The Corning Family

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Belly Button!

Baby Tami has a belly button! Lily can say "belly button" very clearly, but sometimes she gets excited...

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

We visited the Downtown Aquarium last Wednesday. Lily had fun looking at the fish, but I think the best part of the Downtown Aquarium is the train, which takes you through a tunnel that is actually the shark tank. Lily was excited when she noticed one of the sharks swimming above us.

She liked pointing at the fish.

In the aquarium exhibit, there is a little bubble under one of the tanks. Lily loved it.

There is a spray park, so of course Lily had to put on a bathing suit and splash around! I have a terrible time keeping a hat on Lily's head, but I keep trying because I'm afraid her scalp is going to get sunburned through her fine hair. Most of the time I just have to put sunscreen on her head because the hats make her mad.
Check out that belly!

On our final ride on the train, Lily was so exhausted that she fell asleep sitting up, before we even got into the shark tunnel. She was just plain worn out! She didn't even wake up when the train blew its whistle, or when the ride stopped and we put her into the stroller.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

A Trip to the Zoo

This was technically Lily's second trip to the Houston Zoo. But the last time was a year ago, when she was about 5 pounds and still on oxygen and an apnea monitor. So needless to say, she didn't really care about looking at the animals last year! This trip to the zoo was loads of fun. We literally spent the entire day at the zoo, and Lily had a blast. She napped on the way to the zoo and then again for about 45 minutes while we were there. Otherwise, she was awake and having fun the whole day.

Lily really enjoyed looking at the animals. After only a couple of exhibits, she had clearly picked up on the idea that she was supposed to look for an animal each time we stopped the stroller and pointed at something. She was pointing and laughing, sometimes even talking to the animals. I am so glad we took her to the zoo at this age - too young to really understand or remember it, but old enough to enjoy seeing new things.

Lily's first carousel ride!

Mist fans are awesome. Enough said.

The Children's Zoo has a small spray park for cooling off. This was Lily's first experience with a spray park, so we started out with the tiny little sprinkler that you can barely see her covering with her hand. She had fun, though, so I also took her through the bigger sprays. She really likes the water!

Lily has visited two petting zoos before, and she hated them both. So I was nervous taking her to pet the goats, but she surprised me by wanting to pull the poor goat's ears. After touching the goats, she wanted to climb into the other animals' pens to play with them!

We took a break in a small covered area inside the Children's Zoo, and we found a little tunnel to walk through. (No, she's not walking by herself yet. Very close, but not yet.)

There were all sorts of fish inside this tank, but Lily only cared about this blue one who kept swimming back and forth in front of her. She tried very hard to catch it.

This toucan was by far Lily's favorite animal in the zoo! He put on quite a show for her, hopping, dancing, and singing along the branch. Lily was cracking up!

For the rest of us, this little bird is probably the most memorable animal in the zoo. It was not even a teeny bit afraid of us! It started getting closer by perching on a vine a few feet above Lily's head. Then it landed on this railing, only a couple feet away from Grandpa Scott, who was leaning against it. The bird hopped along the railing, right behind Grandpa, pausing only to peck at his arm and back. It proceeded further along the railing, all the way to Grandma and Lily. The bird and Lily had a staring contest, and Lily did not hesitate to reach out to try and grab the little guy! He turned his head back and forth, clearly sizing Lily up. I think Lily won the staring contest, but the bird got the last word by flying right past her face to return to his perch on the vine. It was so funny!

We all had a great time at the zoo!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Recent Adventures

Lily's first crayons - large, washable crayons! She likes to hold onto the very end of the crayon and mark very lightly on the paper. I'm sure that with more practice, she'll be scribbling all over the paper (NOT the walls!) before long.

Look how big Lily is! Much bigger than the last photos or video you saw of her in the swing, right? According to our estimated weighing (Grandpa weighed himself and then held Lily while he stood on the scale), she is about 20 pounds. She doesn't look pudgy with fat little legs anymore; it seems like she's really gotten taller.

Sharing a no-bake cookie with Daddy.

I was recently told that my old Cabbage Patch doll, Chester, really needed to be thrown out - Lily couldn't play with him because he was just too grimy after many years of love. My grandma gave me that doll when I was little, and it was my most favorite toy growing up. I have always thought it would be really nice to pass it on to my own daughter one day, but I was overruled by everyone else. So Lily went shopping with Mommy and Grandma the other day, to pick out a replacement. You should have seen how much fun she had in the baby doll aisle! She was grabbing the dolls, pointing, giving hugs, and pulling them off the shelves. We finally offered her two dolls to choose from (not that she really understood - we just went with the first box she reached for), and she decided on a Cabbage Patch doll named Tami. But then Grandma couldn't resist taking the other one home as well... So now Lily has two new babies. In these pictures, Sally makes a great teether, and Tami is getting a hug. By the way, Lily has three new molars; still working on the top left. I think that makes 12 teeth!

The kids played together for awhile the other day. Lily and Gideon were using each other as supports for standing up and staying stable on their feet, and everyone played with the ever-popular ball popper.