A video a day, the Lydia way!

As I knew I would be, I am painfully overdue on an update.  It's hard because the longer I go without blogging, the harder it is to make myself sit down and do it because I know there are so many more days to wade through and highlight!  Lydia TingTing is doing so many fun things every single day.  She is mostly happy, with her odd moments of grumpies.  She did have a couple of days in a row that she was predominantly grumpy, but even that is still pretty mild from my idea of a grumpy 3 year old.  But after a couple of off days, she is now back to her happy giggly self. 

Her language is expanding more and more all the time.  It's really a ton of fun to hear her copying us as well as coming out with new phrases on her own.  Those are the ones that make me the most excited - the ones where she considers for a moment and then recalls out of her own brain the phrase she wishes to say.  Like I posted on facebook recently, a couple of days ago she was drawing at a restaurant and she drew a tiny apple.  She said, "apple!"  which wasn't a big deal - she has known that word for a while now.  But then she drew another apple, paused, and then said, "There's another apple!"  Those are the phrases that are so fun to hear.  When she not only uses a word for an object, but the correct grammar as well to form it into a whole thought.

We had the thought recently that maybe I can post just a little bit each day for a week.  That way I'm not trying to think of everything at once and I'm not posting tons of pictures at once.  Plus, there have been several things that are just completely worth videoing and posting, so I thought a video a day for a week would be a fun way to hit some of the best things we have enjoyed with Lydia in these recent weeks and days.  The photos I'm posting today jump back a couple of weeks.....

Where's Lydia!!??



There she is!!!



Sister love!



This was the first time we pulled out scissors.  There was a delighted squeal of surprise when she first saw them, followed by enthusiastic nodding.  Then she proceeded to concentrate VERY hard on snipping a piece of yellow construction paper into tiny scraps.  Watching both her reaction and her cutting skills, I could tell she had clearly practiced scissors in China.



The question is, why would you watch something on TV in just a plain outfit when you can watch it in snazzy sunglasses and giant fake earrings?



Just too precious not to post....

 The next few pictures require a little explaining.  When Grace was born, we bought a women's long sleeve shirt and took her picture laying on it at around 2 weeks old.  We then took her picture in it a couple of times that first year, and then every year on her birthday.  We did the same thing for Mary Emma - the same shirt, several pictures during the first year, and then every year on her birthday.  They have gone from laying on it, to sitting with it wrapped around them, to standing in it with it dragging on the floor, to growing into it a little more each year.  With Lydia, we just have to start from the time when God gave her to us.  So these are some of the best ones from the shirt pictures that we took a couple of weeks ago.  The next ones we will take with her in the shirt will be in just about a month when we celebrate her 4th birthday.  My only regret is that I didn't think to take it to China.  It would've been pretty super precious to take her first shirt picture someplace really significant like the Great Wall or Forbidden City.  Oh well...hindsight is 20/20!

Monkey see, monkey do....

Corny cousins!



Sitting next to each other eating - of course eventually it turns into silly giggles!



This is my favorite though.  It looks like Lydia took Lauren's hotdog and is eating it, and Lauren is nicely asking for it back.  Actually, it was just Lydia deciding that it was time to focus on that tasty hotdog and take a break from the playful giggles in the picture above!  I thought her solution was hilarious!   A perfect example of body language filling in perfectly well for the absence of verbal language!

And now for the video.  Actually, today I'm going to do a few very short ones.  They were all taken yesterday and they are just short clips.

The first one is Lydia's reaction to pizza being delivered to our door!  I wish I would've thought to grab the camera and video her running to the door as the delivery guy was at the door!  Running, jumping and exclaiming, "PIZZAAAAA!"  This was the best we could get her to recreate the excitement - but you'll get the idea!

This next one carries a bit of Field family humor.  A favorite phrase when someone eats something spicy is to say (in a very Italian way) "Spicy Meatball!"  (pronounced more like "spicy meat-eh-ball!!")  Here was Lydia's attempt at it...we got her saying it when she decided that the pepperoni was spicy!



This last one is another funny phrase we've taught her.  It's one Mary Emma used to love when she was little too - she learned it from Donald Duck and she would go around saying it to people.  You know, the classic Donald Duck cartoons when he says, "Hi-uh, Toots!"  Lydia gets it pretty good, except for her consistent habit of adding an extra syllable to words, which in this case makes it more like Tootsie!

More tomorrow....we've got so many more cute things to catch on video!

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