After a very long blog hiatus, I am back! Its been a hell of a year and I have to say that I am glad to see 2010 come to an end. I hope and pray that after a year full of trials and tragedy, we will be blessed with lots of joy and happy events in 2011.

Marianne Hays Lyon was born on May 20, 2010. That was the highlight of our year! She is such a precious baby and we are extremely blessed to have her as our daughter. Marianne has a very calm and patient personality and she is sweet as sugar. I hope she will stay this way forever! 6 months

7 months

We love you, Mae Mae!

An Update on Rose

Rose is doing so much and changing so quickly these days and I just can't believe that she is almost 16 months old! My sweet friend Sarah Beth keeps reminding me that I need to write down all that Rose is saying and doing before I forget...so here goes!

Words:
Mama, Dada, ball, bow, dog, juice, shoes, no, bath, snack, baby, dog, keys, eyes


Signs and gestures:
more, all done, eat, shakes head no when she doesn't want something, nods yes when prompted


Activities:
-Does motions for The Eensy Weensy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, and Patty Cake
-Can identify her babies, dogs, kitty cats, ducks, books, milk, juice, most of her favorite foods, Pops, Grammy, Jannie, Junior, Gray, Jody, Mama, Daddy, Jay, William, Meryl, and other people she sees often
-Goes to the door when the doorbell rings, when I get my keys, or when I say "do you want to go bye bye in the car"
-Goes to the bathtub when ask if she wants to take a bath
-Can identify the following body parts: eyes, nose, tongue, ears, hair, head, belly, feet and boobies (Are all kids obsessed with their mama's boobies???)
-Gives the best kisses on command
-Loves to pretend talk on the phone
-Sleeps from about 7:15 until about 8:00 every night with a 1-3 hour nap in the afternoon

**She has alot more cute habits and tricks but these are just a few that I thought of quickly when doing this post.

The Ballpark

Last Saturday we went to the ballpark with Pops to see William play baseball for the first time. His team is the Grasshoppers and William loves it! Here is a picture of him after he scored for his team! He loved running the bases :)

Jay and Rose played on the playground after the game.

A Tale of Two Trips

Since it was such a gorgeous day on Tuesday, we decided to head to the beach for the day with Sarah Beth to visit Bryant, Jacqueline, and Meryl. We started the day on Bryant's little beach at the Wood's Ono house. Rose literally dragged Bryant straight to the water! She loved it!

Toes in the water for the first time this year.

I love how Rose copied Bryant!

After playing on the beach, we all headed over to Jacqueline's condo at Caribe for lunch. Then Mrs. Elena sat with the girls while they napped so we could lay out at the pool. It was such a wonderful treat to lay in the sun for 2 hours without any responsibility!!! After their naps, Meryl and Rose played and shared snacks before we headed home for the night.
After such a fun day, we returned home just in time to eat dinner, take a bath, and hop in bed. Or so I thought. Little did I know Rose was about to have her first trip to the ER...

I had a 9 by 13 glass casserole dish on a table in the foyer and was planning on returning it to my Mom. As we walked in from the beach, I threw Rose's blankie on the table and it landed on top of the dish. While I was heating up Rose's dinner, she ventured into the foyer, saw her beloved blankie on top of the table, and grabbed the closest thing she could reach...the casserole dish. It landed on her precious big toe on her right foot and all I heard was a loud thud and Rose screaming. I ran into the room, picked up Rose, told her she was OK and that it just scared her. But then I felt something dripping down my leg and saw that there was blood everywhere. I am usually a total freak when it comes to situations like this but thank God I didn't panic and lose it as I was home alone and Rose needed me to handle the situation like the adult that I am! I may have overreacted by calling 911, but I was worried she had lost part of her toe... there was so much blood and I couldn't see where it was coming from on her toe. Literally less than 5 minutes later, 4 firemen were at my house. They took 1 look at her foot and told me I needed to go to the ER for stitches. Luckily my Dad was on his way and we jumped in his car and headed to Springhill Memorial. After a relatively short ER visit (which lasted about 2 hours but seemed like 10) we made it home. They did an x-ray and saw that poor Rose has a fractured bone in her toe, a bad gash, and a toenail that is turning black and will probably fall off eventually. She was SUCH A TROOPER and is recovering nicely. She wants to walk and play as normal, but has a hard time because it hurts to put any pressure on her foot. I'm hoping she will start feeling better by the beginning of next week. I just thank God that it wasn't worse!
Ready to go home. She was exhausted and so were we! Thank you Daddy for taking such great care of us!!!
See the little bear she is holding? They gave it to us when we checked in and Rose didn't let it go the entire night. This morning I noticed that it had a little tag on the back telling me it was made by members of a local church. So, I called the church to let them know how comforting it was for Rose and they told me that 10 ladies make 360 boo bears a month for all of the local hospitals! Wow!! Thats alot of sewing! I just wanted them to know how much we appreciated their gift at such an unfortunate time!

Walking and Other Updates

I'm slacking again...sorry!

Anyway, Rose started really walking this week! She has been taking steps for a few weeks now but on Sunday she started really trying to walk everywhere. Its so precious to see her walking and it makes her look so small! My baby girl is quickly becomming a little toddler.



Unfortunately, she got her first experience with the stomach bug on Sunday. She was such a little trooper and handled it like a champ...especially considering she was fighting her 2nd double ear infection in 3 weeks. And she was getting 3 new teeth! Let's just say its been a rough month for Rose health-wise. Luckily she is feeling much better!



We went to the doctor to have him check her ears and make sure they were starting to clear up...and they were. He went ahead and did her 1 year checkup since we had not been able to do it yet. She weighs 24 lb 12 oz (90th %) and was just above the 97% for height. I've gotta check my notes to see how many inches that was...I already forgot! She got her MMR vaccine and we will go back for another shot around her 18 month checkup. Developmentally she got an A+!



I am feeling pretty good and am now 30 weeks preggo. Iron is really low so I'm taking iron supplements and trying to make myself eat meat, spinach, beans, and nuts. All that I want to eat is cereal, ice cream, milk, and fruit! At my 28 week appt, my belly measured 29 weeks. Its getting rather large :) I've picked out bedding for Marianne's room, our glider just came in, and we have a crib that we are going to get assembled soon. My goal is to move the furniture out of our guest room and get the room painted at the beginning of April so I can start "nesting" at the end of that month!



In other news, Dana and Nathan found out that they are having another little BOY this August!! Jay and William are going to be awesome big brothers to this little boy. We can't wait to meet him!!!

Be back soon with pictures and more updates :)

Bye Bye Mullett

Rose had her first haircut yesterday! I've been considering it for a while now, but almost chickened out an hour before her appointment. I'm so glad I followed through and took her because the back of her hair looks sooo much better. Mrs. Julie did a great job and Rose barely realized she was getting her hair cut because she was so into reading her book!

The Name Game

After months of deliberation, we have finally settled on a name for our little baby girl! It was a hard decision because we wanted her name to come from Clark's side of the family and we wanted it to be as meaningful and special as Rose's name. (Rose is named for my maternal and paternal grandmothers.)

Her name will be Marianne Hays Lyon. Mary is my mother in law's first name, Ann is my mom's middle name and Hays is Clark's paternal grandmother's maiden name. So Marianne will be named for 3 special people in our lives. We are so excited about her name and I am especially happy to finally have a name to call our precious little baby girl. Now I've gotta get something monogrammed to make it official!!

Broccoli and Cheese Nuggets

If you are looking for a healthy and easy entree to serve your toddler, try this recipe!

1 16-oz package frozen broccoli, cooked, drained, and chopped
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 ½ cups shredded cheddar cheese
3 eggs

oregano, garlic, and pepper

1. Heat oven to 375 and lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil

2. Combine all remaining ingredients and mix well.
3. Shape mixture into nuggets and place on baking sheet. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turn nuggets over after 15 minutes.

I love this recipe because it makes a big batch of nuggets and Rose adores them! The night I make them, I keep 3-4 in the fridge and freeze the rest for Rose to eat later. To freeze, simply arrange the nuggets in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze over night. The next day, put them in a zip lock. I reheat 1-2 of them for about 30 seconds when ready to serve.

Recipe from http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ It's a great resource for anyone interested in making their own babyfood.

Peek a Boo

Where's Rose? There she is!

Where's Rose?

Peek a Boo!

Where's Rosebud?

There she is!!!

Peek a boo is so much fun!

New Post Alert!

I've gotten really behind on blogging but finally caught up today! Although, I still have several more posts coming soon (hopefully!)

1/12/10

1/13/10

1/18/10

Rose's Tricks

Rose has lots of new tricks! This is an amazing stage of life and she is learning new things everyday! It is so much fun to see her learn and Rose is so proud of herself!

1. She shakes her head no when I say, "no,no" or if she does something that she knows she isn't supposed to do. Like playing in Lucy's water bowl.

2. Waves bye bye and hello. She has started waving at me a lot recently. She loves to wave at me when I leave her in her high chair to fold laundry (she can see me through the laundry room door off the kitchen.) At the waffle house the other morning, I got up to pay and left Rose with Clark at our table. I looked over at her from across the restaurant and she was just waving away at me! It was so cute!

3. She has learned how to drink out of a straw. Thank goodness! I was starting to worry that she would never drink from anything other than her beloved bottle.

4. Says "uh-oh" when she drops something or throws it down. It sounds like "ah-uh." This little girl LOVES to make a mess! She get into everything! Her favorite thing is the lowest shelf of our spice rack which happens to be the perfect height for her. She gets out every spice and spreads them all across the kitchen. This keeps her occupied while I cook but creates a big mess for me to clean up! I try to only put plastic spice jars on that shelf and make sure the tops are all screwed on tight. But one day, the top of the little tiny sprinkles came off and Rose had spread hundreds of tiny candy dots all around the kitchen before I realized what had happened. It was pretty cute!

5. She screams "dawww!" everytime she sees a dog in person, on tv, in a book, etc... This was her first word and she absolutely loves dogs. She will point to dogs in her books if you ask her where the dog is.

6. When asked where her head is, she pats her head. When asked where her tongue is, she sticks her little tongue out.

7. She loves to play "how big is the baby?" and she proudly shows you how big she is by raising her hands above her head. This was her first trick.

8. Rose loves to clap! When I ask her if she wants to play patty cake, she claps her hands to show me she is ready. If I say "yay!" she will start clapping. She also claps if she sees or hears people clapping on tv. And of course she claps when she knows she has done something good or if I get really excited about something.

9. When I sing the "10 little indian song" she makes the indian sound at the end by sticking a finger in her mouth and making the "o-o-o-o-o-o-"sound.

10. Last but certainly not least is my favorite trick of all. If I ask Rose to give me a kiss, she kisses me on the lips. Those kisses are the sweetest thing in the whole world!!! I just love her so much and those kisses show me that she loves me right back :)

Rose's 1st Birthday Party

The food table. The best restaurant in Mobile catered the party...CAMILLE'S! We served wraps, sandwiches, broccoli salad, fruit, and PB and J's for the kids.

The kids table. Notice my Dad videotaping in the background. He got most of the party on tape and he has the best commentation ever!!! Its so cute to watch.

The cakes! I couldn't resist having them decorated with roses in honor of our little Rosebud! I often wonder how she will feel about roses when she is older. She's either gonna love them or hate them! I hope she loves them :)

Greeting Asa and Maribeth Cutie Bennett loved the rocking horse
Not too sure what to think about her friends taking over the den

I wish we had more pictures of the kids playing. It was a zoo! But so much fun!!!

Lunch time! We set a table for the kids and they were all very well behaved! They were all very serious about eating their lunches and seemed to enjoy sitting together! Meryl Moo

Sweet William

Jaybird (He had to borrow a bib and wouldn't you know that every bib we own is pink!)

Bennett, Rose, and Annie

"Asa, you need to wear your hat!"

Then it was time for cake!

The week before Rose's birthday, we "practiced" singing Happy Birthday to Rose so that she wouldn't freak out when 40 people started singing to her at her party. All of the practice worked, because SHE LOVED IT!

This is my favorite picture from the day.

Rose loved it so much that we just had to do it again! So we all sang another round!

The second time was just as sweet.

Time to dig in!Lovin it...

lovin it...

And we're done!