Owentines and Lyddie Love Notes

Why hello there, long-neglected blog!  Even though it's been a while, I couldn't miss the Valentine's Day tradition.  So, without further ado, enjoy this year's Owentines and Lyddie Love Notes.

And that's it!  Previous editions can be found here, here, and here.

Birthday Month

We celebrated two big birthdays last month--Lydia's first and Matt's 30th!
We had fun celebrating Lydia's birthday.  I sure enjoyed looking for all things red, white and blue.  I hope she doesn't get tired of patriotic birthday parties.  How does red, white, blue and pink sound? Uncle Sam meets the Disney Princesses?

This year we hosted a barbecue and had a few friends come over.

The kids helped me get ready with a little dollar store DIY making these patriotic window boxes for the playhouse.  They are just so cute, I had to share a lot of pictures.

 At the party everyone had fun playing outside

 Lydia was very dainty with her cake, she just picked at the berries on top.  Even after I cut it open for her, she just picked up little pieces. This is as messy as she got!

Here's her cute little cake before:

 We had lots of patriotic and picnic goodies:

Later that evening we let Lydia (or rather Owen) open her presents.

We spent Matt's birthday at home with just our family.

I asked Owen what we should do for Daddy's birthday, and his suggestion was donuts, so that's what we did!

 My chocolate faced boy

For this milestone birthday, I gathered 30 gifts. Some were big, some small, some silly, some sentimental.

 Owen, once again, was a good helper at opening them all.

Happy Birthday, Matt! We love you!

Yay for summer birthdays!

Lydia-12 months

Lydia is 1!  We sure love this little lady.

Stats:

Weight: 20lbs, 8oz-61st percentile
Height 30 in-78th percetile
Head Circumference: 46.5cm--88th percentile

Lydia is so close to walking!  For a while she was taking a few steps at a time, but she has gotten so good and fast at her funny monkey crawl that she has sort of given up on it.  She continues to delight us with her sweet affectionate nature.  She still doesn't have any teeth, but I love her gummy smile. She is good at giving snuggles, hugs, and kisses.  She's starting to learn a few "tricks"--identifying body parts and some animal noises.  When you ask her where her eyes are, she squints.  It's so cute.  See her here.  She also loves music.  This girl's got moves!  We have a little toy that plays music and she and Owen love to push it over and over and have dance parties.  Cheese and strawberries are her two favorite foods and she loves feeding herself.

Owen at 1 year.