lily lately

lily reached the 18-month mark and started growing by greater leaps and bounds.  here are a few updates.

lily is great at helping clean up her messes.  
(seriously, a drop of milk spills out of her cup, she goes and finds a towel,
and wipes up the "spill."  i need this to continue.)
she is very good about putting her toys and books away in their appropriate bins,
and always puts her shoes away when we ask her.  i hope we can keep this trend going.

lily has learned the fine art of eyeliner.
you're never too young to start.

she still loves maggie.  a lot.  maggie...well, maggie does not have the same level of love for lily.
unless there is cheese involved. maggie can hear string cheese opening at a hundred paces
and will come running, and follow lily around until she has gained a piece.  

a love of ice cream cones has been developed.  french fries and ice cream.
i'm pretty sure this girl would live on those two staples forever if she were allowed.

lily has made friends with a stone statue of a little boy sitting on a bench in the backyard.
it is a daily thing for her to go out there, sit on the bench, and put her arm around him.
sometimes she gives him kisses.  sometimes she tries to feed him rocks.
it's all about the love, though, right?

mama's shoes have become a hot commodity around here.
she's figured out that she can wear them,
and keep them on if she shuffles veeeeerrrrrryyyyy carefully.

entertaining herself with random objects around the house happens a lot more frequently.
and mama's shoes are still a hot commodity.  

the swings at the park are her favorite thing.
lily can sit and swing forever.  the higher she goes, the better she likes it.
her giggles are infectious, and i love the pure joy and total bliss of her.

she has been showing signs of getting ready for potty training.
while i spend a weekend at the beach with my lbc girlfriends,
kevin is taking one for the team and will be spending
the weekend potty training lily.  we'll see how that goes.  

lily lives for our walks so she can hold maggie's leash.  

maggie is ok with it as long as we're moving.  

besides, if lily is holding the leash, she isn't showing her 

boundless affection to maggie, which is all maggie really cares about.  

plus, maggie lives for our walks, too.

also, i'm in love with lily's giggle.

lily hears the frozen soundtrack at her sitter's a lot.  and she loves it.

lily will randomly sing "let it go, let it go" or sometimes just "go," and

has even woken up and started singing it.  we bought her the soundtrack

and have it on pretty much constantly around here (luckily it's good and

kevin and i enjoy it, as well.  and we're not sick of it.  yet.).

however, i've been trying to capture lily singing for about two weeks now,

and was finally able to catch it.  

our lily bean is getting more and more verbal every day, and is able to do more every day.  it constantly amazes me how much she changes.  i'm loving this stage, and just love our little family and the place we're in right now.  it's pretty much perfect for me.  

green means go

an interaction with lily while driving home this afternoon (we are stopped at a red light):

me: rummaging around looking for something behind me

lily: go!

me: glancing up oh, i guess the light is green now. 

this has happened a few times now, if we don't start driving as soon as the light turns green (sometimes we're behind other cars and have to wait our turn), she tells me to "go."  so, she knows at least one color (by sight, anyway), and knows that it means we're supposed to drive.  good looking out, lily.

  

the perfect day

on friday (a cold, wet, and windy day--yay!) we took lily up to berkeley and went to habitot (a kid's discovery-type play place) and let her roam free.  after a couple hours she had exhausted all the options and we were hungry, so we moved on to lunch at the cheeseboard.  it is seriously the most amazing pizza ever.  so good.  after that we moved on to urban ore, quite possibly the biggest thrift store ever.  if you need anything for your home, it is there (furniture, doors, windows, hinges, knobs, etc.).  i'm in love.  through it all, lily was an absolute gem and a delight to be with.  it was a wonderful day with my little family.  quite possibly the most perfect day in the last 18 months.  i hope we get another one soon.

starting to discover her artistic side

finishing her masterpiece

i'm pretty sure this was her favorite part of habitot

practicing her makeup application skills

learning to drive the spaceship.
and super happy to be behind the wheel.

this city knows how to do a public library

admit it; you've always wanted a lavender toilet.
especially a historic 1920s kohler toilets.
available at urban ore!

lily-isms

lily has fully embraced toddler-hood, i think.  she is becoming more verbal everyday (yay!) and has her little habits and rituals she likes to adhere to. here is a sampling of some of our favorite lily-isms:

• when you say "bye-bye" to her, she responds with "bye.  see you." it's hilarious.
• if you ask her what she wants to eat, she responds "strawberries."  it's her favorite food, and that kid will chow down on them like they are going away forever.  but hey, it's fruit, and i will let her eat as much fruit as she wants.  but hearing her ask for strawberries makes me smile, every time.
• when we're facetiming, she doesn't always say goodbye to the person we're chatting with, but once the call has ended and the computer closed, she waves.  (we've got to work on timing)
• for some reason, lily loves to eat crayons.  they don't taste good, but she keeps going back for more.  maybe she thinks they will change flavors? i'm pretty sure that is the definition of crazy.
• she will refuse to eat anything all day, but if you bust out a french fry, she's all over that thing.  
• she doesn't want you to feed her, but she's more than happy to feed you.  with the food from her plate.  off her fork.  after she's licked the bite.  because, obviously.
• she still won't wear hats.
• lily is obsessed with my jewelry box and is always trying on my bracelets (i've now dedicated a drawer to my old costume jewelry that she can play with. and she knows right where to go). 
• why ride in the shopping cart when you can run all over the store?  i'm pretty sure that's lily's current personal motto.
• lily grabs the hymnal out of our hands during sacrament meeting so she can hold it and "sing" with the congregation.  currently, she's a very pitchy soprano.  

our little bean is growing up, and i am loving it.  the older she gets, the more interactive and responsive she gets, the more i am enjoying parenthood.  lily is a lot more fun, now, and i'll be excited when she gets a little more verbal.  it will make life so much easier.   

nursery

it's here, it's here!  hooray!  today was lily's first official day in the nursery.  kevin and i survived 18 months of church with an extremely vocal and active child, and our reward is to now enjoy sunday school and relief society/priesthood uninterrupted.  we dropped her off, she found a toy she liked, and never looked back.  we walked out the door without looking back, either.  i may have done a happy dance in the hall.  and it may have been witnessed and understood by a myriad of friends who have been where i now stand.  ah, nursery.  i am grateful for your existence.

lily on her last trip to sunday school with
mama and daddy before being nursery eligible.
also, an example of modesty, obviously.

oakland zoo

because we're grown-ups with jobs and a kid, we decided the next step would be to get a membership to the oakland zoo (because we're fancy like that).  our inaugural visit was on saturday.  it was beautiful weather, not too crowded, the animals were out and awake, and best of all, the thurmond's joined us for some zoo strolling and quality time for lily and ren to play.

lily is obviously unimpressed, but she'll learn to love it.

new skills

in an effort to spend some quality time together, vanessa and i signed up for cake decorating classes through michael's craft stores (side note: they are amazing and teach some wonderful skills.  i highly recommend).  we chose a store halfway between our respective homes, and for four glorious tuesdays in january, got our cake on.  some things turned out better than others, some people (ahem, vanessa) have a more natural aptitude towards the artistic things, but i had fun.  and definitely feel more confident the next time i have to frost a cake or cupcakes.

our first night we practiced on cookies.  

learning the art of the cupcake.  and random flowers.

my final product on the last night of class

vanessa's final class product.