Snow Angel

Well - because of the snow that has blanketed the KC area today, I finally decided to let Lydia out in the snow for the first time this year. I bought her a pair of snow boots at a garage sale, and she has been dying to wear them. So, I told her that after her nap, she could FINALLY try them out. I was shocked that she actually slept for 2 1/2 hours after I told her that. This picture is before we ventured out!

 

This is one of Lydia in action in the snow. We made snow angels together. Of course, she wanted me to show her how it was done. Then, she fell down face first into the snow to make hers. Oh well - she came up laughing! :)

 

One other funny Lydiaism - because everyone is in the Christmas spirit, Lydia's favorite part of our decorations so far are the "big socks" that hang on our fireplace. She doesn't even seem to care that they are actually called stockings. She LOVES her big sock. We will see if that continues to rank high after presents start appearing under the Christmas tree. Have a wonderful day!

Sitting Alone

 

Well - as you can tell, Hannah has now mastered the art of sitting up on her own. She just got the hang of rolling over (from both back to tummy and tummy to back) other the past few weeks and is now officially on the move. But I tried to get her to sit up on her own the other day for the first time, and she did great. Yesterday afternoon, she hung out with me for about 10 minutes sitting up all on her own. I can't believe how fast they grow up! As you can tell, she loves her new vantage point. And yes, all you see is her gummy grin - she doesn't have any teeth yet!

Rough Nap

 

As you can tell from this picture, Lydia has had a few rough nap days this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday morning, she fell asleep on the way home from our morning activities. By the time we got home, she woke up in time to eat lunch. But at 1:00 p.m. (her normal naptime), she wasn't at all interested in sleeping. On Tuesday, she literally sat up in her bed and talked until 3:30 p.m. when I went to get her up. On Wednesday, she started talking again. At 2:00 p.m., I went up and insisted that she close her eyes and go to sleep. Finally, at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, she gave up and went to sleep. She slept until 4:30 p.m. (I knew she was tired)! When she woke up, her hair was sopping wet and looked like this! You can tell it had been a rough afternoon for her!

Best Buds

 

Lydia, Hannah, and I had a play date on Monday with Blake (Lydia and Hannah's cousin). Blake's mom, Aunt Brooke, watched Lydia for us for over a year on the days that I worked at E&Y. So, needless to say, that Blake and Lydia are very close! They love to play with each other! At the end of the day on Monday, I was exhausted (I don't know how Brooke did it)! :) But as you can see, Blake and Lydia were very lovable to each other all the way until the end of the day! I am so glad that they are such good friends!

K-State Fans

Well - this is an interesting day for me to post these pictures since K-State just fired our head football coach yesterday afternoon. But - oh well! My girls still are big Wildcat fans regardless! Last Saturday, Lydia and I met my mom in Lawrence to go to the KU vs. K-State football game. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed hanging out together. Lydia really enjoyed the purple and white pom-poms that Grandma Becky brought for her to use and the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie that she ate right after lunch. Lydia actually did better than I expected at the game. We made it until halftime, and we had gotten into the stadium about an hour before the game began so she was definitely a trooper. Honestly, by halftime, I was ready to leave too! I wish we would have seen a more competitive game. But there is always next year! Here is a picture of Lydia chilling out at home once we got home from the game!

 

Hannah and Brian stayed at home on Saturday and watched the game on TV. Here is a picture of Hannah's gummy smile - she loves her exersaucer. I forgot how much I love that toy! I should have more pictures to post this weekend!

 

Happy Belated Halloween

Okay - so I have been terrible about blogging lately. But I thought I would try to catch up on a couple of events over the past couple of weeks. First of all, Lydia had a blast on Halloween. As you can see from the picture, she was a mouse. She really got a kick out of her costume, and she loved going door-to-door to gather candy!

 

You can tell that Hannah wasn't quite as big of a fan of Halloween. She fell asleep in my arms before we had even left the first cul-de-sac so Brian spent the rest of the evening at home with her handing out candy to our neighborhood kiddos.

 

Lydia's friend, Liam, also came over to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. They were quite the pair. They got quite a few comments like "Oh, aren't they cute!" or "I have never seen a mouse and a monkey get along so well together." And I have to agree. They were giving each other hugs and pulling at each other's costumes all night - it was a lot of fun! Here they are at the end of the evening enjoying their "snacks" together!

 

Pumpkin Fun

This past weekend, we embarked on a little journey. We ventured to Louisburg, KS to the Cider Mill and then to Powell Pumpkin Patch. The Cider Mill was somewhat disappointing because they weren't actually making any cider, but we still enjoyed the cider donuts and apple cider! Yummy!

 

Then, we headed off to find the pumpkin patch. Lydia LOVED everything about it - from climbing on the hay bales, to going down the slide, to going through the hay maze. But her favorite part was finding her pumpkins.

 

Here are Lydia and Daddy looking like quite the fashionable pair in their sunglasses before we head off into the field to find our pumpkins.

 

Here are Hannah and Daddy - she looks so big in this picture! We had a great time and ended up with three big pumpkins, two little pumpkins, and five gourds. We will see how long they stay in my front porch in my cute little pumpkin arrangement! :) Have a great week!

Growing

 

Hannah turned six months old last Saturday (October 11th). It is amazing how time passes by! You can see from the picture that my baby isn't too much of a baby anymore! She is definitely growing up and developing her own unique personality. Brian and I have gotten the biggest kick out of watching Lydia and Hannah interact over the last couple of weeks. They really do like to entertain each other - which is great for us!

Hannah had her six-month visit at the pediatrician on Monday. Here are her statistics:

Weight - 17 pounds, 1 ounce - 75th percentile
Length - 26 1/2" - 75th percentile

We also started cereal on Monday - she HATED it on Monday, but she is slowing getting the hang of actually keeping the food in her mouth. We will add peas tonight - I hope that she is as good of an eater as her big sister! We can always hope!

Where We Are

 

I apologize for my delay in posting blogs over the past couple of weeks. We have enjoyed having Brian home with us, but my afternoons have been spent hanging out with him instead of posting my usual blog entries! But he is returning to Embarq on Monday so I thought I would try to get back into the swing of blogging again.

We have made a couple of quick trips to see family over the past couple of weeks as well. We went to Hiawatha on Friday, October 3rd to see my family - Molly, Kevin, and Will were here from Wisconsin so we enjoyed seeing all of them. Lydia also had her first chance to ride on the combine with Uncle Griff - she really enjoyed it! She also had fun on the tractor with Grandpa. At least she knows that the appropriate color of farm equipment is green! :) I had another wedding on Sunday, October 5th. I only have two more weddings before the end of the year so I am finally winding down another busy wedding season.

Last weekend, we made a quick trip to Wichita to see Brian's family as well. He had fun hanging out with Uncle Chris and Aunt Brooke at their garage sale. Lydia also had another sleepover with cousin Parker - they always have so much fun together! And finally, the highlight of the trip came when we got to go to Brian's Uncle Steve and Aunt Linda's house in Kechi to see their horses. Lydia is fairly obsessed with horses right now so she thought that was pretty awesome!

I think we might head to the Louisburg Cider Mill and Pumpkin Patch this weekend so I should have more wonderful pictures next week! Have a great weekend!

Doctor's Appointment

Lydia had her two-year doctor's appointment with Dr. Martin on Tuesday morning. She did wonderfully during the appointment. She actually sat in her own chair and let Dr. Martin listen to her heart and look in her ears, nose, and mouth. I couldn't believe it - she will hardly let me change her diaper without throwing a complete fit! Dr. Martin predicted that Lydia will be completely potty trained by the time she is 2 1/2 as she is definitely showing signs of being ready. Actually, I am afraid that I am the one who is not ready for this process to begin! :) But being out of diapers will be a good thing!

Then, it was on to the shots. We really hadn't explained this whole process to Lydia so when the nurse came in, Lydia immediately asked for the band-aids. We told her that if she laid still on the table for the nurse, she would get the band-aids. Maybe I should have explained that the shots came first. As soon as she felt the first shot, she started saying, "No band-aids." We may never get her to wear a band-aid again! She had to get her second Hepatitis A vaccine and her flu shot so it wasn't too bad!

Her statistics from the appointment are:

Weight - 27 pounds, 5 ounces - Between the 50 - 75% percentiles
Length - 35 1/2 inches - Between the 75 - 90% percentiles

Just for comparison purposes, I looked up my weight and length at my two-year doctor's appointment, and the were:

Weight - 30 pounds
Length - 35 inches

We will have to see how much she changes in the next six months!

Happy Birthday Lydia

 

This is my favorite picture from Lydia's 2nd birthday party! She loved the chair that she got from Grandma and Grandpa Howard. If you read my previous posts, you will notice that the party was definitely a little more subdued than our original plan (since she was still recovering from hand, foot, and mouth virus). But Lydia definitely had fun! Also, I posted a slideshow with all of the pictures from her party for you to enjoy on the right side of our blog! We started the day with kolaches and cinnamon rolls from Barb's Kolache Bakery right down the street - Lydia loved that! Then, all of the grandparents met at the park at 10:00 a.m. for the official party. Lydia had a great time on the swings and slides that she didn't even want to open presents! :) But, once she finally got into the presents, she had a great time seeing all of new "ultra feminine" gifts!

After opening the gifts, Brian tried his fate at flying a couple of kites that we bought! There was hardly a breeze on Saturday morning so it wasn't extremely successful, but we all had fun trying! After kites, we ate the wonderful cake that Aunt Brooke made for Lydia! You can definitely tell from the pictures that Lydia enjoyed this part (no surprise there, she loves food)! After the cake, we all took a balloon and had a balloon release. Honestly, I think the balloon release was Lydia's favorite part of the entire day! That may become a birthday tradition for Lydia. After that, we went home for Lydia to take her afternoon nap! You can tell from one of the pictures in the slideshow that as soon as she got home, she collapsed into her purple polka dot chair (sweaty hair and all). She took a great nap!

After naptime, we packed up and headed to Crown Center for dinner at Crayola Cafe with Grandma and Grandpa Ruppe. Lydia especially loved her special crayon glass and the strawberry ice cream for dessert. We tried to give her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner (her first attempt at peanut butter), but it didn't go over so well! We will definitely try again! But Lydia's favorite part of Crown Center was riding up and down on the escalators - that was a new experience. I think between Brian and I that we made about 6 round trips on the escalators! What a wonderful day!

Wedding Flowers

 

 

 

So, I thought that I would post a few pictures of the flowers from a wedding that I did on September 20th. I have gotten several requests from my loyal blog readers for pictures of these flowers. For this wedding, the bride simply wanted to have green flowers and greenery for the bridesmaids (who were wearing black dresses), and her bouquet consisted of green, yellow, and white flowers. I was a little concerned what everything would look like, but it actually turned out beautifully. Also, I did a large spray arrangement for the altar at the church as well as a large arrangement for the sign in table at the reception site. The reception was at Studio 2131 in downtown KC. It was a wonderful loft in an old building with a state-of-the-art kitchen - really awesome!

Bike Riding Fool

 

Okay - I apologize that it has been so long since I have posted a blog entry! We have had a crazy couple of weeks! This is a photo of Lydia right before she and Brian took off for a bike ride! This was actually taken on the morning of Saturday, September 20th - that same evening, we had a babysitter watching Lydia and Hannah so we could get some errands run for her birthday. Megan (the babysitter) called us to tell us that Lydia had just vomited all over her! Wonderful - huh? Anyway, we rushed home and discovered on the following Monday that Lydia had hand, foot, and mouth virus! And the best news, Hannah got it too (just two days later). So, needless to say, that we cancelled Lydia's big birthday party celebration on Saturday, September 27th and just had the grandparents come. I really didn't feel like infecting any other kiddos with the virus!

Potty Time

Well - I will have to say that generally, I do not take well to being woken up in the middle of the night. But last night was the exception. Lydia was really restless last night - she even woke up three different times between 7:00 - 11:00 p.m. (very unusual for her). But, she woke up again at 4:00 a.m. She was screaming "Mommy" through the monitor so I went in to check on her. She immediately asked me to pick her up and told me she needed to go potty. This has happened before, but I went through the routine. Usually, when we get to the bathroom, she tells me "no". But last night, she let me put her potty seat on the toilet, take off her pajamas, and take off her diaper. Then, I set her on the toilet and sat down on the floor to wait. She usually just tells me that she wants down. But then, to my amazement, she actually went potty! I almost did a little dance right in the bathroom at 4:00 a.m.! Of course, I have been promising her a surprise if she went potty in the toilet, and I couldn't disappoint. So, down to the kitchen we went to get a couple of M&Ms. Then, she needed water. By the time she was back in bed, it was 4:30 a.m. But I was so excited! We will see if she will continue to tell me when she needs to go potty, but we had our first success! Yeah!

Here is a picture of Lydia and Hannah from a couple of nights ago! Lydia is really enjoying "holding" her baby sister - she loves to play Mommy! Have a great weekend!

 

First Allergic Reaction

 

Today has been an interesting day! First of all, we have a new cousin in our family. Chase Howell Rieke was born at 9:31 a.m. this morning. He is the newest addition to Brian's sister's (Brooke) family. They already have one little boy - Blake - who is 6 weeks younger than Lydia. Lydia can't wait to go and meet her new cousin!

Also, I have a funny Lydia story to share from earlier today. Lydia has a little play kitchen that she loves to play with. She knows that the oven in the real kitchen is hot and that she isn't supposed to touch it (even though she loves to try to when Mom isn't looking). But her play oven has turned into a bedroom for her bears. Earlier this morning, she put Hamley in the oven and told him "Night-night Hamley." About half an hour later, Lydia was looking for Hamley, and I told her to look in his "bed." She went straight to the oven and opened it up. I asked her if Hamley was still night-night to which she matter-of-factly replied, "No Mommy, Hamley (is) hot." Of course, I should have known!

Then, at lunch today, I gave Lydia a little bit of ranch dressing to dip her ravioli in. She loves anything that she can dip her food into. She also had ranch dressing on Friday evening, and she got some red blotches around her mouth when she ate it on Friday. But I assumed that it was just a minor skin irritation. But guess what - she had the same reaction today when she ate the ranch dressing. I called the doctor's office, and the nurse told me that she was probably allergic to some preservative in the ranch dressing. At least she only had a skin irritation and no wheezing or other breathing reaction. Let's hope that this isn't a new trend - but we will be avoiding ranch dressing from now on! :)

Hello World

 

Hannah turned five months old last Thursday. How time flies! I took her to the Mommy & Me store at Shawnee Mission Medical Center to get her "official" weight. She is 15 pounds 14 ounces - she gained an entire pound from her 4-month appointment! She definitely likes to eat - I jokingly call her my "chunky monkey." She is getting closer to rolling over. She will now roll to either side but not all the way over - I am not convinced that she will roll over. She is such a laid back baby that she is just content being exactly where she is placed. Oh well - no rolling means it will be easier for me to keep her contained (at least until she starts to crawl)!

I Like Poop

Okay - so I apologize for the title, but that has been my life lately. Let's just say that Hannah used to be like clockwork. She pooped once every four days for the first four months of her life - it wasn't pretty when she did but that was her routine. However, over the past two weeks, she poops almost every time I change her diaper. I can't figure it out. But today, when we got home from Kindermusik, I was changing Hannah's diaper - expecting the expected poop. However, it was just a wet diaper. I must have smiled really big at her and said "Amazing!" and Hannah just started giggling. It was so cute. I kept saying the word "amazing" and of course, Lydia began to chime in, and Hannah just kept laughing. It was a good way to start the afternoon!

 

I Love Bob

Today, Lydia and I went to her Kindermusik class. She has definitely started looking forward to the class each week. She has a favorite song that she can't wait to sing each week. But the best part of the class for her is at the end - if she was good in class, she gets a stamp on her hand. They have a different stamp each week. Today, the stamp was a happy face. Lydia was so good today that the teacher gave her a stamp on both hands - she was so excited. But the funniest part of the whole class was as we were leaving, Lydia looked at me and said "Mommy - two Bobs!" At first, I was confused. But then I realized that she thought that the round circle with the face inside looked like Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales. Lydia has not watched any Veggie Tales videos, but she loves a Veggie Tale book that we have called "God Made You Special." Anyway, she thought that the teacher had given her two "Bob" stamps! I am pretty sure that will be the highlight of Lydia's day! Here is a picture before we left for Kindermusik!

 

First Day

Today was a big day in the Howell household. Lydia had her first day of "school." This year, Lydia is enrolled in a Children's Day Out program on Thursdays at Lenexa United Methodist Church. I guess I was expecting her to be somewhat upset leaving Mommy but no such luck. She walked right into the classroom without even telling me goodbye. I guess I should be relieved that no tears were shed! :) Here are two pictures that we took before we left this morning. Enjoy!

 

 

Powerful Video

So I decided that I had to share this link to a You Tube video that a gal from our small group sent to me yesterday. It is a really powerful dramatization by Nicole Johnson. She is the dramatist for the Women of Faith conferences that are held throughout the country. It definitely helped put into perspective the "invisibility" tha I sometimes feel - I am building a great cathedral for Him to take up residence in. May Lydia and Hannah be a living monument to Him and Him alone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YU0aNAHXP0

Swingset Debut

I thought that you might enjoy a few more pictures of Lydia from last night on the swingset. She absolutely loves it - you can tell by all of her smiles. You might also see Hamley joining her in several of the pictures - she is quite attached to him.

 

 

 

 

I also have a funny Lydia story to share from last night. Lydia started a Kindermusik class two weeks ago, and it has taken her a couple of weeks to really warm up to the class. But there is a little song that we sing that goes:
The carpenter's hammer goes rap, rap, rap
And his saw goes see, saw, see
He hammers and hammers and saws and saws
And builds a house for me.
She loves to make the actions for the hammer and the saw, and we were having fun singing together last night. However, at the end of the song, where it says "And builds a house for me", I pointed to myself. However, Lydia took one look at me and very seriously said, "No Mommy, I'm me!" Such is our life right now! :)