This afternoon we went to the pumpkin patch up the street at Grace Avenue Methodist Church in Frisco. They do a great job every year. Hay rides, a hay maze, a pumpkin launch, bounce houses, and TONS of fun pumpkins of all sizes! Daddy, Mommy, Lydia, Omi, Grammy, Poppy, Aunt Kelly and cousin Liam came too! Lydia is so blessed to have her family nearby. She really enjoyed walking ever-so-independently through the hay, checking out all of the pumpkins. We bought 3 small pumpkins (Daddy-pumpkin, Mommy-pumpkin and Lydia-pumpkin) for the front of the house.

At this age it is NOT easy to get perfect smiles on camera. Really parents should just forget portrait-style pictures altogether until the kids are older and just count on candid shots to truly capture the cute moments. Still, we had to try...

This morning Oliver, Lydia and I participated in the Komen Dallas Race for the Cure to support their vision of a world without breast cancer! The weather was perfect. (Amazing after a month of rain, huh?) Lydia was a trooper and we had a good time. THANK YOU to my wonderful family for their donations and support! Aunt Karen and Uncle Pete, Opa and Omi Barron, Mike, Katie and Warner Barron, and Grammy and Poppy Kreutz. You're awesome!

When we finished the Race, it was time for a diaper change, so we went inside Northpark Mall to Macy's. The line for the ladies' room was vey long with Race participants, but never fear - Daddy's here! He had the good idea to use a fitting room instead. Not only is there no line, but it's probably a lot cleaner too! To the good people at Macy's Northpark: Thank you for letting us change our daughter's diaper in your fitting room! I promise we used her changing pad, and we were very careful. Lydia helped clean your mirrors with her sweet spitty hands, so we feel we left the place better than when we arrived.

(Oh gosh, now I just remembered that I once nursed Lydia in a Macy's fitting room at Stonebriar Mall! Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures! And it's much cleaner than the restroom!)

Lydia is really into full-length mirrors. She loves the one in Omi's bathroom, the one against the wall at Grammy's and...the one in the Macy's fitting room!

Then we walked through the mall to get back to our car. There were pumpkins! Love that baby face.

Look at the beautiful autumn wreath Lydia's Grammy made for our front door! (Ok, so this post has nothing to do with Lydia, but I just had to show it off!)

Tomorrow we're going to the Komen Dallas Race, and then to a pumpkin patch, so stay tuned!

LYDIA IS 18 MONTHS OLD!! How did this happen!?

This weekend Lydia helped her Daddy cheer on his St. Louis Cardinals (not to a victory, unfortunately). It was chilly that day so we kept her warm jammies on underneath her Cardinals-gear. Cute.

By the way, that's the same hat she was wearing in this picture at 4 months old!

And in this one at 3 weeks old!

It finally fits! (I can't believe she was that small once)

Today she visited her Pediatrician for her check-up. She had only one shot this time - her last batch of the Hep vaccine. She's finished with vaccines until she is FOUR years old! This is GREAT news!!!!

Here are her stats:

She is the same weight she was at her 15 month appointment! It was a funny moment for Oliver and me, because we usually hear she has gained several pounds since the last visit - she's been growing like crazy since she came home from the hospital! So when they said her weight was the same, it was like the record stopped - "Really??!" It makes perfect sense, actually, because since 14 months she has been moving non-stop! Running and playing all the time. She's just more mobile and maybe hitting a little plateau, which was due. She's still at the 95% percentile! What a great 18 months - no ear infections, no flu, no reason to make any appointments for illness - not once. Such a healthy girl.

We discussed her communication skill development with the Doctor. We've decided to take her for some hearing and cognitive testing. No one is panicked that she isn't talking yet, but we want to go ahead and address anything that could be a challenge for her and start working on it now (if necessary). The first test will be a hearing test. Of course when she was born they screened her hearing at the hospital, and she passed with flying colors, but things could have changed or missed. About 85% of the time I'm convinced she has no trouble hearing and I can name all sorts of examples proving just that. Still, we want to do whatever the doctor recommends. He said he has kids come through all the time who are just taking their time and don't talk very much until they are 2 or 2 1/2 and it's not problem. But you do want to know they are understanding you and listening and learning. She shows us that in many ways, but also isn't quite hitting the mark where a few other benchmarks are concerned. Her Doctor is aware that she is learning german right now, too. We asked the direct question again - is this okay? Should we stop for awhile and be consistent with just english? Should we not have started this right away at birth? He said not to change a thing! He said it's good for her and just fine and to keep it up! We thought so, but just didn't want to make her life any harder if we shouldn't! Anyway, seriously we're not worried about any of this, but we will go and have the testing and just be sure she's on the right track. It's the best thing for her!

Congratulations on being a super healthy, happy, cute 1 1/2 year old Lydia! We love you so much and we're so proud of you!

Yesterday Lydia went to watch her Daddy play flag football!

We only stayed about 20 minutes because it was cold and Lydia already has a stuffy nose. Didn't want to push it. (It's just a little cold - no fever or flu around here!) Hopefully next week the weather will be better and we can watch both of Daddy's games.

"Daddy, I'm real sorry to hear that you scraped your face and elbow while diving for a pass... but I'M COLD! Take me home!" (But congrats on catching the long pass, Daddy!)

Look at what we did today! SO CUTE

Well, this is my fourth post for the day! I'm making up for lost time, I guess. Here are a few of Lydia's latest tricks on video!

She likes to turn around in circles. It cracks us up because her eyes cross.

She likes to watch her shadow. Pretty fascinating!

She likes to walk backwards! I don't have this one on video yet. She just started doing that this week and it is so funny.

Jibberish! She's still not talking, but there's a lot of jibberish. She is definitely using the sounds "ma ma ma ma" and "da da da da" more than she used to, and usually it's when she's upset, so we're thinking this might be on purpose now! Good job, sweetie pie!

Today Lydia went to her friend Gracie's 2nd birthday party! We had fun! There were a lot of kids there of all ages. Anytime Lydia is around other kids she becomes so curious. She just walked around and around and around, observing everyone and occasionally joining in the fun. Gracie has an AWESOME playroom that Lydia really liked. I was busy making sure she wasn't getting into things she shouldn't so I didn't take any pictures. I'm quite sure Gracie's Mommy took a ton though, so we'll see those later. When we got home I had Lydia try on my t-shirt for the Komen Dallas Race for the Cure, which is coming up on October 17th. Isn't she so super cute? This will be Lydia's second Komen Race. She participated in the Plano one when she was about 7 weeks old. We missed that one this year, so now we'll do the Dallas event.

Last week Lydia's Grammy bought her a new chair! She is so good at finding a good deal on cute things. Lydia loves her new chair and likes to pounce on it like it's just a big pillow! She doesn't sit still in it long enough to say, chill and watch a movie with Mommy and Daddy, but maybe some day down the road.

I FINALLY completed Lydia's first year baby book! I used a website called blurb.com and was able to create a beautiful hardbound book using all of the entries from this blog, as well as many additional photos and stories. It turned out great! The book represents her first year, from birth to 12 months. I better start on her year 2 book now since we're half way through it already!

The front cover

The back:

The cover is a wraparound photo.

Here's a video preview of the book... (overkill, but I worked really hard on this thing!)

September 4th was Oliver's 35th birthday! I planned a special surprise for him - a secret I had to keep until September 18th! Some of you know that Oliver is a HUGE fan of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. They built a new stadium a few years ago, and they won the World Series in 2006, but he hasn't been there to see a game in years! Thus the surprise. I booked flights, a hotel, and researched tickets (which Oliver's Dad bought for us!) and didn't tell him what was up until we were in the car headed to the airport! I packed his bag (including his Cardinals gear) and we dropped Lydia off at my parent's place for an overnight (thanks Mom and Dad!). Shortly thereafter I revealed the secret. He was so excited! Our seats were great, and our hotel in walking distance to the stadium. While we were in town we were able to tour the area where he used to live and went to high school, etc. The next day we ate at Albert Pujols' restaurant outside of St. Louis. Everything went so well, and we had a great time. The game was fantastic - good weather, great fans, and the Cards won the game with a homerun in the bottom of the ninth! (Cubs rivalry!)

Meanwhile, back at home, Lydia had her first overnight away without Mommy and Daddy. She did great! She had so much fun with her grandparents and didn't even know we were gone.