Sincerely, The Lishias

15 Months

8:38 PM

Age: 15 months

Stats: 22 lbs 4 oz

Sleep: Sleeps through the night... except for the 2nd week in January when she got 4 molars at the same time. No one got much sleep that week.

Clothing: She's growing out of the 12-18 month pants we've bought her. She's so tall. However, I technically have no idea how tall she actually is other than she's the exact height as our dining table.

Favorite Foods: Pizza, turkey, roasted red pepper humus, veggie straws, poptarts, meatballs, mandarin oranges, Pirate's Booty, all-beef hotdog wieners and cucumbers.

Favorite Activities: Turning the pages in her books. Playing with straws. She knows where my stash of paper straws are in the pantry and she loves to get in there and pull them all out; one by one. She likes to brush her hair. Also, climbing. We can't keep this girl off the kitchen table. (It's so hard to be consistent when they do it over and over.) We simply have to redirect her attention to something else and we have to do this about 20+ times a day. Putting together puzzles and playing in the tupperware drawer. Her new favorite thing to watch along with George, Kipper, and Pooh is Emmy and Max from Dragon Tales. She absolutely LOVES the dragons! We think Zak and Weezie might be her favorites. (She waves and giggles at them mostly.) She's also known to sit through an episode or two of HGTV.

Favorite Things:

puzzle : snack cups : banana : humidifier : book : pop-up toy

Funny Things I Do: Cutting her eyes to Daddy when I tell her "no, no" as if to say, "he'll say yes". Sometimes when she stands up she'll just stand there with her arms dangling down and her back humped like a little monkey... so cute. She makes the best faces. She has realized lately that she has a tongue and she'll stretch her mouth open as wide as she can and stick her tongue out. It's hysterical looking. (But then she tries to take her tongue out of her mouth.) And she still loves putting random things on her head and it leave us in stitches... clothes, blankets, headbands, and lately, plastic plates.

Other Milestones: Walking around toys and furniture one-handed. Standing for longer periods of time. She understands "Come here" and "No, No". She has started using a spoon the right way. It no longer gets slung across the room like a comet with a yogurt tail. She also "pretends" that she's eating by smacking her lips together when she's playing with her toy spoons and forks.

Highlights

What a month! Juliet got to see snow for the first time. It did snow last year, but we didn't take her out into it. We stayed inside where it was warm and cozy. I remember getting "the call" last year saying that we wouldn't have school and I was so excited to get a day home with my baby. This picture was taken that night. Crazy to think it was a year ago.

Last year

This year

Having fun at Pappy's (New Years)

Shopping for houses

Making coffee

Walking with Daddy

Being silly in pigtails

Went to sleep in her pirate hat

Complimentary Foods for Lunch, Dinner, & Dessert.

9:36 AM

Over the past two days, we've mostly stayed inside because of the 2 inches of snow and slush that's frozen on the roads. However, we did find a pizza place that was open yesterday... Made for a fun napkin lunch while we all unthawed from playing in the snow outside. To keep from going crazy, I whipped up a few recipes to compliment some foods we had leftover in the fridge.

Let's start with dessert, because... why not? Thursday I made some cream cheese frosting to go on top of lemon pudding that I made earlier in the week. I wish I would've had some limoncello to add, but no such luck...

LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 pkg of cream cheese

1/4 c of sugar
*you can also you powdered sugar or brown sugar*

1/2 Tb of fresh lemon juice

*or vanilla if you don't want it to have a lemon flavor*
4 Tbs of milk

mix all ingredients until creamy and pipe.

add to cupcakes, cakes, puddings, or cookies.

Friday for lunch we had wedge salads and I made an awesome dressing to go with it.

WEDGE SALAD DRESSING

1 c mayonaisse

1/2 c buttermilk

1/2 c sour cream

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/2 tsp distilled white vinegar

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

wisk all ingredients together and

add to wedge salads, caesar salads, pizza, or veggies.

Saturday we had hamburgers and I've always wanted to find a great roasted red potato recipe. I've tried several, but none had the taste I wanted. I combined two recipes here to make a brand new one... and I think I'm on to something!

ROASTED RED POTATO WEDGES

6-8 red potatoes cut into wedges

3 Tbs of flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

*for seasoning I used Zoe's Kitchen's Spice of Life seasoning*

(We use it on so many things... burgers, steaks, veggies, etc.)

If you don't have access to Zoe's Kitchen's seasoning, you can add in

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

Add all ingredients into a plastic bag and shake.

Line baking sheet with foil and cover foil with olive oil.

Bake at 450 for 20 mins

Take out and flip all wedges.

Continue baking for another 20 mins.

Sorry, you've probably all gained 5 lbs just from reading this post... sorry! Enjoy the last day of the weekend and hopefully the "Sunday blues" won't set in for a least a couple more hours.

Valentine's Day Prep & Big News!

9:25 AM

Relax, I'm not pregnant. The big news is that our house went on the market Monday night! Ok, well it's big news for us. We're not sure where we're moving to, but we're excited. (More like half scared/half excited.) We've lived in this house for 3 years. That's 3 years of memories: holidays, graduations, parties, bringing home baby, etc., so it'll definitely be hard leaving her behind as we go on with our lives. There really isn't a specific reason for selling other than the market is really good right now... that and the fact that we're completely out of our minds for moving- again. Honestly, we would rather be in a different part of Charlotte; closer to Joey's work, church, and the city. We've been looking for another house for the past 2 months and now that our's is for sale, we can start thinking about offers, paperwork, and all that fun stuff. Our first open house is tomorrow... keep your fingers crossed!

On another note, I had to rip down all my Christmas decor really fast before we left for PA, (we met Joey's family there for New Years), so that our realtor could do a showing, and as always I was sad to see it all go. Since we've been back, I've been sneaking a few pink and red things around the house...
Moving can't stop us from having some holiday fun! Juliet's not impressed with the new Valentine's decorations... Ha, that face!

She is going to love all the valentine stickers and glitter this year, for sure. Last year we bought her a little mailbox for her highchair that we could pack all of her goodies into each year. Here are a couple of my ideas for this year!

tights : book : pillows : lights

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to a new year! Ours has been pretty busy and hectic with our PA trip, trying to keep the house tidied and tour-ready with a 1 year old, and cleaning out the house of junk so we can start thinking about boxes,

labels, packaging tape, and bubble wrap!

Speaking of moving, I will leave you with one of my favorite moments from Friends. (It's between this one and Ross's leather pants episode. "The lotion and powder have made a paste." Hahahaha!) Joey and I always seem to work in the "Piv-aaat" moment some time during the process of moving. Chandler get's me every time. Have a great weekend everyone!

14 Months

10:40 AM

December 2015

Age: 14 months

Stats: 21 lbs 4 oz (eye still running- surgery scheduled)

Sleep: sleeping through the night

Clothing: 12-18 months shirts and pants. She has a few pajamas that are 2T already, but I have to roll up the sleeves.

Favorite Foods: Beans, ravioli, green beans, oreos, mac & cheese, chicken

Favorite Activities: Climbing the furniture, watching shows like Curious George, Kipper, and Winnie the Pooh on the iPad, rolling a ball or tossing a ball to you, and looking at herself in the mirror.

Favorite Things:

book : amber necklace : bib : race car ramp : car seat

Funny Things I Do:

Cutting her eyes to her Daddy when Mama gets onto her for trying to climb her way to the dining room table. (floor-chair-table)
Playing peek-a-boo by putting her hands on her head; not on her eyes.
Sneaking into the bathroom to play with the toilet brush. (Luckily we've always caught her before she could chew on it... Haha!)
Swings are arms and claps to music while trying to out-do Mariah Carey on high notes.

Other Milestones: We've been working on walking. She still walks a little pigeon toed and marches when she's taking steps. The movements are still pretty foreign to her. We have another month to work on that. We'll get there! She got her first haircut this month. Her hair was all different lengths, so we just had the girl even it all. She also got her "big girl" car seat this month, (as one of her Christmas gifts). Shakes her head "NO!" Can blow kisses and point her finger in the air (or at people). She will randomly give a shout out to Jesus while playing.

Highlights

This one can simply be described as either "can't hang" or "messy hair, don't care".

The stack fell just as she added the 5th block and was not a happy camper about starting over.

She also got her first haircut on the 12th by the sweetest girl. We loved her and will definitely be going back. Juliet was beside herself being in that car- as you can plainly see.
This is my favorite face that she makes. I couldn't get over how cute the police car was... to protect and serve. I wanted to take it home. Why don't they make play cars to look like this?

Christmas morning. (I listed this ramp in with her monthly favorites.) She'll sit forever and play with this thing. It might look complicated, but it's very rewarding. Even for babies her age! It was probably her favorite thing she got for Christmas.

Tennessee Christmas

5:27 PM

We're back and unpacked! It was a fun 5 days with my-side of the family in Nashville, celebrating Christmas. We have always talked about getting away for the holidays and decided this would be a good year to make it happen! We rented a cabin through VRBO and it was absolutely dreamy. It was beautifully decorated by Pottery Barn and had everything we needed for a fun holiday getaway including a gorgeous white flocked Christmas tree! It was located on a 100-acre horse ranch so needless-to-say, it was breathtaking & Juliet loved seeing the horses everyday.

We kicked off our "fun-old-fashioned-family-Christmas" with steak dinners at a locally-famous steak house close to the cabin, but not before we let the kids open just one gift! And yes, I have a real "ugly Christmas sweater" that I wear all season. I'll do just about anything in the name of festivity!

We lazily hung around the cabin Saturday morning and explored the grounds. We got to see the Ryman Auditorium and attend a live show there Saturday night.

After Craig Campbell finished playing he handed his pick to Juliet.

Such a sweet memory. It's tucked away in her keepsake box for safe keeping, just in case!

Sunday was spent doing what all Southern Americans do best, a little shopping and eating! :)

Ok... Maybe a lot of shopping. After shopping we took the ~~adults~~ kids to the Aquarium to eat dinner. Totally cliché, but they loved it. :)

Monday we got to see the Opryland hotel. Such a cool place to visit. Beautiful decorations, (it's free to get in=bonus), great food, and fun stores! We got a caricature done while we were there and Juliet got to visit with Santa, which was short and sweet this year.

leg lamp onesie

Monday morning we opened gifts. We were so excited to give my brother and his wife their presents. They are HUGE Suits fans so we bought Suits t-shirts from the NBC shop. His was Team Harvey, her's was Team Donna & ours were Team Mike & Team Louis. I would've been Rachel, but come on.. you can't leave Louis out! Then Tuesday morning we headed out. Lots of fun was had by all... Until next time, Nashville!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Holiday House Tour

9:12 PM

It's almost here! This is the first Christmas that Joey & I will actually wake up in our own house on Christmas Day. We have mixed emotions about it but we're mostly excited. The best part will be bringing Juliet downstairs Christmas morning to the presents Santa left for her at her house!

Let's continue this festive talk with a tour of our home during this year's holidays.
We are no "Clark & Helen", but we do alright.

I've exchanged a lot of my ornaments this year for ribbon, garland, felt ornaments, and jingle bells just because we have little fingers in the house now that love to explore! However, I did use white feather boas in our tree this year- Juliet hasn't found them yet and hopefully she doesn't any time soon. I thought about flocking our tree but after having to replace half the lights, I decided to take an easier route. I really do like the way it turned out!