At 21 months Robin is talking more each day. She repeats much of what I say and pays close attention to Lilly, most often repeating what Lilly says as well. If there’s an item she doesn’t know the word for she points to it and says ‘Mommy, a-dat’ (what’s that?). Then she looks me in the eye and says, ‘Mommy, ___’ over and over again, practicing the pronunciation. She loves playing games around the house with Lilly and dancing. It takes skilled hands to put Robin down for a nap or to sleep at bedtime, she really fights it but falls asleep almost immediately once she is in her crib. Robin continues to eat lots of different foods but we need to work on her table manners because it is difficult to get her to sit down! Suddenly she’s starting to look so much older, her hair is longer and she seems so tall now. Such a sweetie.
Lilly at 3.5
At 3.5 Lilly continues to amaze us with her kindness, knowledge, and beauty inside and out. She is capable of doing activities and joining in conversations with much older children and seems to really enjoy preschool and learning. Lately we’ve noticed that she’s working to develop her explanations. For example, the other day Bill took her to a friend’s house to fix his door and when L came home she really worked to explain the entire process and what they did step-by-step to fix the door. She is involved in gymnastics and swimming now and very much looks forward to each of those classes. Whenever we ask her what she wants to do she says, “go swimming” :).
The past few weeks L has been more interested in sports and running (partially due to her new running shoes). We used to think of her as slightly ‘less coordinated’ (like myself) but actually she’s impressed us lately with suggesting races around the park and has been doing a great job on her Strider balance bike.
Lilly is very aware of feelings and has a strong emotional intelligence. She plays somewhat independently but more often relies on Bill and myself for instructed play. She loves helping to prepare food in the kitchen and her favorite game is playing hide and seek with Robin. Currently she’s interested in the planets and rocketships and she enjoys our afternoons learning new Spanish songs. We love her to the moon (and back)!
For the first time ever we took the girls on a real road trip! We left at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday to head to Arizona for the week. Bill and I were bit nervous about how the girls would do on the road but I’m happy to say they did far better than we had imagined. And, in retrospect, it was less stressful and more fun than flying. Robin got pretty upset just before lunch but other than that they were happy (Lilly was especially happy since we bought her a DVD player). The girls had their first visit to McDonald’s, where they both ate pb&j that I made them, lol. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel and arrived at 8:30pm.
The girls had so much fun playing with Leela and Tevin this year. Leela and Lilly played hide and seek, played in their tent, made art projects together, etc, and Robin followed them around much of the time. It was wonderful to see them all together. Highlights of the trip include our annual trip to the ‘club’ for dinner, siblings night out, meeting up with Scott, Baree, and Mira in Phoenix, and visiting the Wild Animal Park with Mark, Tevin, and Grandma. It’s amazing to see my niece and nephew change and grow. Leela is all grown up and learning to read, and Tevin is sweet as can be and entirely obsessed with animals (future world class veterinarian or marine biologist).
We headed for home early Monday morning and the trip home was just about as uneventful as our trip out there. We had planned to leave at 4:30 but were slightly delayed after Lilly spiked a 102 fever Sunday evening. We watched her closely and she woke up after her fever broke early in the morning and seemed to be in good enough shape to return home, which she was. We made it home by 9:15 but the whole house was asleep before the ball dropped at midnight. Long day!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
For the complete set of photos, click here.
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