Dancing and Splashing

We've been BUSY! Since our last post, Lyla has cut two molars on her left side, and the other two on the right are working their way out. We had no indication she was even teething, so that's good! She's learned a bunch of new words, including some animal sounds, and she has started expressing her wants/needs much more consistently and insistently (especially "side?" for "outside"). She readily points to her eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth, head, tummy, belly button, feet, and knees. She overly-curls her lip and cries out dramatically if she doesn't get her way. She's just been an absolute hoot and a ham and of course, the videos have really piled up, so it's been tough deciding which ones to share this time around.

Lyla has always really enjoyed music, but this SkyBox song particularly caught her fancy. She can't resist tapping to the beat or dancing around, and for some reason has deemed it necessary to do this from a seated position. At one point, you'll notice, she even gets up to distract herself with another task, but once the music picks up again she has to sit and continue rocking out.

Lyla has been having fun cooling down in her new lil swimming pool. Mostly she steps in, splashes her feet, makes a goofy grin and rough laughing noise, steps out, then repeats. She has been loving the outdoors, and makes requests (or demands?) regularly to go out and play by standing by the door, pointing and asking, "Side?" She will then nod emphatically as if to tell us, "Yes, people. Yes. This is what I'm asking... DO IT!" We are in for a lot of "side" this summer, so hopefully the Texas sun won't burn us up too badly!

Ah, to be so secure and blissfully ignorant as to dance around freely and splash around completely naked and carefree...

I won't bog down Blogspot with too many videos (I already tried and it didn't work!). I'll try to post the others in the next few days.

Until then, catch up on our Picasa Web Albums:

See April if you missed it! Mother's Day, 2009 , May (so far), and... Watch Me Grow has been updated to include her most recent pictures. Apparently, there was some bug and it wasn't loading my updates, but it's all up to date, now!

--Emily

Parks and (Family) Recreation

Last weekend, we went to the park as a family and had picnic dinner in a gazebo by the creek, watched (and chased) the ducks, then played on the playground. Lyla loved her first family park outing. The slide was, by far, the best part - she wanted to slide over and over again! We had a great time, especially since Luke's allergies seem to have been cured by the miracle drug we now know to be Singulair.




Lyla is blowing us away every day with how much she is imitating and trying to communicate. Her signing has improved along with her vocalizations, although she is a little stubborn about repeating things on command (*cough* Little Luke *cough*) . Her newest favorite is "doh," which translates to "go," particularly when preceded by "Ready...? Set...?" and especially when paired with swinging. We'll have to include a swinging video next week.

Papa Sam came for a visit over this past weekend. Our plans to take the boat out on the lake were spoiled by rain. Bummer! But we had fun at home, instead. Papa bought Nerf guns for all the kids and they went to war. Inside my house. We are going to be finding those little Nerf darts for several months, I'm sure. We also went to the Watenpaugh's and Papa and Les couldn't resist taking the boat out, just for 20 minutes or so. Zoe and I went along (I'd never been out on one before) and despite the chilly, damp air (and at one point, some rain), it was really fun. We hope we get to go out in nice weather again soon. Lyla will love it!

The next day, after a blueberry pancake breakfast, we all spent the day shooting zombies (Hooray Resident Evil) and relaxing. It was a really nice visit!