21 Months

As of June 4, Lydia is 21 months old...hard to believe that she will be two by the end of summer! One would think that she would be doing a bit more walking and talking by now, but those things will come. In the meantime, she has no trouble letting us know what she wants/needs and can get wherever she wants to be by scooting quickly! 

Eating: Lydia will eat just about anything, but is starting to become rather picky. She has recently decided that she doesn't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eggs are hit and miss. (Sad for me!) She is also pretty selective about meat- she won't eat tuna and will only occasionally eat chicken. She's also not a fan of ice cream, but I think that's a temperature thing. Favorite foods include crackers of any kind, cucumbers, bananas, strawberries, potato chips, chocolate, and applesauce. She loves to drink milk, water, and cranberry juice. She sits in her high chair for meals and has gotten pretty good at communicating when she needs more of something or is all done. She gets a huge smile and kicks her legs when she wants more, and stacks her dishes and hands them to us when she's all done. She also likes to have a napkin to clean up her area when she's all done. 

Sleeping; Lydia goes to bed around 7:00pm and sleeps until somewhere from 6:30-7:00 am; some mornings she will wake up earlier than that and yell for us for a few minutes and then go back to sleep! She also takes an afternoon nap that lasts from 2-3 hours. We put her in her crib with her blanket and her bunny and the sound machine on. 

Clothes: Most of her clothes are still 18mon or 18-24mon and fit just fine. She wears size 4 shoes and size 4 diapers. Lydia loves shoes! She will put on whatever pair of shoes she can find! She also likes to bring me shoes and gets upset if I don't put them on! 

Activities: Lydia loves to be outside, coloring, and knocking down whatever Haleigh has built. She will occasionally go off by herself and read her books or play by herself. She loves pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, brushing her own teeth and putting on shoes. Over the past few days, she has started to push her little cart all over and has preferred to walk with it than scoot around. This is definitely progress on the walking front! In fact, Saturday night she took a few steps by herself! 

Talking: Lydia has very few words, mostly just "Dad" "Mom" El-ee" (Shelby), "hi" "yeah" "beep-beep" (which she uses whenever anyone is in her way) and "Babia." My friend Mandi babysits the girls every week and her youngest daughter Eden calls Lydia "Babia." I think it probably comes from 'Baby Lydia' but became "Babia" and now Lydia uses it for herself!  She also has lots of grunts and incomprehensible sounds! Regardless, she seems to be able to communicate her needs and she clearly understands us when we talk to her. She follows directions when I ask her to do things and most just gets really excited if she likes what we are saying! 

Basically, she is just adorable, smiles all the time, gives great hugs, has a perfect little pucker when you ask for a kiss and will pull hair when looking for attention. She can climb a flight of stairs, loves to look at books, rarely sits still long enough to cuddle and is constantly ruining her sisters' art projects. 

The School Year is Over!

Tuesday was Haleigh's last day of school and today was Annaliese's! It's rather gray and cold outside so it doesn't quite seem like summer, but I am definitely ready to not have to rush out of the house every morning! Both of the girls really like school so we have had to have several discussions about why we don't go to school in the summer and how we are going to fill our time! Annaliese has started making a list of the different activities that we can do over the next few months. 

Last Thursday Haleigh's class had a graduation ceremony and party/potluck. They sang a few songs and we watched a slideshow that the teachers put together of different activities throughout the year. The kids were cute, but I was surprised at how many of them started crying for their parents or ran off the stage! Haleigh just stood there watching the others.

Haleigh, Mallory, Faith, and Cole

Trying to break open the pinata

Annaliese's last day was today and it sounds like they had a party yesterday and today! She also said they spent some time looking at all the cool things they've made this year! One of the families is hosting an end-of-the-year barbecue tonight, so I think it made it easier to leave school today knowing that she would be seeing all of her friends tonight!

Annaliese loved Senorita Rawls...she was an awesome teacher!

We have been so blessed by Evergreen and the teacher's that the girl's have had. It is so nice to know that when they walk through the doors of school, they are walking into classrooms where not only are they being taught regular school topics, they are being taught about God, His creation, His purpose for their lives and who they are as His children; they are being prayed for and learning how to pray for others and love others. Thank you Evergreen for an amazing school year!

Spirit Week!

Last week was Spirit Week at school and each day had a different 'theme' that everyone dressed up for. They didn't have school on Monday for Memorial Day, so the fun started on Tuesday. 

Tuesday was 'Super Hero' day. Annaliese has had pretty minimal exposure to super heros, so I wasn't quite sure what she was going to want to dress up as. Thankfully, all she wanted was a cape. She said 'All super-hero's have capes.' Seems easy enough, except that we don't have any capes in our dress-up bin. And she wanted a 'cape with flowers.' So she looked through my pile of fabric and we sewed together a flower cape! 

Haleigh was struggling to listen and follow directions, so we never came up with a costume for her. She could care less! Plus, very few kids in her class dressed up, so that didn't matter much to her.

Wednesday was 'Future Career Day' and Annaliese decided she wanted to be a nurse. She wore one of my scrub tops and I had a stethoscope for her to use. There were some tears when we got to school and she didn't want anyone to see the stethoscope; she said she was afraid her friends would laugh at her. I'm not quite sure what prompted this, as she said her friends never laugh at her and would probably like her outfit...and indeed, once we made it inside, her friends all liked her outfit and were very concerned about why she was sad. Thankfully, her teacher is great and she turned back into her normal, happy self once the day started. 

Thursday was 'favorite color' day. 

Annaliese in blue and her friend Keziah in pink.

The week ended with 'Clashing Patterns' day on Friday. I'm pretty sure any of Annaliese's outfits from the week (or most days, really) would have worked, but we ended up with stripes and polka dots. 

May

Once again, I sit here thinking that I should blog a few more times during the month instead of waiting until the end to flip through all the pictures! May has been pretty ordinary, as far as our schedule went. We did our normal school/work routines and tried to fit in a few fun activities in between!

Bath Time!

Fun at Star Park

Haleigh spends hours and hours creating things with the magnet tiles!

Annaliese got this dinosaur from church...it's supposed to grow
600x bigger than it currently is...they are watching it grow:)

Trying to find the best coloring book at the dollar store...spending money from the tooth fairy!

Semiahmoo Park

Looks like May was filled with lots of visits to the park, playing outside in our own amazing backyard, and taking selfies! These little ladies love having their picture taken! We are eagerly waiting for the day Lydia decides to walk...it will make playing outside so much nicer!