The Grays

Lilly is completely weaned from bottles. I switched her cold-turkey to a sippy cup during the day several weeks ago but dropped the evening bottle for the first time tonight. We still rock and sing lullabies before putting her down – just switched the bottle to a sippy cup and she didn’t seem to mind at all. Amazing how babies (and toddlers) handle change so much easier than we do!

We are giving her rice, soy, almond, and hemp milk as an alternative to cows milk. She loves it!

May the record indicate that on 8/25 Lilly became a true walker (she walks more than she crawls). Here is a video of her toddling around at Nana Judy and Boppa Bill’s house Friday night. She has become a much more stable walker since then!

Just like any toddler, Lilly’s favorite toy isn’t a toy at all – it’s a regular household object. She especially loves water bottles and today spent a good 20 minutes practicing how to drink out of one and put the cap back on. Things got a little wet (mostly her diaper because she drank at least 10 oz.)!

Lilly has been walking while holding a hand or taking several steps on her own for awhile, but when indoors always stuck to mostly crawling. This week she decided to give the walking thing a fair shot and is toddling around indoors and out. Here is a video of some of the progress she has made!

Lilly recently started dancing on cue. Here is a super-cute video of her dancing with Nana Judy.

Lilly at 13 Months

She is a walking (when she isn’t crawling, that is), talking, dancing machine! Happy 13 Months, Lilly!

*Yes, she took a tumble. We went to the Troy Aquatic Center on Saturday and Lilly fell when she was practicing her steps. Didn’t seem to bother her too much but it sure did leave a mark. 🙁

Playdate at the Beach

Fun with Chase and Sean

Picnic with Arbor

Dinner with the Gee's

With Bill travelling during the week we are especially thankful for the good friends and family we have here.  Lilly and I have multiple classes and playdates scheduled throughout the week and have playtime and dinner with Nana and Bapa accouple nights a week.   Aunt Terry’s beach and Barb’s pool have also provided lots of splish-splash fun for us this Summer.  We are so busy during the week that we look forward to having ‘down time’ with dad over the weekend and not planning so many activities!

Lilly has started using us as the object of her teething…and I have multiple bruises to prove it (seriouly – check out the photo on flickr)! At the same time she has started pushing other kids when we go on playdates. This is our first real opportunity to work on discipline. At this point we are just saying ‘no biting’ or ‘no pushing’ very sternly while looking her in the eye and offering some positive redirection. Wow – hard to believe that we’re thinking of things like discipline already. That was fast!

It’s amazing how Lilly picks up something new every day. She says several words now (mama, dada, hi, up, ball) and points to objects (cat, ball, mama, book, bear) when said out loud. She will also follow simple directions and will hug her pooh bear, touch her head, beep the horn of her toy car, or touch mama’s nose when you ask her to. She loves to mimic sounds as well as motions that we make.

Yesterday when I returned home from running errands while Katherine watched Lilly, she was very excited to see me and said ‘up up up up mama up up up’ to tell me that she wanted me to pick her up. So cute!

Here is a super cute video of Lilly at breakfast today.

Shortly after finding out the good news

BIG day for the Gray family!  On August 6th we found out that I was pregnant.  To say that this was a bit of a surprise is an understatement…we were a bit disappointed after a negative pregnancy test on Tuesday (statistically it should have been over 80% accurate) and two previous months of trying with no luck.  Things were a bit more complicated with Bill travelling four nights a week!  So on Friday (the 6th) I had a previously-arranged OBGYN appointment and the Doctor mentioned that I could actually be pregnant.  I wasn’t going to do anything about it but Bill said I should buy another test just to get my mind off of the mattar and…it was positive!  We’re going to have a(nother) baby!