Christmas 2008 Recap

I got a lot of alone time this last week. My cousin Hunter was in town with his family for Christmas.

As a result, my people spent a lot of time at Grandma and Grandpa Stewarts house while I enjoyed the quiet house. The week started off with all of them going to a "photo shoot" so they could get a nice family picture. I hear it went well. We'll see as soon as the proofs are available.

On Christmas Eve, my people went to the Christmas Eve service at Grandpa Dean's church. Then they came home to wait for Santa Claus. Lily had a lot of fun opening her presents Christmas morning. Here's a picture of my bald person helping her open some Sesame Street DVDs.


After opening presents, we all watched part of the Disney Christmas Parade on TV. Lily waved back at everyone and danced along to the music. Then we all got cleaned up and headed to Grandma and Grandpa Wagner's house for their annual Christmas gathering. Santa had also stopped by there. The first present Lily opened was a Mizzou cup with a wind-up Tiger on top. She loved it.


Once they finished there, they stopped back by the house to let me out and give me dinner (thank goodness!) and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa Stewart's house. Santa had stopped by there too! Here's Lily opening "My First Purse". She thought she was hot stuff.


She got to spend a lot of time running around with her cousins from South Carolina. Once they started to get tuckered out, they put on their new PJs and actually stopped to pose for a picture on the stairs! That's Sam up top, Ben in the middle and Lily in front of him.


Hunter and his family headed home the next day. Now we're just relaxing and enjoying my bald person's time off. He doesn't go back to work until January 5. My tall girl person and Lily will be heading to North Carolina at the end of this week to see my cousin Winston and his family. My bald person and I will have the house to ourselves for a week or so. It should be great.

Oh, Santa didn't forget me either. He brought me a nice bone.


My people forgot to take a picture of Lily in her Christmas dress, so here's a little video of her "flying" a toy plane that gives you a view of it.

Sous Chef

Making pancakes. Chocolate chips were added after the picture was taken. Sadly, I didn't get to sample the finished product.

A Star is Born

Last week my girl person took Lily to a nursing home with some other kids to sing songs for the residents. She knew Lily wouldn't be able to actually sing, but thought she'd have fun with the other kids and that the residents would enjoy seeing them even if they weren't actually singing. I think this picture says it all.



Here's a video snippet of the first performance. This was done in the dining room/main lounge of the nursing home.



After they sang there, they were escorted to the Alzheimer's wing to do another "performance".



Those residents got the same back side view and booty shake as the first group. Merry Christmas! Ha. She was just so fascinated with the CD player behind them that she didn't want to turn around. A couple of times she ran around and got a laugh from the crowd and she got a lot of "You're so cute!" compliments. So, I guess it wasn't a completely lost cause. : )

Here's a picture of all the kids after they were done. It appears Lily was in no mood to stand still and pose. Enjoy!

Genius

We have one of those figurine within a figurine within another figurine decoration/toy things. I don't know what the correct name for it is, but here's a picture.

Anyway, while no one was looking, Lily did this to it.

Seems impressive for a two year old. I know I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to stack them like that with my little brain and clumsy paws.

Christmas Card "Photo Shoot"

My people are not photographers, as evidenced from the following pictures. They wanted to get a cute snapshot to use for their Christmas card this year though. It was quite the challenge to get Lily to stand still! Also, I was in no mood for posing. But, they figured if they take enough pictures, they'll eventually get a couple that'll work. Here are some that weren't used. I'd like to point out the Mizzou tree in the background of the first picture. We're all very proud of that. Enjoy.

First Professional Haircut

Lily got her first professional hair cut yesterday. It wasn't anything major, just a bang trim and a small, small trim all over. My people are still scared that her curls will be gone forever if they cut too much off. She did great! Here are some before pictures.



Here she is in the chair after the lady was done. You can see her eyes!


Finally a couple of after shots when we got home. My taller girl person had tried cutting Lily's bangs a couple of times herself and cut a little too much. Now those pieces need to be grown out. The trick now is keeping it brushed so the longer pieces don't fall forward.

The curls are still intact!

Two Year Check-Up

Lily went to the doctor on Monday for her two year check-up and I got the scoop from my tall girl person. She weighs 23.3 lbs. which bumps her up from the 3rd to 10th percentile. Yea! She's also gotten tall. She's 34-1/4" taking her from the 30th to 60th percentile. She's done a lot of growing since her 18 month check-up. The doctor said it looks like she has an astigmatism in her right eye, but it's not affecting her vision. That's still 20/20. He said it should correct itself, but we should get it rechecked in 6 months just to make sure. She got three shots and took them like a champ. She didn't like them, but was quick to recover once she saw the band-aids they put on. She should be all done with shots (except for flu shots) now until it's time to start school at age 5. Everything went well and she did great.