The Adventures of the Supposedly Napping Toddler

For some reason that I'm not aware of, I decided to take the side off of Lilly's crib last week. Why would I mess with a good thing? Well, I think it may have had something to do with watching her trying to climb INTO her crib, and thinking it would be SO cute to watch her climb in bed and go to sleep on her own.
Well, I was right. It is TOTALLY cute when she gets in bed on her own! Every night, it has been so fun to watch her jump into bed, lay down and try to pull her blanket on. We do our bedtime routine, and she just goes to sleep as usual. Naptime, however, has turned out to be a different story. 
After a few days of her going right to sleep, she suddenly realized that she didn't have to stay in bed. FREEDOM! Fortunately, she only plays for about 15 minutes before climbing back into bed and passing out on her pillow. If you would like proof, you need only examine the evidence. . .


DAY #1
Subject found asleep. Appears to have stolen blanket from baby doll, and replaced stolen blanket with her own blanket. For good measure, she added every blanket from her dresser drawer that she could fit in the cradle. Then, of course, she pulled 1/3 of the books onto the floor. An orderly bookshelf=heresy around here.
 

DAY #2
Subject appears unconcious. Seems to have picked up every block from the floor one by one and put them on table, then proceeded to cover the floor with animals, dolls and books to replace cleaned up blocks.

 DAY #3
Subject in dreamland. Obvious emptying of dresser drawers. Stuffed animal pyramid created. Bookshelf untouched.

Honestly, I get kind of excited to see what silly things she'll do when nap time rolls around. And I'm so glad that this has been a smooth transition so far. We really love our goofy, eager to please, independent little one year old!

Miscellaneous

A few random pictures of Lilly from this past week:

I tried letting her drink water from a real cup at dinner one night and she did surprisingly well!

These pictures are of her guzzling down some chocolate milk!

I'm pretty sure this girl loves anything that has to do with chocolate.

This was a joint effort:

 


We filled in my quickly drawn landscape with transportation flash cards.
I just found these cards, along with a few other fun activities, in a folder I made in my high school child development class! 
And guess what she's pointing at . . . 

We bought this cute car set while shopping for curtain rods at Ross, and Lilly was very excited about it! She kept pointing at all the trucks and cars at the store, and I figured it was time to fill the gap in our toy collection. It's so easy to ignore the whole car, truck, train section when you have a little girl!
 

 

Stickers

Lilly loves stickers! And for some strange reason, she especially likes to put them on her tummy, or her doll's tummy, or my tummy . . . I think you get the idea.

17 months

After much consideration, and strong urges toward laziness, I decided to go ahead and do a 17 month post. Mostly because I'm kind of OCD, and I felt uncomfortable thinking about skipping a month.

Plus this month has been pretty exciting because Lilly's speaking abilities have skyrocketed! From just a few words and no sounds, she now seems to learn a new word everyday (~40 that I've documented), does about 10 animal noises, and has acquired a couple other noises, like her favorite, "choo choo!" 

A few other things about Lilly:

• OBSESSED with bubbles. (She can blow them herself!)
• Very sensitive to sounds, especially the birds and dogs around our house. She will say "burd!" or "dah!" and I'll wonder what she's talking about, and then I'll hear it. It's amazing what I'm so used to tuning out!
• Loves holding hands! She finds this to be a very useful tool to drag someone to exactly where she wants them.
• LOVES books. Her attention span has already outgrown mine.
• Loves watching Sesame Street music videos (w/guests like Will. I. Am., Feist, Elvis Costello, Ok Go, etc. I enjoy them, too!). Also enjoys listening to me sing and participating in nursery rhymes and other fun songs (especially "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"). 
• Recently discovered JUICE, and seems to think she can live on orange juice alone.
• Words she says: hi, bye, mama, dada, yes, no, baby, bubbles, waffle, this, that, in there, up, bath, water (wawa), car, grass, pigs, fish, bird, dog, juice, book, boots, blocks, tree, outside, shoes, ouch, bugs, please, more, down, all done, milk, rice, slide, again, eyes, ears, nose
• Noises she makes: car, truck, train, owl, dog, cat, horse, bird, cow, lion/tiger, pig, rooster, bear, elephant (with accompanying arm motion)

Trying on Dad's shoes, and blowing bubbles with her
awesome no-spill bubble container from Gma and Gpa Berbert.

Drew captured our tree in this bubble!

Insisting that the baseball glove she got from
her Aunt for Easter is a hat.

Playing around at the park

Turning the papasan chair into a fort

Pretty Easter girl!

Practicing walking in heels:
(She picked them out of my closet herself)

Drew's Special Talent

Drew finally found a good use for his well-sized ears and superb lego skills. 

He is very very proud of his latest creation:

Utah Trip: The Zoo

On our final day in Utah, Lilly got to spend the day at the Hogle Zoo with Grandma Berbert, Grandma and Grandpa Wilson, and Uncle Jacob! We all had a great time, and since we went first thing in the morning, most of the animals were out eating, so it was really fun to watch!

The grandparents dressed in matching colors, in case they got lost.

   

 

 

There were some really funny creatures in this exhibit: 

We ended the trip by feeding Lilly lunch and playing in the children's playground area. 

Jacob had so much fun he wanted to spend the afternoon with us, too! He entertained Lilly during the car ride home with a rap song about her stuffed bunny. While Lilly napped, he went to the movies with Drew and I. We saw Mirror Mirror and we had the whole theater to ourselves for about 15 minutes, until one other group showed up!


After dinner, Lilly entertained everyone by running around in circles on the trampoline. Can you tell she gets a lot of adult attention?! I guess that's one of the perks of being the first child and grandchild!
 

 

Utah Trip: Easter Sunday

An added bonus to our Utah wedding trip was getting to spend Easter with my family! Lilly was rewarded with several Easter baskets filled with yummy treats, stuffed animals, and other goodies. But just like last year, her favorite part of Easter was the plastic eggs! She loves taking them apart, putting them together, finding things inside of them, throwing them. . . really they are a pretty fantastic toy. She also looked lovely dressed up for church in her Easter Dress from Tutu! 

We took a long nap to prepare for the Easter Egg Hunt!
  

Lilly did a great job gathering eggs, sadly, her parents stole all the candy she got for themselves (well, most of it). She also played some tricks on her fellow egg hunters by emptying some eggs and then putting them back!
 

 

Utah Trip: The Wedding

 

And we're back! After a busy weekend, I have hastily sorted through the pictures, and will proceed to throw some of them (a lot of them) up on this blog wall. I've split the trip into three posts for Saturday, Sunday and Monday, since each was equally deserving of its own post. This is day one, and the reason for the trip. . .

Drew's sister Brigitte decided to marry our new brother-in-law, Doug! She had a BEAUTIFUL vintage-y wedding, and we were so glad we got to spend time with so much of Drew's family. It was a wonderful day and we hope they have a wonderful marriage!

While we were in the temple for the wedding ceremony (sealing), Lilly got to play at the new City Creek Mall with Uncle Marc and Aunt Amanda. Apparently she loved these dinosaurs! Even after Marc let her fall off of one.


Then she joined us for pictures in her beautiful pink dress made by Doug's very sweet mother!

The Bridesmaids and the Brothers:


We had a delicious luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building while Lilly napped at my sister's apartment. Judging by these pictures Amanda took, I think Lilly enjoyed her nap almost as much as we enjoyed eating without having to worry about her!

 

Lilly and Archie were pretty exhausted by the time the reception started, but they still looked awfully cute and fancy in their matching outfits!


I think we had the most fun of all decorating the newlyweds' getaway car!


We miss you all already, and hope to see each of you very very soon!