lillie update

Let's see how quickly I can do this. I've wanted to update, but can't seem to find time. At 13 and a half months, Lillie walks, runs, LOVES to have books read to her, has quite a decent vocabulary, and generally gets into everything. Such a fun and exhausting age! She is sweet and has a very loving nature. She can also be as fragile as a flower and cry over the smallest things (like another child crying). She's becoming more independent, yet still a big 'ol momma's girl.

Words:
hello, bye, doggie, meow (for cats), lillie, baby, momma, dadda, isaac (more like IIIIIIIIkk), book, ball, bear, eye, nose, mouth, ear, mouse, elmo, more (with the sign, sometimes without), night night, no, done, down, apple, duck, cheese, shoes, juice, didy (for diaper), nanna, santa...I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting.
She will also repeat a lot of words after I say them (mostly a one time deal)

Animal sounds:
woof (sounds like boof), meow, baaa, moo, neigh, bawk

Books:
this girl LOVES books! She demands to be read to all of the time. On some of her favorite books, she says certain parts. Sadly, I have most of her books memorized since I read them so often.
favorites include a lot of dr. suess books (ABC's, There's a Wocket in my pocket), Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see?

Extra fun little things:
LOVES dogs, says woof anytime she sees one
says "wwweeeeeee" for anything like the swing, rocking horse, or anything crazy or dangerous
screams and puts her hand over her mouth when you tell her no
she loves to carry anything heavy or oversized
she dances this crazy butt dance that is too cute!
favorite foods include apple, black beans, cheese, banana, peas, avacado, oatmeal, potatoe, egg

Catching up with photos...
black beans and avacado, a favorite meal...

Thanksgiving


She said "brrrrr" today

Birthday

I have a lot of catching up to do. Lillie changes so fast, I always feel like I'm already forgetting a lot of "firsts". I have a little time to myself, so I am going to try and get this thing up to date.

Lillie had her big 1st birthday in November. For her real birthday, we (me, Paco, Laura, Isaac, Erin, and my mom) went to the San Antonio Children's museum. Interesting place, I had never been there before. The kiddos loved it and probably could have stayed there a lot longer than we let me.

We had her party the following Saturday at Olmos Basin park. It was a nice gathering of family plus a few friends. At first birthdays it seems like there are more adults than kids. More of a celebration for those who have watched the little one come that far. Plus, it's Paco's birthday too so needless to say we had more alcohol and adults than kids and toys. It was breezy and cool outside, but luckily it was bright and sunny which helped warm us a little. The party was very lovely and made extra special with a couple of friends coming in from Dallas.

Maggie

I lost one of my best friends this week. Maggie passed away peacefully in her sleep sometime on Thursday evening. I went to give the dogs their dinner and noticed that she didn't move. This has happened once or twice when she was sleeping and didn't hear me right away. After giving all four dogs food, she still wasn't moving. I bent down and touched her ear. She was like a brick.

Maggie came to me when I was in college, early one Sunday morning. It was the first really cold morning of the season. I kept hearing a dog bark outside my window. It was making me nuts and I couldn't sleep. I finally decided to get up, go outside, and give the dog's owner a piece of my mind. I walked outside, went around a car only to find this small little puppy wagging it's tail at me. There was no one else around. She was soaking wet, cold, and happy to see someone. I told the little dog I would bring her inside if it would please just stop barking. I brought her in, toweled her off, put her in my bed and went back to sleep. I did eventually find her owner who was visiting a neighbor who happened to get thrown in jail. They were happy to hear that I would take care of her. That was 14 years ago, Maggie's been with me ever since.

She was such a great dog. Super smart, and just enough of a pain in the ass to keep me on my toes. She always rode in the car with me, ate with me, and somehow just knew when I was feeling lonely or sad. I have had other dogs come and go in my life, but none have ever matched her. She was always the smallest with the biggest attitude. She had a couple of rough times, but overall she never stopped being active and happy. Even the day before she died, she was still keeping up with the big dogs.

Over the last couple of days, I have thought of so many Maggie stories, from sleeping with us in the gym when we were stranded in Vauhn, New Mexico to falling asleep in my open suitcase when I returned from a trip. So many great stories. I'll always miss my little buddy, and she'll always hold a very special place in my heart.

RIP Maggie (aka- maggie dig dog digger, mig dog, mags, fluffy...)

baby boy!!!

Our sonogram this morning revealed that our "new one" is a BOY!!! I was shocked because I was convinced it was a girl. We are very excited to have a little boy (I think Paco is really excited but he's acting pretty cool about it), he'll make such a wonderful addition to our family.

Here's the first pictures of our little guy. The last one is Lillie on the left and baby boy on the right. It's kind of fun to look at the difference.

Ellen's visit

I know everyone is anxious and excited to hear about our weekend with Ellen. I am happy to say that we had an amazing time with her. She fit in perfectly, without even a hint of feeling awkward or uncomfortable. We both got a big kick out of finding out how much we are alike. From our looks, laughs, sound of our voice, to similarities in foods, music, and personalities. We spent a lot of time saying "do you do this?" or "do you like that?". Ellen is so sweet and has such a wonderful heart. We stayed up late into the night talking about all kinds of random stuff. Her time here went by in a flash, it was entirely too short. She says she LOVES Texas and wants to come back. We can't wait for her to visit again. It felt so natural for her to be here that the only time I got sad is when I came home from the airport.

Now for the pictures...

long overdue post

This post is very long overdue, I realize that. Maybe I should start with my excuse as to why I haven't posted. My biggest news (which I think everyone knows by now) is that we are expecting another baby. Yep, it's true. Close your mouth now. We weren't expecting it either. I'm already 21 weeks, more than half way done. This pregnancy hasn't been nearly as bad as Lillie's as far as being sick goes. Don't let me fool you, I've still been plenty sick, just not as violently as with Lillie. We find out on the 23rd what the sex of the baby will be. Stay tuned for more details on "the new one".

My second really good excuse as to why I've been completely preoccupied is that I am reuniting with my birthdaughter. For those who don't know the story, I had Ellen when I was only 15 years old. She was adopted by an awesome family that did an amazing job of raising her. Ellen is now 18 and we have been going through the reunion process since last December. We've been chatting for months now and she's coming to visit THIS weekend! It seems very surreal to me, and I'm sure it won't truly hit me until she is standing in front of me. I can't wait to meet her!


Now onto Lillie. She is now 11 months old, the big birthday is right around the corner. She talks often, both in "Lillie language" and real words. The real words consist of ball (her 1st word), bear, hello, juice, baby, mama, dada...I know there's tons more but can't think of them right now. She takes about 3-4 steps at a time and I think she'll be running at full force very shortly. She is sweet and affectionate. She holds her bear/monkey/doll, hugs it, and gives it kisses. The kisses are precious! When she holds her babies, she gently pats them too. Melt your heart cute. Her fat little baby body is disappearing and transforming into a toddler. Everyday her looks change.


I know I wanted to say a lot more, but that's all I can think of right now. I'll have lots more to tell next week!



Here's some funny pics of Lillie on Grandad's putting green trying to hoard and eat all of the golf balls. Thanks to Aunt Laura for taking them!

...sigh...

I feel like I can't catch up and that I never get anything done. It's really wearing on me. The nagging feeling of not getting things accomplished starts to make you feel pretty worthless. I can make a million excuses of why things don't get done, but truly aren't they just excuses? I don't want this to turn into a Debbie the Downer post, but I guess I'm just really frustrated. Let's just leave it at that.



Here's my little fairy princess. I waited too long to get her into this cute little outfit. It was so snug and really hard to take on/off. I missed the boat on this one. The pictures I took with the digi aren't anything special. I'm hoping what I took with the 35mm will be better. She's growing and changing at lightening speed. Within a couple of weeks, she has learned to crawl, and has become proficient at pulling up and cruising. She also just stands around, not holding on to anything. The child is fearless, oh and quite opinionated! Vocal doesn't even begin to cover it, she feels the need to scream at an ear piercing pitch at random intervals throughout the day. I guess that's why I have a headache most days. But, boy she's cute!

bangs!

I cut Lil's hair yet again. Her hair was always in her eyes and she was constantly rubbing them. Poor baby! So, they had to go.





Before:





After:

happy birthday to me!

It's my birthday, it's raining like crazy from Dolly. I'm getting caught up on stuff I've been needing to do.

I promised to do some updates this week, so I'm attempting a quickie here. Here's some pictures that Laura took of a couple of weeks ago at my mom & dad's house. She has a kickin' new camera that she was experimenting with. We were about to go swimming so that's why Paco is "topless" (as Kari says).

ok I know it's been a month....

since my last post. I've had a little stress lately. I promise to update more this week. For now, here's a picture my friend Kari took of Lillie at Carrie M's birthday party (over a month ago). Love it.

7 years ago today...

We were married.

cousins

We get a kick out of taking Lillie and Isaac's picture together. The first attempt, Lillie was only two weeks old and Isaac was about 4 1/2 months. We did it again the other day, and boy howdy it's getting harder and harder to get a good shot. With the ability to pull hair, knock each other over, grab, poke, point each other creates crazy blurred pictures. Have a gander at these, then we're going to stroll down memory lane a little...













Speaking of cousins, our nephew Marcelo graduated this weekend. He's going off to college at Warren Wilson College in Ashville. We'll miss him, but it sounds like the coolest college in existance. I guess we'll just have to go visit!

Do you hear that? It's the sound of time flying by...

The Lovely Miss Lil is 7 months old today. I know everyone says it, but time really does fly. I started to update this blog and I had to sit a few minutes and think about all of what's been going on. The days all just kind of blur together, yet at the same time each individual moment seems to last forever. WAIT...I'm getting derailed and sentimental...if I do that, I'll never finish this post!



Lil's newest "tricks"

• She wants to pull up on everything. She tries soooo hard (it's kind of funny to see her try and figure stuff out and get frustrated because she's not there yet). She can pull up on her crib (see the pictures below) and a couple of othere things. She tried to pull up using Isaac's love handles the other day. It was so funny yet looked so painful!


• She's making all kinds of new sounds. Over the weekend she said "la la la" a lot. Now it's "nay nay nay na na na" over and over and over and over


• She's so close to crawling, but not quite there yet. She does these crazy yoga positions and the splits in an effort to propell herself forward. She gets into position and then just doesn't know what to do. She gets frustrated and starts to fuss. Or other times she face plants and cries. She's slowly learning to catch herself or do a soft kind of roll to land better. She's amazingly strong.


• She has good rhythm. At auntie Lo's house she plays the piano, tamborine, and shakers. Her and Isaac are going to make us all big money with their hit rock band...seriously.