Flyin' High

Our vaulted ceiling allows lots of space for Justin to throw Lily high into the air.  She was getting such a kick out of seeing how high he could throw her the other night.

Family Fun

We designated last Saturday as "family day" on the calendar.  We had been out of town, Justin and I having separate commitments on different weekends at times and so forth for about the past month and a half so we cleared the day for just us!  We spent the morning going to the zoo, having a picnic and taking a walk at Gray's Lake.  We finished the day by going to the new Cherry Berry in town (yum!) and watching the Olympics.  It was a great day and beautiful temps in the 70's to top it off!

First Sweet Corn of the Season

 HAHA!  Bad timing on catching the cute shot of her eating!

Cha-Ching

One of Lily's favorite books right now is "Just A Piggy Bank" by Mercer Mayer.  So a couple days ago when she was playing with a nickel that was on the counter, I asked her if she'd like to do a chore like Little Critter in the book so she could earn money to put in her piggy bank.  I must say, I've never seen her so eager about doing laundry. :) She was so excited!  I've been meaning to have her put money in there for so long now, I've even had money sitting on her dresser for over a year now that she either won as a prize or received from grandparents so I could properly document her putting it in her bank for the first time.  Finally!

 The nickel she earned 

Putting in the money she received from Grandma Karen last year for Valentine's Day

Radcliffe Days

Two small town summer celebrations on back-to-back weekends leaves me feeling happy.  While Justin was out of town last weekend participating in a fishing tournament, Lily and I took a road trip to Radcliffe, Iowa and had a great time with our friends, the Wykles.  It rained a little bit so that gave us a break from the 100+ degree temps we'd been experiencing.  It was a great day to be outside!

 Love my little messy girl.  And she loves ice cream..clearly.

 Cloggers!  How cute are they?!

 Lily and Mya

 She spent about 2.5 minutes in the bounce house and then came out with her pouty face, saying "I scared".  She's really going through a phase of being timid about a lot of things.

Lily and April

Potty Time!

*WARNING: The following post will contains words such as *pee* and *poop* so if that bothers you, please do not proceed ahead.

What I thought was just going to be another typical routine of sitting on the potty and trying to go - which had never brought about any results up to this point - turned into a celebration!  Last Friday morning when Lily woke up, she told me she had to go pee so I asked her if she wanted to go sit on her little potty and try to go.  Like any other time I thought she'd stand up and there would be nothing since the little song didn't play but when I looked, there were the 2 teeny tiniest drops of pee in there!  I didn't care though, I made the biggest hoopla out of it and did a dance, getting Lily all excited of course.  So I decided we'd go the next couple of hours without a diaper on and bring the little potty downstairs to the living room.
Fast forward about another hour -- I was on the phone talking to Justin and Lily said she needed to go poop so I told her to sit on her potty and go.  I know it's sad to say but she really has been the "boy who cried wolf" on this one so many times that I didn't believe her.  As I'm talking to Justin I hear her say, "Lily done now!", she ran over to me and sure enough, the evidence was on her buns!  Justin was able to hear me squealing and hollering over the phone as I surveyed her little potty. :)  Of course I took pictures of the whole thing, but I've selected only the more appropriate ones for this post!  Lily was so thrilled to be able to have a bowl of ice cream in the morning as we celebrated her achievement!

 After going pee on the potty!  

Maybe her puppies gave her the confidence she needed?

She loves flushing!  

This is her flushing right after she had emptied her little potty.

Whew!  The beginning of making 1 of 2 big transitions before her brother or sister arrives.  I'm glad I waited until she showed interest, I think the process will be more relaxed for both of us. 
Next up: transitioning to a big girl bed.  That one, I'm definitely dragging my heels on!

21 Weeks

Pretty in Her Summer Dress

Seymour Old Settler's

Last weekend we traveled down to our hometown for the annual summer celebration.  It was mighty hot but we had a great time!

 Participating in the kids games...though not particularly excited!  This was a race for the 0-3 year olds where they were to hold hands and run to the other end - I was even waiting for her so she could see me.  Notice how Lily is crying and Kaydee is laughing.  Our poor girl is so shy it's apparently painful for her at times.

 She did get a ticket for a free ice cream cup when she was done though.  It seemed to make it all better!

 With three of her cousins

 Watching the parade

 Lily was absolutely petrified of the firetrucks, saying they were "too yowd".  You might recall that phrase from my post about fireworks on 4th of July.  Finally Lily told Justin through tears that she wanted to "back up" so they went back to our chairs. :)

 My grandma, aunt and cousin in the parade representing the newspaper

 Justin's sister Abby

Lily holding the prize she won from the Cutie Contest. 
She was awarded "Best Eyes".

I failed to get pictures of Justin in the Whiffle Ball Tournament but his team won! We missed most of it too since Lily took a 3 hour nap, the heat really took it outta the girl!

Baby Update

This morning we had our 20 week ultrasound. The technician said that our baby is very photogenic and was textbook in terms of crisp, clear images.  She reiterated that we have quite the squirmy little one, which we knew from past appointments.  On our first 2 regular visits, we ended up having ultrasounds because the midwives couldn't pick up a heartbeat on the Doppler.  Once they pulled up the image on the screen, though, we could see clearly that the reason was due to the constant moving around of our sweet babe.  He/she would not stay in one spot long enough to enable us to hear the heart tones!  So even though Lily set the bar pretty high as far as being a mover & a shaker from Day 1, I'm thinking her sibling might be up for the challenge!
All of Baby J's little body parts looked great and we were even able to see parts of the brain, which was fascinating and amazing!  God is so awesome in how He designs our bodies.  The tech made sure to quickly move away anytime she got close to the all-important area that would reveal our baby's gender, when it happened to be in a prime position for viewing. :)  We had given her the heads up that we want it to be a surprise, just like Lily was.  She said she tried not to look herself so she wouldn't be tempted to slip up!  We are excited for the day when Justin will get the honor of announcing to the delivery room whether we're welcoming a baby boy or baby girl!  We are so blessed.

4th of July

On the 4th, Lily was just getting over her sickness and I had just begun mine so we were all able to at least function well enough to enjoy some Independence Day celebrations.  We headed to Ames for a parade in the morning and then watched fireworks at Raccoon River Park that night.  Lily said the fireworks were "too yowd" and clutched Justin most of the time.  As we were leaving a mom sitting nearby said "it gets better!  my daughter used to be the same way at her age."  Maybe in a few years she'll enjoy them more!

 

One LONG Week

Last week was one of those weeks that you gain a whole new appreciation for the simple things often taken for granted.  For us, it was our health and our air conditioning.  So.thankful.they're.back.  Lily came down with the stomach flu on Friday the 29th and continued to feel yucky until the following Tuesday.  Then I got to experience all of the fun starting on Tuesday and running through Saturday.  Our air conditioner went on the fritz on Thursday in the midst of my sickness - on the hottest day of the week, no less.  We were able to stay at a couple different friends' houses until Saturday night, which was such a blessing!  Justin had to go back to the house a couple of times while the AC man was there and reported that our thermostat read over 100 degrees.  Insane.  By the time Sunday (yesterday) rolled around, everyone was back to feeling great and the temperature of our home finally got back down to 76 degrees.  And I was just plain grateful that I hadn't lost my ever-living mind. :)

Poor Lily.  This was what she looked like most of the day last Saturday.  She couldn't even keep water down at this point so we went through lots of towels and many changes of clothes.  Finally I realized how silly it was to even have clothes on her and down to the diaper we went!