11 Months

Happy Eleven Months Marco!

You are such a happy baby, such a good sleeper, and truly such a delightful addition to our family. I am so lucky that you're my little boy and love watching you grow. I can't wait to see what you grow up to be!

Here's some of my very favorite things that I don't want to forget about you!

- Sleep: You go to bed around 5:30 and wake up around 7:00 the next morning. 

- Eating: The only time you're interested in nursing is in the morning. You love guacamole, but hate regular avocados. You started taking juice from a sippy-cup (finally). You are a good eater as long as you can feed yourself, you aren't too keen on the idea of someone else feeding you with a spoon. Pouches, packets, and go-gurts are an exception to where you are fine with someone feeding you... but keep away that spoon.

- Movement: You still crawl and are very active. You can stand up on your own and take 3 or 4 steps solo before deciding you'd rather crawl to where you want to get to. 

- Facial Expressions: You're favorite thing to do is imitate people. If we sniff, you sniff. If we take a deep breath, you take a deep breath. If we blow raspberries, you try to blow raspberries. If we smack our lips, you smack your lips. It's all a fun game to you and one that cracks us up trying to watch you imitate us.

- Words: You say Ma-ma and Da-da, but that's it. You mostly grunt when you're unhappy and squeal when you're excited. 

- Your Sister: You find every toy that Lily is playing with so interesting that you want to play with it too. It is so difficult to explain to her that you just are curious and "inspecting" her toys for her. She is becoming great at sharing with her. And you are becoming great at pushing her away if you are tired of all of her hugs.

- Miscellaneous: You still love to be held about 75% of the time. You still won't fall asleep on Mommy (but you did three times on our trip to Utah). And if you don't have your favorite blanket and your thumb to suck on - it's impossible to get you to go to sleep. Other than that you are so easy and complacent. You just go with the flow.

We love you Marco!

Temple Square

If I lived in Utah, this would be a definite Christmas tradition on my Christmas Checklist: Seeing the Lights at Temple Square. However, I don't live in Utah. So I can't go and see the lights at temple square. But... I have the best of both worlds, because I have family that lives in Utah, so I can visit temple square every time I come to visit them! Michal and I decided that with every trip to Utah we want to take our kids to Temple Square and BYU to get them excited about attending college at BYU and excited about getting married in the Temple one day. Eventually they will grow and become old enough that we will be able to share with them stories about how we got married in the Salt Lake Temple (and how Michal brought a barf bucket into the sealing room when our marriage was being officiated).

So our first stop in Salt Lake was to eat at my favorite restaurant: The Blue Lemon. Lily is one lucky girl because her lunch was a snow-glove cookie. The evidence is written all over her face.

We originally went to City Creek Center first so that we could see Santa Claus and Lily could sit on his lap and tell him what she wished for for Christmas. However, it was over an hour wait. And, I don't know how well she would have handled sitting on an old strange man's lap. So we went with plan B: the Disney Store. Lily was in heaven carrying around all of her favorite characters. The employees referred to Lily as "princess Lily" and showed her "the Magic Mirror" where different princess characters magically appear and say a cute message to the girls on the other side of the mirror. I didn't want to leave. Michal did. I wanted to stay and watch her play and be a princess. Michal didn't. He eventually won out.

We were going to head home, but hearing Marco was asleep, we opted to go and visit Temple Square, including the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the visitors center. 

It was cold, cold, cold. So we stayed inside where it was warmed for large portions of the time. There were so many people, and it was so dark that pictures on temple grounds wouldn't have turned out very well. Plus, it was so windy that it Lily said, "the blowing is hurting my face." So we grabbed some BYU creamery chocolate milk (from JSMB) and headed home. While we weren't there for long, it was plenty of time for us to reminisce upon living downtown SLC and establishing a new Christmas tradition.

Gingerbread Houses

Lily's cousin Madeline came over to visit on the weekend and Lily was thrilled to see her. She had so much planned to do and play with Madeline. These two mesh together so well. They have similar personality characteristics, likes, dislikes, and their temperaments are quite equivalent as well.

One thing I need to be better about is starting and establishing Christmas traditions in our family. This is the first year that Lily truly grasped the concept of what Christmas is, and because of that Christmas so was so much more meaningful and magical. Watching the awe and wonder in her face when learning new things, participating in new events, trying new things, and opening presents was what made this Christmas extra special. 

Shout out goes to my mom who bought all these cool "extras" to make Christmas more memorable. She bought the Olaf supplies (to make a snowman), Gingerbread house kits (to make gingerbread houses), and supplied Lily with ample opportunities to see lights, open gifts, and read Christmas stories.

One tradition I had always wanted to start was making Gingerbread houses. I thought it was such a long and messy process, but it actually wasn't that bad. Grammy bought a kit that included (real) gingerbread, frosting, and candy embellishments. Had I been in charge of this on my own, I probably would have made gingerbread, bought all the candy, and whipped up frosting. I had no idea that all this comes packaged together for ease and convenience.

The girls loved sneaking more candies into their mouths than putting them on the house. All the adults wanted to make a nice Greco-symmetric home, while the kids cared less about symmetry and design. They just wanted to place one candy on the house and then put two in their mouths. It was comical to watch them try to blame each other for eating candy when they were both engorging and trying to be sneaky about how much they could eat before getting reprimanded.

The excitement didn't last long with the house. Once the candy popping was prohibited, they quickly lost interest and wanted to watch movies instead. I think that gingerbread houses may be more geared towards an older audience, but if it becomes a tradition, then it's something that the kids can look forward to each year!

The remainder of the evening was spent relaxing and enjoying each other's company. Lily loved playing with Madeline. I am so happy to see her playing with her cousin and enjoying the attention that she gets from my family.

I had to sneak this gem of a picture into this post. While we were busy decorating our gingerbread house, Michal made things more entertaining. I have no idea why a basket is on top of his head or why he is attacking me with a spatula. But he never ceases to make me laugh. Every time I look at this picture I still laugh. 

What a wonderful day. What a wonderful new tradition. What a wonderful experience being able to spend such quality time with family.

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

Ever since Lily arrived at Grammy's house she had been begging to go and make Olaf. She was dying to play in the snow. However, once we arrived, Lily came down with a terrible cold and a fever. She was so lethargic I was afraid she'd wouldn't get better in time to play in the snow. Once snow falls it becomes harder to mould and play with. Luckily, once her fever let up - we took advantage of a new snowfall to go out and let her play to her heart's content. She was in heaven and was so happy to engage in building her very own Olaf!

She took this process very seriously...

Preparation and rolling the body.

Admiring Olaf's features.

Putting on some touch-ups.

Posing with her new friend.

And of course, Olaf needed a family to join him!

After Olaf had a family, Lily still wanted to play in the snow. So My mom helped show her how to make snow angels. 

After a couple tries, she got the hang of it. But, poor Lily, Badger kept on ruining her snow angels, so she insisted on making more. I don't know what's so enticing to small children about playing in the snow, but they could be out there for hours with just their imaginations! Hopefully this isn't our last time playing in the snow this Winter season. Lily was in heaven and truly felt like she was Queen Elsa out in the snow.

Aquarium

The day after we arrived in Utah, Grammy and Grandpa surprised Lily by taking her and Madeline (her cousin) to the Aquarium. 

We had been there before, but it was rather crowded. This time we felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves. We were able to spend ample time at each exhibit and really appreciate each enclosure. It was breathtaking to just sit and relax and watch fish!

Lily's favorite place was where "Dori" was. Every time Lily ran away or got bored of what we were looking at, she'd sneak on over and watch Dori. Several times I just stood back and watched her wave and talk to Dori. It was so endearing and it made my heart melt that a little toddler could fall in love with a fish! From how much she loved watching Dori, I resolved that when "Finding Dori" comes out next Spring - I will have to take Lily on a Mommy/Daughter date to watch this movie. It gives me warm fuzzies just thinking about it!

With no one else at the Sting Ray station, I for sure thought that Lily would be trying to touch these creatures... but she remained true to character and felt more comfortable watching them from a distance and letting Madeline do all the touching.

And while the sharks weren't that cool...

... the sea turtle was a BIG hit! Lily waved to him everywhere he went.

I attempted to get some selfies with the sharks juxtaposed behind us. I failed. But I did notice that way behind me there is a meeting room with its curtains opened. How cool would it be to rent that room to have your company meetings? You could sit and watch the sharks swim on by... but on second thought, it might be too relaxing and the meeting wouldn't be entirely effective. 

I didn't get many pictures of Marco at the aquarium. It's probably because he was more interested in being held than looking at any fish.

While saying "Hello" to the penguins, Lily tripped and fell down and was not a happy camper about getting her picture taken or seeing penguins. All she wanted was to be held or walk around holding my hand. 

She got her wish and roped her Grandparents into holding her hand. My hands were busy because Marco had fallen asleep, so I was glad there was someone there to be my back-up. 

Every day for the next five days Lily asked if we could go again to see Dori. I think that she liked the Aquarium, how about you? My only wish was that there was an Aquarium, of this size, closer to where we lived so that we could take advantage of it and visit often. 

Thanks Grammy and Grandpa for such a fun morning at the Aquarium! We can't wait to go again!