Pictures Post 10-31-08

Here are a few pictures from the last couple weeks at the Lilypad. We met up with John and his Mom and Aunt at the Pumpkin Patch. We had a great time. But as a warning: two cute kiddos together for one picture may cause your monitor to malfunction (you know: from cuteness overload). :-)

Lily Doins 10-31-08

Without further adieu, here's the latest list of Lily doins...

1. Storage and transportation: Lily fills her little hands and arms to capacity with anything and everything. She can't hold just one of something. Noooo - that's entirely too easy. Both hands and arms must be packed. You can only imagine how this hampers a little toddler who really could use both hands to help with catching herself when she falls...often. She can have some spectacular toy-explosion falls so at a minimum, it's entertaining.

2. Transport Game: Lily loves to bring us whatever she is carrying too. It could be pieces of shredded tissue, dog food, a nose crustie. Whatever. Sometimes we are the destination, other times, it's a bathtub or close hamper (we have gone on some wild goose chases for a missing sippy cup).

3. Raaarrrr!: Its what the Tiger says. This has turned into a Game, too. She'll swipe at us and say "raarrrrr!". Like the Ow! Game, all is fun & games until Mommy gets smacked, or swiped (again, homey dont play dat). So, often, the little Tiger has to be reprimanded.

4. Colors: By accident, we found out Lily knows her colors (God bless her awesome school). She knows green, purple, and red rather well.

5. Monkey See Monkey Do: Lily does a great job at Follow the Leader. We will say something like, "sit down, stand up, JUMP!, turn around, clap, where's your knee?, JUMP" and she happily obliges.

6. "Dohty": This is "Dorothy" on The Wiggles

7. Thank you out loud without prompt: Lily has signed Thank you and has been speaking it for a while, too. But recently, she'll respond "Tae Tew" without prompt. It just warms my heart. Now that I think about it, I end up giving her more stuff just to hear the Tae Tews more. Hmmmm....


8. Departure Imitation: One day, Lily grabbed Aunt Kah Kah's red purse, slung it over her shoulder, came up to me, gave me a kiss, waved and said "Bye bye!" and walked off. I realized she was copying my departure routine. It's amazing what she picks up on simply by observance (amazing and SCARY; I consider all this a warning of things to come).

9. Acting School: As we've learned with the occasional Temper Tantrum, Lily is quite the accomplished actress. She has fine-tuned her acting craft with facial expressions, recently. "Surprise" is a wide-eyed open mouth expression, "Happy" is a big cheesy smile and "Mad" is a narrowed-eyed grunt action.

10. Nontoys = Favorite Toys: Specifically, poker chips and cards. Yes, I can safely say this is the most use our poker chips and cards have ever seen. We're raising her right, what can I say? She loves the colors, textures and portability of the cards and chips. Plus the chips make a fun noise when she drops them which happens a lot as she inevitably tries to carry too many (see #1).

11. "Mine": A new word to Lily's recent vocabulary list. This has now replaced "Please" and "Tae Tew". Hear that sound? Yes, that's the Terrible Two Train pulling into our living room!

How to Provoke a Bunny Attack

Yes, only *I* can actually be attacked by a BUNNY. I think the odds rank second only to being mauled by a cotton ball. So I do feel a bit...loserish. We took Lily to a fall festival in town recently. This festival contained a petting zoo. Harmless enough - OR SO IT SEEMS. I find a cute little bunny that I know Lily will love. I then make the vital mistake of picking him up to take to Lily. He freaks out, jumps out of my hands and then uses my ARM as a launching pad (6 inches of cuts and punctures to prove it). I found out the scientific reason for this attack later, of course later: bunnies do not like dangly feet. However, I fully believe the true reasoning lies elsewhere.

You see, I think this attack was premeditated. I have surmised various things about bunnies that I now realize, they may not like. Dale and I discuss these things from time to time - mostly to laugh, be goofy and make up silly rules to annoy Lily with later. I believe these rules, three to be precise, have now come back to bite me (or scratch me).

Rule 1: A Bunny is nature's candy. We've had enough wild bunnies in our yard to know that everything eats bunnies: cats, dogs, birds, you name it. I think its safe to say that even bunnies eat bunnies.

Rule 2: What does the bunny say? Poop poop poop poop poop poop.

Rule 3: A modification of rule 2: What *else* does the bunny say? Vrrrroooom SPLAT (as we've lost count of the bunnies who have attempted to cross the road).

Premeditation doesn't sound so absurd after all! I'm not one to believe in Karma. But as I pieced myself together and limped away from the vicious bunny attack (okay - so I walked away and we kept petting animals...NOT bunnies) - it made me think twice about BUNNY Karma. So, consider yourself Bunny Karma Attack Warned. You can thank me later. :-)

Yamboree Awesomeness

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Yamboree this past weekend. Activities include parade watchin' Saturday morning followed by a trip to the rec center to see how our pictures faired in the photo contest. My family is usually very laid back, but throw a photo contest in the mix and we turn vicious. We ALL enter photos in the contest. It's an extra incentive to place (bragging rights naturally) as well as reason to carry a black sharpie around (for impromptu "photoshopping" like...oh...accidental mustaches). Ok - we're not that competitive........yet.

Lily had a blast. This is the first year she was an active parade watcher so I was impressed at her geniune interest and quality wave technique. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked. The Yamboree is pretty much in our blood. Lily's Great Memaw was a duchess back in the 40s. Lily's Mom [me], Grandmother [Nena], Poppi and Aunt Karla have been active participants in the parade as well. That Yamblood runs deep; prick our finger and we bleed dark orange. Ok, nevermind - thats kind of gross. But you get the point. We luv us some yams!

On to the pictures!! **Pictures of Yamboree Past added 10/23!** Tidbit I learned: to delay the slide show, hover over a picture with the mouse pointer.

Crazy? Who's Crazy?

I admit, I have moments where I think "wait, does that make me Crazy"? My hope is the Insane have no concept of their own sanity thus, by default, I'm in the clear. But for the purpose of emptying my head of more random goofyness and hopefully securing my sanity even more, here's my list of things that I think could make me Crazy...

1. I don’t like peanut butter. Peanuts? Sure. Butter, even? Absolutely. But combine the two and count me out. Perhaps it is more UnAmerican than Crazy as I have been told that a time or two (or twelve).

2. Whilst indoors, I get a chill when it rains outside. I don’t have to see or even hear it raining. It’s like my body just KNOWS. Don’t think I haven’t realized that this is how bad-knee-weather-forecasting old people start off. Either that or I have a very odd and pointless Mutant Power. (You know, maybe I should lay off all the Heroes watchin’.)

3. I sometimes get frustrated with inanimate objects. I usually end up exploding with ‘WHAT???’ or ‘OKAY, FINE!’ if something like a drawer is stuck or hangers are tangled together.

4. My flashlight is also a phone. Sure – cell phones do a myriad of things these days like takes pictures and video, surf the internet, and easily play a thousand songs on a whim. But it is, without a doubt, the flash light feature that I love the most-est.

5. Should we have another child later on down the line, and it is a boy, I have seriously considered naming him Max, after our dog. I just love our dog to pieces. So, why not? I’ve also considered “Charlie Max” which is, of course, another dog’s name. And that is why God will bless us with all girls.

6. There is nothing funnier than a baby toot. No matter the circumstance, I can’t resist laughing. Granted this may not qualify as a Crazy sign but just one of Extreme Immaturity (oh man, an Immature List would be crazynuts long).

7. I can't do the toe-pinch thing. For the most part, my little piggies are useless besides offering some balance assistance. My husband practically has two more hands with the dexterity of his toes. I firmly believe that my toes, and my toes alone, could bring down the entire theory of evolution.

That's all I have so far. There are more, I am certain, but when so much is intertwined into my concept of "Normal", it takes me a while to sift out the Crazy. Stay Tuned!

Lilydoins 10-12-08

Here are some of Lily's latest Doins that have happened over the last two weeks...

1. "Yay" for outside: When we ask Lily if she'd like to go outside, instead of a "yes" or "no", she replies "YAY!!!!". It would seem that she likes the outdoors just a wee bit.

2. "Weewees": Aka, The Wiggles tv show. Lily not only asks for Bunnytown ("bop bop") but has added "wee wees" to the list. It has to be one of her cutest words; I ask her about The Wiggles at least a dozen times a day just so I can hear her say it. She'll even accompany "wee wees" with a Wiggles trademark hand motion. Kudos to The Wiggles marketing team. We've all been suckered in!

3. Thankyou: or "Too too" as Lily puts it. Lily has signed "Thank you" for a good while now but has recently added the vocal "too too" along with it as well.

4. Boo Boo: As Lily has mastered her walking and running technique, she has acquired quite a collection of bumps, bruises and scrapes to prove her right of passage. One day, I decided to point out a scrape and explained "boo boo". Lily spent the rest of the day pointing out other Boo Boos. It's another Cute Word favorite of ours.

5. The Ow! Game: Giving in to the inevitable genetic comedy makeup of my silly family, Lily loves slapstick. One of her favorite games is the Ow! Game. She'll smack herself on the head, yell "OW!" and laugh and laugh. As I cannot rise above my own gene pool, I found this hysterical until the Smacks became harder and she tried to involve Me in the Ow! Game (Mommy dont play dat). In all honesty, I still find it highly entertaining though Parenting does take precedent (dang it).

6. Fit O' Rage: Lily is one happy little girl. She has a sweet sweet demeanor and she does seem to have a touch of Tender-heartedness about her. Though on occassion, she will throw one heck of a Hissy. Recently, she was in a foul mood and my decision to change her diaper SET HER OFF. Yes, I'm a mean horrible mommy. She was kicking and screaming and whilst in mid fit o' rage, she bit HERSELF, specificially on the arm. I was shocked at first but then had to fight back a laugh as I could see the wide-eyed realization of pain on her face as soon as she made the bite. Granted, at that point, the yells of rage turned into yells of pain. Funny thing, though: she hasn't done that since.

7. "Moo": It's what the cow says. MENSA here we come!!

8. Frog tongue: Lily will stick her tongue in and out when prompted with "Frog".

9. Fans: Lily loves to point out the ceiling fans at home. She'll follow a point with a circular motion while saying "rr rrr rrr" (as the fan goes "around around and around"). I never knew fans could be so fun.

10. Little Einsteins: Lily can mimick a portion of the Lily Einsteins show. This will sound more brainy that it is but she knows the Blast Off Sequence. This includes patting her hands on her legs, raising her arms up and saying "Baaa ahhhh" (or "Blast off"). Seriously, how will we find the time to live our lives with Nasa and Mensa calling all the time?

To illustrate some of her vocabulary- I'll attempt to include a video below.

Pictures Post 10-12-08

Lounging in the office chair (aka big chair toy)

Gotta love fall and crazy static hair!

LEAVES!

When timed right, a trip-turned-face-plant can make a cute picture.

Cheese!

Lily looooves to "kaa kaa" (or color)

Just hanging out, watching some Bunnytown, drinking some "juish"...

Yes, that is a GREEN BEAN in the ketchup.

Lily: Lord of the Plastic Ring Thingies

Why sit in the chair the usual BORING way??