Happy 2nd Birthday, Lily! (3/1/11)

Here is Lilia Christine Rysso as a newborn:

And at one year old:

And now today she is two years old! Where does the time go?

I started a tradition last year of taking Lily’s birthday off of work so that we could spend the day together. I spent a leisurely morning with my goofy girl. Here she is casually playing with her ponies while wearing her silly sunglasses upside down and crooked:

My parents met us at Castaway Café that afternoon which is a huge indoor playscape in Howell. I figured that Lily would love to play there and boy was I right. She had a blast!
Here she is in the toddler slide area claiming that she is stuck in a net (just like a whale was on one of her favorite Diego episodes):

She was so excited that she bounced up and down nonstop for the first 10 minutes we were there:

Looking up at the vast big kid play structure:

Happily running around:

Climbing up a huge slide from the bottom:

And sliding back down:

Lily finally got brave enough to climb up to the toddler slide by herself:

Wheeee:

Grandma caught my happy girl at the bottom of the slide:

She would go down so fast that she would end up sideways. She found it scary but delightfully fun at the same time:

After having so much fun and expending so much energy, Lily crashed hard on the drive home before we could feed her any lunch. After a nice long nap, she woke up hungry but excited that grandma and papi were still there. She drank some “chocolate juice” and sat in my old chair/step stool that my dad brought for her while Reiley chilled on the ottoman:

After Paul got home from work, Lily opened some of her birthday presents. She loved the Dora backpack that Paul and I got her, especially the map in the side pocket:

Awww, Lily giving the map a hug:

Putting it back:

Lily showing her new present to papi:

Playing with a musical birthday card from grandma and papi:

Opening another present all by herself:

A sing-a-ma-jig from Kathy:

Once she saw what it did, she was cracking up:

A Dora coloring book from Paul and me:

I don’t know why Lily was pouting but she looked cute nonetheless:

A fairy book from Lois with a magic wand:

Lily decided to snack on some leftover French fries before opening her next gift:

This one was the biggest winner. I bought her this Mega Bloks Dora house set that she insisted I put together immediately:

Happy two year old surrounded by her new toys:

I almost forgot to give her this shopping cart:

After presents, we went to Bagger Dave’s for dinner. Lily was excited to have “burger fries” twice in one day and loved the train that went around the restaurant. While we were waiting for our food, Paul stacked Lily’s Dora toys in an impressive tower:

I can’t believe that I caught Lily on camera knocking the tower over a few seconds later:

After dinner, Lily wanted to read her new fairy book and use the magic wand to activate sounds on it. She loves to cuddle and read with grandma:

Peek-a-boo, birthday girl:

We had a really fun day. I still can’t believe that my baby is now a two year old little girl. It has been such a wonderfully fun two years with the sweetest and silliest little girl ever. I thank God for her every single day!

1Y52W + 1 Day = My Baby is Almost 2! (2/21/11 - 2/28/11)

On Monday and Tuesday mornings, Lily was so sleepy that she never woke up when Paul took her to daycare. On Wednesday, however, she woke up when Paul had her almost to the door because she could hear Jack inside and she excitedly started yelling for him. In the meantime, Jack had hidden himself behind the couch and when she came in, he jumped out at her. She was so thrilled that Paul put her down and she instantly ran and jumped on the couch with Jack and they were both squealing like little piggies when Paul left. That was the first time that Lily didn’t want Tammy and instead wanted her friend. Usually she goes straight from our arms to Tammy’s arms for morning cuddle time.

It was a pretty snowy week so we didn’t do much. I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t accomplish much on my Fridays off but I like to think of it more as a mother-daughter fun day. Plus I am usually so exhausted from my long days on Monday-Thursday that I greatly enjoy sleeping in with my baby, playing together stress-free, and then taking a nice long nap when she naps.

After staying in the house all day on Saturday to clean, I was going a bit stir-crazy so we went to Weber’s for brunch on Sunday. I love their brunch! Lily was really into the bronze deer in the lobby and kept making us go with her to look at it and asking if she could ride it. That made Paul think of Cabela’s so we drove down there after brunch so that Lily could look at all of the animals. We noticed that she is already calling fish “fish” and not “shish” anymore which is good for her speech development but makes me sad since saying it the wrong way sounded so darn cute. She still remembered and properly identified the catfish from our Houston trip way back in October. Pretty impressive!

Lily had a rough night Sunday night and was pretty stuffed up. I hope that she is not getting sick for her birthday! Since I took Lily’s birthday off so we could have a special day together (our tradition), I made Dora cupcakes and brought them in to daycare on Monday for the kids.

This week Lily has been using her binkie a lot less. She doesn’t use it much at all during the day and only seems to use it when she is tired, asleep, or in the car. Perhaps she is beginning to wean herself off of it. That would be nice.

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily made a bed for herself and her “hee-haws” on Tuesday evening:

Lily and I playing with party favors. Reiley couldn’t master the skill but wanted to be in the picture anyway:

Silly little girl sitting in her drum and snuggling a Pooh bear:

Reiley sleeping on one of Rachel’s old American Girl doll beds in the basement:

Lily playing with Rachel’s old chalkboard:

I don’t know what this serious look is all about:

My cutie watching daddy out the window:

Those pictures totally remind me of these ones taken a year and two weeks ago. I absolutely love these! Look how much my little girl has changed over the past year:

With a much more mischievous grin than in the previous picture, my silly little girl played with the winter bird decorations that I brought in from outside to put away:

The birds are taking a nap:

Back to hugging and playing with them:

Lily loved watching the fish swim around at Cabela’s:

Looking at what she calls “polar bear mountain”:

Happily clapping at the animals:

1Y51W: Spring Cleaning in Winter Weather (2/14/11 - 2/20/11)

Lily’s best buddy Jack was not at daycare on Monday so she was sad. When she saw that he was there on Tuesday, she screamed with excitement. I was sad that I missed it since Paul does most of her drop-offs now that I work 10 hour shifts. She calls him her “good friend Jack”. It’s so darn cute!

Monday was Valentine’s Day. Paul and I were too busy to go out together last weekend so we decided just to take Lily with us to someplace she would enjoy on the actual holiday. We ended up having a non-romantic but fun Valentine’s dinner at Red Robin. A little while after we got home, Lily gave me quite a scare. We were in the living room and she said, “Go take baff,” then opened the gate all by herself and started climbing the stairs. I had to run over and help her because she is not coordinated enough to climb up stairs on her own. Despite being uncoordinated, she is fast as lightening and was halfway up by the time I got to her. Apparently she really wanted that bath! I was worried that she had mastered the gate system since she opened it so effortlessly (my little King Kong has opened it a few times before by shaking it super hard) but thankfully that was apparently a fluke as she has not opened it since.

Lily’s interest in potty training continues although we have yet to have any success. At least she is sitting on it for a little longer now (maybe a whole 20 seconds as opposed to 2). On Friday, she sat on the potty for quite a while but then got off of it, squatted on the floor in front of it, and instantly peed all over the floor. Ugh! Close, but not quite! She loves her frog potty in the downstairs bathroom but finds it very fun and therefore, doesn’t linger on it very long. Paul put Rachel’s old potty upstairs which she finds very interesting because she loves anything associated with her big sister. I have more success getting her to sit on that potty.

Lily is really into playing with stuffed animals now, especially Beanie Babies. It’s funny because she insists that she have two of every animal- a mama and a baby. She is really into identifying emotions now. She frequently plays that the baby animals are crying for their mamas. She brought her stuffed penguin to me once for comforting because it was crying so we both hugged and kissed it. I try to ask her why her animals are sad but she never answers. I wondered if she could elaborate on or fully understand their emotions and therefore hers but she is too young for that.

I had a very productive weekend doing spring cleaning. On Thursday, I cleaned the upstairs, including behind and under all of the furniture and steam cleaned the carpets. In addition, I went through all of the rooms and got rid of items we no longer need or want. I continued with the downstairs on Saturday doing the same thing. My mom came over that day to help watch Lily so Paul could get a few things done as well. I then went through our closet and got rid of 8 bags of clothes, 1 bag of shoes, and 2 boxes worth of other random items. I am sure that most of Rachel’s clothes are outgrown as well but I will wait until she comes home for the summer to confirm and I am all up to date with sorting through Lily’s outgrown clothes. Now our house is very clean and organized and, therefore, I am very happy (and tired)!

On Sunday, we had an unexpected snowfall that way outdid last weeks’ ‘Snowmagedon’. I went to Mary’s house to get my hair cut and colored then we went to Sagebrush Cantina for dinner. Even though I vowed never to go there again after our horrible experience, I am glad to report that I had good food and no one forgot to seat us and then lied about it. The roads were slippery on our way there and absolutely horrible on our way back. My drive home took more than twice as long as my drive there and I was white knuckling it the entire time. I am not looking forward to heading out to work on Monday morning!

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily and I were pretty in pink at Red Robin on Valentine’s Day. We tried hard to get a picture where she was actually looking at the camera but, as you can see, she did not comply:

Flirting with the people in the booth behind us:

Lily enjoyed eating the whipped cream off of mama’s malt:

Kind of a see-food shot but you can see that Lily really liked her burger:

Trying to eat the giant burger without having to pick it up:

We gave Lily Dora stickers as a part of her Valentine’s Day present. This is what she chose to do with them:

How many bracelets can I get on my arm at one time?: