Big Lion

Lizzie's love of lions started with her stuffed animal "Lenny" when she was about 8 mo old. Lizzie is now 13 months and her love and obsession with large felines has only expanded since then to include tigers too. Lately, she's moved on to even bigger lions! Ok, so Lenny is still the fav but she really likes to play with "Big Lion" too. Big Lion was made so that a child could sit and "ride" on his back. Lizzie used to try and climb onto him by herself and would inevitably just knock him over. Then every time he fell over she would start to scream and cry in horror until I stood him back on his feet. I endured many days of Lizzie starting to cry for no apparent reason until she would get me close enough to Big Lion so that she could point out that he was lying stiff as a board on the ground. The world was all better once I stood him back on his feet, though.

Over time she has come to accept the fact that Big Lion tips over. In fact, she has completely embraced the reality of it and puts him to good use as her personal lazy boy. Now, she just tips him over on purpose and kicks back while she holds her baby and rests on his soft underbelly.

13 Months

Lizzie is 13 months old going on 2 yrs old. She has entered the phase of testing boundaries, asserting her independence, and wanting to do things herself. It makes things challenging at times but I love seeing her learn and grow!

The biggest event that happened this month is that she FINALLY has a tooth! One sharp little tooth erupted along with fun teething symptoms at times. Now, her toothbrush has a purpose! And so the bombardment of dental care and prevention begins from her dentist and hygienist parents.

She is really showing the sweet side to her personality, lately, too. When she was a little baby she didn't like to be touched or cuddled too much. She would get fussy and squirmy when we hugged and kissed her. But, we finally broke her!! She loooves giving mom and dad hugs and kisses now. I get many spontaneous hugs from her throughout the day and I love it!

The girl has been a little entertainer, lately, too. She loves to make silly faces, noises, dances, spins, and says funny things all day long just to get her parents to smile.

We are Ready for Christmas!

Our mini Christmas tree is up and we are ready to celebrate this Holiday Season! Liz is enjoying the festivities already! She's surprisingly good around Christmas trees, too. She loves to look at them, but is good about not touching them.

We even had a late night visit from Santa Clause last night! He rode in on a fire truck and we exchanged some canned goods for a candy cane for Lizzie.

We Bought a House!!!

Its official! Well, almost...you know how house buying can go (its never for sure until closing day). We are going to be first time home owners starting Dec. 23!! Lately, we have been making many trips to the house for various reasons and this past week we stopped at a nearby park. Lizzie gave it her approval- so we decided it really must be the right place. :)

We are so excited to finally own a house! A couple facts about our new home:
Located in Lakewood/Oakbrook area
Big backyard
Lots of trees in the yard
Color: Blue
Brand new roof
All bathrooms newly renovated
Plenty of space for our family to grow
House is connected to a backup generator
Beautiful front room w/ vaulted ceilings
Crawl space, attic, and third garage (hooray for storage space!)
Short walk from a park

And the first bit of work we are going to do as soon as the title is handed over to us is completely recarpet the place!!




PS- Our new computer finally arrived so its time to play blog catch up!!

Blogging on Hold

Yes, I have been totally slacking about posting on my blog. In fact, I have been slacking in taking ANY pictures at all lately. I have to admit I did not take any pictures this Thanksgiving either! :(
I am just too frustrated with our computer situation. It is not working well and I cant download any pics....we ordered a new one and now we have to send it back for repairs...it should be here soon..maybe.

I just couldnt let Thanksgiving go by without any post, though, so HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! We celebrated with the Stevens Family and had such a good time! Lizzie was spoiled by her grandparents and we all just had a lot of fun together!!

The Dark Side

Some people are book smart and do really well in school.

Others are "street smart" or "people smart" and do really well with people. Some may call them "Masters of Manipulation." Now, these skills may be used for good or evil.

Don't let this cute little BYU baby fool you. I know she LOOKS like the scholarly type.

Today, when I was blow drying my hair Lizzie was getting upset because I was not paying much attention to her. A few minutes ago, however, she had bumped her head and was crying so I stopped what I was doing and held her and calmed her down.
I then went back to blow drying my hair.
I'm watching her in the mirror and I see her purposefully and very gently knock her own head into the door then she lets out some ear piercing shrieks and fake crying.

Like I said, these skills may be used for good OR evil...apparently Lizzie has joined the dark side.

Lunch With Elder Perry

Today we had the amazing opportunity to have a private lunch with Elder L. Tom Perry! It was the Stevens family plus Elder Walker and his wife too. I have always enjoyed hearing Elder Perry speak but it is usually on TV and I am sharing the experience with millions of people all over the world. It was really fun to meet him in a personal setting, shake his hand, and get to know his personality. He has a great sense of humor and surprisingly spry for his age. He has a great gift of making the people around him feel comfortable. He asked Dave a lot of questions about his new career in dentistry and told some fun stories about his past careers and life experiences including throwing a couple of the first pitches for some Red Sox games (upon our requesting to hear about it) Aside from these fun experiences at lunch, I think I most enjoyed hearing him speak at Stake Conference. There was such great truth and power in his words when he testified of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the gospel.