Girls Luncheon at The Tea Room

Grandma, Courtney, Lily, and Abby in front of The Tea Room

Ready for the Ladies' Lunch

My mom decided to treat the girls to a special lunch today since Lily is going back to school on Monday (yikes!) and Courtney & Abby go back to school in a couple of weeks. The Tea Room was lovely and the girls got to have a very special, new experience.

At the Craft Studio

Abby working on her treasure chest for her jewels

Courtney working on her necklace

Lily (in deep concentration) working on her wooden train

All the girls with their creations

This craft studio called Made by Me is just 5 minutes from our house. All the girls, aged 2 to 12, had a great time!

An evening with cousins

Lily, Nick, and Courtney at the Nature Center

Our Monets working on watercolor pictures after dinner

A night at the races takes on a whole new meaning

Missouri Botanical Gardens

As I have told several people, after having visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens again (and in more depth), I think that this place might be a reason to move back to St. Louis even if I had no others. We had the best time and ended up spending close to 3 hours there with nonstop fun. The Nikki exhibit is there right now which features many structures that the kids can climb on - so nice! The children's area in and of itself is amazing and huge! I'm so thankful for places like this, especially when it is free to St. Louis residents on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

From the Nikki exhibit - The Lion

The Cat

The Seal

The Alligator

In the children's area - sliding fashionably with her purse

Again, with the purse

In the outdoor classroom area - the music & movement section

The messy materials area

The water play area, a Lily favorite

Baking with Grandma

Lily's getting direct instruction from the pro (peach cobbler and it was fantastic!)

One of the many things I love about being in St. Louis is the Care Packages that I often take home. On this night, after swimming all afternoon, we came back to dinner prepared by my father. Then, Carl's portion was packed up to take home with us along with some of the (still hot) peach cobbler, fresh picked corn and peaches, and some of my father's famous chocolate chip cookies. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Swimming with Grandma

So sweet & innocent

Our little monkey, swinging away

Grandma & Lily look for Angela on the airplanes flying overhead

Lily's fishing game: the balls were the "hotdogs" used as bait (she's been watching Papa fish) and she was the "fish" scooping them out of the water

As you can see, it was crazy-crowded at Grandma's community pool

Some fun in the "baby pool"

More splashin' fun

Say what?

Lily has always had a bit of sass, spunk, a certain je ne sais quoi. I've periodically updated the blog with some Lily sayings. Well, let me tell you, the hits just keep on coming. Because there is such a dramatic change from the language of early twos to the language of late twos, it is natural that Lily would just make us laugh more and more every day. Back in November, she would pretty much say a couple sentences that related to the immediate situation. Now she talks about the past, the future, and anything that her little mind can dream up. And, she can carry on lengthy conversations (with or without someone on the receiving end).

Last week, I made the ultimate mistake of telling her (at bedtime) that my friend, Mary, and her son, Patrick, were coming over the next day. Unfortunately, she heard "Mary" and immediately thought her almost-four-year-old cousin was coming to visit. Well, that did it. It was like I had given the girl speed. For 30 minutes straight, she DID NOT STOP TALKING. With stars in her eyes, she hashed out every detail of their day together, from how Mary was going to get here, to what they would play, to what they would eat...all the while bouncing up and down on her knees. Even though I tried to correct the misunderstanding, it was too late. Lily's mind was racing with the fun and frolic to be had with her cousin. Although it was a little sad, it was also very sweet. And although the bedtime hype was not desirable, it was great that she could express her excitement about an event (albeit fictional) to take place, drawing on fond memories with her cousin.

One of the most entertaining things is the little sayings that she picks up. It really makes you aware of the things that you say that you normally would not notice; you can't help but take notice when these things are being said back to you. Then there are other sayings that I have no clue from where they came.

So, now, some recent quotes...

• Probably the most frequently used saying these days is, "that just doesn't make any sense". I'm guilty as charged. I don't think that I say it that frequently, but Lily picked up on it and loves to use this little gem in all sorts of situations. It is most often used when she is hashing out rules in her head, like "We don't use our paints on the carpet, no, that just doesn't make any sense".
• Another favorite is "thanks for telling me". The other day, Carl told Lily that she needed to go potty before going out to play on her swing set, and she responded, "Oh, thanks for telling me".
• We were getting ready to go to our family Fourth of July celebration, and as we were gathering all the necessities for the car, Lily asked us, "Are we ready to take off?"
• When she wants to contradict us these days, she says "To tell you the truth..." or "Actually..."
• A lovely little phrase that started with her interactions with Terra is "don't bother me". We would tell Lily not to bother Terra, and this quickly turned into Terra bothering her and then, of course, Carl and I bothering her, particularly when we need her to do something. Parents are such a bother, aren't they? :)
• One she pulled out from who-knows-where just a couple of days ago is, "Round and round it goes. Where it stops, no one knows".
• The one that made me laugh out loud about a week ago was when we were getting ready to leave, and I told her that we needed to go. She responded, "You go ahead. I'll be down in a few minutes". What am I supposed to do with that? But that's our Lily.
  

MD or PhD?

Another day at the zoo

This is our third trip to the zoo this summer, and we still haven't seen it all! I forgot how big the St. Louis Zoo actually is. We will probably need to go a couple more times before we hit all (or at least most) of it.

Lily gets ready for the zoo by pretending to be a giraffe and reaching for the leaves.

As always, the first stop was face painting. Today she chose a kitty cat, probably my favorite one to date.

This time we went through the dinosaur exhibit. Carl stood in front of this one with Lily and said, "I hope the dinosaur doesn't spit on us". As she was laughing, the spray came out, and she jumped with surprise, wondering, "How does daddy know these things?"

The dino dig

Lily has shown some interest in dinos lately. Before we left today, she wanted to know all the names of the dinos that we would see. Too bad that I could only name about five. I'm not sure what she thinks about them in general, but when we first mentioned going to the zoo to see dinos, she scoffed at such an idea. It's hard to tell whether she knows that dinos don't exist anymore or that they just don't live at zoo.

Mama and baby Homo Sapien Sapien

The camel dreaming of cooler times, back in Egypt.

Lily & daddy checking out an exhibit together. I don't know why she has that expression, but it's pretty darn funny.

Mama & baby giraffe (with ostrich)

Zoo days are fun but exhausting, as Lily seeks rest in daddy's arms

Playdate

Thanks for visiting us, Patrick (and Mary)! We can't wait to play again!

All play and no work (for now)

We went to the Magic House Tuesday night for our real estate agency's customer appreciation event. It was hoppin', but we had a good time.

As always, Lily loved the water.

She also had a good time in the pretend Pizza Parlor.

On Wednesday night, we went to an Open House for Lily's school. Lily was able to meet her new teacher and a couple of the kids from her class. She has already informed me that she does not want to go to her new school and would like to return to her old school. Awesome.

Today we met up with my mom and dad. It rained pretty much all day, but Lily was so happy hanging out with her grandparents, I don't think she noticed at all.


The picture is blurry, but it's not hard to see the joy on Lily's face.

The mall had this awesome interactive mat/screen on the floor. Again, Lily expresses her pure happiness.

No amount of rain could dampen this sunny disposition.

Lily recounted this experience pretty much in its entirety to Carl when he came home tonight. Her detailing included Papa fishing in the rain, catching a big catfish, and then the catfish "playing" in the grass. Oh, the innocence.

Anybody have any ideas for entertaining a two-year-old while eating at a restaurant?

Sweet baby

As Lily was going to sleep tonight, she told me that she loves me with all her heart and that I look like an angel. Melts ya like butta.

The airing of grievances

Carl and I were watching a program some time ago about the top 10 heiresses in the world. It, of course, depicted their extravagant and opulent lifestyles. One thing that I found interesting was their massive collections of whatever happened to interest them at the time, like expensive purses, designer shoes, cars for every occasion (possibly to match every outfit?) - all the predictable sort of things. It made me wonder: what would my collection be if money were no object? I asked Carl what he would collect, and he didn't hesitate in deciding on a wine collection. Not surprising for someone who follows Cellar Notes on NPR. I knew my answer too. As weird as it seems, my collection would be children's books. Specifically, picture books geared toward preschoolers. I have a real weakness for them. (As evidenced this past Christmas, Santa has a real love of children's books as well!)

So, probably the only thing that curbs my buying of books and saves our family from financial ruin is the library. Which brings us to my real point with all of this. I am sad to report that our local library is just not up to par. It is a brown 70s style building that has brown bookshelves, and I even think it has brown carpeting. So, my overall initial impression was clearly: brown. The children's area held NO appeal. There was barely any distinction between the adult books and the children's section. The selection was at best limited. They had a couple of bean bags and old stuffed animals, but it was just sad. I almost felt bad for the stuffed animals. I suppose we were spoiled by our last library that was bright, had an enormous children's section with an extensive collection of books, videos, audio book sets, even theme backpacks that the children could borrow. They had puzzles, games, educational toys, different coloring activities, plenty of tables, just an overall attractive environment. It makes my heart ache just thinking about it. Okay, so maybe I'm being a touch over dramatic. But I truly am disappointed with the new place. I know it's not their fault. It is an older building, and I imagine they probably have priorities that surpass the updating the children's area (like maybe a new roof and such...?).

An alternative to the library is just going to Barnes and Noble and hanging out there, reading some books. Even though this is not as much fun because you can't take the books home without paying. I'm sad to say that even the closest Barnes and Noble is terribly outdated and unappealing. Sigh. I love so much about the area in which we live. They have some of the best children's parks and more water parks than I've ever seen. The museums are FANTASTIC. The zoo is incredible (and free!). Awesome restaurants. I guess that there are just some drawbacks in living in one of the more established areas of St. Louis. (We also have the second oldest Target in the St. Louis area - not a pretty sight.)

The funny thing is that I know this is not a problem that is keeping Lily up at night. I'm sure she's just fine with the library the way it is, but I'm not. Maybe I need to be a part of some task force or something. I really want to find some way that I can help our little sad brown library, but mostly I guess that I'm just airing my grievance (a very important part of the under appreciated holiday of Festivus).

Happy girl

I guess it's instinct for children to know what to do with play equipment. The videos show Lily the second time that she played on the trapeze bar. As you can see, no instruction was necessary. She's just as happy as a clam with her new skills. (Sorry about the total panty shot. Dresses are just so much easier in the summer. Since Lily prefers to be naked all the time, I only have one article of clothing to put back on 10 times per day instead of two.)

Happy days and nights

Lily climbs on her very own play structure!

Swingin' fun on the slide

Now Lily has an outdoor storefront too!

Lovin' the tunnel

Lily runs outside to play first thing in the morning...

and is still kickin' it at night!