YEY for internet!!!!

     We finally got internet yesterday!!  So now I can get back to updating my blog a few times a week.  It really stinks not having internet.  But those stinky days are over.
     We have been doing good since my last update.  Kevin is done in Oklahoma and in Springfield.  He will have to go back to Springfield one more time before he graduates, but it's only for a couple of days.  It's so nice to be back in Tyler.  Even though I didn't grow up here, it feels like home now.  It's nice to have our family and friends so close and to actually be able to hang out with them.  Tonight I'm going to Starbucks to meet up with a few other girls from the church and then Saturday I'm going to a baby shower.  It's just fun to be involved in these things again!  I definitely took it for granted when we lived here before. 

 Lydia likes her new room and all the space she has to play!

 I found Lydia some skinny jeans at the CCC sale a few weeks ago.  So cute!!

 Lydia LOVES Mimi and Pawpaw's trampoline!!!  She would play on that thing all day if we would let her.

 Lydia also loves her books.  Especially pulling all of them off the shelf so Mommy can pick them up.  :)

 This day she wanted Mommy to wear her hat and then for me to put it on her head.   Then she would take it off and hand it back to me to put back on my head and then back on her's.  We did this over and over and over....

 She has become quite fond of her pony she got for her birthday.  She rocks back and forth with much enthusiasm!

She's a cutie and getting so big!

What We've Been Up To

Lydia enjoys rides in her wagon. 

She especially likes it when the dog joins in on the walks.

Her first fishing trip with Dada.  It was a success! 

My little fisher woman. 

Nana kisses! 

Playing in my suitcase during our brief stay in Oklahoma.  Poor thing didn't have much more to do. 

Reading the paper with Grandpa. 

Her first oreo.  It got pretty messy. 

Play time with little Miss. Lauren! 

We went to Wingstop the other night and met some friends for dinner.  Lydia got to hand out at the kiddie table.  If you can't tell, she had a good time. 

Playing with her buddy Lauren.

Friday we moved into our apartment and things are good.  Lydia is now settled into her new room.  She has a huge room and closet!  We have enough space to put all her toys in her room and have plenty of room to play.  Which is very nice.  Speaking of Lydia, she is growing up so fast.  She looks and acts more like a little girl every day.  The other day she grabbed her play cell phone and put it up to her ear and said "ehho".  It was super cute.

Kevin goes back to OK tonight, but will hopefully be back on Thursday.

Finally

     I know, I know, it's been too long.  I just really haven't had the opportunity to update my blog recently.  To catch you up on everything thats been going on...after Kevin and I moved out of Springfield (now over a month ago) we spent a week in Tyler before heading back to Tahlequah, OK.  We were there for two days and I decided it was miserable and I wanted to come back to TX.  It was a tiny little apartment, not much room for Lydia to play and crawl around.  I think we were both unhappy there.  So that coming weekend we repacked all our stuff and headed back to TX.
     We have now been here for almost 3 weeks while Kevin has been back in OK, visiting a couple times.  Kevin just got in town today and is staying through the weekend.  Lydia was sooo happy to see her Dada.  And Kevin enjoyed watching her walk all over the place.  She is now such a good walker.  I was wondering if Lydia would remember Kevin, cause last time he was gone for 2 weeks she didn't remember him when she saw him again.  But her face lit up today when she saw Dada and she didn't let go of him for the longest time.  If he put her down she was right there hanging onto his legs to pick her up again.
     This Friday we move into our own place in Tyler!!  I'm super excited.  Kevin and I have been dreaming of the day when we get to move back to Tyler in our own place.  Kevin will probably go back to OK on Monday and finish up his one week he has there.  Then he will go back to Springfield for the next week, and then back to Tyler.  Lots of driving for him in the near future.  But I'm not going to think about him going back to OK, Lydia and I are going to enjoy the time we have with Dada.

Beautiful Sight

     This morning Kevin and I (and Lydia) went to go pick up the moving truck.  I love the sight of a moving truck sitting in our driveway.  It's glorious and breathtaking.  Kevin didn't waste any time.  He backed that thing up in the driveway like a pro from his old fireman days and started loading up boxes.  If you can't tell, we are pretty excited about moving out.
     We listed our fridge on craigslist the other night and the next morning I got a phone call and it was SOLD!  On top of that, they offered us more than the asking price if we would deliver it to them.  So tomorrow Kevin and his friend will go deliver the fridge and then come back to the house and load everything else up.  Also, we finally sold my old dresser that we tried to sell in the garage sale.  They should be picking it up tomorrow.  God is good.  He has provided buyers for all our stuff.
     Yesterday I got a phone call from the apartment complex we will be living in in Tyler.  They have an apartment ready for us on September 9th.  So that means Lydia and I will be moving back to Tyler one week earlier than planned.  :)  I can't wait to get back to Tyler and be around family and friends and get hooked back in with our church.
     The other day Lydia walked across the living room.  She walked from Dada into my arms.  It was so sweet.  She was smiling the entire way.  It was probably about 15 to 20 little baby steps.  She hasn't taken that many steps since then, but you can definitely tell she is getting braver and more confident with every passing day.

5 More Days!

That's right folks, as of tomorrow we have 5 more days here is Missouri.  I have lived here for 1 1/2 years and still don't know how to spell Missouri.  Spell check gets me every time.  Kevin's parents are flying up here Friday morning and we will head out that evening once the truck is loaded up.  We are going to split our trip up.  We are driving to Tahlequah, Ok (where Kevin's next rotation is) and staying the night in the apartment we will have for the next 6 weeks.  Then we will wake up Saturday morning and head to Tyler for Kevin's one week break from school.

Kevin finally had a couple days off this week starting yesterday.  We went and visited my old coworkers for the last time and then strolled around the mall for a little bit.  After that we got some lunch at McAlister's.  Lydia started to get whiney and sleepy so we packed our stuff up and headed home so she could nap.  I have been trying to get her to go down to one nap a day for the last few days.  It's been going okay.  I think it might take a couple more weeks for her to get in that routine.

Thursday we took Lydia to get her 12 month shots.  She had to get 6 shots!!!!  Two in each leg and one in each arm.  Poor baby.  She did pretty good considering.  She was pretty fussy today so I'm going to contribute that to the shots.

 Future scholar.

 Here she is crawling with one toy in each hand.

 Just chillin.

 Today we popped in the movie "Up" for Lydia to watch.  I think she may have watched about 5 minutes total.

So cute!

Lydia has started to raise her arms up when I say "all done".  I showed her how to do this a while back and then I would still say the words but stopped raising my arms up.  Well I guess she wanted to continue cause the other day she started raising her arms when I would say "all done".  She does it when she's done eating, done bathing or done changing.  And anything else that she thinks might apply.  

She finally started to clap again too.  She learned how back in May and it lasted for maybe a couple weeks and then she just completely stopped doing it.  She also will find your belly button and call it "B".  Also, she is starting to say "night night" and today she took 5 steps!  This is such a fun age.

Dada!

Lydia is so sweet.  Lately she has been laying her head down on everything that she remotely comes in contact with.  One would think she was tired, but don't let that cute little booger fool you.  I remember when I used to try to force her head down on my chest and she would fight it tooth and nail.  She's never been a big snuggler, I guess she takes after Mommy.  Now almost every time I hold her she will lay her head down on me.  For a mom who is not used to this whatsoever, it is the cutest and sweetest thing.  I love it!  If she's playing around the couch, she lays her head on it; if I'm laying on the floor playing with her, she will come over to me and lay her head down; if Kevin is holding her, she lays her head down.  I really can't get enough of it.  It just makes you want to eat her.

Another cute thing she does: when I get her out of the bathtub I immediately wrap her up in a towel and I show her herself in the bathroom mirror so she never forgets how cute she is.  Right when I do that, she always pulls her left arm out of the towel and points at herself in the mirror.  It never fails, she does it EVERY time.      

Here is a sweet picture of Lydia playing with Dada.  She really cheesed it up for this picture.  It made her look like such a big girl.  I know if you didn't know her you would probably think she was a boy because of what she is wearing, but those are her PJ's and I hadn't changed her yet. 

Dada crawled into Lydia's tunnel and she went in after him.  Kevin had his feet hanging out one end and his head hanging out the other.  Lydia started crawling from Kevin feet and made it all the way through the tunnel with Kevin in it at the same time.  I thought I was going to have to get the scissors out, but she ended up fitting just fine.  I love this picture of her looking at her Dada.

Yesterday Kevin left the house before Lydia got up and didn't get home till 7:45 that night.  So he only had about 15 minutes with Lydia till it was her bedtime.  He got in some good story time before bed.

A little update on the walking.  She is still taking some steps everyday.  The most she has taken consecutively is 3 so far.  She's still working on it.  I think she probably gets a little more confident everyday.

Blast From the Past

     I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures from our old camera.  And here are just a few for your viewing pleasure.

This picture is when Lydia was 6 months old.  She had just started sitting up all by herself.   

Lydia's first snowman!  She looks so cute in this picture.

 This is probably when Kevin and I were not getting much sleep.  She was very picky about her sleeping back in the day.

Lydia's very own stocking!  Isn't it adorable!?  She was about 5 1/2 months old here.

So happy about her new dolly! 

Lydia and her two cousins.  This was also Christmas time, so she was still 5 1/2 months here. 

I never realized how very chunky she was until I look back at pictures of her.  She was my little chunky monkey.

On a side note, we have such good friends.  My brother and sister-in-law are moving all their stuff into storage in Tyler.  They are coming from out of state so they don't know anybody in Tyler.  And three of our friends are going to help them move their stuff.  We really couldn't ask for better friends.

We've Got a Walker!

     The other day Lydia took two steps, and ever since then she's been taking one or two steps a day.  Until today; she took quite a few steps.  I think she realized today that she was actually walking.  She got excited and became a mini dare devil.  The most consecutive steps she took today was three, but she did it quite a few times.  It's so cute to see her walking.  Kevin and I thought it would be months before she would be able to walk, but she proved us wrong.
     It seemed like Lydia got hurt a lot today.  First, she fell and bonked her head on her walker toy that we were trying to get her to walk to.  Then, Kevin was feeding her a popsicle and she got super excited about her next bite and swung her head forward and scratched her eye on the plastic wrapper.  Then, she just kept bumping her head on random things.  Poor baby.
    Fifteen days as of Thursday!!  It's getting so close I can taste it.  

Garage Sale

     We had our first garage sale this morning.  I was a little hesitant on how many people were going to show up.  All we did to advertise was post it on craigslist and put up two signs around the neighborhood.  I really thought it was going to be disastrous and we were going to be stuck trying to sell all our unwanted furniture and electronics online.  I put on craigslist that the sale wouldn't start till 8 and Kevin went and put the signs up about 7:15 this morning.  We had our first customer by 7:20 and most everything was gone by 9:30!!!  It was awesome!!  We sold two end tables, a nightstand, desk, portable pantry thing, a grill, a bookshelf, a bunch of wall art, high chair, a coffee table, laptop, digital camera and a few other odds and ends.  We made around $260.  The only big item we have left is a dresser, which was also the most expensive item.  Which we will hopefully sell very soon on craigslist.  Even though our house has already been rented, we even had a couple people ask about it too.  After 9:30, our driveway was so bare people would just drive by slowly to see what we had and then drive off.  It got to the point of embarrassment with what we had left, so we decided to shut it down and call it one heck of a successful garage sale.  It feels so good to be rid of all that stuff.  Now our moving truck won't be packed out with a bunch of junk.

Tunnel Time!

     My mom got Lydia a tunnel for her birthday, so she doesn't have to play in the dirty clothes hamper anymore.  She loves her new tunnel.  

 Peek a Boo!

And guess what else Lydia brought back to Missouri.  A cold! It happens every time.  I guess her little body is just not used to being around all those people.  I sure hope things change when we move back to Texas.  It's nothing too major.  Just a minor stuffy/runny nose so far.  Hopefully it doesn't progress.  

We are down to 22 days till we move outa here!!  Can you believe it?!  When we started counting the days we had 55 days.  And now we are almost in the teens.  It just makes me that much more aware of how fast it's going to go by and how much stuff I need to do.  There was a For Rent sign in the yard when we got back from Texas, that just made it that much more official.  We are having our very first garage sale this Saturday.  So the next couple days are going to be a little busy.  I am very much looking forward to getting rid of a lot of stuff.  Those crazy garage sale shoppers better not show up on our doorstep at 6 am or I am going to be one hot mamma!

Birthday Fun!!!

Wednesday night we headed out to East Texas.  Thursday we had a day of friends.  We hung out with the DuToits and little Noah.  Thursday night was full of Bunco and more friends.  And then Friday was Lydia's 1st Birthday!!  Nana got her some birthday ice cream and we sang happy birthday.

Saturday was the big day!  Lydia looked pretty cute if I do say so myself.  I was concerned that she wouldn't be able to crawl in her dress, but she did.  Babies are pretty good at adapting and overcoming.    

All of Lydia's friends were there.  I think she had a really good time.  I know I did.

Poor Noah was the only baby boy at the party.  But I think he likes it that way.  :)

Lydia got a pony for her birthday!  Can't you see her excitement.

Madi wanted to help open some gifts.  She wanted to practice for her party next week.

CAKE TIME!!!  I still can't believe she is already one year old.

She ate a lot of icing and very little cake.  It actually made me feel sick just watching her.  We had a really good time at the party and I hope all the guests did too.  Most of the kids that came couldn't stick around for pool time, but we still had fun.  I left my camera inside during pool time so I'll have to get some pictures from someone else.  We ended up swimming till probably 8:15.  I can't wait till we get back to Texas so we can have more days full of family and friends.  Speaking of birthdays, yesterday was Kevin's birthday.  He turned 28.  Hard to believe we started dating when he was just 16 years old. 

Last but not least, Lydia loves her Nana.  It was so cute to see her loving all over my mom.