 10 month old can do that" -which is great for you guys, but Lily is 14 months! So to us this is HUGE :) But with these new found tricks we get to say "No" a lot. She already knows how to say that word-and has said it since forever ago, but now she'll point to something she knows she shouldn't touch or grab and she'll say "no". I promise you, this is her favorite word. I think she just says it at random times and doesn't know what she's saying "no" to. It's funny mostly, but by the end of the day when it's a 1/2 hour before her bed time and I've already heard the word "no" 600 times I'm about sick of hearing it! Anyway, we're still working on the walking, but I'm not ready to push her into it. Mainly because if you've noticed from my Disneyland ticker we leave in 18 days!!! That is crazy to me! And she's already showing signs of not wanting to go into her stroller and stiffening her body so I literally have to push her into it (not hard, I'm quite gentle!) Yes, she did this today in the mall in the food court while crying. Bring on the stares because I'm sure it'll get worse from here on out! Luckily my mom was with me so she helped persuade Lily to sit down and she was fine as soon as we started strolling. I realize as I'm typing this that I'm making Lily look like she's a devil child. But she's really not! We're just learning new things about her and figuring out what works and doesn't work! She still cracks us up every day and is so sweet to give us 'kisses' and lay her head on us. Enough of the talking....here are some funny pictures of her:

As I've mentioned before, this girl will grab clothes from anywhere she can find them and put them around her neck and she'll ride her car all over the house. This day, I found her putting it over her head! She cracks me up!

And this is what she does with it around her neck! I don't know what goes through her mind as she has clothes around her!

And it's hard to tell in this picture, but Lily's hair is getting quite long-almost like a mullet! I'm finally able to grab what I can and put it in 2 tiny pigtails. Here is a front shot (With her holding her jacket and carrying it around the house!)

And here is a side shot. She was playing "peek- a -boo" and moving her head around while I was holding the camera in front of my face! She's getting so old, it's quite sad to me! No longer a baby (although I still say she's my baby) but growing to look like a little girl! Time goes by too fast!