Lately...

The three of us had a great week together relaxing at home. We spent the days reading books, singing songs, making meals, and tickling toes. Lydia is filled with laughter and sweetness. She is so much fun! Matt and I were talking a couple of nights ago about how we miss her while she is sleeping. This brings us to the following:

We quietly snuck into her room and there they were - Lydia and Mr. Pig... Sound asleep. 

Below is a little video of Lydia and her big squeals to take you into the weekend!

First Steps

Lydia took her first steps today! We are quite excited! We are also thankful that we were both here when she took them.

Here are a couple of videos. The first was taken a few minutes after she took her first steps. The second was taken as we were trying to get her to walk a bit further. Lydia had other plans for the second video.

And here are a couple of photos from earlier in the week.

Hello

Lydia loves music and singing. She usually stops whatever she is doing to sway back and forth whenever she hears a song or some singing. If the music really gets going, she also raises her hands. Here is a video of Lydia eating breakfast to one of her favorite tunes.

We got some snow here recently and we were able to take Monks out in her sled. As with pretty much everything, she loves the snow and sledding.

This next video* is where I was nominated for dad of the year 2015.

What?! She's fine. No crying or anything.

Back to the music theme, here are some photos of Lydia using her pink piano that Grandpa got her for Christmas. She LOVES it. We call it the Baby Baby Grand. Thank you Grandpa Clark.

We had two deer come and visit Lydia this week. She was very excited about this and since the visit, has been very anxious to look out the window each day.

Lydia has also been spending a lot of time reading in her rocking chair or covered in her blanket on one of our living room chairs. She likes to point at each page before turning it, make lots of noise, and is not concerned if her book is upside down or not.

Happy New Year!

*No Monkeys were harmed in the filming of this video.

Christmas

We spent time with family and friends in Michigan over Christmas this year. We had a great time and Lydia was very popular everywhere we went, including the Christmas Eve service where Lydia swayed back and forth in the candlelight to O Holy Night. The pastor did a good job of reminding us all what the true meaning and reason for Christmas is: Jesus. So did Ella, Juliette, and Karis when we FaceTimed with them on Christmas day.

Here are some photos from the past few days.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas!