Christmas at the Frasiers

So we started out our Christmas at Michelle's parents house and we experienced almost 2 feet of snow in one day. So much so that it buried our car. I will show you a picture. We were happy to spend Christmas Day with my family and we even got to see Allyson usher in her 11th birthday. She is getting so old. We love you sweet girl. I hope that you all had an awesome Christmas. We then left the day after Christmas to join Joel's family for the New Year. We are driving so it takes a real long time to drive. We got stuck in traffic that day for about 3 hours. Lydia did awesome she only fussed for a total of 30 minutes the whole trip. So we are here at the Leineweber's ushering in the New Year. Happy New Year!!!

Forgot the pictures

Baking cookies

So today I decided to celebrate my last day of work by baking cookies. So I asked my friend Tara to help so we started making cookies. She left at 3 and I decided to keep baking so I decided that 7 hours of baking cookies is enough for me. Here is the mess and then the cookies afterwards. It was mostly fun!!!

Mommy

Well last night Joel and I had the awesome opportunity to go to a Casting Crowns concert. It was the best concert we have ever been to. They were joined by Avalon, Michael English,and a bunch of other people and it was one of the best dates we have had ever had. Also Lydia started to say Mommy and UH OH. SO I am going to post a video of her trying to crawl on a box and then pretending to fall off. It was very cute. She seems to grow up so fast.

Happy Thanksgiving

This year Joel and I had a different type of Thanksgiving. This year we decided to stay home and celebrate Thanksgiving. I planned to make a turkey and everything. So one day while I was at work. I saw our very good family to us Karen Mason, and she invited us over for Thanksgiving and it was so awesome. The Masons are like our family. Joel and I were feeling pretty lonely for our family so it was nice to be with them. We even put our Christmas tree up. Lydia loves it. She goes over and rings the bells that we put on it and she doesn't try to eat the Tinsel so that is very nice. She comes out and says tee tee and it is real cute. We even ventured out to the Black Friday sales. Can I just that Target was crazy. We barely made it into the store. Then there wasn't any carts and we could barely go down the isles because there was people every where ready to cash out. SO we quickly left. So we came home with a few dvds and then went back to bed. It was nice to have a day to do that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

All by ourselves

So today, we said goodbye to Joel's mom. She went home today and we miss you NANA. After we got home from church Lydia looked for her frantically walking around saying NA NA NA. So we looked for her but she wasn't there so lydia was sad. But thanks to Candace she will be watching her now. I am sure Lydia will do great. I can't believe how quickly Christmas is upon us. Before we know it we will be in the new year. SO that is something to look forward to.

Yummy Yummy

So after weeks of trying to get Lydia on tap saying yummy yummy she finally did it. So I am going to post that video. Also this week Joel's mom has been here and has been helping me out a lot. First she is staying with Lydia while I go to work and then on top of that she has been cooking dinner for us every night. She also has been a great help around the house and she made Lydia's curtains for her room. I have had the material for a long time but for some reason I haven't had time to make them so she did them for me. She is so awesome. So I can say that I agree with Melissa when I say Grandma's are amazing. So I will show you the video and her cutains.

Friends

SO after much deliberation Joel and I decided to go with a bunch of our friends and take Lydia trick or treating with all of them. So we went to a fall party at the LaRuffa's house and had a party with chili and pie and off to trick or treat so I will share some cute pictures of Lydia and her cute costume. She is as a Bumble Bee very cute. Also while we were cleaning the house one night she decided that she wanted to help. SO I let her scrub the toilet or just kidding I helped her but I will post a cute picture of that as well. Lydia has also spent a lot of time with her friend Abby. We babysat for Abby one night so Adam and Tara could go out and we decided to take a walk and so we dressed them all nice and warm and off we went. IT was a very fun walk. On other things I have gone back to work for 6 weeks. I started this past Friday. It was most difficult to do. We decided that it would be good for Lydia as she doesn't like to be with very many people other than me and Joel. So I took her to the LaRuffa's (the youth pastor of our church and his wife.) She did great, but I did terrible. I missed being with her, but as the day went on I did better. I know that it will get easier and I hope it will be soon. So I will leave you with some cute pictures.

Brrrr

Well I discovered that when it is cold out there seems to be a lot less to do. Lydia and I ventured out to the Library this morning and played there. But what should we do with all our free time in the house that is a good question. Lydia decided that she would help me clean the house. So she swept the floor and all the rest of the things she thought needed to be cleaned it was fun. We are struggling because she has decided not eat. She just wants sweet foods and i haven't been giving them to her because she won't eat anything else. She finally ate rice and vegetables last night and then today she ate well so maybe we are over this hump. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do when it is cold out to fill our time I would much appreciate it.

Blankie

So lately Lydia has felt very attached to her blankie. We don't generally let her have it outside of her crib, but yesterday as it were I got her out of her crib after pack and play time and she went running back to her room and pulled her blankie out of the crib and came running out with it. She did some hard pulling cause she had to get it out of the slots of her crib. So I decided since she worked so hard to get her blankie I would let her play with it for awhile. But she kept tripping over it so I decided to wrap it around her neck. Here is the final result of the blankie!!!

With fall

I have decided that with Fall brings a lot of change. In this instance Lydia's looks. She is growing up so quickly it seems. She is finally crawling. Not like a lot of babies her age but she is well on her way. She also has learned the art of pulling herself up the right way instead of dragging her bottom half up. So I am very thankful that her under developed muscles were the case and that God used this in my life to grow my reliance on Him. Fall was one of my favorite time in New York. Growing up there we always racked plenty of leaves and enjoyed the short but most beautiful colors. That is one thing I truly miss about New York during this time of year. I do however love pumpkin pie so I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. YUMMMO

OOops

The hole reason I titled the last one was to tell you about my great husband. Although the going out in the 74 mile an hour winds to find Lydia's pool was awesome, but the real reason I meant to brag on him was because of how good he was to Lydia and I yesterday. I got the flu yesterday on top of a cold and Lydia got a cold to so we were both miserable beings yesterday. So he stayed home from work to take care of us. He did such a great job. He walked with Lydia picked her up as she fussed and fussed because she felt so bad. Then he helped me by washing our bedding to get the yucky bacteria out of our bedding so we wouldn't get sick again. He made us dinner and lunch well them dinner and lunch cause I wasn't hungry with the flu. So I am very thankful for my husband and how patience and loving he was to us yesterday.

Great Husband

So this past weekend sure has been interesting. Joel had to stay home from work on Friday because he was sick. Then he got over it by Saturday morning and then Sunday we had an awful wind storm. We said bye bye to Lydia's pool as it went flying up over someone else' house. But before we knew it we gained a trampoline. We watched as the wind blew off siding off other people's house and then shingles and even some shutters came flying off people's houses. During the wind storm Joel attempted to go find Lydia's pool but to no avail it probably was half way to the airport before he even made it out the door. We lost our electric around 2:00 in the afternoon so we made things to do like worry about other people as they foolishly ran around outside during the storm. So it became real hot in our house since we didn't have any air conditioning so we decided in feeble attempts to venture out to cool off in the car. We only made it a short distance when we saw someone go smashing into another person cause he wasn't obeying the 4 way stops because the lights weren't working. So we decided to turn around and come back home. But what provision God made for us as we didn't get into an accident ourselves and our home didn't receive any damage from the storm. I will leave you with a cute wind blown Lydia!!

Update on Lydia

We took Lydia to the physical therapist yesterday and God really answered our prayers. Nothing wrong with her neurologically. She does have some under developed muscles that we will be doing physical therapy to rectify. But the doctor was very positive so what a great blessing for good doctors. Some new things she has been doing lately. She tries to blow kisses now. She points to Joel and says da da. It was really funny yesterday Joel came home early from work and he was getting ready to go to the doctors with us when I got Lydia up from her nap. I walked by the room he was in and she caught just a glance of him and says in a real strong voice DA DA. So I took her back to see him and she was very happy. She sits on the floor with her books and opens them up and starts reading. Now granted she can't really read or talk but it is really cute to hear here do it. We just bought a new mattress for our bed and she loves it as depicted in the picture you will see of her laying on our bed. She has been such a blessing to us.

Sickness

So as of last night Joel and I truly became parents. HAHA what I mean is last night we experienced the tail of sickness in a baby. Lydia has the flu, and yes she threw up for the first time. It was by far the worst smelling stuff. It is right up there with dog throw up. I know that you don't want all of the gorey details, but poor Lydia was a mess. She will have a cruel hatred for throwing up just as much as her mommy. But even though she is sick and feels sick she still is an amazing trooper. She is playing and walking around and having fun. I want to be like her when I grow and am sick. SO not a fun experience but yes we must all face it.

Cutie

So today I learned a new appreciation of the nursery workers on Sunday's. I had the opportunity to work in the nursery for the Women's Bible Study. The babies weren't very happy, but I will go back next week to help again. And maybe just maybe Lydia will stay in there with out me. So I know that this is a short post but I wanted to share some pictures from my sister, Yvette's visit. And some pictures of Lydia in her pool because it is so hot here. Enjoy!!

A breath

Well after having a lot of company and time spend with family, we are resting now. We are looking forward to the next time we see them all. We are spending this Memorial day weekend resting and getting some house work done. I would like to give you all on Lydia so that you to can pray for us during this time. Lydia has struggled with developing a little with rolling over and crawling and pulling herself up and she can't pull herself to a sitting position. We are going to see a physical therapist and they will evaluate her and then the doctor will take steps from there. So we are praying that she is just being stubborn. Because we all can be pretty stubborn at times. But she is healthy and happy other than that. We are blessed with how God is teaching us so many things especially how precious she is to God. SO I will keep you updated.

Lydia's very first birthday

Happy Birthday Lydia here are some highlights from her birthday party. So I hope you enjoy the pictures. I am going to steal Paulina's idea and tell you some of Lydia's things she enjoys. She loves to dance. She loves any type of music. Her favorite toy is a stand piano/banjo/drums. Her Nana and Pa, and Aunt Yvette and Uncle Paul and the A team came and so did Mimi. SO she had quite the group for her party. I am so surprised that this last year has gone so quickly. I am praying this year we will be able to instill in her more of God's goodness to us. Enjoy the pictures.

Happy anniversary Joel and Michelle Happy Birthday Lyida

Today, is our 4 year anniversary so I thought I would upload a picture and show you all what a fun time. Today is also Lydia's first birthday

Dancing Queen

Well Lydia has discovered that she can dance. I am going to upload a video so you all can see. She likes to wave her hands in the air and it is all very cute.

Sleepless nights

Many of you are probably saying oh no Lydia has been up during the night. Well it isn't her this time it is me. For some reason I haven't had good nights sleep in a little over a week now. I am not sure why, but I have been using this time to think and to pray. I have been struggling with a couple of things with Lydia lately. She for some reason just is real fussy. She won't play by herself so lately I had to just walk away from her and listen to her cry. So if anyone has any advice for me as to take this away from her that would be great. I need helpful other mother advice. She still won't go to nursery either. I am not sure what to do. The workers keep telling me how she just cries and cries. I do pack and play time and that is going real well. She plays and sometimes falls asleep which is funny. If anyone has advice for me on that, that would be great too. I have really been convicted to pray and never stop praying for her, which is great but I sometimes become overwhelmed that God might use her not being a child of the King to teach me a lesson. So I am praying not. Wow what a different post for me. I would love feed back from any of you moms that have tried and gone through these things it would help so greatly.

Time well spent

So after every Sunday and having to go get Lydia from nursery because she is screaming, I officially decided to stick with the task of doing room time again with her. So we started this task on Monday. So Monday she seemed like ok I am just going to play. Then Tuesday, all she did was scream. Wednesday, ok I will come and get you. I am sorry you were crying. Then today I got in the shower again and left her in her room to play and she again started to cry. We I listened and listened to her cry and then all of the sudden I didn't hear anything except a noisy toy in her room. She was actually playing and then she started talking to herself in a happy voice. WHOOOOOOO this never happens. So I left her there until I had taken care of all the laundry and did my devotions for the morning. And when I went into get her after 45 minutes of playing she was sitting on her floor with her previously used towel sucking her thumb. I was so happy with her and I went in and picked her up and hugged her and said "good job." So hopefully we will start to like nursery and tomorrow we will stick out this process again.

Much needed rest

Well we are finally settled back in to our home life here in KY. We had a great weekend. We also enjoyed being back at our home church and what a great message to come back to. Although a little bit more worried about Lydia coming to know Christ, but humbled that God brought me this far in my life from circumstances in my family that were awful, to enjoying an awesome life here with my wonderful husband and my great daughter. It is such a blessing to see how God has worked in our lives and He continues to work. So onto to an update on Lydia. She is walking around by herself most of the time now, and she started referring to me all the time as ma ma. So I am very happy. She still doesn't crawl or roll over from her stomach to her back, but I am not worried cause after all she has the muscles. So here is a video of her walking enjoy.

Another new thing

Today was a real fun day. Lydia didn't take good naps today but decided to be in a good mood anyway. She has discovered a couple of new things today. She can clap really well now. You can say clap Lydia and she claps. Then today she discovered how to do SO BIG and when her Uncle Phil comes in the room she loves to do it for him. She is still cautious to go to anyone besides Joel and I but we are hoping she will warm up to them. Here is a video of us in a pool and her clapping and just some random pictures from vacation.

Starting out

Well we have successfully made it to Virginia Beach. After having a great time with Melinda and Steve (my sister and her husband)we are here with Joel's family. While we were at Melinda's we went to the zoo. I will post pictures of the zoo so you can see them. We learned how to play a new game called settlers and that was fun. Joel also had the chance to help on their front porch. I don't have pictures of that yet so we will have to wait for pictures on that. It was a great trip here to Virginia Beach and it was quick too only 4 hours. Lydia is walking on her own now. The only person she will do it with really is me so Joel will have to take video for you all but right now I don't have her doing it. Here are some pictures.