thoughtful thursday - ready and waiting

gooo hawthks!

daddy has a hockey buddy! she shouts 'goooo hawthks!'
when exciting things happen during games :)

lily updates - 21 months

how is our lily ALMOST 2? we can't believe we soon will have a 2-yr old monkey on our hands.

lily continues to love school and knows everyone in her class by name. on the friday before mother's day when I came to pick her up she picked up a doll and play bottle and was pretending to feed her. I turned to her teacher and was like 'she plays with dolls?!' (in the past she had been a bit rough with them.) her teacher was surprised too and said wow, usually she's in the corner with all the books! i love my lil book worm!

garage sale finds - winning!

75¢

I added about twenty more board books for lily  along with a couple more amazing garage sale finds.  I spent a saturday morning garage sale hopping and found some steals! check out what I found!

raising our white flags!

our fam on easter!

mark and I recently started attending willow creek community church in south barrington regularly. the messages we listen to are relevant and it's far beyond what you'd think church is--we actually look forward to attending as a family every week! easter in particular was a treat--the team at willow put together a really great message about surrendering yourself and trusting that your life will be better if you let God take control. we raised our white flags and re-surrendered!

this song 'white flag' especially the chorus has been on repeat in our heads all week!

lily too loves playing with other toddlers in promiseland while mom and dad get to sit and worship...peacefully :o)

if you want to listen in to the easter (or other holy week) messages you can find them here. you'll be happy you did!

lily updates - 18 months

we could hardly believe how fast time has passed. our baby has grown into a little person, with an opinion, a sense of humor and so much love to give.

with everyday that passes both mark and I just are so amazed by our beautiful silly little lily and are thankful that god made us parents to such a wonderful girl. she is full of love--frequently still attached to me like a little monkey and will give hugs and kisses galore! When you mention monkey she's repeat you and say "MON-KAYEE!" and scratch underneath her arms. such a goof.

in school, she recently moved up to the toddler classroom and it's so amazing to see her interact with other kids. every morning when I drop her off she gets seated at the table in a mini chair and gets handed a bowl of eggs or pieces of bagel and chows down with her other friends. (funny at home she acts quite differently.) she still frequently comes home with art, recently being shamrock stamps made from the outline of a pepper and beautifully scribbled drawings. The other day they played doctor and took turns listening to a dolls heartbeat :)

lily is quite our tiny dancer and whenever at dziadzia's house she runs over to my old school boom box and turns on a CD. she's even learned how to skip songs she doesn't like or are too slow! she shimmies, shakes, gets low, stomps, turns around and hops... quite a show our lil can put on. she loves it even more when people dance with her and will often grab your hands so you can follow her lead. I think part of the reason she loves the show 'yo gabba gabba!' is because of all the songs, music and dancing they do--definitely a hit in lily's book.

overall, you can tell her little mind is growing so fast and has started to mimic things we do and say. the other night I started to put away some of her 12-18 month clothes and just can't believe another 6 months have gone by. we're looking forward to easter and the springtime and getting outdoors again! for now and always our lily is the center of our world and love every minute of the crazy and fun that goes along with being parents of a toddler.

doc appt: 
weight: 23 lbs. 15 oz. (70%)
length: 33 inches (80%)

favorites:
food: chobani yogurt tubes, gogo squeeze apple sauce, grapes, mac and cheese
song: 'if you're happy and you know it!' and 'get the wiggles out!'
show: yo gabba gabba, electric company and super why
app: PBS kids, disney it's a small world
books: baby einstein first words,  it's a small world furry animals
toys: yogi bear and ellie elephant (huge stuffed animals from IKEA), coloring book and crayons

funny things she says:
animals: TUR-TOW! (turtle), GURR (tiger), SHISH (fish), DOL (dolphin), OW-WOAH (owl), BEIIR (bear)
food: APP-OW (apple), YOYO (yogurt), CHEESH (mac & cheese), MIK (milk), SHISH (goldfish)
expressions: 'OH NO! OHH NO' (when she doesn't know what to do/what happened), 'NO GOOOD!' (when she doesn't agree with you), 'MMMUAH' (gives kisses)