Walkabout

Yurgh, it has been forever since I posted on this. Shame on me. Not because I feel obligated to blog, but because this is also sort of my journal of Lilly. And I haven't updated it in more than a month.
So, let's see. I posted last time that she was really starting to walk. Well, she walks now. About a week after that post she was walking everywhere, hardly crawling at all. It is so cute. She has slightly bowed legs and turns her toes out when she walks, so she waddles. She looks like a little duck. Plus the crotch of her diapers are so bulky, it holds her legs out. She is the funniest little stinker.
She is starting to talk more and more and I love her little voice. It is so cute and cartoony. She says a few words, but they change. She has only hung onto a few words, but she keeps changing them. For a while, she said berry and back, because she ate strawberries all the time, and I yelled at the dogs all the time to get back. She doesn't say those much any more. She says more, in sign language, which is adorable. Let's see, what else...Oh, she says, kitty and meow, although kitty is not particularly recognizable to anyone but me. ;) She says mama, dad and memaw for grandma. I can't think of anything else off hand. She shouts a lot. Mostly yelling for me or Mike.
She know what it means when I ask her if she wants to go to Memaw's house (she lives next door). She will go get her shoes if she doesn't have them on yet, and bring them to me. If she does have them on, she goes to the back door and yells for me. If I don't come right away she toddles back in to find me and gives me the come here hand. She gets a little impatient if I don't hurry fast enough.
I took her in for a blood draw on the 9th of June for her Meningitis study and she weighed 17 lbs, which was awesome. She gained a pound in a month, I was very pleased. She is still beensy and skinny as ever, but she is growing.
We took her to the petting zoo and farm country a couple of weeks ago. That was so cute. She loved looking at all the animals. They had sheep, peacocks, chickens, goats, donkeys, cows and horses. She fed the lambs and a very large cow and giggled hysterically while doing it. There was a dad there with his son who was about 3 and he had gotten him some corn and was trying to get the boy to feed the cow and it was a no go. Lilly picked up some corn from the ground and wanted me to take her to the cow, so I did, and she just fed it. So the dad gave her the rest of the corn. It was pretty funny. The tickets into farm country came with a pony ride, so Lilly got to have her first ride. Mike was pretty proud that she did so well. I put her on the smallest pony
and she grabbed the saddle horn and gripped tight with her knees like a born horsewoman. Every once in a while she would let go with one hand to pet the pony's mane. Loved it. She yelled her version of Yahooo! a couple of times, which made everyone laugh. Mike was so proud because there was an older kid there who cried the entire ride. We need to take her and get her riding more, so that she doesn't develop any kind of fear of horses, etc. I think she is going to be like her daddy, an outside girl who likes outside activities. Not a indoor city girl like her mamma.
Her hair is getting so long and thick. It curls at the back, too. It is long enough to put into pigtails, which is too cute for words.
I need to go look at the baby book and see what her milestones are so I can see where she should be. He pediatrician says she is well ahead developmentally, just behind physically, she is so wee!
She has a lot of attitude, throws some pretty good fits and gives a great stinkeye.;) She is my joy.
In other news, sadly, Mike's grandfather passed away today. It was semi-unexpected. They knew his health was deteriorating, but didn't expect things to happen this fast. He went into the hospital a couple of days ago, he had had a heart attack, and just didn't recover. They said he had had several heart attacks, unknown, and that he was running on about 19% of his heart. They gave him about a month, but he only lasted a couple of days. Mike will likely head out there this weekend.
And in crafty news, I got a spinning wheel!!!! Yeay! I am so excited. It is a used one, but it works. Has a few problems, but nothing Mike can' t fix. I have already spun a decent amount of yarn on it. I can't spin as fine a yarn or as smooth as I can on my spindle, but I will get there. I can only do it when Lilly isn't around or is distracted because she likes to grab the wheel or the spindle and it makes it very hard to work.
What else...oh, I did a swap with a girl on Ravelry, she is making a big shawl and I made her six pair of shorties for her boy. Pretty cool. I made parts of them on my knitting machine and then finished them by hand. Some of them turned out incredibly cute. They aren't all as cute as I would like, but I was experimenting with patterns, as there aren't any for the USM.
I also did a stitch marker swap with some girls on a Ravelry group I belong to, called CESOB. I had never made stitch markers before, so that was kind of fun. I got some lovely ones in trade. Very nice.
Right now I am knitting a lightweight shrug for Lilly out of a lovely pink mohair laceweight. It is so pretty and I am so excited. I also am about to start a new cardi for me. I found a fabulous pattern for a very cool one on Rav and it is free and very easy. I love it.
Also, Interweave Crochet just came out with the CUTEST crocheted baby dress. I have been wanting to make Lilly a dress, and this one is perfect, so I am excited to start on that one, I want to have it done for her to wear in the fall.
Well, I guess that's it! I will be a more frequent poster from here on out.