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)

it's been a while! i'm back!

so it's been a couple months since i've updated you on our lives, but i'll try my best to revert back and post about fun events. our 10-year high school reunion was this past weekend and it was so great to see everyone again! I was a bit nervous about all the planning our committee went through and it all came together in a fun weekend with old friends!

other than that our little munchkin turned one a few week's ago and is off and running (well a stumbly walk, but she's getting better!) it's crazy to think how fast she grew! and her new favorite word is MORE?!? :) super cute!

i'll fill in the other posts when i get a chance later!

lily's monthly updates – 7 months old

so much has changed for lily this month.

right after she turned 7 months I started having to go back to the city to finish up work at spoon. the first full week lily was cared for by my aunt marysia and she did very well. I surprisingly was happy to get out of the house and work again. the second week she started daycare... holy moly I think she screamed for the full 8.5 hours she was there on both monday and tuesday. I called in monday during my lunch and could hear her screaming the entire time. I felt bad but there's really nothing I could do. by wednesday she got used to her surroundings and was better and better each day. mark picked her up and one of the teachers asked if we could pack a pacifier or anything else that soothes lily. much to their dismay lily is comforted by one thing and one thing only... HER MOMMY. :)

overall, this month will be a lot of adjusting. hopefully me physically going to work will be a smooth transition and still get as much lily time as possible.

for now I leave you happy pictures!

ciocia marysia + lily

daddy's girl

sleeping beauty.

play time... loves swings!

my two favorite people.

daddy's girls.

i've officially been replaced.

goofy lily at day care.

lily's classroom.

my sweet goofy girl.

lily's monthly updates – 6 months old

my favorite picture of my loves!

lily started off this month by sleeping the entire night! but a day later went back to her old habits. mark and I just could not take the interrupted sleep any longer so we tried the "cry-it-out" method. those first few days were awful... first night took 50 mins, second 24, third 14 mins and by the fourth we were at 5-7 mins and down for the night. what a relief! this has changed our life completely! you take for granted sleeping every night uninterrupted... it's not like you went to sleep late and didn't get enough and you feel tired. it's more like you are completely exhausted and the second you fall into a deep sleep someone wakes you up and does that repeatedly throughout the night for days on end. so glad we're finally getting sleep again!

loves the baby in the mirror!

lily is still very much a good eater. we've bought her happy baby organic food so she's had a great variety of foods. we've also started her on a sippy cup while she eats to get used to lifting the cup on her own.

during this month I accepted a new position and mark and I started looking into day care options. we would have loved to have my aunt watch her since she does so well with her already but she had to go back to Poland for a while so we've looked into all types of care. CDW offered subsidized care but still was way out of our price range. there were recommendations from other CDW colleagues but those were inconvenient for us due to time constraints. ultimately, we decided on a daycare in deerfield since hours worked well for the both of us and the location was in between our work locations. definitely nervous about how lily will react not being with me and having new surroundings. hopefully she doesn't cry the entire time and get kicked out!

lily has learned how to sit up on her own this month which give her a new perspective. no crawling yet but she sure knows how to roll her way to things! she gets more and more curious each day :)

6 month doc appt: 
weight: 17lbs 2 oz
length: 26.75 in

our big girl!

all dressed up for her 6mo doc appt!

curious lil lily.

love her smile!

sofie and lily.

singing her screechy song!