The Lollipop that said BOO

About 9 months ago, lily had a bad dream. Apparently it was a really bad dream because almost a year later, she still talks about it, recites it back to us on a regular basis and she asks us EVERY SINGLE night, "the lollipop won't say boo tonight right?"

We're going on 9-10 months people!!

Here's the story retold on video awhile back for the 1,947th time!

Note: she's been out of her crib forever...that's how far back this dream goes. Luckily she doesn't have a fear of lollipops

here

life is good

Sweating to the pages

Phew, after almost 2 years of hard work, blood, sweat and no tears, I'm ready to order the kids scrapbook. Since the kids take so many pictures together, I have their memory books combined, with individual pages for each child throughout and many combined pages of the 2 of them. This was the only way I could wrap my wee little brain around keeping up with 2 kids and remembering every part of their precious & fleeting childhood. Instead of writing down the dates of every milestone like I used to, I started to write letters to each child every month to personalize it to Lily and Grady a bit more about funny things they've said or done, milestones they've reached, and any big events that happened to them that month. I also changed it up a bit by doing books every calendar year instead of year to year based on their birthday month which I was doing prior to Grady being born. That helped me conceptualize it a bit more too since we have a bday in April and the other in October.

Was it a lot of work? Hell to the yea! But it was fun and never felt laborious. Where did I find the time? I'd do just 1 spread every month or so, but I found myself able to keep up with it if I knew I didn't have a ton to do at each sitting. If I was behind (i.e. middle of moving, david gone, holidays, etc), i'd just do a spread or 2 at the most. MUCH easier to keep up with if I was just nibbling away at it versus feeling like I had to do it all at once. I use a myriad of programs together in a mishmash with most of them listed on bottom right panel of the blog.

Well, I just ordered it and can't wait to get my hands on it and peruse it; hiding it from grady for now who'll probably wanna munch on it and slowly showing lily every page reinforcing the mantra I want them to hear in their head everyday....you are special. you are loved. you are important.

Click here to view:

Lily, 3 Grady, 1

or here:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

hugs

I think after 15 months, Lily has finally realized Grady is not going anywhere and she doesn't need to be threatened by him anymore...I think she actually likes him these days. The first 6 months, she pretty much ignored him and wasn't crazy about sharing the spotlight, then she got used to that, but got wildly annoyed with his every move when he started crawling, then they would parallel play, but now they are starting to play together on a regular basis and Grady is like her walking comedy routine that cracks her up. Seeing their love blossom everyday makes my heart feel like exploding. They play chase, they wrestle, play hide and go seek with David as his personal assistant, and she insists on helping put him to bed every nap and at night. Nothing better than overhearing "come on Grady, let's go to the playroom" and they scamper off together. Be still my heart.

It's videos like this one I know we'll look back on in 20 years and ache to have these sweet babies back.



can't see it, click here

Life is good.

strollin and rollin

we're trying to get Grady to go down the slide by himself. mainly because it'll be super fun for him, but mostly because we can barely fit down the slide ourselves.
he's like road runner on a playground. falls more than he walks on the uneven ground and dirtier than pig pen when he's finished.

he turns himself into an upside down V at all times during the day.

there's a neighborhood park around the corner from our house and walking there is more fun (and easier) than the actual park. (ala chasing grady) Grady spends half the walk peering back watching his sister zip in her barbie car.

my view trying to catch up to my family.

thanks Aunt Jen for my cute shirt.

on the go...

swiping the playdoh which he doesn't quite realize yet it's for sculpting and not eating.

blowing bubbles in her sunday best (minus the socks)

there's something very wholesome feeling about sidewalk chalk and kids. even if Grady likes to eat it .

a plus about moving is finding stuff you never knew you had or had forgotten about. well, this shirt I wore during my 5th grade graduation from elementary school and I kept it because it had all of the graduate's names on it including mine. Well fast forward 26 years and now Lily Grace is wearing it and it's one of her favorite shirts . mine too.

holy full circle moment seeing her bee-bop around in it and she loves it for her jammies too.



i told her to stand next to the tricycle to take a picture and she added the leg up pose. hilarious.

see ya class of 1985, I'm the class of 2026. (omg, I just did the math to figure out her high school graduation year-woah nelly says kelly)



life is good.