On this Good Day

Today is Good Friday and I could not imagine a better day to celebrate Miss Lily's 17 month milestone! Today we remember the Lord's great sacrifice, the burden of the cross, and celebrate the day when death gave us life. So humbling and powerful.


Lily is blossoming into a beautiful, precious and special little girl. Her baby days are fast leaving and there are moments each and every day where I look at her and see a little girl. She is growing up so fast. One thing that I have discovered about my daughter is that she is independent.



She feeds herself now and reads her Bible. She goes up and down the stairs all by herself and crawls up on the couch by herself and opens baggies by herself. Especially now that she is walking, the strength of will I see in her is amazing. She is SO independent, yet so tender and loving. This week we took her to the Marbles Kids Museum and I was just blown away with her. Sure, she loves me, but was in an absolute hurry to go anywhere and everywhere fast, Mom or no Mom.


The Museum is a hodge Podge of toys, games, play areas and activities. The museum was a bit above her, but she had a blast. Within the first 15 minutes of our arrival, she discovered the "Splash" zone, which is exactly what it was. They even had little rain bibs that the kiddos could wear to keep them on the dryer side. Even with the large bib, Lily managed to thoroughly soak her shirt. I literally wrang it out.



It was so wet that I took it off and let her go the rest of the morning as a half naked baby.


In a word, she LOVED it. I love that I am the kind of mom that takes off her wet shirt and lets her keep exploring. I got some looks from other moms, but Lily didn't mind a bit, she was having a blast.

We had a big first this week.....our first big "owie." Lily fell outside and scraped her little knee.



She really handled it very well and was only too eager to point at it every time someone talked to her. It took her by surprise the next day when she got down on her knee only to find that something hurt. She would wimper, point to her knee and go "boo boo" in a very concerned voice. It was almost like she forgot that she had it and was very upset that it was still there. Oh dear, the first of many.

The life that pours out of Lily is just a blessing and a joy to watch. She is so talkative and constantly in motion. Lily loves balls right now. I went to Target to fill an easter basket donation with goodies and bought a bumpy ball. Lily latched onto it immediately and it has been permanently attached to her little hands ever since. Both Lily and Jancsi loved it so much that Lily got Jancsi a green one for his birthday and they both meander around the house going "ball, ball, ball." Precious. The balls have undoubtably created several arguments and no matter how often you let Lily know that she has her own pink ball, she always wants Jancsi's green one and vica versa. Funny how these kiddos work.

This week brought temperatures in the low 80's so Grace and I decided one afternoon that we needed to try the kiddy pool for the babies. Grandma Feddy got Lily her bathing suit for the summer and it is simply adorable. O goodness is she cute or what?



She is as cute from behind as she is the front in her swimming digs. Once Lily got in the pool a big smile erupted on her little face and she quickly turned into Tsunami Lily, splashing and throwing water everywhere.



Lily was absolutely overjoyed with the little blue pool, Jancsi was not.



Poor kid cried every time Miss Lily splashed. It really was too cute to watch. I just stood by the side absolutely in awe of my little girl. There are moments where I cannot believe she came from Bob and me. She is just too perfect.


Makes me really connect with the power of Life. Babies and small children have an amazing way of living, free from the cares of the world, nothing holding them back, taking delight in the simplest things. Watching Lily grow is the clearest example of living life to the fullest. Today of all days I look at the life blossoming in our home and am forever grateful that the Lord laid down his life to show us how to live.

So Much to Do....So Little Time!

Lily Grace is a busy little bee right now. She has absolutely welcomed the exploratory, curiosity of toddlerhood and I LOVE it! I am having an absolute blast loving on this little ray of sunshine. She is simply everything good about our world. I look at her and cannot help but be joyful and incredibly hopeful. She is getting quite a vocabulary these days and we at the Longmire/Jessup house are seeing the endless talking in our future.



Ask about any one of these following subjects and Lily will have a lot to say about them: Mommy, Daddy, Jancsi (Comes out "gan gi"), kitty ("titty), apple, bubble, banana ("mamma), ball, potty, pee pee, poo poo, go, hi, bye, potty, and uppie to name a few. This doesn't include the signs that she communicates with either. Those include, all done, more, please and thank you. She is just so smart! Oy!

She has officially fallen in LOVE with the park. Whenever she sees the slides out the car window she instantly gets super excited and cannot wait to get there.




The swings, sand box and slides are her favorites at present and we spend our entire time hopping from one to the other. She and Jancsi love this little tunnel at our local park. They crawl over and around each other to make sure they see both sides. Simply wonderful to watch their joy.





I will tell you, my little daughter is all girl to be sure. She discovered my makeup pouch the other day and I got out my powder compact and an old brush for her to play with. She had an absolute blast. She figured out how to open the compact, put the brush on the powder and then put it.......well........somewhere on her body.



She put it in her hair, on her chest, even her leg got some powder fashion. Of course, curiosity got the better of her, and she just had to lick the powder compact. Not only did she have a sparkly tongue, but her lips sparkled too. Pretty cute.

Just in the past month or so, Bob and I have started to initiate reading time before bed. Feddy got her a little lamb bible that she loves to hold and cuddle. I also got her "The Jesus Storybook Bible," that everyone raves about and she just adores looking at the pictures. Since we have instituted this time, I find her once or twice a day back in her room sitting in Mommy's chair with her Bible. She gets in the rocker all by herself, pulls the Bible from the table and quietly goes through it.


So sweet and special. Seeing her like this makes my heart literally want to burst with pride. The Lord has given her such a sweet and tender spirit.

Lily and Jancsi have become best and fast friends. They really have a brother/sister relationship where one minute they love each other and are squealing with delight, while the other minute they are arguing over who gets the ball. It is so fun to watch them together. The other day I had the babies while Grace was out and I decided they needed some kitchen drums. I whipped out all of the bowls as well as some much needed utensil sticks and they had a blast.





Lily wanted to hold and hit everything while Jancsi was content to hold and lick everything. Great combination. Most would consider the racket that they made pure noise, but it was music to my ears. I just love to watch them play together and discover the world around them. What fun.