Dear Lydda Grace

Hi baby- tomorrow you will be one year old. It makes me want to cry- happy tears because of the joy you are in our lives and sad tears because you are just growing up way too fast! This time last year Daddy and I were at the hospital gearing up for your birth the next day!

The Lord truly blessed us with you and our greatest prayer is that you will grow up to know and love Jesus and to serve Him.

This year has brought so many changes in your life. You went from a solid 8lb. 5oz. to 23 lbs. You went from nursing to eating all kinds of foods (favorites are: blueberries, noodles, carrots, waffles, cheerios, cheese... carbs and cheese... you are clearly our child!). You began by contentedly sleeping in the moses basket to now crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything! You are so fast that we can turn around and you are into something new!

Here are some things that you like right now:
- Reading. You LOVE books and will sit for a long time and just flip through the pages of books perfectly content. Sometimes you get really quiet and I look over and you're just "reading" away.
- Drawers and cabinets. You open everything and like to take out whatever you find inside. The other day you pulled a desk drawer completely out on top of yourself. You weren't fazed.
- The Dishwasher. You are fascinated with it! Even if you are playing in the den and hear me open it to put things in you immediately rush to the kitchen. I have had to revise how I clean up the kitchen so I can try to beat you to put things in before you get there and start taking things out again!
- Laundry. Everytime I do laundry I put it on the green couch to fold and you always come and take everything off the couch, piece by piece, and throw it on the floor.
- The Vaccuum. Scared? Not you! You rush the vaccuum as soon as it comes on and talk to it and try to pat it!
- Walks outside. You constantly point at everything you see while we go on walks or runs early in the morning. You and Daddy and I go together and I love this time together.
- Water. You love baths and going swimming, you're a regular fish!
- Pictures of other people and yourself. You laugh and point at pictures all the time! In books, magazines, pictures we have around the house... anywhere, you love photos of people.

These are some things you are doing:
- Clapping and waving. A lot... at everyone... at random times... at yourself in the mirror... etc.
- Pulling up on everything.
- Crawling everywhere.
- Feeding yourself lots of types of finger foods.
- Drinking from a sippy cup and a straw.
- Talking often and a lot. We love it! You say "dadadada" to everything :)
- You have two bottom teeth and today your top right tooth just broke through.
- Waking up between 5:15-6:00am every morning.
- Giving kisses.

We love you so much Lydda Grace! It is hard to remember what life was like before you came. You constantly amaze us by all the things you do and how attentive and inquisitive you are. We can't wait to see what the next year brings!

I love you,
Mommy

pile of pillows

I thought I was brilliant and decided to throw all the pillows and couch cushions on the floor today for Lydda Grace to play on... What *almost* one year old wouldn't love to play on a pile of pillows?
This one was way more interested in the couch that, without cushions, was now low enough for her to climb on to!

She got into the action though.

spaghetti

BEFORE
DURING
AFTER

sitting

I painted this stool for Lydda Grace and it sits in the bathroom and we sit on it when we give her a bath. Now she's big enough to sit on it too! She looks so old here to me!

help celebrate Lydda Grace's birthday!!!

It's hard to believe that one week from today our baby girl will be a whole YEAR old!!

I have really enjoyed (and plan to continue) keeping this blog and hope that one day Lydda Grace will love looking back through at these little snippets of her life. Surprisingly we have about 50 visitors to this site every day and I thought it would be fun for her to see who those visitors were!

Sometime in the next week please leave a comment on any recent post with your name, where you're from and maybe a little bit about why you like to keep up with Lydda Grace or something like that.

Thanks for loving our little girl!

Look how she's grown!!

August 2, 2008

July 2, 2009

Lydda Grace pictures

Since there was only one picture of Lydda Grace in the last post I figured I better remedy that problem :o)

we'll be eating more chicken

We did it! In case you have never heard- Chick-fil-a does a grand opening promo where the first 100 people in the store are given 52 coupons for combo meals (that's one meal per week for a year!)

So... on Wednesday morning at 5:45am Jon and I went with Rebekah, and Jason and Lynn Courter to the new Chick-fil-a. It was already packed! Because there were more than 100 people there we were entered into a lottery and Jon and Bekah both won one of the coveted 100 first spots (Jon was #7!!). Since Chick-fil-a didn't officially open until 6am Thursday they had to remain on the premises for the next 24 hours. We had so much fun hanging out, playing Settlers, eating free Chick-fil-a, and chatting with the other participants. This morning Jon and Bekah donned their official t-shirts and hats and walked into the new store and got their coupons. We were home by 6:02am... it was quick :o)

Mom, Bethy and I brought Lydda Grace up to visit for a little while. She seemed to have to fun!
Playing Settlers with Lynn, Jason, Rebekah, Bethany and Jon (Javier joined us later)

Rebekah and Bethany both won rounds of a hula hoop game!

Here's Jon in line in the morning waiting to go in for the Grand Opening and to get his coupons! The guy in front of him in the cow suit has been to 33 of these things.... crazy!

peek-a-boo

Lydda Grace loves playing peek-a-boo! She does it all the time now with whatever she is holding, or her dress, or anything!

Lydda Grace meets the Tiger Cub

We went to "Burgers with the Barkers" last night and the Tiger Cub was there. Carson takes pictures for the division and was there working so he snapped some good ones of Lydda Grace while he was at it!

At first she just kind of whimpered then she finally touched his finger. He came around again a second time and she flat out cried.

There was a little toto dog running around that LG really liked!
Here she is with Molly modeling some shades.

photo shoot pics

On our staycation Rachel Wetzel (one of Bek's college roommates) did a photo shoot for us! Here are a few shots! There are so many great ones it is hard to choose :o) Thanks Rachel!!!!!!!

weekend in y-ville

We were in Yadkinville this weekend for a shower for Mandy. It was a quick and busy weekend but lots of fun.

With Uncle Nick and soon-to-be Aunt Mandy after the shower. LG had JUST woken up from a nap :)
With Great Memama Wylie at the shower.
With Great Grandmother Downey on Sunday afternoon.

amazing errands

Curious how much we made on our errands this morning? Check out my other blog: everyday wylie!

mooooo

Friday on our way to Yadkinville for the weekend we stopped in at Chick-fil-a for Cow Appreciation Day. We all donned our cow costumes (check out Lydda Grace's cow bell :o)) and got our free meals! This was Lydda Grace's first taste of Chick-fil-a chicken and she loved it! Who doesn't?!?

We just want to know where the Johnson family got their cool cow hats, b/c our ears were pretty floppy... :o)

4th of July weekend

We went to Chapin for the 4th and it was so nice for ALL of us to be together there! The big news of the weekend is that Bethany and Mark are now engaged! Wedding date is tentatively set for Dec. 19th. YAY!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend.

beautiful day

For the longest time Lydda Grace sat on the edge of the blanket and sort of "patted" the grass. Like she wasn't sure what to do about it. Then she started to pick it but still wouldn't crawl off the blanket! This was surprising to me since she normally dives headfirst into everything!

staycation finale

The grand finale of our staycation took place Tuesday afternoon. We met our friends the Smiths at the lake and went out on the boat! It was beautiful out! Lydda Grace really seemed to like the wind blowing in her face. We beached the boat and swam and played then headed back to dock for a picnic dinner. Such a wonderful end to our staycation! Thank you Smith family!!!

staycation recap

This past Friday through Tuesday we were on "staycation" meaning we had vacation at home. It was fabulous! No travel, no strange beds, no packing, no unpacking.... sigh... so nice!

Friday we just hung out around the house and played.

Saturday afternoon we went to Greenville and saw Aunt Bekah and Uncle Javi. Since Uncle Javi just got back from 6 months in Puerto Rico it had been over 3 months since he and Lydda Grace had seen each other. Then Bek's former roommate Rachel Wetzel took some pictures of Lydda Grace and us (I'll post those when we get them!). Much better than the last photo shoot when Lydda Grace barely smiled. For dinner we went to SKY at Blue Ridge Brewing with our 80% off Restaurant.com gift card. It was delicious and Lydda Grace was amazing!

Sunday afternoon we visited the pool at the apartments of some friends. They are out of town right now so we just pretended that we were "pool sitting" for them. The picture of me and Lydda Grace from the previous post is actually at this pool too.


Monday was a busy, busy day! After morning nap we went to some friends from church, the Swiger's pool. Lydda Grace LOVED standing on and crawling on the steps. Poor baby got blisters on her toes! (not that she seemed to care- the picture of her on the steps from the previous post is this pool time). After LG's afternoon nap we went blueberry picking. Since blueberries are her favorite food right now she enjoyed having one popped into her mouth every so often :o)