What a wonderful Christmas it was this year, getting to enjoy lots of time with family with our lovely little girl!

On Christmas Eve Eve my mom and dad came up to visit for a couple of days. Josh & Erin were in Massachusetts for the holiday and Michael & Jenna were spending time with Jenna's family, so Mom & Dad decided they would pay us a visit for a little bit rather than being alone on Christmas Eve. I was so glad to have them around. Brent worked most of the day on Wednesday and Thursday (Christmas Eve), so my parents gave Lydia and I some wonderful company. :)

Wednesday night we hung out and made frozen pizzas and drank homemade malts while watching a marathon of Christmas movies. Lydia showed off all of her tricks for Nana and Grandpa including cruising along furniture at the speed of light and army crawling all over the living room. She's also getting very good at learning how to obey simple commands like "No touch" and "No mouth." Additionally, her sign language for "more" and "all done" is greatly improving. We're all so proud of her!

Christmas Eve morning my daddy made us a yummy big breakfast of eggs, bacon, biscuits & gravy. Then it was time to get all cleaned up and ready for the CedarCreek Christmas Eve service. What a great service (check it out here if you are interested)! I've said it before and I will say it again: I am truly grateful to be part of a church that is so faithful to God's plan. We had over 20,000 people attend church this weekend across our 21 services at 3 locations. Wow!

Lydia did great and had fun with the other babies at church. She's a social girl, that's for sure. After leaving the Creek we headed for a late lunch / early dinner. The plan was Cracker Barrel but they closed at 2 so we ended up at Bob Evans. Once we got home we spent the rest of Christmas Eve just hanging out. We munched on some of my favorite foods from our traditional family Christmas Eve: chex mix, fudge, rotel dip, and wassail. Have you noticed that food is one of my favorite things about getting together with family? Ha! We watched more Christmas movies and played a few rounds of Mexican Train dominoes until Brent got home from work.

Christmas morning was calmer than I expect future ones will be. Lydia slept in a bit later than usual, followed by her typical morning routine. Once everyone was up, we gathered in the living room and let Lydia open up a gift from Nana and Grandpa. Most of her gifts from them will be opened later at our Cinci family Christmas, but they wanted to bring one up for her to get on Christmas day. It was an activity table that she could stand at and play with the different toys. Lots of music and buttons and lights... Lydia loves it! She really got into the idea of opening gifts and seemed to understand the concept of it. She would rip at the paper until she could see the toy, then would want the toy. But even while playing with a toy, if another gift was offered to her, she'd dive at it to open it up. She really seemed to understand that if she tore off the paper she'd get another toy!

After opening gifts, Lydia took a nap, we all ate breakfast, and the men assembled the new toys for Lydia to enjoy. She loves having new toys that she can stand and play with. Besides the table from my parents, we gave her a walk-and-ride toy that she can hold on to and walk with. At first she seemed pretty cautious, but she quickly got the hang of walking with it across the room. She is already getting herself into trouble walking up to things she shouldn't touch! The ability to steer isn't quite there yet, but it's a lot of fun to see her growing and changing like this. I love her so much!


My parents left for home after the morning festivities while Brent, Lydia, and I went off to spend the rest of the day with Brent's family. At Tom and Rita's place we ate lunch and hung out for awhile, then began the gift exchange there. Lydia got to open her gifts first so she'd have plenty to keep her occupied while the rest of us opened ours. Boy did she get spoiled! Lots of new clothes and lots of new toys. She even got a huge stuffed horse. What'd this girl do to get a pony on her very first Christmas?! Despite her lack of interest in our Christmas tree, she seemed quite smitten by Grandma's tree. When finished opening her gifts, she kept flopping onto her belly and trying to crawl over and grab the lower branches. There just must be something special about Grandma's tree!

Thankfully Lydia was able (and willing) to take a nap over at Grandma's house before we headed over to Brent's grandparent's house for more Christmas festivities. She slept for over an hour before I went in to feed her, change her, and pack her up for the next visit. At the Pirolli household was more yummy food (of course!) and lots more people to love on my sweet Lydia. She cuddled with Great Grandma & Grandpa for awhile, then wanted to hold hands and walk around the house. She did VERY well for Daddy when he told her not to touch the the candy on the table and was generally delightful. At least for the first part of the evening. It had been a very long and busy day and it eventually showed in her demeanor. By gift-opening time she wasn't very interested anymore. She kept wanting to crawl away from me but would then get mad and not really want to play with anything around her. Poor thing was probably pretty worn out! But she was a trooper and we didn't face any major meltdowns. Nothing we couldn't ward off with a distraction or two.

All loaded up with food, toys, books, clothing, and other gifts, we got home after 9:00 that night. It was well past Lydia's bedtime and she thankfully made up for some of it by sleeping in until 8 this morning. Today we spent the day trying to get things organized around the house before we do our last Christmas gathering of the year with my family on Monday. Lydia got so many new clothes that I had to do two large loads of her laundry today! I am so very thankful for all of our family who love our daughter so much. I might manage to get things put away and organized just in time for her first birthday in a couple of months!

Oh and I forgot to mention the lovely gift that I got for Christmas... digital scrapbooking software! My dear sweet hubby got me the Creative Memories storybook software and I am sooo excited to try it out and make my 2009 photo book. Alas we've been so busy that I haven't even had time to install it yet! Two big projects to come in the new year: making my 2009 scrapbook and finally turning our bonus room above the garage into a playroom so I have someplace to put all these toys!

What a Thanksgiving we had this year! To make a long story somewhat shorter, we were supposed to have Thanksgiving with Brent's family and Christmas with my family this year since we did the reverse last year. However, when my brother announced that his family was going to go out of state for Christmas but planned to join my parents in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, we opted to switch as well.

My parents, my oldest brother along with his wife and 3 daughters, and Brent, Lydia, and I all drove from Ohio to Oklahoma to visit my extended family. My mom's parents and my dad's dad all live out there, plus a smattering of aunts, uncles, and cousins. On Thanksgiving day my grandparent's house was filled to the brim! In addition to the adults, there were a ton of kids... especially little girls! For my own future reference, here's everyone we saw during our visit: Mom, Dad, Grandma Bea, Granddad, Joshua & Erin & girls -Hannah (6), Abby (4), Michaela (2)-, Uncle Brad & Glenna & girls -Haleigh (7), Brittan (4), Brianna (1)-, Uncle Brian & Tish, Crystal & Daniel, Pam, Diane & Jay & kids -Trey (12), Christi (10)-, Aunt Rhonda, Eric, Aaron, Elliot & kids -Evan, Jaxson (3), Jailyn (3)-, Grandpa Kuntz & Emily, Aunt Lou Anne & Taylor, and Uncle Jim (plus myself, Brent, and Lydia (9m)).

Whew! That was a lot of people. Most of whom we saw on Thanksgiving day. On Friday we went to visit Uncle Jim. He lives in an assisted living facility due to his MS, but is always in high spirits. Such a wonderful example of faith and joy despite circumstances! It was great to get to visit him and also to see the rest of Dad's side of the family. That was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Other highlights included watching Lydia play with my Grandpa, taking walks with Grandma Bea, getting to eat Granddad's gravy & Grandma Bea's strawberry jelly, and going to Murphy's. Ah yes, Murphy's... one of my favorite things about Bartlesville! Those hot hamburgers are absolutely delicious and unlike anything else I've ever eaten. Brent and I even decided we needed to buy Murphy's shirts to honor the tradition.

After all of the chaos of Thanksgiving passed, Brent and I got the chance to see my good friend Allison and her husband Eric on Saturday night. Allison and I were great friends in grade school and remained close despite moves to different states, but the last time I was able to actually see her was over 5 years ago at my wedding! It was wonderful to speak in person again and to hear about how her life is going. We had dinner at Mazzio's then hung out for a bit at my grandparent's house until they could meet up with the friends they were spending the night with.

The last night we were in Oklahoma Brent and I decided it would probably be best for us to sleep in different rooms so that Lydia didn't wake him up in the morning. We needed him to be rested for driving! That turned out to be a very wise decision. Lydia had a VERY rough night that night... she was waking up screaming every couple of hours. Little did I know at that point that this was fully due to teething! Yep, Sunday night we stayed at a hotel and when I checked her little mouth, sure enough there was a nice sharp point in there. That evening continued to be an adventure. Between Lydia's teething and the fact that we were all in the same room together at bedtime, things were definitely interesting. Despite Tylenol and Oragel, Lydia cried off and on for over two hours after going to bed. I felt so bad about it since we were in a hotel... where other people were staying! But we made it through the night and finished up the long drive home on Monday. We even stopped to get a walnut bowl on the way. :)

As always, things keep changing around here. Here's the low-down on Lydia's latest developments.


She still isn't crawling yet, but tries really hard when enticed with a toy. She still prefers to roll and will often give up the crawling attempts and simply roll over unless you block her sides. I try to do a little bit to encourage her in this area, but I'm not pushing it too hard. She is pretty mobile just with rolling and I trust she will move on when she is ready.


Lydia also seems to be trying really hard to sit up on her own. Quite often when I go to get her out of her crib she is craning her neck forward, legs and arms stiffened, trying with all her might to do a sit-up. These attempts of hers may be part of the reason I'm seeing her struggle with sleep lately. She puts up more of a fight when I put her down for a nap, often wakes earlier (crying), and wakes more frequently when I put her down for the night. Last night she went to bed at 7 but fussed for 2 hours before I finally rocked her to sleep. But who knows... the time change that happened this weekend may be factoring in as well.


In the realm of food Lydia fed herself finger food for the first time yesterday! She's so silly with the little baby puffs. She seems to understand that they are food and eats them up when *I* feed them to her, but when she gets them in her hand she just stares at them or drops them on the floor. If I put one on my hand and offer it to her, she will move her mouth towards my hand... or grab my hand and pull it towards her... but she doesn't like to take it off my hand with hers to eat it. Silly girl! But she did do a couple on her own yesterday, so we'll keep practicing. :)


We've officially dropped the late night nursing and are strictly doing feedings between 7am & 8pm. I've been working on doing solids 3 times a day instead of 2 for the past week and plan today to try to get away with 4 nursing sessions instead of 5. In theory, I'll nurse her every 5 hours until bedtime... so 7am, 12pm, 5pm, and then somewhere between 7 and 8pm whenever she goes to bed. So far today we're doing well with this schedule. She nursed first thing this morning (7:30) then ate some fruit after getting up from a nap at 9. It's 11:45 now and she's napping, so I'll nurse her when she gets up then she can have more solids around 12:30 or 1. Right now I think my plan is to have 5 hours between nursings, but do solids in there too to have her still eating something at least every 4 hours. She'll see the pediatrician in a couple of weeks so there's a good chance I'll change things up again after that, but for now this is my plan.


In other news, halloween was this past weekend. My parents decided to come up for a visit (yay!) so they got to see Lydia dressed up in her monkey costume. Isn't she a doll??

It was a crazy day, but I think Lydia had a lot of fun. She was REALLY tired because I forgot to put her down for an afternoon nap (oops!)... she had just been so happy all day that I never got that "she really needs a nap" signal until we had to walk out the door. So all evening she was running on a 5 minute catnap that she grabbed in the car. We first drove out to the Whitehouse campus to visit Daddy at work. He enjoyed showing off his little monkey girl. :) Next we headed to Grandma & Papa's house, then finished the evening at Great-Grandma & Grandpa's house. Despite being so sleepy, Lydia was mostly a happy girl. Oh speaking of being a happy girl, she went to the nursery at church on Sunday and when I picked her up they told me she won the best baby award for the day. Those things always make me smile. See? I'm not lying when I say I have the best baby ever!!

We had a lovely Easter yesterday. Lydia did great in the nursery at church (slept the whole time!) and I really enjoyed watching the CedarCreek.tv message. It was amazing to me to realize how much more meaningful Christ's sacrifice is to me now that I am a parent. As I watched a video depicting the crucifiction, I cried... praying that someday my little girl will know and understand the great love her Savior has for her. Then as I watched another video of a father having to choose to save a train full of people by sacrificing his son, I had to bite my lip to keep from bawling. I just don't know that I could bear to make such a sacrifice. I LOVE my daughter... how could I ever choose to let her go for ANYONE?

It just made it so much more real to me what an incredible sacrifice God made by sending his Son into this harsh and ungrateful world. To put his Son through such torture knowing that most people would be oblivious to what a great gift had just been offered to them.

Amazing how having a child can change your perspective.

After church we dressed Lydia up in her fancy Easter dress to take pictures. I know I'm biased, but I think she's the cutest baby I've ever seen!





I would have put her in her dress for church, but since she was going to the nursery the whole time and we wouldn't have time for pictures until after church, I didn't want to risk her getting all messy before the photo shoot. So instead she dressed up for pictures first, then wore the dress to her Great Grandma's house for dinner.

This week I'm going to try to keep close track of Lydia's schedule... particularly her napping habits. She used to be a good napper, but lately she has decided that being awake is more interesting so she only catnaps during the day. I wouldn't mind too much if she was happy and content when awake, but the past few days she's ended up overtired and super fussy by the end of the day. I try and try to get her to take good naps, but usually they are no longer than 30 minutes. Thankfully she is at least doing okay at night. Last Wednesday night she actually slept through the night! I got 7.5 hours of continuous sleep! But the nights since then she still wakes up once or twice. She's still only 7 weeks old, so I'm not expecting much different... it can just be so hard on me when she's up several times a night and then won't nap long enough during the day for me to get a nap (or get anything done for that matter). So anyway, I'm hoping if I track her behavior better I can notice some patterns and we can go from there.

Every day as a mother is bringing me new lessons to be learned!

Today is Lydia's first Easter and I am so excited about dressing her up and taking pictures. My little girl is growing up so fast! Today will be the first time I plan to leave her in the nursery at church... and we've got Grandma coming over to babysit for the first time on Tuesday. Yikes! But I'm glad that we're taking that step and she'll get some time with other people besides me.

Lydia is definitely developing a little personality. She "talks" so much these days! She'll sit in her chair and laugh and smile and make talking sounds. She loves when I sing and talk to her and she really gets a kick out of laying her her bassinet and talking to the bears on her mobile. I love it!