Lydia Grace Barron and Molly Joy Barron

My spontaneous online leave of absence has been taunting me every day. "You need to update the blog!" "It's been forever since you updated the blog!" "Go update Lydia's blog!"

May was a busy month, but all is well. Lydia is doing great! 2 new teeth popped through this week (on the bottom row). We didn't even know they were coming. That makes 8! Lydia is still rapidly cruising all over the house. She can walk very well holding just one of our hands, like you would if you were strolling along holding your partner's hand. She has let go and toddled over to me a couple of times, but it was just 2 or 3 steps, and these special moments have been few and far between. We know she can do it, it's just a matter of her deciding this is how it's going to be now. She's still a little timid, but she's becoming much braver every day.

Last weekend we went to a really great park in old Frisco. As soon as we put her on the swings she began to giggle and squeal. She loves the swings. She also seemed to really like to little boy swinging next to her.

Lydia's favorite things right now are:

- Balls. Any kind. She likes her small plastic ones, the bigger rubber spiderman ball, her larger pink soccer ball, and the holy grail of all balls seems to be the rubber bouncy one that makes space invader type noises and flashes red lights when you bounce it, which her Omi and Opa found at a random business trade show. She loves to push her balls around and chase them. She'll do this forEVER.

- She loves to be chased. We have a game called "I'm gonna get you!" and she loves it. She'll start crawling, then she'll turn around and smile and check if we're going to come after her. That's our cue to crawl after her saying "I'm gonna get you! I'm gonna get you!". She instantly begins to crawl much faster, giggling, and when we catch her and tickle her she giggles even more. It's one of those games where she knows exactly what's going to happen every time, yet it's always fun anyway. This game seems to work well many places. We "get her" at the window sill, walking along our bed and just about anywhere. She giggles so much. She has to be in the right mood, of course. Sometimes she'll just look at us like, "What are you talking about?"

- She loves our door stops. You know, the ones that make a silly sound when you flick 'em?

- She still loves her giant saucer at Omi's house. She goes absolutely bonkers in that thing and I just hope it can stand up to the pressure!

- She loves her Daddy. He works from home three days a week now and has watched Lydia all day as well when Lydia's Omi has been out of town. It's tough to pull double-duty. He's Super Dad and does a really great job caring for our little one, while still giving 110% to his company.

There are lots of other things she enjoys, of course. She's a cutie. Now we just have to get her to concentrate on growing hair on the sides of her head! Her hair is getting long and thick in the back but the sides are still a little thin. She's going to have a mullet soon!

Finally, I'd like to share with you that a few weeks ago my Grandma passed away (my Dad's mom). She had a beautiful life of 94 years. We have peace, but we will miss her. The reason I share this with you here, is to express our joy that Lydia got to meet her Great-Grandma several times. In fact, when Lydia was just 6 weeks old we traveled to Hot Springs and they met for the first time. Grandma thought she was the sweetest little thing and was very good with her. I never met my great-grandparents and think it is wonderful Lydia had the opportunity. We will share more with her about Grandma when she gets older, and we'll show her the pictures we have of them together. Here's one of them together exactly one year ago (Memorial Day weekend).

The last bit of news is that Lydia's Grammy and Poppy are moving back to Plano in just a few weeks! So Lydia will soon be the luckiest little girl in the world, with both sets of grandparents living close by!