A Winter ONEderland Birthday!

To avoid all the Christmas craziness that comes with having a December 26th birthday, we had Lydia's party early on December 13.  Lydia was blessed to have all three of her great-grandmas, both sets of her grandparents, and three out of the four of her uncles/aunts/cousins be able to come.  

We had a "Winter ONEderland" brithday party, which basically entailed a bunch of brightly colored snowflakes everywhere :)  I had great intentions of taking pictures of the pretty table, plates/napkins, food, etc., along with all the beautiful people who came to our party.  Instead, I was too focused on the baby who woke up super crabby a half hour before our guests came...blame it on teething!  So use your imagination!

Lydia got super spoiled with presents, and she did fairly well considering this was the first time she attempted unwrapping a package.  She was more interested in trying to figure out why both of her grandmas were in the same room at the same time and deciding which one to run to.

Checking on McCoy!

Daddy got to help Lydia unwrap presents!

Giving her baby a ride in her new stroller!

Whee!  A new slide!

Attacking Asher--the other favorite part of the night was trying to keep up with her cousins!

Most of the cake just got squished inbetween her hands :)

12 Months

Lydia is ONE!!!

Lydia will have her one-year-old check-up on January 7, so we will know her exact stats then, but I'm guessing she's somewhere around 23 pounds.  She has definitely slowed down since she started walking EVERYWHERE at the beginning of the month!  Now she's practically trying to run!

Lydia is still taking two naps every day, but has only been getting a 4 oz. bottle for the afternoon nap.  That will be stopping later this week!  Our goal is to be all done with her nighttime bottle by the end of (if not before) January.  She is doing SO much better with eating, and has given all of her remaining baby food away to her cousin McCoy!  We've found a few casseroles that Lydia likes to eat, and we know she loves cheese sandwiches/grilled cheese, chicken strips, and creamed chicken on bread.  This girl could live on bread and cheese alone if we let her!  She does really well with fruit, but is still fairly picky with vegetables.  We keep trying new things all the time!

After opening so many presents from Christmas/Birthday, Lydia has formed a new affinity for gift bows.  She would rather have them than the present you gave her :)  She still loves music, dancing, reading books, her pacifier at sleeping times, soft animals, Curious George, her cousins, and being loud!  She doesn't like juice, vegetables, her mitten clips, or people with too much facial hair getting close to her (like her uncles!).

Lydia's personality just keeps growing by miles!  She has more facial expressions than we can count and will jabber for hours.  She's starting to say "Daddy," "cheese," "shoe (sh)," "ball," and "bye" more frequently, and we're amazed how much she understands and how fast she catches on to things.  We've also noticed a tiny stubborn streak that we can't seem to pinpoint the family origin on...Ten Clay? Moss? Vander Lee? Vermeer?  Nope!  Can't be any of them!  (Yeah right!!!)  She's had a few small meltdowns/temper tantrums that I just tend to ignore and she usually gets over them fairly quickly.  Let's just hope she doesn't enter the "terrible twos" stage too early!

We love you, Lydia!  Can't believe how fast you've grown already!  We can't wait to see what God has in store for year #2!

Ten Clay Christmas

We were able to celebrate Christmas with Dan's family on Christmas night.  On Christmas morning, we went to church in Hull, so I could play piano with my mom and help serve cookies at church.  Lydia decided to not take a nap that morning...uh oh!  She did get a decent nap in the afternoon, but by the time we were to open presents at night, she was definitely slowing down.  Lydia was a trooper, and with the help of her pacifier, we enjoyed another part of her first Christmas!

A new doll from Grandma!

Clothes!

Getting into opening presents :)

At this point, Daddy might have been more excited about the Mega Blocks than Lydia,
but I'm sure we'll have lots of fun with them! 

The following night, on Lydia's birthday, we got together at Dan's cousin's house with his extended Ten Clay family.  Lydia & I headed back to stay in Hull at my parents' that night since we had the extended Moss Christmas the next day, except we never got that far!  Right before we were going to leave the next morning, I realized that poor Lydia had a high fever.  She ended up not feeling well all day, and we missed the Vander Lee Christmas party that night, too!  So we still only made it to one out of the four extended family parties!  At least Lydia is feeling better now, and we hope for better luck next year!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, Dan was able to come home from the store early, so we had our own little family Christmas celebration.  Lydia finally started to get the hang of tearing off wrapping paper :)

Lydia's main gift this year was a little table and chairs!  We are looking forward to many tea parties, coloring books, play doh activities, and other crafty things that will occur here!

 

 At night we headed off to Christmas Eve service at church.  This pretty girl was a champ and lasted the whole service, thanks to Daddy, Mommy, and Grandma TC's laps!  

Pretty girl!

After church, Lydia opened up the movie, cow car, sippy cup, and toothbrush (not a huge fan of this...yet!) in her stocking!

Moss Christmas

On Saturday, December 20, we had Moss family Christmas in Hull!  All the little kids had a bunch of fun playing and spending time together!  Thanks for a wonderful Christmas!

Asher read Lydia one of her favorite books!

A snow princess, angel, Santa Claus, and Rudolph patiently waiting for presents!

(Don't you love that little pigtail?!) 

The grandkids (minus Coy) reading the Christmas story

Opening presents!

Even though Lydia received many fun and wonderful gifts, she was more entertained playing with everyone's bows!

O Christmas Tree!

We finally put up our Christmas tree on December 10!  Our basement got carpet put in that week, so we were able to switch our furniture around.  I didn't want to move furniture twice--once for the Christmas tree and then once again when the basement was done--so we just waited a little longer than usual to start with Christmas decorations.

No surprise that a little somebody had to be in on all the action!  Lydia was fascinated by the prickly texture of the tree and the bright, shiny lights!  We normally put up two trees--the other one has our glass ornaments on from our wedding, but I told Dan that we wouldn't be using those for the foreseeable future ;)  

At both Grandma's, Lydia had done pretty well with just looking at the trees up until this point.  Notice in the following pictures how she gets progressively closer, until there's no turning back.  We put all the unbreakable ornaments at the bottom (or so I thought...I did find her with a bell off one of mine the other day!).  Now she can frequently be found walking around with an ornament in her hand :(  The song "O Christmas Tree" has quickly turned more into a sigh of "Oh, Christmas Tree!"  What a temptation!