Let it SNOW!!!

I can only remember it snowing in Houston 2 or 3 days total out of my entire childhood (birth to 21). Would you believe it has snowed 3 times in the last 5 years. David was let out of work early, so he was home in time to enjoy the snow with all of us. Too bad we didn't get nearly as much snow as my parents did...that would have been fun. Gracie enjoyed the snow the most. She was having fun running around and biting the snow that had stuck on the fence. Lily enjoyed watching Gracie go crazy outside. (which is why we had to move to the front yard to take pictures.)

Fun in the exersaucer!

I love how much Lily is exploring and playing by herself. She is getting so adventurous and daring. We try and keep her contained to the living room, but she loves to escape out to the dining room or bedroom. I think it is so funny how simple things are so fascinating to a baby.

The other day, while we were hanging out at home, Lily crawled over to her exersaucer. Usually she just pulls herself up on the side of it and plays with her toys. I guess she wanted to get one of the toys that was underneath it because she decided to crawl right into it!

She thought this was very funny, and she kept looking down to peek at me. The seat of the exersaucer hangs pretty low, and she kept hitting her head on the plastic ring of it. I decided to remove the seat because of this. Lily liked this even more, she could now stand up and play with all of her toys the right way.

I just love the progression Lily has made with this toy. We used to have to put her in it for her to play, and now she just crawls over and stands in it when she wants to. I think these pictures are so cute!

I love my girls!!

I am constantly amazed at the relationship between Lily and Gracie. They are absolutely adorable together. Lily loves her so much and isn't scared by anything that she does. One of her favorite things to do is to grab Gracie's toys and taunt her with them which makes Gracie bark very loudly at her. You would think this would make Lily cry, but is has the complete opposite effect....she starts laughing. This happens at least once a day, and I am determined I am going to record this happening. Once I get a good video of it I will post it on here.

Every time we give Lily a bath, Gracie gets jealous. I don't know if she wants to play in the water, if she wants to get a bath, or if she just wants a drink of water. The other night Gracie jumped in the tub with Lily. This wasn't a huge deal because we have Lily's smaller tub in the large tub, so Gracie wasn't actually in the water with Lily. At first she was sitting beside her, but then she laid down next to Lily's tub. I ran and got the camera because this was definitely a photo I would have been very upset if I had missed it.

I have been trying hard to get a picture of them together for our Christmas cards, and I joked I should send this one out. Maybe I can get a picture today with the snow!!

I love her laugh!

Every day Lily and I watch Seasame Street together. Because of this, she has developed quite a fondness of Elmo's World. She gets so excited when it comes on, her legs start going crazy, and she starts laughing.

The other day we were watching while she was eating breakfast (which happens frequently). The episode focused on helping. Well, one of the characters was a lifeguard. He talked about how he helped people in the water, but they gave him a surfer accents, so it sounded more like wadah. Lily thought this was very funny, and laughed every time I repeated it. So I grabbed my camera to record her chuckling. Enjoy these videos, and try not to listen to me sounding like a fool :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebrating with both of our families. It was a great way to spend Lily's first turkey day!

We started off by having lunch with David's family at his brother's in-law's house. It was a fun afternoon enjoying good company, good food, and good football. Lily behaved herself pretty well. She got a bit cranky when she was ready to eat, and again, when she was ready for her nap.

Then, later that evening, we headed over to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Lily had a good nap on the way to my parents, so she was in a good mood when we arrived. At dinner, Lily got to experience some new foods! She tried green beans again, but she also tasted sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce. She started making the face below every time she had a bite of food, but she soon started making it over and over, after she realized we all liked it. We were laughing so hard at her my mom started crying. When we sat down to dinner we didn't know we there was going to be entertainment as well :)

After dinner, we watched the A&M game. We were sad the Aggies didn't win, but at least it was competitive. Lily enjoyed the first half of the game, but soon fell asleep.

We had such a great day! We have been so blessed and have so much to be thankful for.

Now...I can't wait for Christmas!!!!

I'm an HEBuddy Kid!

Last Thursday night we went to the new HEB that opened near our home. We were very impressed with the store, and we were even happier they had sent us coupons for free items. The nice lady at the front of the store gave Lily a balloon. At first this was a frightening new item, but it soon became Lily's new favorite toy. She was bouncing it around and trying to hit me as many times as she could. I think we had gone down 3-4 isles out of the 20+ in the store, when all of the sudden Lily let go of the balloon and it floated to the ceiling. It had been tied to the cart, but I guess the abuse made the knot loosen. Lily smiled as it floated away, but then soon realized she no longer had it to play with. Now we have an idea if we ever need any cheap entertainment.

Fun Times in the High Chair

Since Lily is now 8 months old, she can try all sorts of new food. I'm trying to give her as much as I can because soon she will be a year old and eating normal food. The first new thing she tried was yogurt. I thought she would like yogurt because she eats yogurt melts all the time, and that is just freeze dried yogurt. I was wrong. It was the first time she had eaten cold food, so I think that was part of the problem...not to mention how tart yogurt it. She has eaten it a few more times since these pictures were taken, and she is starting to like it a bit more.

I don't think these pictures do justice to the awful faces she was making, and I didn't get a picture of her gagging on it!

The next new issue we have had with dinner time is Lily loves to bite on the spoon every time I feed her. Most of the time, she ends up stealing the spoon and dinner is delayed a bit.

The next new thing Lily tried was some green beans. I was making green beans for dinner, so I took a bean out of the can for Lily before I cooked the rest for us. She ate it quite well, but I think she wasn't so sure about the texture. I was very proud of her eating actual food for the first time. I think we will have to try bananas for mashed potatoes next.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, Lily loves to steal the spoon I feed her with. Well the other night at dinner she did just that. So, I asked David to bring me another spoon so I could feed her while she played with the spoon. My plan backfired! She stole the other spoon as well. She was having such a good time playing with a spoon in each hand.


In this picture she had the spoon in her mouth and was using both her hands to play with the pink spoon. She moved her left hand right before I took the picture, so it looks like she is holding the spoon in her mouth.

A Weekend Without Daddy

This past weekend David accompanied his friend Stephen to San Antonio, where Stephen was running a half marathon. This is the second weekend in a row we have been in separate cities, but it was good we got to go have some fun on our own.

Since I was by myself, my mom and sister came to stay with me for the weekend. We had a fun girls day on Saturday, lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and then shopping! Lily was very excited to get some new clothes from Janie and Jack, and they look so cute on her. After we went shopping we came back home. It was a very fun evening. My dad drove up and met us for dinner, and I tried some new recipes. I made chicken, mushroom risotto, and asparagus for dinner, and vanilla bean panna cotta w/raspberry sauce for dessert. It was very tasty.

After dinner we all played with Lily before it was time for her to go to bed. Below are some very cute pictures of my dad playing with Lily. He is SO cute with her.

She also has a basket with her smaller toys in it. She loves to go to the basket and empty out all of the toys!

Vroom Vroom...

David was feeding Lily dinner the other night. To get her to open her mouth, he started making airplane noises. Apparently Lily thought it sounded more like a motorcycle, so she started making the appropriate hand gestures. We thought this was so funny! I had to tape it and share it.

Lily's first trip to Waco!

This weekend, Lily and I tagged along with my sister to Waco. I wanted to go by the bookstore to get Lily some additional Baylor attire, since you can only buy BU gear in Waco. We wanted to show Lily the bears, and then decided it would be fun to walk around campus. Below is our photo journal of our trip. After we took the first picture, we decided it would be fun to take a picture of Lily with certain Baylor landmarks.

Here is Lily in the echo circle seal.

Pat Neff Hall

Sitting with the Judge

Tidwell Bible Building...I think it looks like the Tower of Terror

Hankamer Business School (where I spent most of my time)

Burleson statue

Burleson Quad

Bailey plaza...this is Ashlee's former boss

The Immortal 10 memorial

Where's Lily????

There she is!!

On one of the Baylor signs

Outside the SUB

At the bear pit

the bears were sleeping, so we had to settle with pics by the signs

look what we found in the spirit shop!

Playing with her boyfriend, Weston! They were so cute together, not to mention the eyes they gave each other at dinner :)

They share a mutual love, respect, and obsession with Yo Gabba Gabba!

Side note: Ashlee was very close to Lily in the picture of her with the Judge, and she was holding her from behind when she was sitting on the sign.

We had such an amazing weekend. We need to go back again sometime soon. It was so great getting so see our friends!

Who knew a nap could be so entertaining...

So today, Lily was very cranky and refused to go in her swing for her nap, and she didn't want to play on the floor. So I held her for a little bit more, but she was very very tired. I decided I would go and put her in her bed (crazy idea, i know). Usually she plays in her bed before she goes to sleep, but not this time. She was sitting in the middle of her crib screaming. Since I knew she would eventually go to sleep I let her cry, but I was watching her on the video monitor downstairs. She got quiet, so I checked the monitor. She was still sitting up, but I could have sworn she was asleep. Then, I looked again, and she was now holding onto the side of the crib. I was sure she was asleep, so I snuck into her room to check. Here is what I saw.







After I took these, I went back to the living room, to watch her sleep. Well, it wasn't too long before she was back in the middle of the crib crying. Later, I looked at the monitor, and her head was in the corner of the crib, and she was out again. Here is the next crazy position she fell asleep in.

She is so funny! She didn't sleep for too much longer, but thankfully she woke up in a much better mood. She has a very similar personality to someone, but I can't think of who?!?!?!?!