Easter Egg Hunt

Last Saturday we were invited to join the Bates' family at their church in Independence for an Easter Egg Hunt! It was a great time, and Grandma Losie was in town so she was able to join in the fun as well.

It was a rainy day, so the hunt was moved inside. The kids didn't seem to mind! There was a balloon-making clown and hot dogs served for lunch.

Great to hang out with friends and have Grandma in town for the occasion.

Lily waiting for the clown to make her a flower balloon

Grandma and Daddy enjoying a nice cup o' joe while the kids ran around hunting the eggs

patiently waiting to get started!

Prayer time with Lily

I wanted to share a funny snippit of my prayer time with Lily last night:

Lily: (eyes closed and in deep concentration) "and thank you for baby Jesus"

Mom: "yes...thank you for sending baby Jesus"

Lily: "thank you for my ears"

Mom: "thank you for Lily's ears to hear"

Lily: "thank you for my eyes"

Mom: "thank you for Lily's eyes to see"

Lily: "thank you for my eyebrows"

Mom: (speechless and a bit puzzled)

Lily: "to make funny faces with..."

Mom: (trying really hard not to burst out laughing)

First visit to the Dentist!

On Tuesday, Lily had her first dentist visit.

I found a great pediatric dentist that had come recommended and decided to try them out. Boy, have things changed since I was little! I remember as a kid getting excited to pick out a toy from the treasure chest after my visit. Lily was bombarded with all kinds of exciting fun things!

She had her choice of toothbrush, a choice of toothpaste for her cleaning (there were 5! she chose cookie dough ;), got to wear special cool sunglasses during her cleaning, and she was given some stickers and a little coin to go to the toy vending machine after her cleaning and pick a toy.

They had tons of video screens on the walls and on the ceiling to entertain the kids, and the hygienists and dentists were so awesome in communicating to Lily in her own language about their dental tools and what was happening next.

My favorite part was when the hygienist told Lily she was going to turn her teeth into "princess teeth". She was great at keeping up with that theme the entire cleaning. Lily bought right into it too!

Lily did such a fantastic job and thankfully...no cavities! She is very excited to go back in 6 months. And I am happy there were no tears or fear in the whole process.

Lying

Well...as you can tell by the subject of this post, this is not a happy one. However, because I am saving these posts for Lily as her "scrapbook", I wanted to include a story of our ride home from school last Friday.

To give you a little background....at Preschool, Lily's teacher will allow the "good kids" to go to the Snack Shack a few times a week. They don't go every day and the days are picked at random. Smart idea on the teacher's part. So here's the story:

Lily: "Mom, three of us....me, "Abby", and "Jack" did not get to go to Snack Shack today. We were being good, but we didn't get to go and the other kids did."

Mom: "Why didn't you get to go?"

Lily: "I don't know. We were being good, we just didn't get to."

(subject was dropped for a bit)

Mom: "So Lily, why didn't "Abby" get to go to Snack Shack?"

Lily: "Because she had to go to timeout."

Mom: "Why didn't "Jack" get to go to Snack Shack?"

Lily: "Because he didn't have any money." (Didn't have a clue about this one...but I went with it)

Mom: "So Lily, why didn't you get to go to Snack Shack?"

Lily: "Because I didn't have any money."

Mom: "Lily, Dad gave Ms. Ann money this week. If I were to ask Ms. Ann on Monday why you didn't get to go to Snack Shack, what would she tell me?"

Lily: (head bowed and almost at a whisper) "I wasn't listening"

A conversation then ensued about what telling the truth means vs. lying. This was a serious discussion...since not only did she lie to me once, but TWICE! Oh, and we also discussed why she was not being a good listener.

Our rule in the house is that if Lily gets a timeout at school or we hear from Ms. Ann that she was not a good listener, she gets her "babies" taken away for the night. HUGE DEAL! This has happened a few times to where Lily now understands her consequence.

Mom: "Lily, what do you think your consequence should be for not being a good listener at school?"

Lily: "Mommy, do I not get to play with my babies tonight?"

Mom: "Do you think you should be able to play with your babies?"

Lily: "No." (silent cheer on Mommy's part....our form of discipline is working!!)

I then proceeded to tell her that since her friends were coming over, I would let her play with her babies, but that I hoped she had learned her lesson.

Never did I think I would be dealing with lying and manipulation at 3-years-old! Whoever said 3-year-olds "don't understand" at this age is sorely mistaken.
Justin and I have to be on our toes with this one!

Father/Daughter dance

Last Saturday night, Justin was invited by his brother to take Lily to her first Father/Daughter dance.

Lily was so excited to have a special date with her Daddy! She and Justin got dressed up and went out to dinner beforehand to Red Robin with Uncle Chris and her cousins, Maryanna and Lola.

What a special night for all these girls with their daddies.

I made Justin promise to take pictures!

(Otherwise, I may have been hanging from the rafters at the community center...and that would not have been pretty.)

Enjoy a few shots of their fun night:

Dinner at Red Robin

The cousins being goofy outside Red Robin

Dancing with Uncle Chris

Posing with her balloon

Hugging Lola- so sweet!

Dancing with Maryanna

Awww....I just love their sweet relationship!

E.R.

So last night, we had an eventful evening in Children's Mercy Hospital E.R.

Just as I was leaving work last night, I called to check in and found out that Lily had just fallen down our basement stairs. Justin was getting her ready to head to the hospital when I called.

For most of you who know my paranoia, it was really hard for me not to completely freak out!

We are in the process of remodeling our basement, therefore the stairs are exposed wood and the landing at the end of the stairs is concrete! I immediately envisioned Lily head over foot tumbling down all of those stairs only to land on concrete! My poor child!!

Luckily, she did not pass out or vomit...signs of a severe head injury. No...my baby SCREAMED! According to the doctor, that's a really good thing. The doctor checked her out and she was cleared of any major injury- no labs or x-rays needed. In fact, she was jumping around in the E.R. and doctor's office. Probably made the other patients wonder why we were even there!

We are very happy she is doing well and we are praying these next 48 hours are smooth sailing.

Here are some pictures of her goose egg:

This was her "sad" face while eating her breakfast this morning.

If you will notice, she has a faint blue mustache. The doctor gave her a bottle of Gatorade and she was in heaven!