Happy Birthday, POPS!

My Daddy turned the big 5-0 on Monday.  We headed up the hill to celebrate last weekend.  We had a big party for him on Saturday.  It was held at the Community Center and had close to 100 guests.  My Dad is so loved :)  We had BBQ beef, pulled pork, ham BBQ, and all the fixin's.  Mom and I gathered a bunch of photos for a fun display.  Dad made a toast to everyone that came and talked about how the 50th Birthday is all about the cards.  He read a few of the funny ones he had already received.  He also found some funnies on the Internet that all started "When your 50..."  Ah, Dad, your a mushroom (Fun Guy, Fungi, get it?).

 

 

After the meal, we sang "Happy Birthday" and Dad blew out all 50 candles in one try.  Someone brought the fire extinguisher over- just in case.

Sadly, I was the only one of my siblings that was able to be at the party.  So, in order to bring my brothers to the festivities, we put together a video for Dad.  It turned out so well!  We toasted and roasted Dad.  We also impersonated Dad with several of his Dad-isms (things that Dad says on a regular basis).  Then there was a quick slide show of photos of Dad from the past 50 years.  I was so pleased with how it turned out. Dad loved it!  There was laughter, tears, and smiles throughout the whole room.  (The video ended up too big to post here, but if you'd like to see it, I can probably get it to you via email or Dropbox.)

 

Happy Birthday Daddy!  I love you!

The Blizzard

We got 20+ inches of snow on February 3-4.  It was great because we didn't have to go anywhere.  Jon was able to work from home, and the girls and I watched the snow fall.  Cecilia told us over and over "Nos, messy! Told!".  (Translation: Snow, messy and cold!)  It was so nice to have so much snow.  I ended up shoveling the first round of it.  I think there was about 11 inches when I went out.  It was so heavy!  I definitely got my workout in.  Last year we didn't really get any snow, and besides, Cecilia was just too darn cute in her snow suit. 

UPS was still on schedule and delivered Cecilia's new car seat.  I got it on major sale- Woohoo!  She was very excited about it and wanted to sit in it, buckled in while she watched "juge" (translation: George.  For Curious George).  The best part was the box.  Ohmygoodness!  Those girls had so much fun playing in the box.  Cecilia even turned it into a library at one point by putting all of her books in it and then sitting inside the box and reading.  So cute!

After church on Sunday, when the sidewalks were dry and the sun made its appearance, Cecilia decided that it was time to go.  She packed up her suitcase with puzzle pieces, asked me for her coat out of the closet, told me "bye", and headed out the front door.  She marched about  5 houses down until she couldn't walk any further because those neighbors hadn't shoveled yet.  Then she came back about 3 houses, turned around went back, then came back home.  Our next door neighbor popped his head out the door to make sure we were aware of the situation.  And the neighbor about four doors down followed her home the last time to make sure that we knew she was out.  HA!  Jon and I watched her the whole time. It was so funny!  I still don't know where she was going.  I guess she had cabin fever and just needed to get out. 

 

A 9 Month Old

Lilly was nine months old on Monday. This means that time is still flying by, and we've reached my favorite age! Nine to twelve months is such a blossoming time for babies, and I love to watch them as their personality starts to solidify, the discover new things, and really start to interact with their environment.  Lilly is totally on the go.  She has mastered crawling, and is pulling her self up on everything and cruising around the furniture.  We've caught her standing by herself, holding on to nothing more times than we can count.  She will walk all over the place if you let her hold your fingers, and she is crawling up the stairs by herself like a pro.  Its adorable. 

She is becoming quite vocal too.  She and Cecilia will have words, well more like sounds, across the table, and it is so funny to watch them "talk" it out.  She says Dada, and we are working on Mama.  Most of our conversations go like this:
Me: Lilly, say Mama.
Lilly: Dada.
Me: Say Mama.
Lilly: (laughing) hahahah!

Lilly is such a sweet cuddle bug.  She is so content to just sit with me or Jon (mostly me) and suck her thumb.  I love when I pick her up and she rests her little head on my shoulder and pats my back.  It makes my heart melt.  She doesn't have an attachment to a blanket or stuffed animal.  However, she is quite fond of my hair.  When she gets fussy and I pick her up, she firmly grabs a hold of my hair and sticks her thumb in her mouth. 

She has two teeth now.  The second one popped through last week sometime.  The four on the top are all making their way down.  We can see them under her gums.  She decided about a week and a half ago that she wanted nothing to do with pureed food.  She would actively refuse it and not even open her mouth if it came at her on a spoon.  So, she's been eating table food with us, and is doing great with it.  Its really quite nice to be back to making one meal for the whole family.  She has yet to master the sippy cup, we are working on it, but for now it is just something to chew on.  Since she won't eat the pureed food any longer, it has made getting prune juice in her all the more difficult.  We switched to whole prunes, and luckily she likes them.  We've discovered that they are doing the trick- a prune a day keeps the rocks away :)

We did the great car seat upgrade last weekend.  Cecilia got a new seat, and Lilly got moved out of the infant seat and into a rear facing toddler seat.  She is getting so big!

We had her 9 month check up on Tuesday.  You can tell how much she is moving by how little she has grown over the past three months.  Here are her 9 month stats:

16lbs. 3oz. ~ 20th Percentile

26.5 inches ~ 25th Percentile

A Valentine, or Two, for You!

Here is Cecilia's Valentine's Day box and her Valentine's for her classmates at school.  She and I had so much fun making them.  I wanted to do something homemade with her this year.  I cut out paper hearts and then wrote a message on each one with white crayon.  Then I let her have at it with the paint.  She helped me glue each one to a piece of construction paper.  For her box, I let her paint about 3 sheets of the large coloring paper and then wrapped a Costco milk box with them.  She had so much fun at her party!