Lankford Love

I recently reported that potty training was at a halt . Scratch that. On Tuesday after nap, Lil asked if she could wear her Dora underwear, which I had bought a few months back. To be honest, I was shocked that she asked. I told her she could wear them but that meant she was a big girl and needed to use the big girl potty. She basically ignored that comment, not thrilled about the idea I'm sure, and asked again for the Dora underwear. So I helped her put them on, and off she went to play! The Trial Run We had a date night scheduled for that night, so Lil would be at a friend's house. I definitely was not going to bring over a child in big girl panties to their house within the first hours of her potty training. So she has on her big girl panties for a total of two hours that afternoon. During that two hours, she had no accidents, but she also didn't pee period. That in itself showed me that she could actually hold her bladder and somewhat control it, and it gave me the

Lilleigh is 22 months! Here's a little about Lil this month... Lilleigh loves... Her baby dolls, tucking them into bed (which is usually the oven to her kitchen), and pushing them in the stroller. Her new gold shoes. Such a girly girl!  Singing "Jesus Loves Me." Her favorite books are Fancy Nancy books, Llama Llama books, The Beginners Bible , Go Dog Go (the short version, thank goodness!), etc. If you ask her, "Do you like my hat?" she will say, "No I do not like your hat." (Thanks to Go Dog Go .) Lilleigh dislikes... Well apparently she dislikes a lot of things. "I don't like it" is her new favorite phrase. I'm sure she has other dislikes, but none come to mind at the moment. Her sizes... 24 month/2T. Some 18 month still. Size 6 toddler shoes.  Eating... She's become a little bit of a pickier eater. Not terribly, but compared to before. I think it's an act though. I know this is the age that the

It's amazing how easily Scripture is impressed upon the hearts (and tongues) of little ones!

We spent Thanksgiving in Houston and enjoyed time with family! Lil loved Mary's cat! Us with Mimi at Thanksgiving lunch Fun with Tita. Lil didn't want to put down that baby bottle! Tarryn, Connor, Ryan, Larry, Brendon, Lilleigh, and me Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! We have lots to be thankful for!

A lot has happened since I last posted! So I'll hit the high points. My Mom's Day Off... For a late birthday gift, Brendon gave me a "day off!" While I love spending my days with sweet Lil, being the mom of toddler can be draining. A day off was just what I needed! I admit that I didn't use my afternoon as intentionally as I should have. (Errands were a bad idea. What was I thinking?) But the morning was fabulous! I met up with one of my best friends and shopped! I can't even remember the last time I met up with a friend to shop. College, maybe? Super fun! Then I met Brendon and Lil for lunch at Chipotle! It was so fun to get to meet up with them and then say "see ya!" ;) A little chicken update... The other night Sweetie (our sweet, hence the name, black chicken) went missing. I was devastated (She's totally a pet at this point), thinking a hawk got her. I looked everywhere. Even in neighbor's yards, our garage, the bushes, the a

Hey y'all! Our blog URL changed! It is now LankfordLove.blogspot.com . Take note! Please note: The blog looks exactly the same as it once did. I just changed the URL. And if you are subscribed, you should still get emails. Also if I had your blog on my sidebar (or if you want to be there), will you leave your URL below? The move messed with those listed. Thanks!

This week Lil is 21 months!! I know I've said this one hundred times, but seriously I enjoy her more each day. Such a fun age! She can verbalize enough for me to understand, but she can't really talk back and has not yet started to defy regularly. Lil at 21 months... She knows all of her colors!  We are working on letters. Not a whole lot of progress, but we are working on it! She can "count" - you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. Not necessarily counting objects, but saying the numbers. Maybe she'll be more of a numbers girl since she's picked up on these before letters? (We've def worked harder on letter, for the record.) Or maybe she'll be a little more on the creative side? After all, she does know her colors - and some shapes I might add! She has started speaking in 3-4 word sentences. My favorites are - "Mommy, I love you" and "Daddy, come on." Oh and let's not forget, "Daddy, scratch back." Lil loves Fancy Nanc

Well I'm sad to wake up this morning with a tear in my eye, rather then a skip to my step. The thing is - when I pulled up Drudge Report at 5:30 this morning to see who had won the election, I saw this: With the headline: "The Divided States of America." It didn't even say who won the election. I had to actually click on the article to find out. My heart was sad to read the news though. And truly it's not because more of my tax money will be going to the government to pay the insane debt or because the dollar lost value overnight or even because of the amount of people who will lose jobs over this win. Though each of these is unsettling, to say the least. I'm sad because it just shows how far our nation has strayed from the Lord and what makes Him glad. I stole this from a friend -- I will vote for the most pro-life candidate, because God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov.6:17). I will vote for the most pro-Israel candidate, because God

For Halloween, we hosted the neighborhood block party and invited our neighborhood play group (which is HUGE, by the way) and our street! We had been a little up in the air, not sure if we wanted to celebrate Halloween (due to its evil origins), but I also happen to LOVE Halloween, which made it really difficult to think about not celebrating the holiday. Also we really view our neighborhood as a ministry, so with Halloween being such a neighborhood holiday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to host a party for the neighborhood. And having the party at our house also allowed us to control the aspects of Halloween we brought out - pumpkins, costumes, and candy, and not ghosts or dead things. For the party, we grilled hotdogs, and a few friends helped out by bringing drinks, chips, and desserts. Another friend even set up a little photo booth with props and such! It was super fun! I didn't do a great job of photographing the event. But here are a couple of photos. As

This past weekend we went camping with friends to Eisenhower State Park just an hour north of us. It was nice to be someplace so close! And so pretty! It actually had a beach on the lake! And on Monday we went with two other friends (Allie & Shepherd and Katy & Maddie) to a pumpkin patch in Richardson! I was delighted to find a pumpkin patch so close! (Most are faaaar, which means little ones sleep on the way home and mom misses nap time. Not cool.) On top of being close, it's a pretty good price - for $6, we were able to go into the pumpkin patch, choose a small pumpkin, feed the goats, and go on a little hay ride. Plus there's also animals to see, a fun maze, jungle gym, and pumpkin field to run through. The kids thought this was very fun! Moms too! As for our little family, we are hanging in there. I met with a friend this morning who went through a miscarriage last year and she directed me to a few Psalms. So this afternoon

Just a little update. Physically, I am feeling better. Still, a bit bleh, but that's 20x better than Monday afternoon. Emotionally though, I have been all over the map. Yesterday I felt fine, but then today was a cry fest. And having walked the road of grief before, I am sure there will be many days like that. It seems to come in waves. But through all of this I have felt God's love so much. Thanks, sweet friends, for being His hands and feet - for bringing us meals, grabbing me a chai tea latte from Starbucks, picking up Lil for a play date, serving for me in nursery, sending sweet emails and texts, the list goes on... I'm so so thankful for each of you. A friend sent me this song called "Glory Baby" by Watermark. The song is so simple and so beautiful. I can't wait to see and hold my sweet little baby one day in heaven. On another note, our Lil baby has been sick this afternoon with a fever bug - just feeling crummy and hot. I rocked her to

Today our sweet little Tummy Baby would have been 8 weeks old. We took this photo last week. We hadn't post this on Facebook or the blog, yet though we had told most of our friends and family. Today we lost Tummy Baby. It started with some bleeding, but since it was light, my midwife was hopeful and asked me to come in for a sonogram. Sadly, all that was on the screen was an empty sack, which measured 4 weeks, not 8. Since the likelihood of our dates being 4 weeks off was minimal, we assumed miscarriage. I went ahead and had blood work done, just in case. But the bleeding picked up shortly after that appointment. Our sweet friends were watching Lil for us this morning while we went to the appointment and afterwards while Brendon and I went and sat at Starbucks to process everything that had just happened. Like I said, we weren't really secretive about this, other than blog and Facebook worlds. I know some people think this scenario would be a nightmare, having told

Sweet girl is becoming a big girl before my eyes! Here's Lil this month -- She wants to drink from a big girl cup (no straw or spout or even lid). We compromised on a mini travel coffee cup from Starbucks. It has a lid but allows her to tilt it the way Mom and Dad do.  She is sleeping in her big girl bed and napping like a champ!  She has started to say her name and use it in mini sentences . "Lilleigh milk." You have to hand it to her - the girl has a hard name for a child to say! So many L's! She has started calling herself a " big girl " - so sweet!  Katy and I have been doing our own mom-version of MDO . We trade off taking the girls on Tuesday mornings and take turns planning and teaching them a little lesson too. We've been working on letters . We've done A-D. It's so fun to see the girls pick up on the things we teach them! I introduced them to the letter B and wrote it on a big piece of butcher paper with a crayon. Lil took one