Merry Christmas

Christmas is so much better with little kids around! Seeing Lily's pure joy on Christmas morning was wonderful. Her first experience with a stocking was funny. She shouted "sock!" and proceeded to take off her own sock, trying to put the stocking on her foot. She asked mama to help her and then walked around in her stocking. We hope you made good memories over the holiday, too!

December Fun

We have been enjoying winter this month. Michael and I had a much-needed weekend away in Chicago to celebrate our 4th Anniversary. Grammy and Grandpa Voorhees watched Lily for her first time away from us overnight and she did really well.

When we had our first big snow, Lily got to try out her new sled and loved to go really fast. Daddy showed her how to make and throw snowballs and now she gets excited when it snows and yells "sled" and "ball"! You can click on the pictures to see close-ups of her happy little face.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We're so thankful for our growing family!

It's a Girl!

We had our ultrasound this week and found out that we are having a baby girl! I am 21 weeks pregnant, due on March 27th...two weeks after Lily's second birthday. We are all excited about having another baby. Of course Lily doesn't really understand, but we told her there is a baby in my tummy and she loves to talk about it.

The ultrasound showed that everything is healthy with the baby and confirmed my due date exactly. This time the baby is right on track in terms of size - she's bigger than Lily was and I feel her move quite a lot. Michael can even feel her kicks already. So these are her very first pictures. We have four months left to prepare for our new arrival!

Trick or Treat

Lily had her first experience dressing up and trick or treating this year and she was very excited! She loved seeing all of the other kids in costume and was literally running after them shrieking with joy. What fun to visit houses where adults dressed up and handed out treats. When she checked out her loot her favorite treat was animal crackers because she didn't know what anything else was. It was quite an adventure for her!

October Pictures

Lately, Lily has had fun trying to fit into small spaces like cabinets...

and cat doors.

She also likes dressing up in daddy's things.

She has her own tool set and is extremely helpful in fixing things.

Lily is always trying to kiss and hug the cat.

We had a good time at McCormick's Creek State Park with Michelle's family over the weekend.

Little Pumpkin

We went the the Johnny Appleseed Festival today and Lily loved all of the people, music, drums, and loud sounds there. The farmers market was fun and our little one picked out her own pumpkin to take home.

18 Month Doctor Visit

Lily is now a year and a half old. Everything looked good at her doctor's appointment but we found out that she hasn't grown a whole lot in the last five months. She grew an inch and a half and gained one pound, which puts her into the 25th percentile now. She still fits comfortably into her 12-18 month size clothes (mama wants to get her new ones out)!

Lily has started building her vocabulary and saying a lot of words, and it's wonderful for us all to be able to communicate better. She can identify her body parts and pictures in books and it's so cute how proud she is of herself. She sleeps really well at night now and is finally taking naps in her crib, but never for more than 30 minutes! We're really hoping the naps will lengthen out, but for now we just leave her in her crib for an hour every afternoon.

Already, Lily has shown interest in potty training but it will probably be a while before she's actually ready. She tells us when she has gone or is about to go in her diaper by pointing to her bottom and saying "bop". Sometimes she wants to take off her diaper and sit on her potty and she even peed in it once...but really she would just like to run around naked and not mess with it. So we're leaving it alone for a while!

Baby Alistair

Over the weekend we visited Michael's stepsister Jessica and her husband Michael in Indianapolis and got to meet their new baby, Alistair, for the first time! He is seven weeks old and adorable. Lily was cute with her new cousin.

Visiting Great-Grandma Smerik