My "other" children

What a title huh? I'm talking about my friend Anna's kiddos. I love them as if they were my own! In fact, when Josiah (their first) was born, I pretended he was my baby! I loved watching him and AJ and I would just be his pretend parents! We're lame I know :) But I was lucky enough to watch them last week for a bit while they had an appointment. Lily loves her 'Siah, Micah, and baby Cami!

Cambria crawling...isn't she the cutest?! Lily can't say her name of course, so she just calls her baby. It's pretty cute. And Lily wasn't jealous of me holding Cami either, just very aware of what was going on!

Josiah and Micah. Lily loves to say 'Siah over and over. She can kinda say Micah too. She loves being with them! And poor Josiah just broke his leg a couple days ago! We're praying for a fast recovery for him!

And my cute Lily....looking a bit like she's from the 80's! But, I had to take a picture of her in her cute outfit my mom got her. She just wouldn't let me take it without her holding her baby and blankie of course! She sure loves her little friends though!

Toilet Paper=FUN!

These pictures are a bit dated (like 2 weeks ago) but I just had to share them! I bought some toilet paper and had it sitting in our front room while I unloaded the rest of the groceries. I hear Lily being mischievous and go to find her and here she is coming toward me carrying the whole pack of paper! It was quite funny. She was grunting and everything like it was so heavy!

She's so strong!

Then, she proceeds to put it down on the floor and realizes how much fun she could have if she stood on the toilet paper!

And even how much more fun it would be to JUMP on the toilet paper!

(don't you just love the ponytail? I can't believe her hair is pretty much long enough to pull it back . She's still got a bit of a mullet-esque in the front, but it'll grow!)

This girl will play with anything BUT her own toys! She'd rather play with tupperware, hair bows, spoons, bowls, cups, water bottles, etc. Why do I buy her toys when she'd rather play with household items?!

I will also say that I think we've officially hit the "Terrible 2's"!! OH NO. She is whiny, she throws tantrums if all I do is say "no" to her, she refuses to eat anything-but grapes of course, and is just not the same little Lily! And she's getting into EVERYTHING! All of my drawers, the kitchen drawers, etc. Even when I'm loading the dishwasher she has to be there and grabs whatever I put in and takes it away to go play with it! And when I'm putting make-up on in the morning, she loves to reach her hand in my drawer and pull anything out that she can and tries to open it. I can't even put make-up on in peace! I'm a bit scared-can't you tell?! But I will say today has been a great day. She took a random morning nap and woke up at 12pm and hasn't slept since! Oh, I've tried. She just won't have it! She's quite cute though because she loves to say "All d" for all done. And the last time I tried to lay her down she's screaming/crying in her crib saying "all d, all d!" I eventually gave up and she'll just go to bed early tonight! But she's been really well-behaved all day. Go figure. No nap=good Lily? Crazy! I can't wait till this stage is over-it's definitely been the hardest thus far. I just need to remember that she's a gift from God and I need to lean on Him for patience. If I let Him, I know He'll provide it for me!

Just Bust A Move

Lily LOVES to dance. I'm not sure how or why it even started. But she's been wiggling for a while now and it's so darn cute! I wish I knew how to put a video on here because she'll just start dancing away! She'll even dance when I pick her up from the nursery-as if she's saying "yay, I'm glad you're here. Let me just show you how excited I am by wiggling to the side over and over!" She's quite cute! Here she is dancing away. You can tell that she's swaying to her right side at the moment, then she'll go to the left. All I had to say to her is "Can you dance?" And she does it! She looks so old in this picture to me too!

And a close up of her and her baby. She has to take this thing EVERYWHERE! We're at that stage now when no matter where we go she has to take her baby and blankie. The bad part about this is I only have 1 of each. I need to get some more so I can take them away and wash them without her throwing a fit.

Lily is also into running. She was crying for some random reason and I just took her hand and ran with her down the hall and back over and over. She thought it was the greatest thing! I love this look on her face too!

Maybe once I figure out the video thing I can post some on here of my dancing queen!

Lily's First Car

Our good friends, the Steiner's, gave us this fun car for Lily to have! (I'll let them have it back for a bit when their youngest can use it!) Lily loves playing with it-mostly just getting in and out of it and closing the door. She hasn't quite figured out how to pedal in it, but she'll get the hang of it soon I'm sure!

Here she is getting out of the car...

And here she is getting in the car and shutting that door!

Here she is again...only this time she's naked! You all probably think we just let her run around outside naked all the time. Really, we don't. She just happened to get in her little kiddy pool WITH her clothes on. So, we just took them off. In fact, that yellow thing in the bottom right hand corner of the picture is her wet shirt. She was putting that in the car with her as well!

And she's just turning that steering wheel! I will love to look back at these pictures when the time comes for her to actually DRIVE! Eek! That will be scary, but fun to look at her "first car"! Thanks again Steiner family!

Susie Homemaker

(This isn't from what we did, I forgot to bring my camera! So I got this photo from the Internet! But it's basically what it looked like at Janet's house! They look so pretty in those jars! )

I'm definitely feeling like Susie Homemaker lately. I was privileged enough to tag along with some friends and can peaches yesterday! This is the second year that I've canned peaches and pears. (We will do pears next week.) I went with a good friend of mine, Lynn, and we went to Josh's mom's house with Lynn to can peaches! (Josh is Lynn's husband and Josh and AJ have known each other since their college days at Western Oregon) Josh's mom is a wonderful cook and when AJ and Josh were in college together, they'd always eat at their house. AJ still says he loves Janet's recipes-especially her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! Anyway, last summer I asked if I could can with them and they said yes! It was so much fun and I really do enjoy it. It makes me feel good to see the work of my hands turn into something so pretty! But they all helped me too! I know nothing about canning, and Janet has all of the stuff to can, so I just show up and they put me to work! I went yesterday and came away with 18 jars of peaches! I can't wait to dig into them! I'm trying to save it for the fall/winter time when fruit isn't so fresh, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle it. I took Lily with me and she did really well playing with Lynn's kids and just hanging out for 4 hours! I definitely pushed her to her limit by not leaving until 1:30, when she normally goes to bed at 12:30ish! Oh well! She did great and napped great too. I can't wait to do the pears, and I promise to bring my camera that time! Sorry, no pictures of Lily-we just haven't done much picture taken lately! Until next time... :)

A little bit country....

My husband is very much a country boy. I like to pretend I'm a country girl. But he usually beats me on how much country he is! He sometimes has interesting ideas when it comes to the ways of living. He always likes to "make" things so he doesn't have to buy them or fix things so I don't have to buy something! (He really did fix my hair dryer so I didn't have to get a new one!) Anyway, AJ's latest country "idea" has to do with bathing. He decided that he was too lazy to take a shower a couple days ago after he played tennis and wanted to bathe in our backyard with a bar of soap and a sprinkler!! I'm not kidding!!Hiding his chest? He's funny and a bit white trash with this idea! :)Fake crying because the water was so cold. I sure had fun spraying him!!And I knew Lily would want in on this action, so we undressed her and let her be a little W.T.! (white trash) I just LOVE her little bum!She loves anything that has to do with water!

One of 6 apple trees in our backyard! Not once have we pruned them since we've lived here but they still produce small ones. They're pretty good too. Lily loves to eat on them and every time we go "slide" (her word for outside) she always says "apple" over and over until she gets one!

And Lily gets a turn to spray daddy!

It was a fun time and I'm sure ready for summer to be OVER! These mornings are getting colder and I can feel Fall is just around the corner-my favorite time of year! Too bad we've got another hot week ahead of us. I'm sure we'll be using this sprinkler again!

What do you do with a CRYING Lily?!

Give her a bath!!

This girl was grouchy today! Every time I went to put her down for a second she would just stand there and sob like I'm the worst mom! At first I thought it was sweet that she wanted me. But after 2 minutes of that I quickly changed my mind! Don't get me wrong, I love her. But NOTHING would work! A quick history on baths: This girl LOVES them. She gets so excited. She just plains love water! Ever since she was a baby I made up this silly little bath song and I sing it every time I'm filling up the tub and putting her in it. Well now, she knows what to do when all I have to say is "Do you want to take a bath?" She immediately stops whatever she's doing-including crying!-and starts to clap her hands and run to the bathroom while I sing the song. So tonight, that's what we did. She was crying and crying and finally I said those magic words and she stopped crying. It was awesome! We bathed her and she had a great time! I got her all dressed and smelling sooo good (I love that fresh bathed baby smell!) and put her to bed EARLY! She's been sleeping ever since! Thank you Lord!

All smiles now and feeling good! I love this girl!

Mommy Moments

I love being a mom. It really is the greatest privilege to be one (besides being a wife first!) And I especially love those "mommy moments" that rarely happen. For instance, Lily isn't really a snuggler. She will lay down her head on me as I'm putting her to bed, but really won't let me rock her, or read a book with her on my lap, or anything else. Last week she woke up from her nap after sleeping for only an hour. I knew this was bad for 2 reasons: 1) she always sleeps 2-3 hours and if it's less than that she can become quite a grouch. And 2) we had a function that night and I knew it'd be horrible if she didn't get more sleep! So I walk in and she's sitting in her crib crying. And it's the "I'm still tired cry" so I was trying to figure out how to make her fall asleep again. I pick her up and just put her on my lap in the glider chair that's in her room. ( I used this all the time when she was a baby nursing her, snuggling with her, etc. It was the best!) And after about 2 minutes of rocking she lays her head on my chest and sleeps for 45 minutes! I'm not kidding! Of course I'm sitting there thinking "I really wish I had a book with me or the Bible or something to read." But I didn't. And I'm glad because it gave me 45 min. of peace and quiet listening to my crazy 18 month actually be silent and sleeping for once. It allowed me to reflect and pray and give thanks to God for bringing this miracle baby into our lives and really be thankful for her. It was a special "mommy moment" to me. Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show, but it was worth telling the story! But of course I must include a picture of Lily! She's into this one book my mom gave her last Christmas about Jesus and the manger scene and it has the song "Silent Night" play when you push this little button in the middle of a star. Lily just figured out how to do it and she presses it over and over and over again! I find myself singing this Christmas song as I go about my day! Crazy!

And she crawled in that chair all by herself! She's very interested in her book!

She looks so old to me sitting there like a big girl!

I sure hope I get more mommy moments in the future! Because I sure love them!