Holloween Butterfly

For Lydah's first year to dress up for Halloween (last year she was a bit young and slept through the whole evening), her mother dressed her up as a butterfly of sorts. The crazy hair had less to do with butterflyishness and more to do with it just being really, really cute.

It wasn't all just fun and games.

Our Little Talker

It's been over a month since we last posted (sorry about that). Lydah's personality continues to blossom. Just today she was playing with her friend Thomas and being really silly. She noticed that I was watching her and I could swear that she gave me an embarrassed little smile. She now enjoys performing for an audience. She likes to pretend she is a ballerina (which means standing on one leg), "being sweet" (putting her head on her shoulder and giving an ingenuous smile), and making sounds like "how a snakes goes." She loves to scream "ball" every time she sees anything remotely spherical. And she can be heard walking around the house whispering "daddy" under her breath -- we have no idea why. She understands things like "Get your shoes," "We're going outside" (she always echoes with a "sie" = "outside"), "It's time to take a bath," and "Use a nice voice."

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Illinois so there are a few pictures from that time away.

Lydah was playing with Grandpa and she had just sneezed before I took this picture.
Lydah has always thought sneezes are hysterical.

Grandma came for a visit during Lydah's bout with pneumonia. (Thanks, Grandma!)
Here they are getting some fresh air in none other than Keene, KY.

Our neighbors from Benin looked so good after church one day, we just had to take a picture.
Pictured: Mathieu and Crystel with their daughter, Lydia.

Our 1-year old!

Lydah has had her first birthday now. We celebrated a couple times. Once, about a week before her actual birthday, we celebrated with family while in Illinois during Labor Day weekend. Then, on her actual birthday, our small group from church threw her a party. Below are pictures from both events plus some extras. Lydah has now completely abandoned crawling and has even figured out how to descend stairs. Suddenly, we feel like she has blossomed into a little girl. She cries less and talks more. She also thinks it is hilarious when her mommy and daddy try to dance!

Below are images from the birthday party in Illinois:

And here are some from the one in Kentucky:

Playing with some of our new neighbors from Malaysia and Japan.

Myrtle Beach

We spent August 3-11 on vacation with Courtney's parents in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We had a wonderful time despite the record temperatures that they recorded almost every day we were down there. The heat doesn't matter much when you're splashing around in the Atlantic! We had a week full of adventures including going deep sea fishing for black sea bass, visiting Ripley's Aquarium, attending the Medieval Times dinner theater, eating at Capt. George's Seafood buffet (which was the best seafood we've ever had), going swimming, boogie boarding, building sand castles, and just hanging out at our condo. And to top it all off, Lydah started walking! She only goes a few feet at a time, but it is definite walkage. Lydah was really good most of the vacation and she was well behaved in the car even though Myrtle Beach is 10 hours from Wilmore. For the trip home, Grandma bought her a little DVD player so that she could watch Baby Einstein videos in the car. All in all, it was a great week.

This was actually before the trip at home. But it was definitely a Kodak moment. The picture says it all.

An Emerging Personality

It's been fun to watch Lydah's personality show itself more and more over this past month. If there is one word that I would use to describe her right now it is "driven." Our ambitious little girl wakes up every morning with an agenda and a mission -- to explore and figure out as much of her little realm as she possibly can. She's always wanting to climb higher, crawl faster, and touch, taste, and see more of her world. Last week she seemed intent on climbing onto the couch so I lifted her up. Then she wanted to climb on top of the back of the couch. So, as I held her, she stood on the back of the couch. Then she wanted to climb onto the window sill behind the couch so I helped her. I thought she would finally be content. But no. She wanted to climb up the window to reach the metal fastener that locks the window shut. The whole time, from the floor to the top of the window, she was focused on that one goal. I just had to laugh because she has inherited her parents' stubbornness, focus, and drivenness. Oh well... God can use a person like that, right?

A brief lunch visit with great-great-grandma Lida who soon turns 101!

Touring the Kentucky River with Uncle Kyle and soon-to-be Aunt Katrina.

This is what Lydah finds boring.

This empty plastic bottle, on the other hand, is hours of fun!

Standing!

It's official. Today Lydah has proven to us that she can stand on her own! She did it several times today for about 15-30 seconds each. We don't think she is even aware of it yet. She's always too preoccupied with whatever project she is working on to know that she's just hit a new milestone. But we're proud of her. Below are some of the pictures from this last month including a few with her friend, Claire.