Happy Holidays! We had a busy and fun-filled year keeping up with Lily. It is amazing to think that at this time last year, she could not walk and had just started saying her first words. Now she is running all over the place and speaking in clear sentences. What a difference a year makes!
This spring, Lily and Kelly took an aquatots swimming class together which Lily absolutely loved. She is apparently quite the water baby. Lily turned one year old on March 1st and we celebrated with a big party at our house. We basically had to shoehorn all of the people in but we had a lot of fun and Lily really enjoyed opening all of her presents. The spring also brought some changes. Kirsten, our wonderful babysitter, decided to change careers which meant that we had to find a new daycare for Lily. That was a very hard search as Kirsten was truly irreplaceable but we finally found a new in-home daycare that we are very pleased with. Lily is Tammy’s only full time kid so she receives a lot of individual attention while still benefitting from interacting with other children. The transition was hard for Lily as Kirsten was all she had known since she was 9 weeks old but now she is very happy.
Another change this spring was that, after living with us full-time for a year, Rachel decided to return to her old custody schedule of spending the school year with her mom and the summer and holidays with us. She left Pinckney Schools midway through 6th grade to transfer to Hanahan, South Carolina. We miss having her around all of the time but we are pleased that she has settled in well at her new school and seems happy. She came home for spring break. After school ended, she spent a little over a week at Rockbrook Camp in North Carolina where she had a blast. She then came home to Michigan for our Higgins Lake vacation which was a lot of fun for all of us. We once again rented the Davison American Legion cabin with Kelly’s parents and both girls enjoyed playing on the beach and in the lake.
We had a really busy summer. Paul moved our entire vegetable garden including the fence and nine raised beds. He also extended our two northern beds into one giant flower bed. Meanwhile, Lily loved playing outdoors in the warm weather. She loved to swing and go down her slide as well as play in the giant sandbox that her papi made her. We kept her busy and entertained by taking her to multiple summer festivals and parks. In late July, Lily and Kelly took a mini-vacation to Indianapolis so Kelly could attend a training course for work. Her parents came with them to watch Lily while Kelly was in class and they all stayed with her Aunt Margaret and Uncle Dale. They had a nice time and were happy to be able to visit with Kelly’s cousins that she had not seen in many years.
This fall, Lily went to Crossroads Village and rode the Huckleberry Railroad which she absolutely loved. In mid-October, Paul, Kelly, and Lily drove down to Houston to visit Paul’s brother, Mike, and his family. Thankfully, Lily was an amazing traveler for the entire 25 hour drive each way. We had a very enjoyable week with Paul’s family and Kelly even got to visit with her good friend, Janet, who lives in Austin. We returned shortly before Halloween which was a holiday that Lily really enjoyed this year.
We had a great Thanksgiving and now we are busily getting ready for Christmas which always seems to sneak up on us. We hope that this letter finds you healthy and happy. Please keep in touch! For weekly updates and tons of pictures, you can visit us at http://kellyrysso.blogspot.com.
Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment