Colombian Visitors

The last week or so has been pretty busy but for a good reason. Margie and her dad, Fabian, were visiting! They came up because Margie is going to start taking classes at the ELC in May. It was so nice to have time to spend with them. Faiver acted as tour guide, and our wonderful friend offered his house as our "hub" for the week. We all stayed there together, and it was a blast. I'll narrate through pictures:

I must preface this by saying Faiver, Fabian, and Margie actually did quite a bit without Lily and me. I stayed at the house a lot because Lily has to take naps, and we didn't want to slow down the time Fabian had to enjoy his time here. These pictures represent the things I was present for :)

We played on the slides. Lily loved it!

At a pavilion near the Mt. Timp. Temple

I had a slight kitchen mishap :)

We went to Thanksgiving Point
Lily's not a huge fan of "up-close" animals

You can't really tell from this picture,
but she did not enjoy her first pony ride!

Clever sign :)

She was fine with being close as long as the animals
were in their enclosures

On the ground, Lily came up
to the horse's knee!!

Lily loved the animals, especially the birds

Margie and me at Olive Garden

Faiver, Fabian, and Margie also spent one whole day on Temple Square (we went up to join them for dinner at the Roof Restaurant, treated by our wonderful friend); they went to Music and the Spoken Word (plus some other things up there) on Sunday. I had the privilege to show them around BYU and the ELC, introduce them to BYU Creamery ice cream, and show them where we live. In the little bit of down-time we had, we played Wii, watched movies, cooked together, and had FHE the last night Fabian was in town. It was a great week, and we are glad to have Margie staying with us for a bit before her semester starts. Oh, I almost forgot, they brought us a TON of stuff from Colombia, and we couldn't be happier!! We received lots of arequipe, Jet chocolates, bocadillos, chocoramos, earrings for Emily, a Colombian cookbook for me, a dress and decorations for Lily's room, and some Colombian flag ribbon (for a project I'm gonna do). That should tide us over until we can go back down in a couple of years!

Tender Mercy

I have these Raggedy Anne and Raggedy Andy dolls that my grandma made for me when I was younger. Recently, I was able to bring them from my parent's house in NC to Utah, so I could have them and one day pass them on to my girls. Right now they sit on my bed, which is wonderful because it reminds me of my wonderful grandma.

Every now and then, Lily climbs up on the bed (after I'm done making it, the little pill) and takes one of them off to play with. Yesterday, she was playing with Raggedy Andy when his collar came up. She was trying to push it down, but it wasn't working, so she asked for my help. While I helped her pull it down, she pulled too hard, and I found this:

I might have known it was there when I first received them from my grandma, but I certainly did not know/remember it was there. I checked Raggedy Anne too, and sure enough, my grandma had sewn one on her too. Partly because I'm extra emotional because of pregnancy but mostly due to the fact that I felt it was her saying this to me, I cried. It was a wonderful gift to come across this again today. Now these dolls hold even more meaning for me, and I love it that Lily loves to hold them. I think she knows they're very special, too.

Thanks, Grandma Terry. I love you too!!

Quirks

Lily has always been a pretty interesting little girl full of things that I think are abnormal for such a little person. Most of this has to do with her taste in food. Let me illustrate: A couple nights ago, we went with a friend to an El Salvadorian restaurant. This friend ordered a salad that was way too big for her to finish on her own, so she shared it with Lily. The salad was beautifully adorned with slices of avocado, diced tomato, and some cut up olives. We thought for sure Lily would eat all the avocados. What did she go for instead? The olives!! She ate every single one of them!! I was shocked, especially because we have tried giving her olives before, and she's just spit them out. I guess she has decided they're good now. She also ate the avocado and tomatoes, but still. Does anyone else know of a 19-month-old who prefers olives over everything else in a salad?!

She does other weird things with food...like dipping chips in guacamole and licking it off instead of eating the chip too. She doesn't really eat meat unless it's hot dogs or bologna (which she rarely gets). There was this one day where all she wanted to eat was vegetables - not complaining about that!! She loves all fruits and vegetables and will eat them non-stop. One I wasn't sure if she'd like was cucumber - loved it! She loves Ramen noodles with veggies. In case you haven't gotten the point, she'll eat pretty much anything. The two things I've discovered she will just spit out, or shake her head if I offer her more, are lettuce and peanut butter. I think the lettuce is just hard to chew, but Faiver says the dislike of peanut butter comes from her Colombian side. I tell him she'll grow to like it :)

This is her eating the guacamole off the chip

Another thing she's been doing lately is asking for back rubs. She'll lean forward, point to her back, and make a little noise. If I don't start rubbing her back right away, she looks at me and makes her point by being more emphatic. I think this all started because I tend to rub Faiver's back a lot when he gets home from work. Sometimes Lily "helps" too. It's really cute that she asks for them :)

Although we didn't start teaching Lily to fall asleep in her crib by herself for a while (she was at least 8 months old...we will do it a lot sooner with the new baby - it's just better for everyone in our family. I understand if you have different parenting techniques, but this sleep training is one we like). Usually at night, she puts her toys away, takes a bath, gets lotion and jammies put on, reads a story with Daddy and Mommy, says prayers, and gets in bed. We turn her music and nightlight on, leave the room, and she falls asleep peacefully. However, for the past week or so, she has wanted me to be with her while she falls asleep, and it's not just my presence in the room. I sing her some songs until she falls asleep enough for me to leave the room without her noticing I'm gone and freaking out. I admit that at first I was really annoyed that I had to be in there with her when I had other things planned to do with my time. Now it is rather sweet and endearing that she wants me to sing to her - I mean, there's not a lot of time left for her to be an only child, and doing this really adds something special to our bond.

My little girl has a mind of her own, and I love that. These are just some of the things that makes her so special, and I can't wait to see how they grow as she does.

Recording memories

A couple days ago, we had a Relief Society activity about journaling and family history work (for those of you who read this blog and are not LDS, Relief Society is an organization in the church for women). It was a wonderful activity! I am not very good at keeping a journal. I have at least 5 different journals from different periods in my life that are very incomplete. At the activity, we talked about all the different ways there are to keep a journal, not just the traditional write-every day-about-everything method...blogging is one of those ways! I even found out that there's a way to make your blog posts into a book - definitely getting that program!! Anyway, that just gave me a little extra motivation to blog better because I am much better about blogging than I am at journaling, which should tell you something 'cause I'm pretty hit-and-miss with my blog posts too. You never really appreciate this stuff until a grandparent or something like that passes away and then you wish you had known more about their lives. I think it was a year ago when we got some files my grandpa had saved on his computer; some of them were journal entries, some were letters he had written to my grandma. It was so wonderful to be able to read what he was thinking or experiencing. That's what I want to pass on. So to get started.....

Lily does pretty cute stuff everyday, and I don't write many of them down. I take pictures of the ones I can, but that doesn't always happen. Yesterday, she was sitting on the couch with a camera. It was off, but she kept pointing it at herself and saying "cheese." It was adorable! She definitely knows what that is for! Another thing she did yesterday needs to be prefaced a bit. Lily is quite attached to her pacifier. We don't really give it to her unless she's going to sleep or is teething. However, if she sees it, she wants it and will fuss when I don't let her have it. Lately, she has been teething, so she's had it more than usual. Well, I'll take it and hide it and then make her look for it. She'll have to go around to different places in the apartment before I give up my hiding place. Yesterday, she played for ten minutes hiding it under my leg and then going to the different places I usually tell her to look and saying it's not there before "finding" it again. She would look so serious when she looked in a place and it wasn't there. My daughter is so imaginative!

At this point, I'm about 24 1/2 weeks pregnant (can't believe how fast it's going and at the same time how much time I still have to go) and things are going pretty smoothly. Heartburn and restless legs aside, I'm pretty comfortable. If you read my previous post, you know that we're having another girl. We've decided to name her Emily Sofía. Now, I remember Lily being pretty mobile in the womb as well, but I feel like Emily is much kickier than Lily was. Anyway, I've been trying to get Lily to be patient long enough to feel her baby sister, hoping this may up the awareness factor a bit. Until yesterday, Lily wasn't patient enough and/or Emily just wasn't cooperating. Well, after Lily's nap, she was sitting with me in the living room, and Emily was moving a lot. Perfect opportunity!! I put my hands on top of Lily's and put her hands on my tummy. Emily gave some pretty powerful kicks, and when Lily felt them, she immediately moved her hands off my tummy. It was hilarious! She laughed because I did. It will be interesting to see how she reacts to her sister actually being here, but I feel she's beginning to understand a little more. That was one of the most precious things that has happened lately. I'm very blessed to have this little one in my life. Faiver and I were actually talking yesterday about how Emily will be, what she'll look like, and how her personality will be. Lily is quite the show-off and is just super silly most of the time. Will Emily be like her or will she be more reserved? If the way they are in the womb is any indicator, I think they'll be very similar. All I know right now is we are very lucky to be the parents of these two special girls!

Trying on Mommy's boot. I told her to smile,
and this is what she did...what a ham!