Some Pics and Updates

Wow...September seems to be flying by and before we know it, the twins will be here! We have been keeping busy here since we got back from our Labor Day weekend trip with getting the house ready for the twins, doctors appointments, visits with friends, football games, and a little relaxation.

Before we left South Dakota on Labor Day, we took Lily to the air and space museum at Ellsworth Air Force Base. This girl LOVES airplanes! She gets so excited when planes fly by our house and will stop what she is doing to search for them in the sky when she hears one. Since we were staying on base, it made sense to stop by and check out the planes on our way home.







Last weekend we had our good friends Tina and Jeff come visit for a day. Tina used to be Christina's roommate in NC and Jeff flew with Varun at Pope. They have a 14 month old daughter who we finally had the chance to meet. Lily loved hanging out with their little girl and was practicing the "big" sister role as they played on the slide by trying to catch her everytime she came down.





Varun had been away for work the last few days so Christina and Lily have had a lot of mommy/daughter bonding time. Christina took Lily to a kids festival in town with the MOMS club she is a member of. Lily enjoyed the morning out by playing in a bouncy obstable course, playing a few games, and making a craft.




We hope to have some pictures of the twins room up soon. We still have a lot of small things to do in their nursery, but at least the cribs and dressers are now assembled and up. We are counting down the weeks until their arrival! We hope that they decided to wait until 36 weeks so that'll give us one more month to get ready.

Labor Day Weekend - Part 2

After a busy day of sightseeing, we started all over again on Sunday for day 2. We started our day at Bear Country U.S.A. Bear Country is sort of like a drive through zoo. You take a three mile drive around the park with bears, mountain lions, big horn sheep, bison, and more surrounding you. The mountain lions were the only animals on the drive that were contained by a fenced in area. The other animals are free to walk around and many of them were hanging out in the road as we drove through. We were worried about our new van at one point. Another red van three cars up from us was scratched up from a small herd of big horn sheep. We luckily made it through unscathed. The only close encounter we had was with a small brown bear who rubbed his head on the front of the van. On the drive we noticed that other parents had taken their children out of carseats so they could see the animals during the drive, so we let Lily sit up front with us. We propped her up on a pillow in the middle so she could see. She had so much fun waving and blowing kisses to the animals through the window. At the end of the 3 mile drive there is a pedestrian section (sort of like a zoo) where you can see the baby animals up close.













After leaving Bear Country and grabbing quick lunch, we drove to Custer State Park. We couldn't really do any of the trails or hikes since Christina is starting to get uncomfortable in the pregnancy and Varun was injured from a softball game last week. So instead we took two of the scenic drives through the park and stopped a few times for pictures and to stretch out. Our favorite part was the Needles Highway drive. The highway is named for the high granite needles it winds around. There were some beautiful views along the drive.









Our last stop of the day was Crazy Horse Monument. We thought that this stop was well worth the extra few mile drive, especially once we found out that active duty military have free admission. The Crazy Horse Monument is far from complete, but once finished it will be the largest sculpture in the world. For comparison to Mount Rushmore, the four faces of will all fit inside of Crazy Horse's head.
In addition to the monument, there is a visitor's center, Native American museum, gift shop, and restaurant. In the center of all of these is a huge deck over looking the monument. When arrived shortly before a group of Sioux Indians were about to perform a dance show. We thought it would be fun to watch so we took Lily out of the stroller and sat about 5 rows back from the stage. Lily was dancing away during the show. At one point, the announcer asked for kid volunteers to come up and dance with a brother/sister pair from his reservation. Varun took Lily up there since she was having so much fun dancing in the audience. As the music started, Lily looked a little scared up there and didn't move. After about 30 seconds she started to dance and the audience started cheering and laughing. At the end of the song, the dancers and other kids left the stage and Lily stood in the middle smiling and clapping at the audience. We might have a little performer on our hands!







Lily on Stage

Labor Day Weekend - Part 1

Over the long weekend we took road to trip to South Dakota. We left on Friday and spent the evening with Christina's cousin and his three daughters in Spearfish, SD. Christina had spent a summer in Spearfish 18 years ago as a kid so it was neat to see things that she remembered as a kid. We had a great time catching up with her cousin Matt and his kids. Lily had so much fun with the girls. Unfortunately, we did not get too many pictures that night. Here is a picture Varun took of the girls as they were watching the movie Tangled.


On Saturday morning we left Spearfish and took the scenic route to Mount Rushmore. We drove through Black Hills National Forest and through a few small towns to get there. We toured the museum, watched the informational video and walked the Presidential Trail at Mount Rushmore. We also took a ton of photos and ate lunch there.







Our next stop was Cosmos Mystery Area. Cosmos is an area where the laws of gravity mess with your head and balance. Balls roll uphill, trees curve down, and cabins are slanted, but level. Although Varun is sure the site is set up to be an optical illusion, we had fun on the 30 minute tour.




Before checking into our room at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, we took Lily to a park called Storybook Island. She did so well sitting in the car and sight seeing that we had a to give her a chance to run around and get some energy out. Storybook Island is a huge park/playground filled with characters and displays from popular nursery rhymes and stories. We got there shortly before the park closed for the evening, but Liliana made the most out of the visit and had a blast on the playground.

18 Months

Liliana turned 18 months old last week. We cannot believe how much of "big" girl she has become in the last few weeks. We had her 18 month doctor's appointment last week and our little peanut is getting pretty tall, but is still slowly gaining weight. She is almost 32 inches tall and is about 21 pounds.

Here are some things Liliana is up to at 18 months:

* She is a fabulous sleeper and enjoys her sleep. She is in bed between 8-9 and wakes up at about 8. She is not a very happy girl if we need to wake her up to leave the house early in the morning. She also takes a 2 hour nap most afternoons. If she is not tired, she will sit in her bed and read books until nap time is over.

* She will eat pretty much anything that is given to her. Her recent favorite foods are corn on the cob, cheese, honey nut cheerios with milk, canteloupe, bananas, and onions (we were quite surprised at this one; she will eat them cooked or raw).

* She is always on the move. She loves to run and never seems to run out of energy. She is also a dancer. She loves to move to any music, especially anything by The Fresh Beat Band on Nick Jr.

* Some of her favorite things to do are color, ride bikes, read books, and wrestle with Finnegan.

* She loves babies and seems to be excited about the new babies coming soon. She kisses Mommy's belly a lot and carries her baby doll around the house. She likes to give her baby rides in her shopping cart and rides on the sit n spin.

Here are some recent pictures of Liliana at 18 months...

Playing Mini Golf at Fort Fun last week

Having fun at Varun's squadron's family picnic

Playing around at home with her toys. Look how long her hair is getting!