The Lights AFTER Christmas at the Zoo!

A tradition for us each year is to go to "The Lights Before Christmas at the Zoo". This was Lily's first time going since last year it was too cold to take her. She had a ton of fun and didn't mind the cold weather as much as I thought she would... especially since she was so bundled up she could barely walk! Here are some photos from our trip to the zoo last night! Yeah, that's right- two posts in a day!

Sitting on the lion's head!

Amazed by all the lights
Stopping by to see the giraffes all warm and cozy inside!

Marty and Lily looking at the big tree (True story- Marty "almost" proposed to me by this tree 5 years ago, but I grabbed his hand before he got down on one knee because the zoo kept making announcements saying "the zoo is now closing, please make your way back to the front gates..." I didn't know for sure he was gonna propose... and the zoo was closing! We got engaged the next day and it was still very special!)

Lily and I in front of the trees displaying lights to music!

Now time to give Lily a much needed bath and go to our New Year's Eve celebrations!

Awww... this is my last post of 2008 (unless I get really crazy and write 3 posts in one day... which is not gonna happen!) I'm ready for 2009!

Christmas Pictures...a week after Christmas!

I wanted to make sure I posted Christmas pictures before 2009 came. I do have a good excuse for why I haven't been writing (well I think it's a good excuse) Marty has been off all week so we have just been playing with Lily all day and then during her nap and bedtime (normally my "blog posting" time) we have been playing Mario Kart on the Wii- very addicting! I have not only neglected our blog but also our house and I'm afraid I will be doing laundry ALL DAY tomorrow!

Now for some pictures! Here we are at my Grandma Ann's house on Christmas Eve:

Clapping and dancing for everyone

Reading a book with Great Grandma Ann

Still recovering from the "stomach flu" and not having an appetite... only has an appetite for a cookie! At least it's food, right?

Christmas morning was not fun for me at all since I woke up around 3am with that "stomach bug" that Lily had a few days before... Thanks Lily I love my Christmas present of the "stomach bug". I spent the majority of Christmas day on the couch (and by kissing Mr. Porcelain) Lily "opened" a few of her gifts (pulled little pieces of wrapping paper off and just kept ripping the little piece of wrapping paper to shreds) but seemed way more interested in Maisy's new squeaker toys than all the toys Santa brought her! I think Santa has learned a lesson- He brought way too many toys this year (most of them are put away in a bin for Lily to play with this spring/summer). I was too sick to go anywhere to celebrate Christmas. Marty brought Lily over to his parents to open gifts there but forgot to take any pictures (I did remind him three times before he left to take pictures. Oh well. Next Christmas will be better!)

Heading straight to the presents!

"Hello?"

Ripping wrapping paper... little piece by little piece...

Yay! Kindermusik instruments!

Christmas pictures from my parents house on Saturday (we didn't go on Christmas Day)

Papa showing Lily how to play the drum

Lily's a pro at playing the drum :)

Papa and Lily

Daddy and Lily spinning and being crazy!

Our Family Christmas photo... though it wasn't on Christmas!

Lily got a ton of cool stuff! We really appreciate everything that people have given Lily and she thanks you too! (Lily will be sending out her "thank- you" cards later this week)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! I'll try to take a break from playing Mario Kart while Lily naps this week and be sure to post more!

Countdown to Christmas!

Okay, so Christmas Eve is TOMORROW! I don't know about any of you but I still need to buy a few more gifts, work on the homemade ornaments, and bake some more cookies. I think we will be staying up late tonight and tomorrow night getting everything ready :)


At least I have a little bit of an excuse though since Lily is still sick. I thought she was fine yesterday but today she woke up... and let's just say she needed a bath and I THREW her pajamas away (hint hint) I went shopping tonight and Marty watched her and she had 3 "messy diapers". Poor girl ran to the bathroom door but she couldn't make it in time! I'm starting to realize that if she isn't 100% better tomorrow we probably won't be going to my Grandma's house for Christmas Eve and if she still isn't better on Christmas we probably will be just staying home :( Well at least we will be able to play with some new toys, right?!? She hasn't been eating at all and is just drinking a lot of water/juice and Pedialyte. I wish she would eat something!


Yesterday she fell asleep in her high chair... she has only done this once at around 7 months old!

Definitely not feeling well!

Now for the stuff I want to post before Christmas before I forget! Here is our Christmas card that we sent out this year. My friend Linda took some pictures for our card (I will post a bunch of the pictures sometime in next week or so) Thanks Linda for taking our pictures. You can check Linda's photo blog out at: http://palmsandpaws.blogspot.com/

Besides making a few homemade Christmas gifts and spending most of my day cuddling with Lily we have done a few things this Christmas season:

Our countdown to Christmas paper chain... oh I miss all those links! This was my favorite thing to do with Lily this Christmas season. Every morning I would break a link and give it to Lily and she would run to the trash can and throw it away! Then she would run back to me and I would hold her and count how many more days to Christmas.

The Making of "Smelly Trees". I cut out a tree out of construction paper and gave Lily some glue on a foam craft brush, she then put the glue onto her tree:

Next I put some lime flavored Kool-aid mix into an old container that I had drilled some holes into. She loved sprinkling the lime scented kool-aid onto the glue.

Finished product on the fridge! She is very proud of this artwork and will go to the fridge, point at the tree, and then start clapping. We made a mini lime scented tree too as an ornament for our Christmas tree.

Making a Gingerbread House (or better yet- just putting one thing on the house and then eating the frosting off the roof!)
Stealing the frosting... the only thing she really ate today :(
"What? I'm not eating any frosting!"
Okay this was my last post before Christmas! I'm hoping that we can spend time with our family and friends on Christmas Eve/Christmas... get well Lily! We hope all of you loyal blog readers have a wonderful Holiday!

We Elfed Ourselves!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sickies

This won't be a long post or contain the Christmas card pictures that I wanted it to... my baby has just fallen asleep and I can't write long because my house seriously needs some disinfecting :) Lily has the "stomach bug" that is going around. She was kinda quiet all morning and then around 11:30 got really tired. Marty and I put her down for a early nap and she woke up 45 minutes later- crying. Usually she wakes up she says "duck, duck, duck" because she is holding and hugging Waddles, her duck. So we ran upstairs to get her and gave her a cup of milk in her high chair. She started crying and then just threw up everywhere. She has never gotten sick before and you could tell she was terrified of what was going on. Long story short- one bath, 4 different outfit changes for Lily, 2 outfit changes for Mommy, and 1 outfit change for Daddy later- she is still sick. She has probably puked at least 14 times. We are now just making sure she is staying hydrated. She was just not herself at all today- super pale and didn't move, play, or smile much. We just held her. She was so tired too from not taking a good nap that she was falling asleep sometimes while throwing up. I'm sorry if this story grossed you out, I understand if it did, it's her first time being sick like this and it's pretty scary as a parent to watch her go through this and not be able to fully help her.

Visiting Santa!

I'm not really sure what Lily thinks of Santa. We talk about him a lot... more in terms of "Santa is our friend and we give him hugs". I told her this because she is really big into friends and hugging...Her favorite song is the last song that plays on "Barney". If I ask her "Lily where is Santa?" she will run to the fireplace and point up to the mantle where her picture with Santa is.

It was really nice last year when she saw Santa because she was only 2 months old (the stranger anxiety didn't kick in until 10 months later) Here are some pictures of Lily with Santa last year:

Last year at the mall with Santa! She was only 2 months old and was sleeping. I thought a sleeping picture with Santa would be cute (and the fact that she could get her picture with Santa and then we could carry on shopping at the mall with a sleeping baby would be a bonus!) the photographer did not want her to be sleeping and woke her up. Oh well. I do believe the mall's Santa is the best ever! He is the same Santa every year (I think) and last week I took Lily to the mall to shop and we saw him again... I kept her in the stroller because we were just saying "hi" to him since there was no line. He talked to Lily a lot and she smiled at him through her sippy cup. He is such a good Santa... he smelled all minty (thanks to gum) and looked like he had a twinkle in his eye. When we got home I told Marty for a second (only a second!) I really thought he was the real Santa :)

One of our family traditions is that we see Santa at the Sylvania Heritage Museum. He comes two or three Thursday nights in December and there usually is no wait to see him and you can take as many pictures and talk to him as long as you want to! Last year we took Lily to see Santa there as well and we will continue going every year! Here we are last year at the museum:

All of us with Mrs. Clause too!

Okay so there was the "easy" days with taking Lily's picture with Santa. Last month we went to a craft show and got our picture taken with Santa again. When Santa saw Lily he was standing up and put his arms out to hold her... I think Santa thought she was a lot younger than she is... most babies her age will not willingly reach their arms out and go to Santa. It really scared her that Santa wanted to hold her... needless to say... we had to have our pictures taken with Santa since she was afraid. They still turned out pretty well (thanks to Emily from http://smithgalleryphotography.blogpspot.com/ for taking the Santa picture!)

And here are some of the pictures from seeing Santa at the Sylvania Heritage Museum this year

"Did somebody say Santa?!?!?"

Lily and I in front of one of the many Christmas trees

Lily looks like she is in shock! No Mrs. Clause in our picture this year- she is the one who took the picture for us!

Lily is looking over at Mrs. Clause and smiling You can't really tell by the picture but she is leaning on my leg... not sure about the big guy...LET'S FIND OUT...
The Classic Picture with Santa! Are we bad parents for putting her through this???

Mrs. Clause gave Lily her first candy cane to cheer her up. Lily loved it!

Candy cane is all gone. Marty is trying to clean Lily's hands. Lily is trying to steal more candy canes!

Then we find out Lily is not afraid of Santa. She just doesn't want to be held by him. She just learned how to "twirl" in her dress so she was showing off to Santa and Mrs. Clause by twirling and dancing to music. She kept walking up to Santa and smiling and then running back to us.

Lily and Marty in front of yet another Christmas tree

All done seeing Santa! Now time for some J & G's pizza!

Only 4 posts in December?

Okay well make that 5 posts with this one! I'm am seriously slacking... not good! I have tons to share... just not enough time in the day to share everything. My goal is to write a post each day this weekend. Yep- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! So be sure to check back often and leave comments- please- I love reading comments :)

Yesterday my sister Erica and I took Lily to Playground World. Playground World is a place where they sell all different kinds of swing sets and toys and they also open the store up so kids can play and tire themselves out so they sleep good for their parents during nap time :) I have been going to Playground World... get this... since Lily was 3 months old! At the time I needed to get out of the house and talk to PEOPLE! Now looking back at it- I realize how desperate I was... but I wasn't the only one doing it... a lot of people do it! Now it's fun going there and seeing Lily run around (okay walk really fast) and play. It was nice taking Erica there and having her go down the slides with Lily- I was happy to get a little break from climbing up the playground equipment! Thanks Erica for going with us! Lily and I had fun!

Going down the big tube slide with Aunt EricaSwinging- remember she loves swinging!

Also going on the trampoline for the first time ever! I was always so nervous about this but it is all enclosed and she was "jumping" by herself... She really liked walking around for awhile...

...then she liked showing us that she is still a "baby" by crawling around! 3 more months and she will be officially a toddler... but for the next 3 months I still have her as my baby! It's been forever since I've seen her crawl... I miss it! But it is sooo much easier now that she can walk!