As I was writing the first blog Lillian was playing on the counter next to me. She's figuring out how to get these crayons to work

She stood up and opened the cabinet and I flashed forward about 4 years to when she climbs up and gets a cup to get a drink all by herself. I'm not quie sure I'm ready for that...

Okay Okay....

I know, it's been a while. I'm not very good at keeping up with this (I think I went over this in my last post) and I really don't have much of an excuse. Maybe I'll do better... we'll see how that goes.

Lilly is now 16 months. She has been walking for about four months now. She gets faster and faster every day and has perfected the art of running away, especially when she sees you have a diaper in your hand. She has recently discovered "talking on the phone" (her version is without the talking, just holding the phone to her ear.) She loves books, well, likes to carry them around and get one of us to read, she's bored after about page three most of the time. She also likes to carry around anything the resembles paper and a pen and "take notes." I have tried giving her markers and crayons, it usually doesn't work too well, she is more interested in putting them all back in the box than anything.
I love seeing more and more of her personality come out. I am amazed at how much she knows and how quickly she picks up on things. I gave her her coat the other day and told her to put it away. I was assuming that she'd throw it on the floor and go off to do something else. I was wrong, no more than 2 minutes later she came back to me with her coat and a hanger, I certainly didn't teach her that.
She tends to be a very busy little girl. Busy in a good way, not a holy terror way. :-) Quite often you'll find her sitting on the floor organizing something. Or better yet in the "box" she discovered this a few weeks ago and it remains her favorite spot. She throws all the animals out, climbs in and then stuffs the animals in underneath and on top of herself. Pretty common to find her there or in the laundry basket.
Towards the end of April, she will be a big sister. I can't believe that it's 5 months now. Part of me wishes that she understood a little bit that there is going to be a baby, but I think it will upset her world less this way.

I think next on her list of accomplishments will be talking...

It's been a while

I haven't posted in several weeks. I don't feel like I have much to write about so most of this will be photos. It was nice and not windy today so we went outside for bit.

It's nice to have a "big brother" two days a week. Caswell is doing very well with Lilly, often helping her walk and...

teaching her how to examine bugs. They were also throwing "javelins," aka sunflower stalks. 

Teeny tiny girl in a BIG world. 

Lilly is walking now, all over the place. She does very well most of the time, goes up and down the driveway slope pretty well too. She's starting to come get me and lead me to random places in the house as well. 

Oh and she has eight teeth now. 

Still obsessed with picking up rocks, I have to watch her closely as she likes to eat them as much as she likes to carry them around.

My happy Lilly, 14 months. 

I'll help you Daddy

Mike took apart the vacuum the other day, Lilly helped.

Sleep

Lilly was a great sleeper when she was tiny. Starting at three weeks old she slept through the night and by that I mean from 7pm to 8am with out fail. This continued through our drive to Alaska, so about 6 months. Once we got here though everything fell apart, she was up multiple times a night for no apparent reason. We tried everything and I never could get her to sleep all the way through the night. Lately it had been up 6-8 times and would usually end up with me sitting with her on the couch while she slept. 

She came down with a pretty nasty cold last week, one that left her so stuffy she couldn't eat with out getting out of breath. So after 3-4 days of this I gave her cold medicine so she could sleep. And sleep she did, all night usually until 9-10 am. I haven't felt so good in months. 

Last night however I did not give her any medicine and Mike put her to bed, well it is 7:30 am and she is still sleeping and she has been asleep since Mike put her to bed. Go DAD! 

I'm not counting on this to continue forever (wouldn't want to jinx myself) but for now we are enjoying it thoroughly. The only downfall to this is that when she does not get up until 10am she does not take a nap. Hopefully we will get into a routine of 8am wake up and one nap and then sleeping all night. 

It's all good until she gets another tooth and well then we start all over :-)