Hanging out with Rand

We had dinner at the Girls’ tonight, and Lyla enjoyed time with one of her favorite playmates, “And”.

It is one of life’s most wonderful pleasures to watch them play together. They really enjoy spending time with each other:

Boo at the Zoo

We had a great evening at Boo at the Zoo this year. Lyla the Ladybug was amazed when we first arrived – she kept looking around, smiling in wonder at all the kids around her. We were able to collect candy with our good friends Rand, Liam and Lily. Everything about the evening was absolutely perfect, especially being with our friends. It was one of the many times this year when I’ve experienced just as much amazement as Lyla – being a mommy and daddy is so much fun!

We are already looking forward to next year.

I’m going to have a hard time choosing pics for this post, so there might be more than a few:

Lyla’s favorite way to “ride” with Daddy:

Daddy said that Lyla walked right over to this hay maze and was intent on walking all the way through. People kept asking Lance how old she is because they all say she looks too little to walk.

Lyla loves Lily:

She is soooo beautiful:

We ended the night with a ride on the haunted carousel. I think Lyla was way too tired to enjoy it.

And, no night would be complete without pics with our favorite sea otter:

Dinosaur Excavation with Rand

Today brought many laughs, thanks to spending much of it with Rand. Lyla was delighted to awaken from her morning nap to see Rand standing there at her crib. She spent much of her day trying to figure out how to keep up with him, and finally, by the end of the day, she did. We decided to “excavate” some dinosaur bones in the back yard, and when Rand stood up and opened the back door, Lyla simply stood up and walked after him, completely unassisted.

Ari and I couldn’t stop laughing. She would have gone outside onto the deck with him if I hadn’t stopped her.

Here are some pics of our “finds”:

Of course, Lyla was primarily concerned about the dogs next door:

And, we think that Rand might be a budding photographer. These are the first pics he’s every taken – me awaiting Lyla’s steps from Ari to me and her success when she reached me.

Great shots. I love them. :)

Another great day. It’s so nice to be back in Kentucky.

We're looking forward to time with Lance over the next few days. :)

Our Cincy Adventure

Today, we travelled north to Cincinnati with Ari and Rand - we had a great time visiting the Cincinnati Childrens' Museum. Rand and Lyla were both delighted by the Little Sprouts section of the museum, especially designed for infants through 4 year-olds. It was perfect for them both.

While the museum was well worth visiting, we had a horribly eventful ride home. Unfortunately, there was a fatal accident on I-71 which caused us to have to detour to Lexington to return to Louisville via I-64. After stopping for dinner and finally hitting I-64, we were shocked to encounter yet another accident on I-64. All in all, the hour and a half ride home evolved into a 5 hour drive with Rand and Lyla in the back seat.

Rand and Lyla did a good job together - we noticed Rand taking Lyla's hand several times to comfort her. Needless to say, all four of us were relieved to return to Louisville exactly 12 hours after we left.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the day: (Note the Baby Faces book Lyla is clutching in the backseat - her current favorite. Thanks, Marmie, for sending it back! :) )

What an adventure!

Happy 4th, Rand! We love you!!

Unfortunately, we missed our godson Rand's 4th birthday party because of Shana's birthday celebration in Nashville. However, it gave us a good excuse to have another party for him. We all had a great time in spite of the sweltering heat. We had Pie Kitchen ice cream, one of our favorites - Rand loved the Milky Way flavor and his monster cookie. He and Uncle Lance had a great time playing in some very hot closet caves all evening.

We're looking forward to hearing about all the new games he's going to get with his i-Tunes card. We hope Aunt Cheese and Aunt Bleu have plenty of memory space on their phones!

Here are some pics - this beautiful boy doesn't take a bad pic!! :)

Happy 4th, Rand!! We love you so much!!

Visit from Aunt Ang

We had a great visit with Aunt Angela the last few days. We did a lot of baby stuff, preparing for Lancina's arrival. Among other things, we visited Starbucks several times and checked out various baby stores in Cincy.

Angela is 18 weeks pregnant today - just 19 weeks behind Lancina. We are very excited about her next (gender discovery!) ultrasound - coming up in just a little over a week.

We put together the pack and play, which was a wonderful gift from Aunt Ari and Aunt Crystal. We're going to keep it downstairs so that we have a place for Lancina to sleep during the day.

Lance was very impressed with the pack and play and also a little relieved that Aunt Ang helped put it together as it was not a simple process! I was grateful she was there to educate me on the whole thing and had to stop her several times while putting it together to ask about the purpose of various attachments. I'm still not convinced that we are capable of taking it down and putting it back up without her supervision, but we'll see...this baby gear thing is really complicated for those of us who have had limited hands-on baby exposure for the last 35 years.

Wonder what that means about whether or not we'll be able to figure out the actual baby.

Uncle Scottie also stayed the night on Friday - he was in town working. I think he got a little jealous of all the pregnancy talk and decided to be pregnant himself.

I am feeling good overall - still tired, but very excited. Lancina is as active as ever - she had the hiccups today, and has been kicking around.

She celebrated reaching 37 weeks yesterday by one of her most acrobatic, active days ever. It was even a bit of a challenge to eat because I was so distracted by kneecaps and feet. I think maybe she's getting excited about coming out here.

20 days and counting...