I'm a little in denial that my baby is already 2. Sometimes she still seems like she's a baby. Like I just want to cuddle her up and hold her and rock her to sleep. This birthday was kind of a jolt back to reality for me that she's actually TWO! A toddler... definitely NOT a baby.

Her birthday was on a Sunday so the Saturday before we set up all the decorations for the Lion Gaurd birthday party she was going to have after church. Reaghan got stay up while Lilly napped to help us set up and run to the store to pick up the cake and balloon. She couldn't stop talking about how neat it was that she got to stay up. When Lilly woke up for her nap she was so excited to see her "Di Dard" party all set up. Reaghan has been talking to her about it for weeks, so she's been anticipating something! She really wanted her party {which I think she thought was just eating the cake and ice cream} right then, I don't think she fully understood the party concept. haha She kept trying to peak in her presents the night before but Reaghan was keeping guard over the presents. ; )


The morning of her birthday I woke up early to go get Duck Donuts. So far Donuts have been the birthday breakfast of choice for the girls so its become a little tradition. I really wanted a super cute picture of her before church with her number 2 balloon buuuut this was the best I got. Pre-church pictures never turn out the way I picture them in my head.








Lilly was fun to watch as she opened her presents. She was very animated about each one and quick to give thank you hugs! As soon as I told her who a present was from she would run to give them a hug before opening the gift. It was precious.



















It's my great pleasure to be your mama. Everything about you seems to be intense and exhausting... but not always in a bad way! You love making messes and you love pushing the boundaries. You're the 2 year old all the books write about as you spend the day saying "Do myself!" and "My do it!" and "Mine!" and "No!". You are trying to exercise your independence around every corner and mama prays for patience every day to diligently keep you on the toddler straight and narrow and not grow weary of teaching you obedience and kindness. You are usually seen carrying around a baby doll or randomly saying "baby cryin!" and then running off to get your baby from your room. You love singing Baby Shark, ABC's, and Jesus Loves Me! You love to play with Sissy and try so hard to play along with whatever imaginary thing she's doing. I love seeing your imagination grow. Your favorite books are Look and Find books, Sesame Street books and "Goodnight Little one." Your favorite shows are Lion Gaurd and Doc McStuffins, though you rarely sit still for a whole episode because you love to stay busy. You love cheese and bread. You've recently developed a fear of dogs, but other than that you're pretty adventurous and willing to try new things like rides at Busch Gardens. You are very interested in using the potty and have done so lots of times already to practice! Mommy's just waiting for a good weekend to spend at home to get the potty training officially done {hence the potty chair birthday present!} You can count to 12. You can't recognize your colors to save your life and its hilarious but you're getting better at knowing your shapes! Its the cutest when you say "Awwww!" whenever you see a picture of anyone and you get so excited to see your cousin baby Blake. You enjoy your sleep and most mornings I have to go in and wake you up. Every morning you ask "Daddy home?" or "Sissy wake?" because you are social and love to see your people.

You gave mommy a scare just days after your birthday with a high fever that made you unresponsive and landed us at CHKD, so as I write all of these wonderful, unique things about you I am so grateful for your life. Grateful for the joy and the challenges you bring every day. I love you so much. Here's to doing the 2's with you Lilly Pop!

Mark's 30th birthday is coming up this weekend, its on Father's Day actually, and unfortunately we have a super busy weekend with Reaghan's dance recital and rehearsal, waiting for Erin's baby (her due date is tomorrow!) and celebrating Fathers Day! Since it didn't seem doable to do a big party for him on his actual birthday I decided to do something fun to surprise him this past weekend.

I've been asking him for months if there was anything special he wanted to do for his milestone birthday and we tossed around a few ideas but couldn't settle on anything. He said he didn't want a big party. {Mark is is definitely more introverted and doesn't enjoy being the center of attention.} I was struggling because I wanted to do something special so I spent so many nights brain storming for ideas and that's when I came across a brilliant idea from The Dating Diva's website!

A DIY Amazing Race!

Mark and I Loooooooove the Amazing Race. If we could pick any reality show to be on that would be it. We amuse ourselves watching the show and laughing about which one of us would be better at the challenges or if there are any that we know we'd totally fail at. Anyways, when I saw the idea for a DIY Amazing Race date night I knew it would be perfect to adapt to a party AND I knew I wanted it to be a surprise.

When Lilly woke up on her birthday mommy, daddy and big sissy all went in to her bedroom together to get her singing Happy Birthday. I'm so glad we got it on video because she was not impressed with our morning singing voices! It was sad and hilarious all at the same time. Thankfully a special treat of Mickey Mouse waffles cheered her right up.

We decided to do something a little different than we've done before and take a fun trip for Lilly's 1st birthday just the 4 of us. We haven't taken very many trips or vacations just the 4 of us, usually we are joining other family members for some sort of family fun trip, so we were really looking forward to doing something just the 4 of us and decided to go to Great Wolf Lodge for 2 days. : )

Unfortunately it didn't really turn out the way we were thinking!

The night before we were supposed to leave I went out to eat to iHop after work with some friends. When I told Mark that's where we were going he made gagging faces and told me iHop was gross and he can't bring himself to eat there. I laughed, rolled my eyes at him and still went and had a fun time. I got home late, into bed around 1 a.m. and by 2 I was back up and in the bathroom... Where I spent the rest of the night. In the morning I was feeling still feeling queasy but much better than the night before. We had planned to leave around 10 a.m. but decided to wait a little while and see if I continued to improve. At this point I was sure I was feeling bad because of something I ate the night before, especially since Mark put it in my head before even going that I could get something bad. Since I was feeling a little better we still went!




We checked into the Lodge, took the girls to the Water Park for about an hour, until it was time for dinner, and had a great time! The girls loved it.



We went and got dinner, I was actually pretty hungry by that time and even though I wasn't feeling 100% I was MUCH better than that morning. We came home and got the girls bathed and into their jammies and did the fun evening activities that Great Wolf Lodge has for the kids. They did a little craft in the craft room...


Went to a PJ story time in front of the their big fire place and then we stopped for a fun snack on the way back to our room.



We had a fun Kid's Suite with a little nook room that looks like a log cabin with bunk beds and its own TV. Reaghan thought it was awesome that she had her own "room" in our hotel room. We went to bed looking forward to a fun filled day at the Water Park the next day... but apparently I didn't just have food poisoning...

In the wee, dark hours of the morning Reaghan woke up crying about her belly hurting and sure enough she got sick. *face palm* This of course woke Lilly up. I think I was in denial about the fact that this was an actual sickness infiltrating my family so I just brought the girls back to our bed and we squeezed in a few more hours of sleep cuddled up all together (a silver lining) until Reaghan woke up sick again. At that point I knew our little trip was over so once Reaghan was settled Mark went to grab something quick for breakfast for him and I from the Lodges little cafe so we could start packing up. While he was gone Reaghan needed the bathroom again and I somehow cut the top of my foot on a carpet tack while I helped hold Reaghan's hair back at the toilet and simultaneously tried to keep Lilly from toddling in.

When Mark came back he told me that he was actually starting to feel sick too and within minutes he was needing the bathroom. You guys. It wasn't good. I knew we needed to get out of there, but how in the world were were supposed to drive an hour home with a sick toddler and the other adult that could either drive or help the toddler was sick too?! I'm not sure how we did it but I managed to get the bags out and then get my sick family out the "back door" to the van before going back in the check out. I made sure to tell the staff about the sickness so hopefully they took the proper steps to sanitize and protect themselves while cleaning the room for future guests.

Praise God that neither Mark or Reaghan actually got sick on the drive home. It was seriously an answered prayer because once we got home it was a different story. I had to try to hold back the tears of disappointment as I drove my family home. We had been looking forward to this weekend for several weeks. I couldn't wait to create some fun memories with my husband and our sweet girls for Lilly's birthday and I was so upset that it had turned in to this. I was mad that I misinterpreted my own symptoms because I so desperately didn't want to cancel our weekend.  I felt so guilty that I may have exposed so many people to our germs during our short stay at the Lodge. I just knew the next big news story was going to be about a stomach bug outbreak at Great Wolf Lodge! I felt horrible.

Thankfully Mark and Reaghan's sickness only lasted 24 hours as mine did and we were all much better by the end of the weekend. I spent several hours disinfecting every surface and bedding in our house and thankfully Lilly made it through unscathed and we spent the day following the sickness, her actual birthday, together at home and made it out of the house for a quiet family dinner.

The trip didn't produce the memories that we thought we were going to make, but it was definitely memorable! And thanks to that silly carpet tack that cut the top of my foot, we got a free night stay to go back another time. ; )