Puddle Jumper

On a rainy/cloudy night last week....

What fun is it to own rainboots if you never get to splash in any puddles with them???

TGIF! We're excited to be heading to our first big show tomorrow - Sesame Street Live, Elmo Imagines 1-2-3. I think she's only seen Sesame Street once or twice, but we have a few Elmo books and I think she'll just generally have fun. Our office got great discounts for what I think are some really good seats, so I figured it would be a nice time to try something like this out! The only thing that makes me nervous is the "potty" situation so I may make her wear a Pull-up just in case we can't get to a bathroom fast enough and I imagine the lines will be pretty nuts in the bathrooms as well.

(*Lilli's totally back to normal and had a great day at school today. Thank goodness this virus seems to have come and gone rather quickly!)

24 Hours

It's been a very busy 24 hours! Yesterday at three daycare called saying Lilli had thrown up during her nap, but at first they thought she had just gotten gagged on something until later that day when she just wasn't acting herself. Sure enough after Brent picked her up and they got home she couldn't keep anything down, not even water. Poor thing. So last night we just watched movies and relaxed on the couch and Brent stayed home with her today. It was a close coworker's 50th birthday and we'd been working hard all week throwing her a surprise party, including getting 57 quotes from our coworkers and vendors about why she's "fabulous". The theme of our party was hot pink/black polka dots and Fifty and Fabulous, so it was all very nice and tasteful (no older than dirt or over the hill snarks). So I needed to be at work even earlier than usual and we got everything decorated and hung before she got there and we all had a great time. Lilli was feeling much better today and never got sick. She and Brent watched movies all morning and she was able to eat crackers and juice, and then had some soup for lunch and we all had soup and quesadillas for dinner. By the time I got home from work she was completely back to normal and full of energy so I guess it was just a 24 hour thing.

Now the key is for Brent and I not to catch it because we have tickets to Sesame Street Live for this weekend, woo hoo!!!

The Great Outdoors

Today was an exciting day - FINALLY Southwest had a good sale so we booked our vacation for the end of the summer to Baltimore. I had one free flight from Rapid Rewards credits, so at least we'll be postponing the sting of having to pay for Lil now that she's over two. Airfare has been about 3x the norm this year thanks to the increased price of gas, so I was starting to think there wasn't going to be a good sale. We had started looking at rental beach homes in Florida instead but thankfully they had some great rates today. There's nothing wrong with spending a week at the beach (and I had picked out some great houses with their own private pool and the works!) but it's just not us. And with Baltimore we'd be able to do some exploring and some ocean time, and fly. We all three love to fly. Lilli has flown three times already - Kansas City, Chicago and Houston. This is another direct, fairly short flight. We already have Maryland on our quest to see all 50 states, and the only three states we need are North Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii. To get to North Dakota we'd really have to fly to Minneapolis, and Southwest doesn't fly direct from here so total travel time would be about 5 hours each way, which is NOT going to happen for us with a 2 year old this year. And with baggage fees and the amount of STUFF (car seat, stroller, pack n play and ON AND ON!) we have to fly with us there's no other airline we can fly. So Baltimore it is!

Once again every picture I have is from outside! That's pretty much where we are all the time now, except when we're eating!

Lilli likes to help me water the flowers, I like it when some water actually gets on my plants. (We're repurposing water from her pool, splash table, etc for the plants when we're done with the toy.)
A shot of the new garden pathway as it looked last Monday.
She's already had a great time riding her car up and down all the new pathways.
Brent hard at work sawing the caps.
Granddaddy was in town last Tuesday and stopped by that evening after we got home from work and had dinner with us.

Later that night we walked across the street to the playground to play. The current "it" shoes are her shark flip flops. She loves those things. Don't tell her I got them in the boy section at Target.


Loves to swing, loves to slide!

Randoms

Walking to see the fire truck is still a daily request and for some reason doesn't seem to get old (if your name is Lilli).It's about a 50/50 shot if it's going to be out or not, but when it is there's always a photo opportunity. Brent did figure out the best way to keep her focused on walking is to tell her he's In Front. Apparently being In Front is huge business at school, because she does not ever want anyone else to be In Front at home. Pippin has had some things thrown at him and some angry words if he tries to be In Front. If I only I had known I would have taken a lot more Child Pysch classes in college. And by more I would mean even one. I did sign up for Pysch my last semester but ended up dropping it for Muslim Evangelism because the Pysch class had a bunch of projects and basically I just needed an easy elective to get me to graduation. Don't judge, I was top of my class and only made ONE B (all the rest A's) in my entire college career. Unfortunately an extensive knowledge of Islam gets me nowhere with Lilli.
Baby has a boo-boo. Otherwise known as marker on her forehead that won't come off, which apparently requires a Band-Aid. I've got a huge, nasty looking blister on my right hand from gardening that Lilli is quite concerned about. She also won't hold that hand.
She got a whim that she wanted to wear all her barrettes to be like her Rapunzel doll (that thing has so much hair we keep it braided with barrettes). So I went with it and I was hoping she'd never look in the mirror so we'd keep it like that for the day!
As soon as we went outside to show Brent the next thing she wanted to do was look in the mirror, so they instantly had to come out when she saw how many were actually in there. It did remind me of the first time her hair was long enough for any bows though!!
She was a tired pup tonight and actually fell asleep while we were rocking right after her bedtime story, so total time to get to sleep tonight with a pappi was 0 minutes. She did wake up after an hour and need to go to the bathroom, I think I'm going to have to upgrade her to the Underjams or something instead of just the Overnight Diapers if we do this very often. It's not easy getting her diaper back on in the dark.

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!Luckily little bitty Miss is such a tiny little thing she got to wear the same exact Father's Day dress today that she wore last year! Awww! I surprised Brent with it last Father's Day and had it custom made by the lady in New York who does a lot of Lilli's special outfits. She has certainly changed a lot in a year, mainly in the hair category! Maybe next year we will REALLY have some hair to work with!
It's funny that last year the skirt was down at her ankles, and then this year it's a pretty nice knee fit. I think she will still be able to wear the skirt next year and we'll just need a new shirt.
The weekend is over way too soon! Operation "Bury the Pappi" (Lilli's word for pacifier) has gone pretty well. A lot better than either of us really imagined. The only downside has been the length of time it's been taking her to fall asleep. Friday night was 1 hour and 20 minutes, Saturday nap was 20 minutes, then 1 hour 20 minutes for Saturday night bedtime, nap time today was 1 hr 20 minutes but tonight she went to sleep within 15 minutes! So that's great hope! None of those times was she crying or throwing fits - just a LOT of talking, singing, jumping, and playing. That's all better than crying but we've been spoiled by her going to sleep within 5 minutes, totally on her own. Planting candy in the yard has been a huge help, and I did tell her tonight that there would be a LOT of candy if she went right to sleep tonight. A busy day and afternoon at the pool probably helped, along with all the hours of sleep she's missed this weekend! But that's pretty much the normal trend for her when there's been some sort of sleep habit change, the first two nights are pretty tough and by Night 3 things start being where they need to be. And she hasn't been crying over the loss of her beloved sleep pappi, so that's really been great. I expected lots of tears, tantrums and fits (even some hyperventilation) so hours of baby monitor entertainment for us following such a big change for her are fine.
She was also Miss Entertainment at church today. She apparently was very vocal in children's church - they do something where they call out letters and they said she was screaming out letters more than the older children and they were surprised how well she knows them. She loves letters and was so excited about her shirt today and learning that it spelled Dad. Then in the bathroom she was really cheering herself on in the potty and had the whole bathroom in chuckles by the time we left the stall, followed by having a grand time in her Sunday school class where they found the lost sheep and the thing she remembered most about class today - having crackers and Goldfish.
I really, really need to find a gymnastics class for this kid!
We started rearranging her room tonight to make it a "big kid" room - pulled out the changing table, we bought some new shelves this weekend, etc and it's really looking so nice and SO much more spacious!!! I am so tired of the clutter in there and plan to get rid of and pack up a lot more junk.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy ever!I hope it's a great day with minimal tantrums and we are all on our best behavior!A girl can dream, right???

Adventures in the Garden

Last week we had very little rain, and by Friday night all my plants and garden needed a mega-dose of water. So after we ate dinner I asked Brent to get the garden hose pulled around to the front and set up (we hadn't used the hose out front yet this season). Unfortunately for me the junior assistant was there helping him and he gave HER the hose first. So she was so kindly watering the fence for me at first.On a side note, she loves wearing her pajamas and a lot of days will put them back on as soon as we get home. This particular day she was wearing a ratty pair of princess pajamas that's half torn up, which somehow just makes these pictures even better. So, I was telling her to water the FLOWERS, not the fence, when a brilliant idea happens to cross her mind, just as Brent was videoing. Of course he had fun doing a little slow-mo animation.



Um yeah, so watering Mommy because the best ever idea for the day. It's ridiculous how coordinated she is to aim, get the hose to fire, and of course hit her target.
Over and over.
Eventually she did water a flower or two, but the game to her was more fun to water everything else but the flowers.
But she was having so much fun!
Eventually I had to take it away from her (cue temper tantrum), but she was promised if she didn't cry she could have the hose when I was finished and play as long as she wanted, so that worked. It's much nicer these days when she can understand some logic and "choices", versus the younger temper tantrums that are all or nothing! True to my word, when I was done the hose was all hers.
She watered the garage, fence, patio, Brent's landscaping supplies, Pippin, herself (a LOT) and some of the flowers.
She was one wet mess when she was eventually done! And then of course she got mad that she was wet, HA!

Tonight is a "big" night. We are **finally** saying good-bye to the papi (pacifier). She only gets it for sleeping, and we're the only chumps who give it to her. She hasn't had one at daycare since she was 12 months old. So she is clearly capable of sleeping without it. I've been meaning to take it away since she was 2, but have made lots of excuses, mainly teething related ones. But she is pretty much obsessed with it so we might as well pull the plug and just do it. So I read a few tips online and liked one where the mom told the kid they were planting their papis and the next morning lollipops would bloom because they didn't need them anymore. Candy is a great bribe/motivator for Lilli, so I thought that would be a good one for us to try. When I walked down to Walgreens today for some suckers I saw they had Pillow Pets on a great sale for $14.99. She didn't have one, so I thought a new pillow to sleep on would be a great motivator as well. She was SUPER excited about the pillow and then had no trouble picking a spot in the yard to bury her papis. Even bedtime went pretty great, she got sad about her papi for a minute but she understands and has said "no papis, pillow!" a few times. But she still just hasn't fallen asleep. She'll be quiet for a while and then sort of wimper -once she wanted more milk, once she wanted to potty (that has happened several times lately - including once at 1 am), once she wanted Brent to take the barrettes out of Rapunzel's hair (seriously) and for a while she sang her ABCs. And it's now 9:15 and she's awake an hour later than usual, just sort of fussing. But it really is going better than I thought - I figured we'd have full on cry-it-out (which we have done on numerous occasions and it very much works for us) for hours. So, if she ever just gives it up and goes to sleep I think it will be a pretty good success, and the lollipops we plant in the yard tomorrow morning and after naptime will be a HUGE motivator for her! Perhaps we should have just added some Nyquil to her milk!!!

**It took forever for my video to upload, so right around 9:20 I went in there one last time, gave her some more milk, rocked her for a minute and reminded her we'd have candy for breakfast but she had to go to sleep first and we haven't heard a peep from her since then! So far so good, I really thought she'd cry for at least two hours (we've maxed at 2.5 hours cry-it-out before) so 1 hr and 20 minutes of random talking and a little fussing before she went to sleep is pretty stinking good!