Congratulations

I have been a little sad lately because I think that no one ever looks at my blog. So Here is a present for any avid readers out there, which there might not be any.

We are having a baby boy.

Lila is still in denial. She has been saying we would have a baby girl at least since last August. Obviously, we weren't even pregnant then. That was just about the time we started telling Lila that we wanted to have another baby. She had just about the saddest face on during the ultrasound today when we told her it was a boy. Big, long frowny face. She was in total denial.

We went straight to the grocery store after the ultrasound. Lila was saying things like "the baby is a girl" and if we asked her if she would love her baby brother she said no. Finally, on our way out she asked for some Oreo cookies. I told her if she was happy that my baby was a boy, she could have some. Well, that worked. She said she was happy.

She isn't as mad now as she was at first, but she has been pulling off pictures from the fridge of families that she colored in nursery, and trying to prove to me that the baby is a girl by pointing to the pictures and saying "see mommy, the baby is a girl!"I'm sure she'll get used to it eventually. Todd of course is elated and I am pretty dang happy about it too. Although after 21 months of trying, I would have been happy no matter what.

Lila's Singing Abilities

I have seen some video shots of little kids singing pretty amazing. Totally on key, belting things out, knowing every word. Well, Lila sure isn't one of those kids. But her singing makes me no less than giddy with joy.

One of my almost favorite traditions is singing to her before she goes to bed. It might be my favorite if I wasn't so tired by that point, and if she would hold still. Even a little. But besides that, it's always a good time. We used to have these long banters about who's turn it is to choose a song. She didn't really seem to get the concept. After a while we got into a habit similar to this:

Me: It's your turn to choose a song Lila. What should I sing?
Lila: No, it's your turn to pick.
Me: Ok. What song should I pick?
Lila: How 'bout.... The Jesus Song

Or she would pick some other song that she likes. Now when I sit down and first ask her what song she wants she just says "You pick the [insert name] song." Up until about four days ago it was always the Savior song. But now she has started with the Mermaid song. That's Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid. I try to sing mostly Primary songs and a few hymns, but sometimes we throw in another one too.

The thing that prompted this post was Sacrament meeting today. We sang I Am a Child of God as our opening hymn. Since I have sung it several times, I asked Lila if she would sing with us. She said yes but didn't really sing anything. Finally, the third and final time through the chorus, she chimed in. Leaving out a few words here and there, she was singing loudly and a little off key, but following the ups and downs pretty well and getting all the words that she actually sang right. The sister sitting behind us was laughing at how cute she is. Then she also tried to sing with us during the Sacrament Hymn, but I was laughing so hard at her jibberish and complete random choice of notes that I had to ask her to be quiet so it wouldn't take away from the spirit of the sacrament. Don't worry, I was gentle about it and made sure she didn't feel like she was in trouble.

Tonight after singing the Mermaid song and a few from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, I told Lila to pick some church songs. I don't think she knows that the ones we usually sing are church songs, so she started picking ones from nursery. If You Chance to Meet a Frown and Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. She was singing along pretty well with those too.

I just love hearing her sing. Music has always been very important to me and been able to touch me in ways words just can't. I hope her enthusiasm for singing will translate to a love of music as she grows. I love when we watch Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday mornings and she recognizes some of her bedtime songs. It is just so fun.

About our Three-Year Old

I have been thinking about this for at least a month now. I intended on writing a few things down when I thought of them, but of course I did not. So I will likely add to this post later as I remember some of them. But for the meantime, Lila turned three! Here are some things about her:

LOVES Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Favorite food is pasta. Likes putting her feet all over everything. Especially me. Best friends are Kayla Ho and Emma DeGering. Loves going to nursery. Is becoming a great singer. Likes to ask the same question over and over and over. Is terrified of doors being closed on her. Also terrified of mommy leaving her. Knows that Grandma Itri lives in Philadelphia. Doesn't know where her own house is. When she plays Jake, she likes to pretend to be Izzy. When she pretends to be Izzy, you must use her name in every sentence, and will not respond to her real name. (Do you want a banana, Izzy? Should I peel it for you Izzy?) Loves playing in the bathtub but hates getting washed off. Hates pooping and holds it in as long as she can. Almost never has a pee accident, but mom and dad sometimes have to get her on the potty before it's too late. Rarely sleeps through the night. Likes to help mommy clean (as in gloves and/or wiping things) the house and cook. One of her favorites is cleaning the toilet. Doesn't like to pick up stuff. When we cook and she wants to keep helping she asks "Is there anymore recipe?" Knows who Jesus Christ is. Knows who our Prophet is- President Monson. Knows that we love Jesus and listen to the prophet. Loves the temple and gets excited when mommy and daddy go. Favorite bedtime song is "If the Savior Stood Beside me." Requests it first every night by asking for "The Savior Song." Then usually asks for it again. Would sleep with mom and dad every night if we would let her. Knows where things are when we are driving. Points out when she we are going the wrong way to the place she wants to go. Loves to "stomp" in the snow. Only counts to 12. Knows some of her letters. While I always love her and think she is the best thing ever, she has been frustrating lately as she tests limits and gets away with as much as she can. Little stinker.

Things she gets from momma:
Says "sure!" and calls lots of things beautiful
Likes to have her hair pretty and actually lets me do it
Gets concerned whenever anyone is sad
Loves Krispy Kreme Donuts and Chick-fil-A (calls it Chick-a-flay)
Likes school (or at least asks to go all the time)
Whines a lot
Tells other people what to do (I have worked on that and try not to do it anymore. But sometimes it's still tempting!)

Things she gets from dada:
Tries to make things fair for everyone
Loves her family above everyone else and defends them
Loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Athletic ability
Her temper
Stubborn
Passionate
Love of pasta
Addicted to TV

She's Three

It was a little hard to put Lila to bed on Monday night. I knew when she woke up I could never call her my little 2-year old again. She has been so wonderful and I love to watch her grow but I also love to savor her being little. Recently it has gotten fairly difficult for me to pick her up and haul her around, and that makes me sad too. But alas, time doesn't stop, and neither does the growth of kids. So, since Todd had to work a 12-hour shift on her birthday, we documented the day quite well. Please enjoy.

Lila woke up late, which I guess was her birthday present to me! I heard her stir a little and then call for me so I jumped out of bed, hopped into her room and said "Good morning birthday girl!" She was still a little tired and shy, but picked up a toy that she has really only played with once before and told me it was his birthday too. I think she called him a squirrel. But I told her it was a chipmunk, so she said "It's the chick-munks birday too!"And carrie him with her out of bed.

For breakfast, she got her favorite cereal, marshmallow cereal. In this case it was actually Lucky Charms, but she doesn't care what brand it is! She was really concerned that her chickmunk couldn't sit up by himself, so I got a jar for him to lean on. She even shared her birthday cereal with him. The best part is, on her last bowl she got to pick out all the marshmallows and leave the rest of the cereal without getting in trouble, because it was her birthday.

After breakfast, we got ready for the day. She doesn't really like it when I curl her hair, but she just looks so stinkin' cute when I do. So I bribed her by letting her watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates while I did it.

Then just before we headed out the door we snapped a few birthday girl pics. Her skirt is really cute so it's too bad we had her coat on. But she is adorable anyway.

Then we went to the party store to get some balloons! Lila had a lot of fun at the balloon bins picking out what shades of pink and purple she wanted. And she also got one blue one. Then we picked out a special birthday mylar balloon for her. She was loving every minute of it!

After that we came home and planned to play together for a while before her birthday lunch, but one of Lila's friends accidentally let her daddy take her carseat to work! Oh no! So we raced to my parents to borrow theirs and then went and picked up our friends. A few others also came to meet us at..... Chick-fil-A!!! I wasn't going to do a birthday party for Lila just because I didn't want to have to plan it and do all the work that goes along with it. So we just invited her friends to come eat and play with us at Chick-fil-A for lunch, and asked them to buy lunch instead of bringing gifts. It was quite a fun time.

Probably Lila's favorite part was her free ice cream cone! She got to go behind the counter and swirl it herself! (Except that the employee pushed the handle and mommy actually moved the cone, but she was holding it so it counts!) Her face when they gave her the cone was just priceless.

When most of the kids were in the playplace playing and Lila came out by herself, I thought it would be a good time to have Lila pick a balloon and cupcake to give to each of the kids. I had asked her earlier if she would let her friends pick what balloon they wanted, and she said no. She wanted to pick for them. While I tried to pick a time when the other kids were distracted, it only took about 4.3 seconds for the other kids to see that balloons and cupcakes were take out, and soon I was swarmed. So sorry about the lack of pictures. Most of the kids were gracious in accepting their balloons. One girl cried that she didn't get the heart balloon, but of course Lila got to keep that one as the birthday girl. One of Lila's friends brought his older brother, who requested the blue balloon. Lila had already given him purple, so she said no. He asked again a little later, and she said no again. But only about a minute later, she tried to grab the balloons and said "Mommy, Tristan wants the blue balloon!" And traded him back. I was so proud of her.

When we got home, she played with the few toys that kids brought (some people were kind enough to bring gifts even though we said they didn't have to.) It was fun when she opened one of them and gasped and said "A stethoscope!" I'm so proud of our little Nurses' daughter. She wanted to blow dry her hair during the picture. And the hat was handmade by my friend! It is way cute.

I had to take a few pictures of this present that the hat came in. When we were in Philadelphia for the holidays, we watched a bunch of old home videos of everyone's birthday's. They laughed at how they always had newspapers and store bags as their wrapping paper, and Todd tried to tell me that we had to wrap all of Lila's presents in newspapers. He said something about how it was good enough for them, so she would love it too. Well, I hate touching newspapers, and I love making pretty presents. So the answer to that comment was simply "ha ha." But I guess he got a little of what he wished for.

Then we sat down and each ate a cupcake. I took a few pictures to show the party favors we gave out to Lila's friends.

Then Lila was a little jealous that I was taking all the pictures and asked to take a few of me. Pretty impressive I think. Though I did have to clean off smudges from the lens when she was done with it.

After that I was feeling tired from a full day of cupcake making on Monday and all the festivities thus far. But I didn't want to ignore my birthday girl, so we decided to watch a movie together. She picked Aladdin. This was the first time she has seen it all the way through. It was a nice recharge for me and she enjoyed it. I was sat at first because she wouldn't come cuddle with me, but later she did come over so we could snuggle and watch together.

At the end of the movie, Lila wanted to take a few more pictures. I just can't say no to the birthday girl! She got a few shots of me playing dead, among other things.

Then we decided to play with some play-doh. I had to return my mom's van to her house (that's how we were able to give some of our friends a ride earlier), and the play-doh belonged there too. So we had one last hurrah before given the clay back. Lila used some scissors she got with her stethoscope to cut it. I made her the numbers 1, 2 and 3 since she was three years old. She loved that, and wanted to make some of her own. So we ended up with a bunch of yellow 1's and one 3 she asked me to make for her. 

On the way home from her party, Lila had said she also wanted to give a balloon to Grandma. So before we went to her house I asked Lila if she still wanted to do that. She picked out a balloon for grandma, and said she also wanted to give her a cupcake. She is so sweet! My parent's were watching my little sister's basketball game, so they weren't home when we came to drop the stuff off. So Lila drew a picture for them and I wrote a note.

By the time Lila's stalling got us home it was 6:58. We were having pasta for dinner which wouldn't take long to cook, plus we were going to stay up late waiting for Todd to come home for cake and presents. But then I realized I was supposed to be at the church at 7:00. Our bishop had asked ward council members to meet on Tuesday nights and visit people in the ward, just to show that we care about them and think about them. This was the first time we would be doing it, and I almost forgot! Lila had just eaten a banana, so I asked her if she wanted to go to my meeting or eat dinner, and she said she wanted to go to the meeting. I almost took a picture of her in the church just to document it, but I thought that would be kind of weird. Luckily, I was able to go out with someone from the relief society who had a kid with a poopy diaper. So she ran home and changed a diaper while I ran home and defrosted the pasta sauce (since we make ours homemade but don't have the stuff for proper canning we just freeze it). I also got the water in the pot so it would all be ready to go. We went out and visited with a sister in our ward, and came home and started dinner. Lila loves pasta! Todd got home before dinner was done, so we all ate together. I also took a few pictures of Lila being excited to see daddy and their happy birthday hug. Oh, and Todd finished off the chocolate milk Lila got at Chick-fil-A, so she was sad. He got out the Hershey's syrup and made her some more in the little jug. She really liked that.

Then it was present time! Lila was very excited. Todd has the video on his phone, so we'll see if I ever get around to posting it. But here are a few pictures. She was so excited to open them I had a hard time getting her to pose pretty for a picture beforehand.

She got nail polish, a microphone, a pink hat, a wooden pizza set, a shopping cart, and cardboard boxes for her to pretend to go grocery shopping with. She has already played with everything except the nail polish.

After that we sang to her. When she saw me getting out the candles to put in her cupcakes, she did the same thing she did when she got a strike in bowling a few weeks ago. She froze, gasped and stood there staring with her mouth gaping open. It was so cute. Again, most of this footage is on video. I am sad that I didn't get a picture with the three cupcakes in front of her, a candle in each. It took her a few attempts to blow them out, but we let her struggle until she got them. Then she said "Thank you for singing momma and dadda." It was so cute. 

As you can imagine, it was difficult to get Lila to bed after this. Which is funny, because before opening presents she said she wanted to go to sleep. She and I laid in my bed and watched an episode of Music and the Spoken Word, then I stayed with her until she fell asleep. I was glad it ended that way. I loved spending the day celebrating my pretty lady, and was glad we could keep it going until the very end.