Lydia's First Haircut!

     Lydia and I had a busy morning today.  We left the house around 9 and jetted off to dance class.  For the first time in dance class there was a bounce house!  All the girls loved it.  It made it so much cuter with all of them being in their leotards and tutus.  After dance we met a friend at the park, which was right next door to a place where you could early vote.   So the mommies took turns watching the kiddos while the other went and cast their vote.  I'm so glad I already got that over with and don't have to stand in a long line come election day.  Then we all went and had lunch at McDonald's!  I haven't eaten there in forever.  Then it was off to Lydia's first hair appointment.  She needed a trim pretty badly.  I had no idea how she was going to react, but she did great!  Last but not least, we went to our good friend Noah's house to show off our pretty hair.

 Here she is before her haircut.  Little kids are so much cuter in the hair guards/cape (i have no idea what those things are called).  She was completely covered up except for her little head poking out the top.

Action shot.  She didn't quite know what was going on back there. 

Here she is after.  It took a total of 10 minutes.  I tried to get her to smile but she wasn't cooperating.  

A Fun Day

     Yesterday was my dad's birthday, so our little family traveled out to Hallsville and enjoyed the outdoors.  My sister drove in from Houston with her little 4 month old.  We swung, threw balls in the pool over and over again, enjoyed relaxing in the shade and Lydia fished with Daddy.  Her little rod and reel didn't have any string on it so she just practiced reeling it.  Mainly she would put the tip of the rod in the water and see what yucky stuff she could pull out (see picture 3).

 So cute!

     That evening we all went out and ate sushi, and a lot of it!  Here's Lydia with Grandpa and Bibi.  Lydia enjoyed eating her edamame, goldfish and white rice.  I had a bit of a wake up call last night when my sister was having trouble getting London to take a nap at the restaurant.  I could tell she was getting very frustrated, and here I am not having to do anything for Lydia since she's pretty independent.  Then I realized it will only be about 5 more months till that's me.  Hopefully it will be different the second go around, more "go with the flow".  We'll see.  :)  

Not to good at this blog thing anymore

     It's been almost 2 months since my last post.  Not too much has happened since then.  We went to Florida for a week, Kevin went to Seattle with his brother and I had my 10 year high school reunion this past weekend.  Can't believe it's been 10 years already.  Everybody looked exactly the same.  I am now 15 weeks pregnant and am in the 2nd trimester.  I had a little nausea with this pregnancy, which I didn't experience with Lydia.  Never threw up though.  The experienced eye would be able to tell I was pregnant, but everybody else probably just thinks I'm a little chubby in the mid-section.  Definitely started showing a lot earlier this go around than the first pregnancy.  Anyway, here are a few pics of what has been going on...

 Here's Lydia helping Daddy wash the car, so cute.  This was a fun day.  Lydia discovered the water hose during all this and soaked Daddy and almost had me soaked.  She enjoyed spraying us way too much.

 THE BEACH!!  She loved it.

Isn't she adorable?! 

 This was at the Clearwater Aquarium where they have the real dolphin from the movie Dolphin Tale (that movie about the dolphin with a prosthetic tail).

 Hanging out on the boardwalk.

 Okay, I know I'm a little biased...but she is so cute!

 She loved swimming in the ocean all by herself.  She didn't want any help.

The sunset on our last night there. 

Posing with Nana's scarecrows. 

     A few little things about Lydia...her favorite phrase is "I do it".  She is little Miss. Independent.  She loves to dance.   Talks about her friends all the time.  Climbs up in her eating chair and buckles herself in.  Is ridiculously good at the iphone, sad but true.  Can load a DVD in the DVD player.  Last but not least, she is getting much better at sharing, thank goodness.

I've Been Lazy

       I've had many opportunities to blog, I've just been too lazy to do it.  Since my last blog post we have taken a little family vacation to San Antonio, taken the front of Lydia's crib off, Kevin started his new job, planned another vacation to Florida next week and last but not least we found out we are having another baby!  :)  We're pretty excited about that last one, and the Florida trip.

 Here's Lydia and I on the river walk.

 The Alamo

 Our first family picture in a while.

If you look closely there is a crazy toddler in the little doorway. 

We got to feed and pet the dolphins.  That was pretty cool.  Lydia's arms were too short to reach them though. 

Cute pic of father and daughter. 

   
    I mentioned that we took the front of Lydia's crib off so she could sleep like a big girl.  Well we put it back on yesterday.  It lasted about a month.  And it's been a month worth of horrible sleep for all parties involved.  She did really good for the first three days and it was all down hill from there.  It just wasn't getting through her head that she was supposed to stay in bed.  So for our own sanity, she is sleeping in a crib again.
    Friday we leave out for Houston when Kevin gets off work.  Then Saturday morning we fly out to Florida for a whole week.  It will be Lydia's first time to the beach, so I'm looking forward to her reaction to the waves.  She has gotten really fond of the water in the past couple weeks so that should make this trip more enjoyable. I'm hoping to get some good family pics while at the beach, we'll see.

Birthday Party!!

     Saturday we had Lydia and her friend Madi's birthday party at our house.  For some reason I was really worried that everybody was going to forget about it and nobody was going to show up.  Of course, I was wrong.  We had a great turn out and had a great time.  We had a bounce house, bubble machine, snow cone machine and a little splash pool.  Party of the century!  The kids had a blast and I enjoyed watching them jump in the bounce house.  I'm glad it's over though.  Next year we will have her party at a water park so I don't have to do anything.  :)

Cousins 

Running around and around 

Her birthday morning.  She woke up in a good mood, besides still having a little ear infection.  Last night was the first night in about a week that I didn't have to get up about 5 times a night to sooth her. 

Lydia has a new cousin...and I no longer have a baby, but a little girl.

    Last Friday, the 8th, my sister gave birth to her first child.  I'm so glad I got to be there.  London is the prettiest newborn I have ever seen.  Lydia loved to look at her, poke her, find her nose, ears, eyes and head.  London was her very own live baby doll.  Lydia's dream come true!  Mother and baby are doing just fine and I can't wait to see little London again.  They live in Houston so I can't just pop over and visit when I want.  Lydia and London are exactly 23 months apart.  I can see them having some good times in the future.

     Everyday Lydia turns more and more into a little girl.  She will be two in less than three weeks!  Just this week she went from only being able to say "A, B, C, D" to almost the entire alphabet.  Today I tried to sing along with her and she said "mommy no no".  I got the hint and stopped singing.  She has also learned to catch this week.  Kevin and I taught her how to catch and she LOVES it.  She will catch her ball about 90% of the time.  Must take after Mommy.  :)  She enjoys sitting on her potty, even though she doesn't always go in it.  She wears pull ups now instead of regular diapers.  She can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  And pretty much speaks in sentences now.  What happened to my baby!!!???

House Update

    We have been pretty busy the past couple weeks.  We haven't watched ANY tv since we moved in, except for a tiny bit of Netflix on our computer.  We didn't watch that much before we moved, so it's not a big deal to us.  I did hook up our tv and DVD player so Lydia could watch her beloved Elmo.
    Last night Kevin and I went on a date to Jakes restaurant, it was really good.  We were going to come home and get Lydia to bed and then watch a movie, but instead of watching a movie we unpacked boxes for two hours.  Maybe we'll have a real date night in a couple months.  I did manage to get the kitchen drawers and cabinets somewhat organized though.
    As I promised, here are some before and "progress" pictures.  I say progress because we are nowhere close to being done, but it's coming along nicely.

Here is our dining room before we did anything to it.

We tore out the carpet and painted the walls.  I really like the light fixture that's in this room.  It definitely says "Azalea District" to me.

It's kinda hard to see the floors that well in this picture, but we installed distressed hardwood floors and are in the process of putting down thicker baseboards.

Here is the living room before we did anything to it.  This view is looking from the front door into the room.

We tore up the carpet in here as well, and painted.  This view is looking from the doorway that you can see in the "before" pic and looking at the front door.

You can definitely see the floors better in this picture.   We have A LOT of furniture to buy still, but for now we are just using our old stuff.  I LOVE the plantation shutters.  They are in the living room and dining room.

Looking from the front door.

Here is the kitchen before.   

Before- very white!  This house needed some splashes of color so badly.

We took up all the black and white tiles and are going to redo the island and bring it back in.

Different view.  Took out all the old appliances.

We painted and put in the same hardwood floors in the kitchen.  We still have baseboards and crown molding to do in here.  We are also getting new countertops in a couple weeks and are going to get a new back door.  We left the carpet in the three bedrooms, but tore it up everywhere else.

Different view: we got all new appliances, the cabinets have a fresh coat of paint and we still have to put knobs on the cabinet doors.  There is also more countertop space to the left of this pic that I forgot to take a picture of.  

We watched our friend Wyatt for a couple days this week while his Mommy tried to get over a sickness.  Lydia and Wyatt had a blast!  They played, ran around the block a couple times, watched Elmo together and played tag.

Eating lunch is always more fun when you have a buddy to wipe your hand off on!!