A Day In The Life

     Lydia and I have a pretty good routine going.  I get her up in the morning around 8 and we eat breakfast.  Then it's play time, then nap time, then lunch time, then play time, then nap time, then dinner time.  And occasionally there are some errands mixed in there.  It gets a little monotonous sometimes.  But we are about to have some change in our future.  Hopefully this time next week we will be in East Texas.  We are hoping to leave Wednesday night and be in town through Monday night.  I can't believe Lydia will be 1 next Friday!!  Also, we have 36 days till we move out of here.  I know it's going to be stressful with all the stuff we still have to do.  We want to have a garage sale the weekend after we get back from Texas.  And we still need to pack a lot of stuff.  But I know we'll get it all done.  

Lydia has become a pro at crawling in and out of her pack and play.  At first she would try to crawl out and fall face first into the carpet, so we had to put a pillow at the opening.  But not anymore

She has started doing this new thing where she opens her mouth and looks surprised.  Sometimes she opens her mouth big and sometimes she barely opens it.  I guess it just depends on her mood.

I'm still not sure on the color of her eyes.  In this picture they kinda look greenish.  But they don't always look like that.

Yesterday I drove her around the house in her toy box.  She enjoyed it.

Trying really hard to reach her walrus toy.

I thought this picture was cute because her thigh rolls are side by side.  It's almost like they're smiling.  She stands really good and every once in a while she stands by herself for a few seconds without hanging onto anything.  But I still think it's going to be a while before she's walking.

     On a completely different note, I locked my husband out of the house last night.  It was an accident, I promise.  Kevin started his ER rotation on Monday and has been working from around noon to midnight.  It's a habit of mine to lock the door in our kitchen that leads out to the garage.  So I accidentally did that last night and went to bed.  Then I woke up to a tapping noise, I didn't know what it was, and I saw a really bright light outside through our bedroom blinds.  It was 12:45am and I knew Kevin should either be home already or any minute.  So I got up and peeked in the living room to see if he was home.  I went back to bed and saw my phone lit up, I had just missed his call.  Then I noticed that he had called 4 times and left a voicemail and text me.  And it hit me, "Crap, I locked the door."  He had be home for about 15 minutes and was trying to wake me up.  I guess I was sleeping hard.  I felt horrible and still do.

Eye Opening

     Yesterday we went to Joplin to visit one of Kevin's classmates who has a 3 month old.  For those of you who don't remember, Joplin is the town where the F5 tornado hit last month.  Killing around 150 people.  It's only about an hour from Springfield.  You see all the images on TV, but it's really not the same as seeing it in person.  It's very strange to see one side of the street completely destroyed and then look at the other side of the street and see complete houses that have barely been touched.  So much of the town consists of heaps of metal and other debris.  All the trees are naked.  They just look like posts sticking up out of the ground with a few leafless branches.  Telephone poles are broken in half and cars are mutilated.  There is still some debris stuck in the trees. However, it was neat to see all the American flags that were flying. 

This is one of the two main hospitals in town that got completely destroyed.

A closer look at the hospital.

This is what the locals call tent hospital.

There's just nothing left.  It's very humbling.

This is the local high school.  Completely destroyed, along with so many other schools.

Also the high school.

   

Another First

     Lydia had another first today.  She climbed up on the couch!  Kevin was sitting and leaning on the couch and she was trying desperately to get to his cell phone.  So she got right beside him and put her foot up on his arm and climbed up the rest of the way all by herself.  She is getting to be such a big girl.  Also, every time I get off the phone and say "bye bye" she says "ba ba".  She's been doing this for a while, I just keep forgetting to write about it.
 

 Here she is looking at Daddy's guitar book.  She's going to be such a good guitar player.  She loves to crawl to this spot in the kitchen and pull books off the shelf and look at them.

 Now she's trying to get to Daddy's guitar.  She knows it's in there somewhere.  It can't hide forever.

 Last night we went to Branson and walked around for a little while, ate some dinner and then got some yummy yogurt at Orange Leaf.  I think Lydia ending up eating more yogurt than me.

My only goal last night was to get a family picture since we really don't have many at all.  Needless to say we didn't get one.  This one will have to do.

The Many Faces of Lydia, aka: Baby Girl and BG

 Today Lydia discovered how fun a clothes hamper can be.

No More Bottles...

or formula for that matter.  Lydia had her last bottle of formula this morning.  Now we are all milk and sippy cups.  Yea!!!  That will save us about $30 a week and a lot of time standing in front of the sink washing bottles.  I have been dreaming of this day for a very long time.  I really can't believe it's already here.  Just another reminder that my little baby girl is almost 1 year old. 
     I can't wait till her birthday party.  I think it's going to be so much fun to see all those babies in the pool just splashing around.  I think another reason I'm looking forward to it is because that means we will be in Texas.  Speaking of being in Texas, we now have 46 days till we move.  :)  Although we won't be moving to Texas in 46 days we will still be getting that much closer. 
     Kevin got some good news the other day!  His clinical coordinator said he could do his Arkansas rotation in Tyler.  He was supposed to go to Arkansas towards the end of September after we were done in Oklahoma, but now he gets to move to Tyler with us!  So the whole Skinner gang will be back in Tyler around the 20th of September. 
     Yesterday was Kevin's first Father's Day!  So to celebrate, Lydia and I made him some french toast.

 She was Mommy's little helper.  And yes I am wearing some old athletic shorts from the 7th grade that I turned into pajama shorts.  Don't judge.

Best Friends!!!

     Kevin was sitting in the driveway working on his research paper and I had a question to ask him.  So I stepped outside just in time to see the UPS man walking up our driveway with a HUGE box.  We were both really confused and I think the UPS man could tell, so he verified our name and said "from Texas".  He sat the box down and I saw that it was from the DuToits.  It had a couple of really sweet letters on the outside and then we opened it up and it was amazing.  We have the bestest best friends EVER!!!  God is good.  It's amazing how things happen at just the right time.  Kevin and I are up here pinching pennies and trying to stay positive.  Then this is what we get in the mail...

and there are even a few things missing out of this picture.

    Look at all this food for baby girl!!  The picture doesn't do it justice, the food is about 4 rows back too.

     Like I said, God is good.  And we appreciate our friends so much.  More than words can say.  It is so nice to have Christian friends.  I'm so glad Lydia will have all her little friends to grow up with.  

 Lydia was excited about all her food too!  I know it may look like Kevin is starting to go bald in this pic but I promise he's not.  He just shaved his head today and this pic was taken just at the right angle to capture his scalp.

Cutie

53 Days

     Well we have 53 days till we move out of this house and onto Oklahoma.  Not that we're counting or anything.  Today Kevin and I took apart our guest bed and made a keep and sell pile.  It was pretty productive.  The in-laws have purchased their plane tickets to help us with the move and I have us down on the list for an apartment in Tyler.  Now all we need is a storage room and some more money.
     Yesterday we took Lydia to the pool again.  I just walked her straight into the water to float around and she didn't even think twice.  She is definitely used to the water now.  One thing I learned yesterday is that swim diapers do not absorb pee pee.  I walked around the track pushing Lydia in her stroller before we got in the pool. So instead of having to go through the trouble of changing her diaper and putting her in her swimsuit at the gym, I just went ahead and did it at the house before we left.  Then when I reached to get her out of the stroller to plop her in the pool she was already soaked.  It was then that I learned swim diapers are apparently just for retention of poo poo.  

 Playing in one of the many fountains.

This is what happens about 60% of the time when I take a picture of Lydia.  Our camera has a really bright red light that shines right in the subjects face when you take a picture.  So she's blinded before I even press the button.