Wintery outdoor fun

Testing out the ice with Daddy

Getting ice fishing tips from Daddy

Showing Daddy how it's done

A classic pic: Carl's grandpa releasing his catch of the day.

Lily getting a sled ride from her grandpa

Whee!!!

Due to the chilly temps, Lily was able to try walking, fishing, and sledding on Carl's grandparents' frozen pond. She really enjoyed playing on the ice, and I know Carl enjoyed having Lily partake in some of his favorite activities from childhood. Give her a year or two and she'll probably be involved in the ice hockey games as well!

Christmas morn

Donuts from Santa!

Whenever we asked Lily what Santa was going to bring her, always at the top of her list was donuts. Santa must have been watching and listening.

Enjoying her donuts in her new rocking chair from Grandpa Deetz.

Carl getting in the spirit of the day

Santa found Lily in Indiana and brought lots of fun things including snow pants, boots and mittens, many books, a very warm & cuddly blanket, and a baking set. Lily also received fun gifts from the Deetz side of the family including cuddly animal friends and an adorable rocking chair from Grandpa Deetz & Uncle Zander and an awesome "magic" painting set and wonderful book, The Peace Book, from Aunt Ingrid. Lily's certainly one lucky little girl!

Gratitude

On the road again

We have officially returned from our travels and are settled back home snug as bugs. I will, of course, update with more pictures and stories from numerous celebrations, but I just could not continue with new posts without first giving due recognition to my amazing, phenomenal, superb, stupendous, fantastic, incredible, truly terrific tot traveler, Lily. Our adventures this year included a 10-hour drive to Indiana, a subsequent 7-hour drive to St. Louis, and then for the grand finale: a 15 1/2-hour trip from St. Louis back to Baltimore. Our drive home yesterday included just about every unpleasant weather condition possible: rain, wind, snow, sleet, fog, and even occasional sun glare. Carl, the trooper that he is, drove the entire distance home, including the 50-mile stretch of blinding snow somehow coming at us horizontally and making it virtually impossible to see anything. I was a bit alarmed at one point when he commented to me, "If you see me driving off the road, let me know." We have both certainly driven in worse conditions but never with Lily in the backseat, so this was the most difficult drive we have experienced to date. But, we made it, and I am overjoyed to say that we will NEVER have to drive that route again at Christmas time!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!

Our travels began last Saturday. We had planned to leave in the evening and drive overnight as we had done in the past, but then Carl suggested that we try driving during the day to see how it goes. We were amazed at how well Lily handled it. She napped occasionally but otherwise talked, sang, played with her aquadoodle, read books, listened to music, played with her ponies and Little People, and snacked on "parrots" (pears), yogurt, apples, pretzels, and cheese. Not once during the entire trip did she cry or complain. She made a few brief moans in Pennsylvania followed by a little spitting up which we attributed to car sickness, as we were traveling on some curvy roads in higher altitudes, but that was it - she even handled car sickness well!

Again, she was perfect during our drive from Indiana to St. Louis. What amazed me even more was that we went straight from the car to my family's Christmas dinner and celebration with 16 people in attendance, and she didn't miss a beat. She ate well and had a ball opening presents with all of her cousins.

The drive from St. Louis to Baltimore was tough on even Carl and me, but she handled it like a pro. She asked to get out of her carseat a couple of times, but it happened to be at times that we were getting ready to stop anyway, so it was no problem. She remained her upbeat, spunky self the entire time. Through all of this, she also remained on schedule from beginning to end. She always napped during her normal times, going down anytime between 11:30 and 1:30 and sleeping her usual 1 1/2 hours. She tended to go to bed 1/2 hour to 1 hour later than normal, but what are vacations for! She ate really well too, especially in the car. She had a few too many treats at various family gatherings but didn't we all? :)

Overall, we spent a glorious week with our families made possible by Lily's good spirits through it all. It was a lot - probably too much - to ask of a two-year-old, but she rose to the occasion. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lily. And many thanks to our families, especially Grandma & Grandpa Deetz and my parents for hosting us on our travels. We had a fantastic time and are forever grateful for the good food, great company, and many fond memories!!

Ready to party

Our Retro Girl

Hangin' with the Deetz Clan

Helping Great Grandpa with the fire

Fun times with Daddy

Dave is not pleased with the dwindling pot of the famous freshly popped popcorn

Spending time with Pam, Livy, and cousin Lainey

A visit from Santa

Even Grandpa received a present from Santa

We were very lucky to have Santa visit us in Indiana while visiting the Deetz side of the family. Lily was a little bit wary of the man in the red suit, but not so much so as to not get her present from him. She did make sure not to turn her back on him though. Christmas this year was by far the best with Lily. She was actually so excited that she had a hard time falling asleep on Christmas Eve as she kept asking, "Santa coming?" The first thing that Lily did when she woke up on Christmas morning was to ask if Santa was here; she then looked out of the window and said, "Nope." Lily checked out her loot under the tree when she went downstairs, but then decided to wait a bit to open up the gifts as she suspiciously eyed the door that Santa had entered a couple days prior. Overall, all of our celebrations have been fantastic, and we are not even done celebrating with all sides of the family yet!

Multitasking while on the phone

Lily certainly has been watching and learning.

Literally speaking

Our weekend here was of the productive type. We were able to do some long-outstanding cleaning projects that will make it a little easier next month when we officially begin to pack up the house for our upcoming move and prepare it for sale. Crazy! We also had a lot of play time with our little one. We broke out the playdough, fingerpaints, aquadoodle, crayons, and markers for some art time fun. Lily couldn't get enough of it! She also helped me make chicken & dumplings and helped Aunt Ingrid bake *real* (very tasty) Christmas cookies. Carl and I were also able to sneak in our almost weekly weekend lunch date (now that Aunt Ingrid is here to watch Miss Lily). All in all, it was a very good winter weekend.

My highlights from this weekend were actually verbal exchanges between Carl and Lily which included the following:

• Carl was playing with Lily and said, "You're such a little monkey" to which Lily responded, "I'm a girl".
• Carl has started taking nature walks with Lily. On these walks, Carl points out all kinds of outdoorsy things to show/explain to Lily. While they were walking on Saturday, Lily commented that she is sick and has a cough. Carl was joking that he had not heard her cough and didn't think she was sick at which time she actually did cough. He laughed and said, "Where did that cough come from?" She answered, "From Lily's mouth."

Scenes from the day

"What the heck????"

Our poor little pooch had a plastic satellite dish bestowed upon her head after she and Irie got a little too rambunctious a few nights ago. After their own version of doggie Fight Club, Terra was left with a gash above her right eye. We thought that it might heal on its own, but Ingrid had to take Terra to the vet after one of the blankets that Terra likes to cuddle up in became stuck to her wound (yuck!). It apparently was not healing well because Terra was messing with it too much, hence her lovely apparatus. For some reason, seeing Terra in it reminds me of Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles - hey, if she can make it work, so can Terra. Anyway, this morning was the first time that Lily saw it on Terra, and her expression was just priceless.

Lily immediately became concerned and took on the caregiver role, petting Terra ever-so-gently...

...and giving her sweet little kisses.


After school, it was Friday night party night.
Without any rhyme or reason, Lily went into Ingrid's room, grabbed the lampshade off of the lamp on the nightstand, put it on her head and starting dancing from room to room. (Maybe she wanted to make Terra feel less awkward by sporting a similar look, who knows?) We're just two wild and crazy girls when daddy's on call.

Congratulations Carl!

We received news on Wednesday (I know, I should be more on top of my posting) that Carl successfully completed Step 2 of the Boards. This 9-hour test took place 3 weeks ago so I think these past few weeks went by very slowly for Carl. But, the wait is over, and we are happy with the results! We celebrated at the local diner that night with the entire household. Everyone met there after work, and then we had to take 3 different cars to drive 2 minutes down the street to go home, but it was fun - even with a cranky two-year-old! Way to go, Carl. Once again, your family is so very proud of you.

Playing dress-up at school

Firefighter Lily

Dr. Lily

I missed getting a picture of her when she was dressed as a postal worker delivering donuts to her sister Annie. She is obsessed!

Christmas cookies!

Tonight Lily and I made our first batch of Christmas cookies together. Okay, so I totally cheated and bought the refrigerated and pre-cut dough so there wasn't much "making" involved with these cookies, but this year, I've gotta tell ya, I'm okay with it. Maybe if I'm feeling motivated, we'll do the real deal this weekend. Lily did insist on making cookies for particular people. So, the first cookie we marked with an "L" for Lily, then she decided dada, mama, Irie, Ingrid, and Terra needed specially marked cookies as well. The final two that made the cut was Zach and Angela (Zach first, of course - sorry Ang!).

I also could not go without mentioning that we are now in the double digits in our countdown to Match Day - yay! I know that Carl could not be happier. He returned from an interview in Iowa at 12:15 am this morning and had to wake up at 4:30 am to be at work. Again, not cool. He only has two interviews left: Johns Hopkins next Monday (hooray for no traveling) and then Indiana in January. We are anxiously awaiting the holiday break and getting the chance to relax and catch up with our families. We are also looking forward to the spring and less traveling. (To put it in perspective, Lily now thinks that daddy goes to work on the "hairplane".) It will be nice to get back to "normal" as much as possible before the big move.

The terrible twos

There is no doubt that we have reached an age of defiance and a search for independence. Lily continues to want to do things herself...except when she doesn't. She'll let you know. And then she'll probably change her mind about a dozen or so times in the process. Most of the time she wants things that are not humanly possible. For example, she often wants to make a try on the potty and wants my assistance in helping her get onto the potty but then immediately says "No mommy!" because she does not want me to hold her while she is on the potty. If I could just move faster than the speed of light maybe our problems would be solved. When she decides that she wants something, it has to be right now, like I should have sensed her desires and then had it before her immediately upon request. As Carl would jokingly say, "Get used to disappointment, kid."

Our current struggles are rather humorous, really. She craves yogurt like no other. Last night we went to bed with her screaming all the way because she wanted a fourth yogurt in about a 3 hour period. Sorry, there are limits, even with the healthy stuff. Also, no matter how many times we reiterate that we only take one vitamin a day, she will insist that she needs more. Of course, there are the continual reminders about being gentle with the doggies, not feeding the doggies, not playing with mommy's and Aunt Ingrid's computers, not playing with our phones, not touching cords, the tv, etc. - normal toddler stuff.

The fact of the matter, though, is that I honestly love this period of discovery. Even the continual testing of limits (and nerves) is all an attempt to figure out the world and how to operate within it. Just tonight she said the following:

- As we were getting the mail after school/work, she said, "Mama, I'm sick. I need medicine." Where that came from, I'm not sure, but I love that she has figured out the purpose of medicine. That deeper level of understanding is so cool.

- When I was putting her diaper on after her bath, she put her finger on her left eye and said "My eyeball can't see." The eyeball part threw me, so I mistakenly said, "Your eyeball can see?" She repeated, "No mama, my eyeball CAN'T SEE!" I said, "Oh, your eyeball, can't see." She said yeah, then she moved her finger over her right eye and said "My other eyeball can't see." All I could do was laugh and say "You're right, baby, your eyeball can't see when you hold your eyelid closed."

At school, she keeps everyone laughing...and guessing. She once again was telling her teachers all about her baby sister, Annie, and how Annie sleeps in Lily's bed and how she cries and how we feed her. Clearly, she has gotten her wires crossed and has a vivid imagination. Annie is the baby sister of one of her classmates.

Lily's favorite word right now is probably "sompthin", which she uses a lot, usually in the sentence, "I need sompthin". She also requests "parrots" (pears) almost daily. It's really funny how you slip into the habit of adopting her language, like everyone should know that "yogi" is "yogurt".

So, terrible twos? - yes, maybe sometimes - but mostly terribly cute and completely lovable.

All warm and toasty

This picture reminds me so much of the little kid in the movie A Christmas Story - that look of "Mom, are you kidding me with this"; it just makes me laugh. I have been running a little behind in the mornings lately, and I think that part of it is that I have forgotten to account for extra "bundling" time. When I was putting her outer wear on this morning, Lily said "All warm and toasty" - too cute.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Annie's Playground

Right side of the playground - view from the front

Right side - rear view

Annie's castle
Sign reads "Welcome to Annie's Playground Garden. We all miss you sooooo much. You will never be forgotten. Love, Mommy, Daddy, Susie, Alice, and Madelyn"


Lily all bundled up on a chilly afternoon

Peeking out from the treehouse

Lily didn't think swinging could get any better until she discovered the green swing



Lily also loves the horsey!

Another horsey!

Lily insisted that this alien was a snowman.


We visited Annie's Playground this weekend. We first went there with my friend, Jen, and her little guy, Nathan, last month in order to celebrate Nathan and Lily's birthdays. I could not believe that we had not heard of this playground before. It is an amazing playground; pictures really cannot do it justice. Even at 30 years old, when I first saw it, I stood in wide-eyed wonderment and could not wait to explore all this playground has to offer.

As you could probably gather from the sign above, the reason for the playground's existence is a sad one. Annie, a little girl from Harford County, was killed a few years ago by a drunk driver when she and her family were leaving the circus. Her family wanted to honor her by building this playground, and the community responded with an outpouring of donations to create this unbelievably beautiful tribute. There are so many different areas and little nooks and crannies with games, musical instruments, a children's outdoor theater, slides, swings, mirrors, climbing structures, playhouses, a baseball diamond...the list goes on and on. As Jen said, and I agree, there are so many things there that you discover something new each time that you visit. It is unfortunate that we discovered this right in time for cold weather, but rest assured that we will visit it many more times before we leave this area.

Lily and life

Lily had her two year check-up today, a little delayed because her doctor had to reschedule her original appointment. Everything looks fantastic. Her doctor made a comment that he couldn't believe that she was two already and that she has done pretty well to visit him so rarely in the first two years of life. I thought to myself that I'm more worried about the next few years, little daredevil that she is. She is currently 29 lbs. 3 oz. (75th percentile) and 35 inches (90th percentile). Once again, she is "proportionate". So, we're right on track. I confirmed with him that we could switch her from whole to 2% milk, and he gave the green light, adding "she is not wanting for growth". That statement made me laugh, and he was quick to add that she is in no way beyond the normal stats for her age, just that she is not behind.

She received two vaccinations today, another Hep A and the flu shot. She was so good about it; I really was amazed. When she was given the shots, she just looked up at me like, "What the hell?..." She cried a little while she repeated, "Mama, I need up". When I told her that she was all done, she was totally fine and walked out of the office telling me that she wanted "a red donut". Much to her amazement (and I even surprised myself a little by allowing it), I did let her get a donut after school, and what do you know, they did have a red donut (red frosting with green & white sprinkles for the holidays). It's the little things in life...

In general, things are well with us. Carl started his sub-internship in Surgical Oncology, once again confirming that surgery is NOT the field for him. The hours stink. Carl often begins his day around 4:30 am and usually gets home after I do at night - not cool. Like last year, December is going to be a tough month, but once we get through it, he will have a nice break for the holidays. However, unlike last year, he will be off for the entire month of January - awesome! Next semester's schedule looks fairly good after that, and I know it will all go quickly anyway because of the major changes that will be looming near. Exciting and good and crazy all mixed together.

I have been keeping myself busy with holiday preparations like putting up the Christmas tree and the outside lights. For the outdoor lights, I carefully wound lights around the rails on our little porch, put the net lighting on the bushes, hung the lighted wreath under the kitchen window, and very meticulously covered individual branches of our tree with special larger, round bulbs topped off with large snowflake lights higher in the tree. Despite the dozens of tiny cuts on my hands and arms, the sore back and shoulders, and running an electric current through my body by unknowingly touching an exposed broken bulb, it was worth it for my lovely lights display. And, it was so lovely....for about 24 hours. The second day that I plugged in the lights, only one strand (the first strand) of lights on the tree turned on when I plugged it in. Pitiful. All I can do is laugh though because what else can you do? I will search for the problem this weekend, but if I don't find it, we are going to have to do without this year because I just don't have the energy to do it again. And such is life.

Holiday cheer

Not your traditional holiday photo in front of the tree, as Lily dons her wild nightgown

Lily's "pretty smile"

Carl has taught Lily to give this silly super-smile in response to asking for her "pretty smile". Nice.

Lily continues to develop her sense of humor both at home and at school. When painting a picture last week, her teacher asked her what she had drawn, and she responded, "Ali's stinky feet". Her teacher asked her again just to be sure, and she responded with the same. By the way, Ali is her other teacher, and the picture is now displayed proudly on the classroom wall.

Of course, she also says things not intending to be humorous but cracks us up anyway. When we went to St. Louis, she met my sister Angela's boyfriend, Zach. Since we returned to Baltimore, all of Lily's dolls are now named Zach. When Ingrid's date came to pick her up at the house on Saturday night, Lily said "Bye Zach" as they were walking out of the door. For someone that Lily met for a matter of hours, Zach certainly left a lasting impression on Lily!

Spending time with Grandmas

With two grandmas around and only one grandchild, someone's likely to get the short end of the stick.

Another birthday celebration - hooray!

Reading an absolutely beautiful and touching book, Never Too Little Too Love, a gift from Great Grandma Murphy

Reading together again...

And again! (Notice Lily's decidedly annoyed face from being interrupted during her reading time with Grandma Murphy.)

So much for which to be thankful

Celebrating Thanksgiving the right way - with family! We were lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving week with Carl's mom, Grandma Murphy, and of course, his sister, Ingrid.

The traditional Thanksgiving feast gets two thumbs up from Lily!

Our sassy girl in her Thanksgiving get-up (thanks to Grandma Meyer for the outfit!)

Showing her true colors

The Garden Room

As of December 3rd, Lily's class is officially movin' on up to the transitional twos room, our Garden Room. The children in Lily's class have been visiting this room for increasingly longer periods of time over the last few weeks, and they absolutely love it. Besides having a lot more room, it has new toys and things to explore. In addition, the day is a bit more structured, with increased emphasis on "academic skills" like color and number recognition, etc. I love not only the feel of this room but also the fact that it is directly across from my office so I can sneak a peak at her throughout the day. Also, very surprisingly, she has done so much better in this room in terms of not being upset when she sees me throughout the day. Quite often she will wave at me and say "Hi, mama" and continue right on playing. I love it! I am a bit sad though because this will be her last classroom in the school. The class will not move into the 2/3's room until the fall of next year and by that time we will most likely have moved on. It is becoming increasingly hard to think about leaving a school that I love having her attend, where everyone from the staff to parents to children know her and most have since she was 12 weeks old. We are both very happy and comfortable there, and it will be terribly difficult to say good-bye.

Holiday parade

Aunt Ingrid & Lily hangin' together

Cutie baby on a chilly afternoon

The man of the hour

Last weekend, Ingrid, Lily and I went to see a Christmas parade in a nearby shopping hot spot. On that Saturday, it was anything but as we all huddled together to stay warm in the chilly fall air. Usually I am very against Christmas celebrations before Thanksgiving. This year, I am looking forward to Christmas so much that I don't mind. This time of year goes so fast; I think that I'm attempting to extend it a bit. When it comes down to it, both Thanksgiving and Christmas involve spending time with family and celebrating those we love, so who wouldn't want it to last longer?