Surviving Dolly

We were so excited to take Lydia to South Padre Island. This year marked the 37th year our family has made the trip to the southernmost tip of Texas. Necon and I missed last year because it was too close to Lydia's due date. We were desperate for week of laying around on the beach...needless to say that didn't happen. We arrived at the beach on Sunday, and after church, lunch at Pirate's Landing and the traditional shopping trip at the grocery store, we were finally off to the beach.

Daddy helped her into the water


And no surprise...she LOVED it

We had no idea what monster we were creating when we introduced her to the sand...

She ate...

And ate...


And ate!!

Proud Grandpa and Annie

Monday

Too bad this was the only time she used the float...she looks pretty sweet!!

New grandparents with their sleeping babies

Lydia had fun digging a hole with Jeremy and Aunt Becca




And, no surprise, eating MORE sand!

First signs of the hurricane brewing.

LOTS of these large pieces of wood started washing up on the shore.

And Lydia is still eating sand...

The almost finished product of a day's hard work...


TOTALLY buried...


What a cute beach bunny!!



She loves her daddy

More signs of the storm...waves are getting bigger, and the water is quickly coming further up the beach

But there are still plenty of other crazy people planning on riding the storm out

Tuesday

The beach usually ends somewhere around the third set of waves...

The last glimpses of sunshine we would see...

Wednesday- WELCOME DOLLY

Hurricanes aren't TOO scary

The water was all the way up to the resort by the time we woke up

Naturally Dad, Necon and Nathan went out to see what it was really like

The waves were huge, and the sand was blowing around pretty hard

The smarter members of the family stayed in the condos.

Lydia and Cooper were in for an adventure

Necon and Nathan feeling that wind...

If you have ever watched the Weather Channel while they are covering a natural disaster you have notcied there is no shortage of two things: dramatic broadcasts by the anchors, and stupid people trying to get on TV. In the following case, we have both!!

(In case you can't tell, the stupid people on TV are Necon and Nathan)

If you look between the two palm trees, you can see the beginnings of damage to the condos just behind us. This is still early in the storm...

The wind was much worse coming around and in between the two buildings of our condos than it was out on the water. Its like it was creating a wind tunnel...

Parking lot is beginning to flood. We moved our vehicles into the underground parking deck. It was a wonderful decision, because most of the cars in this pictures wound up with several windows blown out.

The indoor pool officially became an outdoor pool after the roof landed in the hot tub

Lydia is glad Grandpa decided to stay inside with her for a while

The beginning of the aftermath. We had water on and off, but power went out just as Dolly was really picking up, and didn't return for almost a week. We were forced to leave because of this...

Thursday night

We moved the party to San Antonio. On the drive up we didn't see any signs of power for almost an hour north of the beach. Many of the towns were severely flooded, and we realized we had made the right decision in leaving. This did nothing to deter us to continue with Rebecca's blessing. It is a tradition in our family to "bless" each grandchild when they turn 13. Rebecca won't actually turn 13 until next summer, but because we are going on a trip to the Holy Lands next summer, we did her blessing early.

Friday

To SeaWorld we go

The Shamu Show...Lydia was actually kind of scared

We finally found the play place for Lydia's size kiddos

Waiting to see the dolphins...Mommy's favorite

Lydia had skipped both of her naps...she thought she would sneak one in since the dolphins were spending most of their time on the other end of the pool

Finally they made their way over to us

We also went to see the sea lion show. By far, the most impressive part of the show was when the enormous Walrus showed up at the end...

And started doing sit ups!!!

Lydia and Cooper had done VERY well on a VERY hot day

Lydia was nice enough to share some of her Lemon Chill with Mommy

Ross, who Lydia affectionately refers to as "Ro," poses with the Shamu puppet he bought for Lydia. She now can't sit still in her carseat with out it!!

We went out to the River Walk for dinner and stopped by the Alamo while we waited on a table

Tia shared her Mexican Food with Lydia, and Lydia was of course greatful for food!!

The next day we went outlet shopping in San Marcos with Ross and Jenny, but I apparently took no pictures. We were fortunate to get our plane tickets transferred to San Antonio and flew off the next morning without a hitch. Lydia was absolutely perfect on all four flights and seemed to enjoy hanging out at the airports. She practiced her newest trick...walking. After taking her first steps when she was 8 months, she finally decided to take off completely when she was 10 months old. Yay!!! Mommy is very happy not to be facing the possibility of having two babies that cannot walk...

It's A Boy

I keep forgetting to post about our new addition, and I am feeling pretty bad about it. We did find out (almost a month ago) that we are definitely having a boy!! We couldn't be more excited that things are working out this way! I thought I was really disappointed when we found out Lydia was a girl, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and I know Necon feels the same way. This pregnancy is going by SOOO fast, and we are SOOO not ready! Mom and I are going shopping tomorrow for some nursery neccessities. A wonderful nurse I work with gave us her almost brand new crib and dresser from Pickles and Ice Cream, so we have a good start. We have also gotten some clothes from friends, and that has helped out a lot too! The booties at the top of the post are from my mom. So eventhough we have been neglecting this poor child, Annie is taking care of him. You can always count on grandparents! We are almost for sure his first name will be Levi...we LOVE the name and I'm just going to ignore the fact that it is another 'L' name! We are pretty for sure on the middle name, but we aren't quite ready to reveal it just yet!

9 Months and More

It's hard to believe our little blue eyes is already 9 months old! I knew our lives would change, but no one could have prepared me for how much better the change would be! Lydia is still in the 90th percentile (21 pounds and 28 1/2 inches long). No surprises there! She is still refusing to walk more than a few steps at a time. She could walk if she weren't so scared. She will stand there with this look on her face (usually smiling awkwardly) knowing she is supposed to walk, but isn't ready and she just slowly sits down. Her vocabulary is growing daily. We are up to: "mum" (that's right...I don't get the sweet mama), dada, dog, cat, light, please, thank you, baby, bye bye. She will mimic almost anything you say to her and she jabbers constantly! She loves to give us kisses whether we ask for them or not, and she actually obeys most of the time when I tell her no. Today we knocked another bottle out of her schedule. Hopefully she will start eating regular foods with us soon. She has two teeth in the bottom and I think she is getting more on top. Thankfully, she is napping well (an hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon). She still sleeps almost 12 hours every night. She is starting to get the hang of her sippy cup, and she LOVES to be outside and with her daddy. He is her favorite person in the world!! Enjoy the pictures...

If we say "sweet baby" she lays her head down as fast as she can...

Here is a close up of her two teeth and her happy laugh...

Playing with Carter at the ball field

Don't they look like they are up to something??

TRAVELER'S GAME

We have been getting together one on one with another couple from our lifegroup every month this year. For May, we went to a Traveler's game with the Coyle's and had a really great time. There was another entire life group at the same game sitting right behind us, so Lydia spent some quality time with just about everyone in the section.

Caroline really loved meeting Shelly, but Parker wouldn't get close

Charlie's Graduation and Memorial Day

We spent a lot of time at the Monan's at the end of May. Charlie graduated, so we had a party for that. Then it was Memorial Day, and since the Monan's have a pool we spent the day over there enjoying the water and grilling out! I was nervous Lydia wasn't going to like the pool since she still won't take a bath (showers only!), but she had a blast. She thought the water was the funniest thing ever!!

Lydia's first time to meet Charlie and Nathan's Michigan grandmother...

Grandpa can always get her to sleep

Ready for the pool...

Too much fun in the sun

My Birthday

I have been very proud of the fact that I am not yet 25 years old. That all changed yesterday. I had to face the quarter of a century age. Kinda scary. We had a wonderful dinner from Moe's at mom and dad's on Sunday. I had to work on my birthday, but when I got home Necon had dinner ready on our china and beautiful flowers on the table in the formal dining room. Lydia was at his parents, and we were able to have dinner together just the two of us. It was really nice. By far the best birthday present he could have given me...

Lydia helped Necon clean the kitchen before I got home

The beautiful place setting

I am still really looking forward to dinner, cake and ice cream at the Warrior's tomorrow night.

8 Months

I feel like I say this everytime I blog, but we have been SOOOO busy!! So get ready for yet another long blog. Lydia is amazingly already 8 months old. I can't even believe it has gone by so fast. I must say the month from 7 to 8 months old has been so much fun. She has learned so much and is starting to get her own little personality. She absolutey LOVES to play with us all the time. Here are some other things she loves...

Playing outside

Eating in her HiChair (thanks Alisa for encouraging us to try the Puffs!!)

Necon has taught her how to "wipe her own face"

She thinks that is SUPER funny!!

We had dinner with Will, Alisa and Liam. This was the first time Lydia had really been around another baby close to her size. It was fun to watch them playing side by side!! So cute.

We still couldn't believe we have babies!!

Just so no one would think she loves EVERYTHING...I thought I would give a short example of something she HATES...naptime. She has been the best sleeper since she was born...all night and two really good naps during the day. All the sudden she wanted to boycot naptime, or at least modify it to mean "sleeping on mommy's tummy." So, we have been laying her down and leaving her in the crib for the entire hour and a half whether she was sleeping or screaming. In the beginning I didn't think she was going to learn, but I am proud to announce she slept for just over an hour of both naps!! HUGE improvement. Here are some shots of her splotchy, I've been screaming for an hour and a half face when I finally went in to get her...

Back to things she LOVES:

exploring the house!! She will crawl as fast as she can around the house to find places she hasn't been before. If she hears you coming, she crawls faster!!

Waving as casually as possible...

Being silly with Daddy when he gets home from work. The funny thing is she left her pants on her head for hours...all the way until it was time to take showers before bed!!

She also wanted to show you her favorite toys! We got her this pull toy to encourage some walking movements. She is still really hesitant and cautious...

She LOVES her music table. She walks all around it and tries to sing the ABCs while they play!!

And her newest trick...STANDING! We have to distract her by putting something in her hands and as soon as she realizes she is standing up, she sits down asap!! We are working on it though!!

She still has no teeth and no hair, though we are getting closer. Her two bottom teeth are trying their hardest not to pop out and the hair is finally starting to come in. The best part is...it's gonna be dark! Exactly what we hoped for!! She weighs 22 pounds (I know...HUGE) and she is somewhere around 27 1/2 inches (she doesn't really cooperate for me to measure her!) She says dada, mama (MOM if she means me), and I think she is starting to say baba for bottle. She can mimick almost any basic sound we make. She loves to play with the light switch, still picks up things with her mouth (no hands!!), takes showers with us, sucks on her toes when she is in her carseat, and ALWAYS lays with her legs crossed!! She is starting to be silly and make faces at us and pretend she is ignoring us. This is really really funny to her of course!! We could never have imagined the unreal joy she would bring to our home...

Also, we had an ultrasound at 17 weeks that started out looking like we were having another girl, but by the end they were saying boy. I know its a boy, but I can't wait till next week for our big ultrasound for a no confusion answer!!