Rose Bank Farms

On the island, there is a place called Rose Bank Farms. (Technically the farm is Johns Island but you have to drive past the farm to get to Seabrook.) It's a great place to get fresh produce and flowers, visit some animals, see locally made crafts and visit a museum. We took Lilly there and she had a ball looking at all the animals. I think her favorite was the cat - we spent alot of time petting him but didn't get any pictures of that!

Pool fun

As the last post revealed, Lilly had fun playing in the pool while we were on vacation. We ended up going twice a day. Here are a couple of videos of Lilly in the pool:

Lilly's learning vacation on Seabrook Island

We were away for a week with Joe's family at Seabrook Island ( south of Charleston, SC). Lilly took this time to learn many new things:

Lilly does NOT like the beach - Each time we took her to the beach, she screamed "No sand" and refused to put her feet in the sand. When we wrangled her into the ocean, she screamed "No sand, no dirt." She did not stop crying until we were off the beach.

Stuffed turtles are more fun than real turtles - We drove into Charleston to visit the aquarium. She had a good time looking at the fish, watching the sea otters get fed breakfast (until one swam too close to her) and playing in the shipwreck. As we came out of watching the sea otters, an aquarium staff member had a baby turtle you could touch. We marched Lilly over there and had to hold her arm in order to get her to touch the turtle. She recoiled her hand and wanted to get away from the turtle as soon as possible.


Bike rides are pretty cool because someone else does all the work - We rented bikes for the week and made sure to get one with a baby seat. Lilly was a bit suspicious of another seat she had to be strapped into but she quickly found it enjoyable. We would sing songs as we rode to the pool, always on the lookout for critters (we saw deer and a fox), and Lilly would slouch down and occasionally kick the driver on the backside or rest her feet on the driver's hips. She was so comfortable she even fell asleep one time! We are looking into getting bikes for ourselves now.


The pool is a good thing - After a disastrous first introduction to the pool (she got so upset she threw up), Lilly could not get enough of the pool. She would ask to wear her "bath suit" and we taught her to jump in the pool. Not really jump but we would count to three and yell jump and then lift her into the water and bounce her up and down. We would go twice a day and by the end, she was crawling out of the baby pool to jump into the big pool!






We need stairs at our house - We could not keep Lilly off the stairs and the baby gate her cousins brought for us was not wide enough to use.


Wild critters will eat breakfast with you - The wildlife on the island is not shy. Visitors are reminded not to feed the alligators and to report any alligators that do not retreat from humans. Apparently there were a few alligators in a pond near the house (the house was on the golf course) that several of the family saw. On our first morning, we woke up to tree frogs in the house. There was a bad storm during the night and the tree frogs wanted to get away from the rain just as humans. The boys had fun rounding up the tree frogs. While eating breakfast one morning, a family of deer came up through the side of the yard and we could watch them while we ate breakfast. As we were getting ready for a bike ride, a fox came walked across the front of the garage and peeked in on us. And of course we saw a few snakes and lizards around the island.


Cousins are fun - Lilly's cousins were on vacation with us. She had a great time chasing Ryan and Connor around the house (she tried to keep up with them but her legs could only move so fast.) Lilly would even wake up from naps asking for her cousins. She was very interested in baby Cameron; Lilly spent a lot time touching baby Cameron.





Samples are everywhere, but some you can not eat - Lilly knows that certain grocery stores we visit at home have free food samples. It has gotten to the point that when you walk into the store, she starts asking for cheese. We needed to pick up some groceries so we headed out to Charleston to go to Costco and Earth Fare. Lilly felt right at home as soon as she saw the dome covered sample trays. We were visiting one retail store when Lilly discovered a wooden wedge doorstop. She picked it up and said "Cheese." She looked very disappointed when we told her it was not cheese and she could not eat it.

Daddy's do not have milk - We tried to keep to our normal routine as much as possible. During our bedtime routine for Lilly, she was sitting on Joe's lap reading a story. During the story, she stopped, looked at Joe, touched his chest and said "No milk." Needless to say, storytime ended a bit early, Joe put a shirt on and Lilly came to Mommy.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

A good hair day

Lilly woke up Sunday morning sporting this high-volume hair style:



She is very fortunate - some women spend tons of money trying achieve that kind of height with their hair but it is natural for her.

The love of foreign men

Lilly is in love - with FOUR men - from Australia. They go by the name of The Wiggles. Lilly has a couple of DVD's and CD's of theirs and it has become a routine for she and Daddy to watch the DVD's when he comes home from work while I finish getting dinner ready. Throughout the day, she will begin to sing one of their songs; usually Toot Toot Chugga Chugga Big Red Car or Rock-a- bye your Bear. The last couple of days, Daddy has put in a Wiggles DVD while waiting for Mommy to shower and get dressed.

We all were ready about the same time this morning and as the three of us walked past the living room into the kitchen to get Lilly her morning cup of BIG GIRL MILK, Lilly asked for The Wiggles (she calls them wizzes.) When we asked her if she wanted to watch The Wiggles, she ran over to the TV and started bouncing up and down. She even says their names when you point to each one and says hi to their special friends (she is a bit leery of Captain Feathersword) when they come on the screen.

I told her she was too young to be in love with anyone, much less FOUR men who live in Australia. As long as we can chaperon the time they spend together, we are not too worried. Hopefully she won't let the fact that she is a member of their fan club go to her head and starts getting ideas as how to get to the airport and stow away in someones luggage just to meet them.

Here is a video of her watching The Wiggles:

Her first three-syllable word

Lilly is adding new words to her vocabulary all the time. Her favorites right now are sneeze, cough, disor (dinosaur) and gee pig (guinea pig). At her bedtime story time tonight Lilly surprised us with the word butterfly. Now she has been saying a modified version of butterfly (byebyes) for awhile but tonight she said it all on her own. Of course I had to run and get the video camera and she actually repeated it:

Just Random Pictures

testing the merchandise at Pottery Barn

up from afternoon nap

bubble queen

in Grandma Nettie's Lily Garden

silliness with a washcloth