Tuesday, March 8, 2011

It's been a while....

It's been a while since my last post..... In the last couple of months we have been up to our same old stuff. We had a couple of weeks at home due to a blizzard that hit Tulsa followed by more snow the next week. This Texas girl isn't used to the weather here just yet! We had so much snow this winter!!! Tessa loved it.... WEll at least for the first few days. She played in it quite a bit making snowmen, snow angels...we even made snow ice cream, snow cupcakes and snow castles. After 2 weeks of no pre-school, she was ready to go back and I was ready to take her! She got a little bit bored being home and not able to interact with her friends. I was running out of things to do for entertainment...so it was good for both of us!

Besides the weather excitement, Lyla is getting to be such a big girl! I can't believe my baby will be one in a week!!! This year has flown by....so much faster than Tessa's first year. Lyla is now 11 1/2 months and she is eating mostly solid foods and some baby food. Her favorite food is corn and of course the unhealthy things that Josh slips her on occasion. She loves to be held and played with... She really isn't very independent yet. She hates going to the nursery at church. It's gotten to the point where we just walk into the church building and she starts to cry. It makes me sad, but I know if I give in, she's never going to get used to being dropped off. She is a smiler and it melts my heart each time. Her favorite toy is her ball popper and she gets very vocal each time it starts up... She does her knee bounce and waves her arms in a circle... It's adorable! The cutest new thing she is up to is shaking her head yes. Whenever she's eating we say "is it yummy" and she smiles and nods and sometimes says "ya." We also ask her other questions like are you pretty, do you love mommy..... and it's so cute to watch her nod and smile. Her first word other than momma and dada was ball. She's still not getting close to walking. She has done everything else ahead of Tessa's timeline, but I don't think walking is going to be one of them. Tessa walked right at 13 months and I don't see Lyla getting there in the next month. My hope is by summer she'll be walking so it will be easier to play outside! Lyla is still a very petite baby. She's long, but really thin. I'm not sure if she will hit 20 lbs. by a year....it'll be close. She's off of bottles. A week ago, I never thought I would be saying this, but she's drinking all of her milk now out of a sippy cup! We have been trying to get this down for a while now, and momma has been frustrated! It finally clicked:) Lyla is such a joy and reminds me each day to slow down and enjoy each one because it goes by so fast!

As for Tessa, she's really doing well. She's totally given up naps this winter and has started going to bed around 7:00-7:30 and waking up around 6:30 in the morning. She is such a helper with Lyla always willing to play with her when I need to get something done. They really are so sweet together most of the time. Tessa loves school and is doing really well. Her teachers tell me she's very social, but also a good listener most of the time and doing great with all of the letter activities they are working on. About a month ago, I was stressing out because Tessa refused to let me work with her on writing letters. After some advice from friends, I decided to wait thinking she was just not ready yet. Over the past couple of weeks, she has really taken an interest and writes on her dry erase letter board several times a day. She now can write most of her letters on paper, but is having trouble with s, z, m, and n. What a difference a month makes! Tessa will be 4 at the end of June and so we enrolled her in pre-k at Jenks West for next year as well as at the church just in case. We're hoping she gets into the grace living center pre-k program at a local nursing home. If not, I'm not sure what we're going to do. Tessa's favorite new activity is puzzles. She spends at least 45 minutes a day working on her puzzles and she's getting really good at them! I love it because it's using her mind and playing independently at the same time so I'm able to get some things done! Tessa has come a long way in the last year. She has become such a sweet girl.. She is always giving kisses and saying I love you. She says the sweetest prayers and sings so sweetly. She is very interested in right and wrong and wants to do things right to please Jesus. It's so neat to see her growing up. I just love her so much!