Father's Day 2009

Last Sunday was the honored Day of Fathers. Due to my weekend work schedule, we actually celebrated it a couple of weeks before. We took in a Gymboree class together as a family. Lyla got her Dad a ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins and her gift was a really cool hat/t-shirt combo that said '#1 Dad' on it. Daddy choose a venue for dinner out and we all went to the park together to feed the ducks and play on the equipment. It was a great day.

On the actual Father's Day, Daddy and his girl took a trip to the zoo to see all of the animals. They had a great time. Lyla called a bear 'Teddy', the penguins 'Ducks', cows 'Moo-Moo', horses and zebras where 'Neigh-Neighs', and I think mostly everything else was 'Pies' (Puppies). Ryan has a video of her say 'Hi Money', which in Lyla lingo is Monkeys, so I guess she was saying Hi to them as well.

Her language continues to impress us. At the beginning of 13 months she had 38 words that she was saying consistently, and since then she has added more words - just like 'Money'.

Swimming...

Yesterday morning I blew up our blow up pool that we had from when our nieces and nephew had visited in past summers. The heat was up! It was 90 degrees so I thought that this would be as good of a day ever to try out the swimming pool with our little miss Lyla.

The water warmed up nicely in the sun. And when Lyla first saw the pool her face lit up - even though she didn't have a clue what this thing was in on our lawn. I tested the water - it was a warm as bath water. I headed back in to the house to get Lyla changed into her bathing suit. And oh did the tears come ! She wanted to get in that pool.

We got quickly changed and in she went and she LOVED it. She stayed in for 40 minutes and was sad to get out when it was over. She even went back in with Ryan once he got home. I have a feeling we will be using this pool a lot this summer. Then we will have to convince dear old Dad that a larger pool may be in our future. :)

Here is Lyla giving a thumbs up for the pool!

This next picture makes me laugh. It looks like Lyla is praising the Lord for this wonderful invention of the outdoor pool!

Transition in Progress

As I enter a new decade in my life, our house is getting a face lift as my birthday gift. Duke and his crew arrived this morning at 7:30 and worked in the 95 degree weather until the storm came at 3:00. Here are some before and after pictures of the work in progress... they are coming back tomorrow, so I will post more pictures when the project is completed.

Front of House before

Front of House now

Corner flower bed before

Corner flower bed now

Stay tuned for more to come...

Kitty/ Looking like Mama

When we went home for Ryan's Grandma's funeral Lyla got to meet Oscar the cat. I don't have any pictures from her encounter with the real kitty but here is a picture of Lyla with her Kitty at home. She is so funny she will say Kitty and pet this kitty like a real cat.

This is a picture taken about a week ago - at 13 months old. I think she is starting to look more like me...

This is a picture of me when I was 3 - so a bit of an age difference. But at 1, I did not have hair like Lyla - I was bald. So here is a comparison of the two of us and I do think she is starting to look like me.. what do you think??

Lyla at 12 months old

Again, another reminiscent blog, seeing that Lyla is now 13 months old, but I wanted to write down some of the things Lyla was doing at 12 months old for myself.

• You are talking a lot! We wrote down a list of words, and you had 22 words that you were saying consistently.
• On May 13th, 2 days after your birthday at Open Gym at Gymboree you started to walk independently. You had been walking holding onto our fingers, but you took off on your own here.
• You still don't crawl but scoot on your bottom when you need to
• You have quite the personality, and seem to be a bit of a joker. You know when you shouldn't do something and you get this look in your eye and smile mischievously at me and then do it!
• You have learned that you like to DANCE. You say 'Dan!" and want me to turn on the music in the front room and you dance around and bop up and down
• You LOVE to get into my cupboards in the kitchen. You love pulling things out and looking at everything
  
• We are trying to transition you to table food which is slow. But you love Mint Oreos and Mint Melano cookies.




• You have cinnamon toast at breakfast.
• You love other kids
• You like to be outside
• You still have reactions to your vaccinations. You got your MMR and Varicella shot at 12 months and had a reaction of 104.2 temperature 10 days later
• You weighed 19 lbs 3 oz, you were 29 3/4 inches tall, and your head circumference was 18 inches
• You have 8 teeth - 4 on the bottom an 4 on the top, and you are teething in some molars
• You HATE long car rides
• You still like Gymboree
• You LOVE Teddy
• Your left eye continues to have a blocked tear duct
• You have itchy ears - just like Mama
• You love puffs, and ask for them by name

• You like to giggle and laugh

These are some of my memories of what you where up to at 12 months old. You are getting more and more independent now that you are 13 months old. You are growing up so fast and learning so much every day. This is the reason I have been so blog tardy because Lyla with Lyla walking you have to watch her every move or she is into something she shouldn't be. She is definitely a toddler!

May 11th, 2009 - Lyla's 1st Birthday

I know my last post was all about Lyla's Birthday, but this post is going to be about her actually birthday - May 11th. I have been meaning to journal/blog this for a while and life with a toddler has become very busy.

So, let me reminisce about our family day together.

Lyla's birthday was on a Monday this year. This would be the last couple of days of Ryan's time off with Lyla. In that he had taken his vacation time in days here and there to be at home with Lyla when I was at work. This has been great for both Lyla and Ryan as they got to spend more time together. So for her birthday, Ryan and I had decided to both be at home for her birthday, so that we could celebrate her actual birthday together as a family.

Lyla got up in the morning to another mountain of presents. This time the presents were all from us. She opened the majority of her presents in the morning but did end up leaving some for a later day, just because she got sidetracked with all of her new stuff. Our gifts were mostly Gymboree themed. We bought her a set of musical instruments from Gymboree and of course another Gymbo doll. She also got a beach ball - which she loves - a personalized growth chart for her room, her kite which I talked about earlier, and honestly - other stuff that I don't really remember. Isn't that terrible. So as I said she opened her presents and played with Mama and Dada in the morning.

At this time, Lyla was still taking morning naps. So she went down for her morning nap and when she got up she received a birthday phone call from Jeffrey the Giraffe from Toys R Us. This call was quite fitting because we had planned to go to the Zoo for the afternoon. So we had a quick lunch, packed it up and headed to the Zoo.

It was a nice sunny day that day. Not cold but not too warm. This was both Lyla and Ryan's first time to the Zoo and we had a great day. We ended up buying a seasons pass - so we anticipate that we will be visiting again this summer. We saw lots of different animals and Lyla called them all 'Pies', which in Lyla language is Puppies. She would point and say excitedly 'Pies! Pies!" This was very cute! She really liked the anteaters which I thought was pretty funny!

Before we left the zoo, we played at the playground. This was 4:06 - her birthday time. She was having a ball!

We then went home and picked up Wendy's and had birthday cake again with our little lady. Again, she wasn't too sure about this cake business. But she definitely loved us singing Happy Birthday to her.

It was a great day! I was so happy that Ryan was able to be a home with us so we could spend this special day together as a family!

Lyla's 1st Birthday Party

On Saturday May 9th, we had a party to celebrate Lyla's 1st birthday. It was so much fun planning and organizing for this gala event. It seemed to Ryan that I was planning a small wedding. Food to prepare, flowers to order, Edible arrangements to pick up, decorations, balloons, singing Elmo and singing balloons. You imagine it - we had it - well no balloon guy or bouncy thing - but we did have a great 1st birthday.

These were the invitations. If you remember, I won them in the Ultimate Blog Party. They were very cool and from Scrapless Press. I am going to get them to make me some Thank you notes as well.



We had 26 guest come to celebrate Lyla's big day. All of our immediate family came. My parents came a couple of days early to help prepare, and without them, especially my Mom, I wouldn't have been able to pull this event off.

My mom thought of this cute idea for favors. It was a small children's sand pail with a pansy in it. The turned out really cute and look great lining the table.


Ryan and my Dad (Papa) went out the night before and got a bunch of balloons for Lyla. Lyla loves 'ba-woons,' and even today we still have 5 floating ba-woons in our kitchen.

My mom and I made 2 meat Lasagnas and 1 Spinach Lasagna. We had a vegetable tray, chips and salsa, Caesar salad, garlic bread and then the main courses of Lasagna.

For dessert, I had decided that I wanted to make my own birthday cake for Lyla's birthdays. I just needed some help. My friend Barb from work had taken some cake classes and she was kind enough to come to my house to help me decorate our 2- 12 inch cakes. I made a small bear cake just for Lyla to look like her favorite Teddy bear - Ted-day.

Lyla did not eat a lot of cake, she more explored the cake. She mostly played with it. It was great fun to watch!







After cake, we opened gifts. Lyla was so spoiled by every one's generosity. She does not need any toys for a long time.

It was great to see everyone and be able to celebrate this special day with our families. It was great seeing Lyla with her small friends and cousins.

Dearest Lyla,

It is so hard to believe a year has flown by.
It feels like yesterday that I was holding you in my arms, and you fit from my elbow to my wrist. I remember the moment I first saw your face. Those blue eyes searching out my face, seeing who had been talking and singing to you for months.

I remember your first smile, your first giggle, your first tooth, your first roll, your first word, your first step as if it all just happened.

The first year is full of so many achievements, and you continue to amaze your Daddy and I.

We are so proud to have you in our lives. And we are eager to continue to see you grow and learn. I promise to continue to smile, laugh and love you for the rest of your life.

Thank you for coming into our world and making it complete. Happy 1st Birthday.

I love you...