Baby Tummy

We have told Lila that "Mommy has a baby in her tummy," which she has repeated so I know she heard us. Not quite so sure she understands what that means, though, as she has informed us that she has a baby in her tummy too! The other night at dinner, she said "My baby tummy hurts." I said, "it does?" and she said, "it's... it's gonna come out!" (I am quite confident that neither Ben nor I have explained the having-a-baby process to her so I have no idea where she got that from!) We laughed pretty good, though.

What Makes a Good Dad?

I recently got some good pictures of Ben and Lila and feel the desire to brag on my husband. He is such a good Daddy to Lila. She loves spending time with him! She gets so excited when he comes home and will say "come play with me"... and he will. Last night while I was working on supper, it was somersault time. Ben wisely decided that some things are better left to your youth, but Lila was just happy to have his undivided attention. Here are some pictures of them together:

Relaxing with Daddy on the couch

Going for a swim in the backyard... I love this picture of Ben with his laptop outside! Of course, when Lila says "come in here, Daddy!"...

Who can resist? :-)

Playing dress-up with Daddy

Cookin' Up Fun

When we were in Alabama, my parents had found and set up the little play kitchen Janina and I played with when we were little. Lila had a blast "cooking" and serving all of us. My dad also made Lila her own kitchen which we brought home with us. It is adorable! 

We almost have Lila's "big girl" room done... we ordered a bed rail for her so when that comes this week, she can sleep in her new bed. Right now she loves to play in there though. I'll post some pictures of her whole room once it's completely finished but thought I'd share pics of the play kitchen. She loves it!

A Week in Alabama

We've been home a week now, so I thought I'd post some pictures from our trip to Alabama to visit my folks. It was Lila, me and my sister driving 11 hours. On the way out we stayed at a hotel in Memphis, so we broke up the trip a little bit. That turned out to be a good thing because about 2 hours into our trip, Lila developed a fever. Which meant she was either sleepy (good) or cranky (no fun!). Praise God the next day she was feeling better and it didn't turn into anything, so we were able to enjoy our week with Grandma and Grandpa. My grandmother was there for the first couple of days too, but then she had to go home. Here are some pics:

Lila reading a book with Great-Grandma (my grandma)!

Lila and Grandma (my mom) together.

Some of you may know the Loftons (used to live in TX and go to our church). They live in Chattanooga now and one day Lila and I met up with Jenna and Clark (16 months) at a McDonald's halfway between Huntsville and their house. This is the best picture I got of the two of them together.

Lila enjoying herself in the McDonald's playplace. As a parent you get many opportunities like this one to trust God when it comes to germs and the health of your child :-)

One day we went to visit Grandpa's office. Lila was a big hit with the secretaries as she shared many of the animal sounds she knows. I wasn't sure if she would clam up and be shy, but she did great!

That night we went bowling (ok, I didn't). Lila got to bowl for the first time. The shoes were too big for her, but they didn't fall off. She liked rolling the ball down the lane using the special "help" (this slide and the bumper rails in the gutters). However, the ball return ended the fun. It was loud and shot the ball out really fast. After a few frames, she informed me "I don't like that" and didn't want to bowl anymore. Aunt Janina finished off her game with a respectable score of 138.

Grandpa and Lila at the bowling alley.

Here's a picture of Lila on the car ride home. She liked watching a video, but these headphones lasted about 2 minutes. That just meant we got to listen to the Little People video with her :-)

Splashin' Around

I was so excited to get a comment from an out-of-state friend (thanks Jen!) that I was inspired to post some new pictures. It has been HOT here, in the 90s for a couple of weeks now. Which means.. time for the pool! We inflated a little kiddie pool for Lila and put some water in it in the morning so it would be warm later in the evening (when the sun wasn't so intense). Lila LOVED being able to splash in the water as well as getting in and out of the pool (something she's not allowed to do in the tub!) 

We put two little wind-up fish toys in the pool with her. For the past week or so, we had been babysitting a friend's fish while they were out of town. His name is George Henry. So Lila proceeded to call both toy fish "George Henry" and would alternate putting them in the pool and on the windowsill (where they went to go "night-night"). Good thing she couldn't reach the real George Henry!

She fussed a little bit when we told her it was time to get out and start getting ready for bed. I told her she could get in the pool again tomorrow. Ben put her to bed as he does most nights. He said later that the last thing she said to him before laying her head down was "more pool morrow, okay."

Ben's parents came for a quick visit last weekend. When we took them back to the McKinney airport, a kind man offered to take our picture. So here we are standing in front of Grandpa's plane (they are in the plane getting ready to take off). Lila was lucky and got to see a few planes take off as well as a helicopter.

First Carousel Ride

For anyone who checks this blog, I apologize for taking so long to update it. I am sure I will be even less attentive after our second child arrives. Lila is now 21 months old and well on her way to being a "two-year old" in every sense of the word, testing boundaries and trying to get her way. But she is a very sweet-natured child and brings such joy to our life.

About a week ago, I took Lila to Stonebriar mall to ride the carousel for the first time (her Aunt Janina came too!). She absolutely loved it! She did a great job hanging on to the pole too. When it was over, we had to walk around the carousel to get to the exit, and every horse we passed, she would say "Ride that one?" We don't go to that mall very often, but I think the next time we're there, we may have to go for another ride!