Lylah's First Christmas

So Lylah has now had her first Christmas, officially!  We had lots of experiences on her first Christmas, and it was a blast!

First, mom and dad came out from Virginia to be with us at our house for a couple of days!  It was great seeing them, and I know they had a blast interacting with Lylah!  At first, Lylah wasn't sure about the 'strangers' in the house.  But after a lot of coaxing and smiles, she began to warm up to them!  For a while, she was even hiding behind this cardboard box (pictured below).  In that box was a gift she really loved!  It was a baby walker toy.  It has a soundboard on the front with lots of learning activities, and it's on wheels.  She walked around with that thing for what seemed like an hour!  

One evening, we went to a restaurant  to celebrate my birthday with Nana and Papa, and Lylah was standing on a table, waving at strangers, dancing, and generally acting charming!  She was in such a good mood while Nana and Papa were in town!  We all opened gifts and just generally enjoyed our time together!

Lylah got lots of toys and gifts from family members across the country!  Also, her great grandmother and grandfather (Shannon's grandparents) gave her $100 toward her college fund!  We should see the smartypig amount on the right of the page update soon!  

Here's Lylah in a box at Grandmas house in Atlanta!

Nana and Papa receiving a framed picture of Lylah!

Just a nice picture of Lylah smiling!

Tired bug after Christmas! :-)

I will try to post the video soon of Lylah walking around with her new toy.  It was pretty fun!

Lylahs first Christmas!

We have safely made it to Atlanta for Lylah's very first Christmas! We are all super excited for her, and us! My parents also came into town for a couple of days and we unwrapped a very nice NIKON camera they got us that we were really wanting! That being said, pictures to come soon! Also, we got $112 from ad sales into my bank account last week! Real money! Pleaded continue clicking on our ads! Finally, my sedate came in for Lylahs website! Everyone still thinks I'm dumb for doing it, but I have already given 3 out!

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Missing Santa Picutre :-(

So we got Lylah's picture taken with Santa about 2 1/2 weeks ago!  We made a special trip up to the daycare one Friday night to participate!  We paid for the pictures and all!  But today, I asked the daycare where they were and they said, "You didn't find them in your bag."  Um, no?! Apparently they all remember seeing them and could recall what she wore!  They looked around the room and in Ly's drawer and still could not find any of the pictures!  Then, they started kind of insinuating that I took them and lost them. . .uh, no I didn't.  I would have known if I got her pictures!  I would have seen them and put them on the counter.  I did not lose those pictures.  Could it be that you were looking at the pictures and set it somewhere when having to deal with one of the 6 children in the room?  But where did they go?  I asked if we could re-order.  They are going to check into it for me today.

A Great Gem

I would like to support a friend and one day I will buy a nice jewel for Lylah from him!

Everyone, please consider supporting my good friend Steve Shipman on etsy!  He is in the business of buying stones wholesale and setting them himself!  There are some beautiful gems on his page!  Mostly, they are for women, but there are a couple of things for men, too!  When you decide to purchase an item, please write that I recommended you to his website!  You can ask him questions directly through this website as well:


http://www.etsy.com/shop/TerraGemma?page=1

Here are just a few pictures I picked from about 100 different settings!


A garnet set for a men's tie tack.

 This is an amythest and very "Texas sized"!!!

A star Ruby.

Cubic Zirconia.

Pink Saphire.

Peridot

Again, the prices are really great for these items!  If you ordered today or tomorrow (by 12/19), you can get it by Christmas.  Anything after that time, you will have to pay for rush postage! 

Getting a Christmas picture and my 30 birthday

Well, for the last couple of days, we have been trying to catch a good shot of Ly in front of our Christmas tree.  Not surprisingly, she has been very squirmy when trying to do so, and often the picture doesn't come out well.

We are hoping that her pictures with Santa that we took her to over a week ago will show up at the daycare tomorrow.  We plan to use those to make a Christmas card to send out to family and friends.

Here are a few that we tried for:

We also celebrated my 30th birthday on Saturday!  We first went to IHOP for breakfast (my favorite local breakfast restaurant!).  Then we went to Wal-Mart and met up with Alyssa Gomez and student council!  The students shopped for vaious items for needy families.  We ran a big drive at our school 2 weeks ago and raised $1200!  We only ended up spending $1044 at Wal-mart!  We were a little under budget, and that's great!  Then I met Lauren Hounshell at the church that we are having our choir concert Tuesday.  Then, Shannon and I came home so Lylah could take a nap and we could relax a little bit.  Finally, the babysitter showed up!  We went out to JCPenny and I got a coat and new shirt for Tuesday's concert!  I also got brand new shoes.  I know I'm going to feel spiffy Tuesday!  After that, we went to the Capital Grill, downtown Houston.  It was about the same caliber and quality as a Ruth Chris' steakhouse.  I had a Kona 14 oz., bone in ribeye.  It was a thick steak coated with decaf Kona coffee mix.  It was a great steak!  I would have never thought to have put coffee onto a steak and cook it!?!?! Strange!  But it worked out just fine!  I was happy to celebrate my birthday with Shannon and have a nice date night out for ourselves!  Thanks babe!

The shoes I got looked a lot like the one above.  Although mine came with laces.  It does have the sleek black shine like these have though!

Shannon Made Fun of Me

So Shannon made fun of me last night for buying the business cards.  She thinks it's ridiculous to buy them.  She wonders who I will give them out to, and thinks that some people just enjoy a quick update about Ly.  Well, I think that is absolutely true!  I just wanted to have something to carry around with me, in case anyone would like to visit our site.  Here's the problem I run into usually when telling people about the site:

"Hey, How is Lylah?"

She is really great!  Thanks for asking!

(A little more conversation)

You know, I write a blog about her! 

"Oh, really?  What's the website?"

I will give them the website, but I guarantee that almost none of them remember how to spell her name!  So I printed these cards, not for business, to encourage those who want to visit!  It allows them to visit without having to remember anything about spelling, names, etc.

I know it seems a little, maybe, arrogant to think that so many people would be interested.  I guess since I am enjoying writing so much, I just want to involve people I am close to!  I think this is a good way to do it!  I don't always have an email address for everyone, or not everyone has a facebook.  I post a lot of things from the blog on facebook, but wanted another form to promote our family.

So, although I may be made fun of or thought of as ridiculous, I believe in what I am doing whole-heartedly!

Business Cards!

Hey supporters!  I want you to know that I just printed some professional grade business cards for Lylahsdaddy.com!  I think it's time we take our journey to the next level, because it has been already rewarding and incredibly fun!!!  Another reason is that it will be so easy, when other people ask me about how she is doing, I can just give them a business card and direct them here!!!

I am also excited about the possibilities for revenue and getting an audience.  We average about 10-30 views per day. When I make an update we can sometimes get up to 50-60 views per day.  And then when friends visit our ads, we get a little bit of a kick back from google and make a dollar here or there! 

We are now over 2500 views!  I remember not long ago, we were at just 1000!  Again, thank you supporters and onlookers! 

Lylah is doing great today!  She had a fever for a couple of days so Shannon and I stayed home to take care of her!  I think I posted this video the other day on here, but I want to re-post it just in case.  This is a video of Lylah walking around and just generally being content!

She was just having a ball - watching mommy dry her hair and seeing me!  She's so much fun to hang out with!  It's been very busy for us at school lately, but I always value getting to see my little bug!  Also, below is a small screen shot of what the business card will look like! 



Shannon has started advocare as of 2 days ago.  She had to drink some fiber shakes, and absolutely hates them!  She couldn't finish the one today.  But luckily, she only has to drink a couple more before she moves onto the next part of the program!

All is generally well in the Green house, thank goodness!