Christmas card photo fail

Here's the deal. I promised we wouldn't spend more money on professional pictures until 18 months. So that means DIY for the Christmas card. I got some props and such and gave it a go yesterday. I had all kinds of issues with my photos pictures being too dark and with blurriness. But that was only part of the problem.

Babies are so much easier to photograph than toddlers.

My first strategy was to try to get her to be near this little Christmas tree thing. I used Elmo to entice her. He's Christmas-y red, right? For some reason, she just stuck her tongue out at him.

Then, I tried to get her to put a little ornament on the tree.

But she just wanted to throw it. So I tried a new location and used a green blanket as a back drop. I put a Santa hat on her. She took it off. Then, she just wanted to climb on top of the coffee table that was holding up my backdrop. Hmph. I tried a new idea: First location, snow props. Note the location of the hat.
Back to the green backdrop. I used chairs to hold it up this time, and then I gave her strand of red bead garland to play with, but she got wrapped up in it.
Then she started dragging her toys out. I thought I might go with it -- you know Santa/toys/elves and all that, but I couldn't get her to look up.
Then, I remembered the giant sucker. I stole this idea from somewhere. At first, I thought it was going to work.


But then she broke it.

Well, after all that, I changed my strategy again. But you'll just have to watch your mail for that.

Babu!

You might know him as Elmo, but to Lily, he is Babu (that's 'ba' like 'bat'). At first she was calling him Bobo, which made a little more sense to me, but now it's Babu. She could watch him all day long, and she'd be just pleased as punch.

Except during the weather episode. She gets very worried about Elmo during the weather episode. When we were watching yesterday, Elmo opened the door and the wind started to blow him away. Her eyebrows crinkled up and she climbed onto my lap. She put her hands up (like "uh-oh') and said, "Babu? Babu? Babu?" It was pretty darn cute. She also doesn't like it when the drawer pushes Elmo off screen, and she doesn't like the tornado that comes to visit. (And frankly, he's pretty scary for Elmo's World, in my humble opinion.)

So, because we're prone to spoiling her silly, we couldn't resist getting her an Elmo. She loves him.

She even sucks his boogers out. Now if that isn't love, I don't know what is, right?

Anyway, even though we're rotting her brain with TV, her language continues to increase. And, of course, it's amazing how much more she can understand than what she can produce. The other day I was walkng around the house muttering about not being able to find my bra. I said, "Where is mommy's bra?" a few times, and before I knew it, Lily showed up with my bra. Not the one I was looking for, but I was shocked that she knew what a bra even was. I can guarantee I never sat down and explained it to her. Little sponges they are indeed!

Lily’s list of words went away for awhile, but I’m bringing it back. It might seem a little obnoxious, but I promise it’s not meant that way. I don’t care if she has more or less words than the kid down the street. Being the language nerd that I am, I really am just fascinated in tracking this, and when I tried keeping a list on my computer, well, that doesn’t track the date, so I need the blog.

"Baahh"(for ball)
"Sah" (for sock)
Baby
Two (When we say "one" she says "two")
“boo-y” (for boo, as in peek-a-boo)
“noh” (for nose)
“i-wee” (for Lily)
“babu” (for Elmo)
“duh” (for duck)
"shhh" (for shoe)
Out
"booh" (for book)
No
Hi
Uh-oh
Mama (for mama)
mama (for mum mum crackers)
Dada /daddy
Nana (for Nana)
nana (for banana)
Bubba (for all four-legged furry creatures)
“Bah-bah” (for bottle)
Buh-bye
Eddie
Abbie
Up up
"Ah dah" (for all done)

And she signs:
Milk (We now call this the bat signal.)
More
Eat
All done
Her made-up sign for "I'm hurt"

Other:
She waves hi and bye
She wags her finger to say "uh unh uh" for "no"
She shakes her head "no"
She puts her finger to her mouth and says "shush"
She points to her nose, she points to mama’s nose, she points to her hair, she points to mama’s hair
And that's what Lily's talkin' 'bout this week.

Wonder

Yes, parenthood is filled with challenges -- most of which I'm still blissfully clueless about. Fortunately, though, we as parents get a lot in return for those challenges. One of my favorite benefits of mommyhood is seeing the wonder in the eyes of my baby girl.

Frankly, I think the adults found a little wonder, too, when we went to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota last week. I mean, just check out how gorgeous this place is.



I loved watching Lily's face as she took in everything around us. She was loving it -- except when she rounded a corner and came upon a lizard. At first she was freaked out by it, but after a while, she was looking for them and calling them "bubba."

Lily got the chance to see all kinds of new, cool things.


And my husband got the chance to be a goofball.

Then we found the Koi pond! I had this brilliant idea that Monday would be a great day to go because it would be less crowded. That much was true, but Monday is also the ONE day of the week that you can't feed the fish.
But the fish still know that people=food, so they came right up and waited for it. Especially Mr. Piggy here.

Even with all that new stuff to see, Daddy snuck in some cuddles.

And Nana did, too.

But, of course, every explorer gets tired eventually.

What? Where are the Halloween pictures?

Chill. They're here. But I gotta be honest -- I'm sorta disappointed with my Halloween pictures. I was just having trouble getting the right shot, I don't know.

Anyway, my whining aside, first up was the Halloween party at daycare. I actually did get a few cute photos of Lily and her school friends, but decided I probably shouldn't post them here. Yes, I know I posted her class picture, but that was different because the parents knew there was a class picture being taken and were OK with it, right? Anyway, here are a few I thought were OK to post.

So here's Grumpers as we arrived at daycare for the Halloween party on Friday. She warmed up.

Each class had a little parade from one class to the next and they got candy at each room. Here's Lily visiting her old room. I guess the idea behind the quad stroller was that it would make it easier to manage a large group of toddlers. I don't think it helped much, and I don't think these ladies get paid nearly enough.

After tricks or treats, it was back to the toddler room for the Halloween party. Complete with treats. Lily brought the Jell-o that Nana made.

Yum.

Halloween night, Lily's cousins, Connor and Pearl came over for trick or treating in our neighborhood. How cute are they?

Ok, I picked out her costume, but can you guess who picked out her very own Halloween bucket? Oh, and the next three pictures are the trifecta of Halloween cuteness.

Pearl was pretty darn cute too, huh?

She got the hang of the door-to-door stuff in no time.
She loved to put her candy into her bucket, take it out of the bucket, put it back in the bucket, take it out of the bucket. Then she squished it and smushed it and scraped it along the ground. The candy was fun stuff to play with.

Happy Halloween!

Double shot

I meant to post some of these a couple of weeks ago, but well, you know. I do the best I can.

Anyway, a coupla Mondays ago, I decided Lily and I would have an arts and crafts day.

First up, play doh.




No? I can't eat it?


Next up, window crayons. What a cool thing from Crayola.



The crazy bedhead just adds that special something to her crazy art, no?

Then we moved on to finger painting. We had to make a birthday card for Daddy.


She eyes her work critically.


She's not pleased. Ah, it is hard to be a perfectionist.


Moving on.

A couple of weeks later, we decided to go to the pumpkin festival in Bradenton.


We had planned to meet up with my friend, Carol and her family. This is Camdyn, her amazingly sweet 3-year-old. Cam loved Lily's pigtails.


Ugh, but it was way too hot. Forgive me, but WTF? Too hot for a pumpkin festival? Ugh, what was I thinking when I moved here.


Khan and Lils chilled out with a pink lemonade. Oh, she loved that lemonade.



I was determined to get some kind of fall themed photos for our effort, though. If I could've gotten her to even glance up at me, ah...well, oh well.