Spring!

We've absolutely been eating up every little bit of spring and sunshine we can this week!As soon as we get home and get all her leftovers back in the fridge and I change clothes we hit the yard and drag as many toys as we can out into the front yard. We play bubbles, Easter eggs and drag out all her little riding toys and lawnmower. And of course Pippin loves it too since our front yard is "the place to see and be seen!" Every afternoon I chat with neighbors as they're out walking and they're always jealous of our great corner spot.
This week Lilli's wardrobe has been all about Easter! These pics were from yesterday and she wore one of her bunny shirts and she just loved it. She kept pointing to her bunny and wanting to know what it is. Today her shirt was a cute appliqued chic with her name monogrammed on it, and she could actually say Chic! when we pointed to it."That?" (A lot of times I think she's saying that? when she points at something and wants to know the word for it.)
Running laps in the yard...Pippin is still her favorite lawn toy (and indoor toy as well).
One more work day and then Lilli and I have a long weekend since I'm off for Good Friday! Her class is having a small little Easter party tomorrow, so I've been making cookies and little goody bags for her classmates and teachers. They're going to have a little Easter egg hunt and make a special craft, and since I'm good buddies with her teacher they're doing it tomorrow instead of Friday so Lilli won't miss out. It pays to butter up the teachers with cookies and brownies all the time!

Teamwork

It took some effort from the whole family but we gave the yard it's first much needed mow of the season on Saturday afternoon!

Lawn buddies:

Daddy's Little Helper:
Her little lawnmower even has realistic lawnmower sounds when you "start" it:Mowing down that monkey grass:
A job well done!(And yes, I know you didn't have to log in to read this. I'm going to try public for a while and if too many weird people start stalking then I'll lock it back down.)

Get Me To The Church

This morning was just **not** my morning.

Lilli slept great again. I think she woke up around 1 but just wanted her pacifier and was right back to sleep and the next thing I knew my alarm went off. I took my shower and then started the process of dragging Brent out the bed. He was having some allergy problems the night before and said he just didn't feel like going to church, but said he'd help me get the girl ready. I was fine with that, so he got her up a little later and got her fed and dressed.
First, her skirt was way too big. As in with each step she took it was falling off and she wore it last fall! She doesn't have an ounce of chub on her, so I guess her waistline has gotten smaller as she's grown taller. And then of course it was raining this morning, so out the back door I head with a struggling toddler in the rain. She was super squirmy and I got her in the car seat as fast as I could since we were already running late.
And once I pulled out onto 17th I realized I had a flat tire. Peeerfect. So I made a U-turn and pulled right back beside our house, pulled the girl out of her carseat and headed back into the garage and got into Brent's car. We were going to get to church and have some Jesus today! So I take off in his car and for the life of me couldn't figure out how to turn the wipers on. So I'm wiping one at a time with the "single use" feature until I could wake Brent back up on the cell phone to ask how the wipers worked! About this time Lilli decided to throw her pacifier across the car and then decided that was a bad idea - and cried all the rest of the way to church.
Remarkably we were only about 10 minutes late and she was pretty good during church - except the numerous times she wanted to pull my shirt down and the occasional squawk here and there but I don't really care - people shouldn't sit towards the back if they don't want to hear the preaching of a toddler. I dropped her off at Sunday school and enjoyed my own class before picking her back up and heading home. I even stopped and filled Brent's car up with gas, I am woman hear me roar!Brent had already looked at my car and it looks like I picked up a screw in my tire somewhere, ugh! So I get the joy of driving with the spare tomorrow. This is our THIRD flat tire this year - and I think in the previous 10 years we've had maybe 1 or 2 combined!
(Obviously these pictures have nothing to do with the above story and were from last Friday afternoon. I went to a consignment sale that morning - my absolute favorite one of the year - and found one of the little tricycles with the bar on the back you can steer them with. I was SO excited and had been looking for one all season so I was really glad to find one and to only pay $30 for it! The ones at Target are $64 brand new, but this particular brand is $150+ online! Woo-hoo!!! Talk about some savings!!!! It's still too big for her now but she likes to be pushed around on it and play with it in the yard. I think by the end of the summer it will fit perfectly!)

Hunting Season!

Hunting Season has started here in Nashville - Easter Egg Hunting! And since we've got a pro walker on our hands here, there's no reason she can't collect us some candy. (I can't believe she's been walking for almost FIVE months now - but I really can't remember her NOT walking either!)

She slept great last night - one fuss at 11 and then the next thing I knew I rolled over and it was 6:30 and she hadn't woken up crying ONCE! After several nights of being up every hour it was sooo nice. I rolled back over and still couldn't believe it when my alarm went off at 8 and the house was totally silent. She normally wakes up around 7:45 on a Saturday, but today we actually had to get her up at 9 so we could get ready for the Easter Egg Hunt at the Little Cottage at the Factory in Franklin.

We were in a major hurry so I grabbed her rabbit Easter basket from last year and her Monkey basket I had gotten for this year and let her pick in the car which one she liked better - and she was all over the monkey. It's just a little felt $1.99 basket from Target but it's nice and light and easy for her to carry.Lilli's "division" of 1-3 yr olds started at 10:15. I seriously had no idea how seriously some people take this stuff. From rushing at the "start" to practically pushing their kids around to get the max number of eggs (seriously, it's just candy and some small toys) it was pretty nuts. I guess the competitiveness in people comes out in some seriously nutso ways. And there is NO WAY this kid in purple is 3 or under.
I steered Lilli around and would block off an egg for her so she could at least get a couple. She ended up with 3 before they were all gone.
She was more interested in checking out the other kid's baskets and seeing what all they had, but by the time it was over she understood the concept - just there were no more eggs!

I found this one against the wall for her and plopped her down in front of it. She had a lot of fun just shaking them and putting them in the basket. We played outside with them all afternoon just tossing them in the yard and then picking them up and putting them back in her basket. For the longest time she just sat on the front step playing with her basket!
It was really chilly so afterwards we found a little sunny spot and take a few pics with her sweater off. Look at that curl in her hair!
The nice shop owner was walking around making sure all the little ones had gotten eggs, and she was so nice she gave Lilli two more. She took them from her and immediately put them in her basket. She knew just what to do!
She had a great time just running around outside!

Brent laughed at this series of her and I walking back towards the building. She takes two steps for every one of mine, but we are in perfect stride with one another on those second steps!
We posed her with one of the stuffed bunnies around.
Checking out those eggs....

Best Easter Egg hunt ever!

Her little friend Evelyn was there. They had a chat about the hunt.....
and told each other some tall tales about how many eggs they found....
and then Lilli offered her one of her eggs.

We went back inside and met up with my coworker Kirsten and her little girl Chloe. I had my pic made in the "big chair" with the girls.
And then Chloe and Lilli ran around the store. Lilli is pretty much uncontainable these days!
Then we had lunch at Otters!!! They have a great deal on their kids meal - free on M-Th or only .99 on the weekend if you have the (free) Otters card! And it's a ton of food so we really could have just added one piece of chicken to an adult meal and then eaten all her leftovers with it!
Being silly....
We had a great day and lots of fun hunting Easter Eggs!! Can't wait to do it again next weekend at the hunt in our neighborhood!

Getting Better.....

Finally! Our girl is feeling better!
Yesterday was ROUGH. It was a rough night and a rough day. She was cranky all day long, and I don't think the rain helped since this kid wants to be outside ALL DAY LONG. We spent half the day yesterday just looking out the window, and the other half trying to explain why we couldn't take her stroller out for a spin in the cold downpours! She was clingy and fussy, and still didn't want to lay in her crib. When I finally got her down for a nap for once I wasn't overly concerned when I saw this:I made sure she was breathing and just let.her.sleep. It was a rough day. But she did want to give Pippin lots and lots of hugs. This time he didn't move away fast enough and she got him. Normally he moves and she lands on her head, which thankfully is pretty tough since she lands on it a lot. Unfortunately this all took place next to my toilet, which is generally their favorite place to play. Notice how her ear is kind of of a funny color. It's been super red all week, either from her tugging on it or maybe the actual infection.
Even Pippin was feeling worn down and I caught him all cozied up in Lilli's "Cozy Corner".
Brent came home from work a little early and after we ate he whisked her off to Home Depot just to get her out of my hair for a few minutes. She loves to GO. She got so excited when we asked her if she wanted to go for a ride and she just ran to the door. We needed some ant traps since our annual invasion is underway, and a massive downpour happened while they were in the store. To kill some time Brent let her play in the aisle - with MOUSE TRAPS!!!! @#$@##@ !!!!
Seriously.
Last night was also rough, AGAIN! She took over an hour and a half just to get to sleep (normally it takes no more than 10 minutes to get her down) and she cried pretty much every hour. But when she did get up for the day today she's been in a pretty good mood and mostly back to herself again. She's certainly more short tempered and was a bit more tired when we went out to dinner and Target tonight, but her mood was vastly improved today.
And she wanted to be outside again, all day long. If we're not outside we have to be looking out the window, watching cars, and people and dogs.

Her other new favorite thing to do is bring you toilet paper while you're using the bathroom. And much to Brent's delight she will only give you the tiniest portion imaginable. Cheapskate!
Hopefully tonight will be a good night! We would LOVE to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time!!! And if it's a good one we're planning to take her to her first Easter Egg hunt tomorrow - that should make for some interesting pictures!

Double Whammy

Last night was an AWFUL night! She was up practically every hour, and not just for a second - she wanted to be held and knew instantly when you were trying to put her down in her crib. At 5:30 she pretty much decided she just wasn't going back into her crib and I tried to get her in our bed for a little while and then we went back to the rocker until around 7:30 when we were just "up" for the day, even though I felt like I had never been down. She's only had one ear infection before and it was just like that, so I called the doc and they were able to squeeze us in this afternoon.

Even though she was incredibly fussy and clingy she wanted to go outside big time this morning! So I took her on a stroller ride to East Park and of course she fell asleep on the way. I didn't let her off that easy and once we got there I woke her up so we could swing for a few minutes since it was SUCH a nice day here!
Here she is when we got to the doctor's office this afternoon. She wouldn't take any other naps today and she was so exhausted she fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. The entire time at the docs she was clingy and obviously felt bad. As soon as the doctor looked at one ear she said it was infected, and the other ear was as well. Then as soon as she checked her throat she said it looked really bad from drainage (from the croup and cold she had last week). And then she said something "WHOA! Someone has some teeth coming in!" She said her molars looked like they were super painful (and she's been drooling like crazy). So we got a prescription for some antibiotics - "the pink stuff". Lilli loves it and wanted more after her first dose this afternoon, so that always makes it easier to get the medicine down!After we got home from the doctors office she crashed in one of those sweaty, clingy type naps on me for a couple of hours. I watched some of my soap opera while she sweated away on my chest (her temp has usually been around 100 today). She didn't want much dinner and then afterwards wanted to play outside again so Brent took some pictures of her in the front yard. This outfit is actually a dress from last year that I added legging to for this year. Just because you feel bad doesn't mean you shouldn't be cute!
Chasing after someone walking their dog.
She hasn't been totally fussy, just 98% of the time today. Every once in a while you can get a smile or giggle!
Hopefully tonight won't be as awful as last night, but I'm really not banking on it. At least we got on it pretty fast and have already started antibiotics, hopefully by the weekend she'll be back to normal!