I Love You!

Although our little guy is still sick, he was in a fantastic mood today! Not only did he take a nice two-hour nap, but he was chatty and much more back to his normal self. Hooray!! He still woke up a few times last night, too, but it was a huge improvement over the night before. So he seems to be on the mend, which is great news for everyone!

The best part, though, was the new milestone he achieved today: he said "I love you" for the first time ever!! ♥♥♥ I was so happy, I nearly cried! I said "I love you" to him this morning, as I do a million times every day, and he said it back to me! And this afternoon, we were talking to my mom on the phone and I asked him to say it again... and he did! ♥ Our little lovebug! Not only does he give great kisses (he even says "mwah!") and big bear hugs, but now he can say the words that go with them. Best. Day. Ever. ♥♥♥♥
------------------------------
In other news... Our home improvement projects are moving forward! On Friday, we are having a company come to remove all our palm trees and the two hideous cypress trees that have been in our front yard since we bought the place. Gus and I are both totally excited to finally see them gone-- this has been something we've talked about for 4 years now! We are also going to have the exterior of the house repainted. We got a bunch of estimates, and found a guy who will power-wash the entire house, repair any cracks in the stucco, sand all the wood trim, and paint everything (including the wooden frame for the awning over our patio) for a really reasonable price. Way cheaper than we thought it would be! We're thinking of painting the house a mocha/coffee color with white trim, and getting a new white front door with a window in it (our current door is original to the house-- and really ugly). This is so exciting!!!!! I will have to post some before, during, and after pictures. I can't wait to get started! :)
------------------------------
Finally, I wanted to share about my day, and tell you just how portable my baby girl is! I took her to Walmart, the post office, Petco, and the supermarket this morning without so much as a peep out of her! I have to laugh about it when I think about Nikos at this age-- there was no WAY we would have been able to do that! We were gone for well over an hour. She snoozed most of the time, periodically waking up to look around quietly before dozing off again. I wandered leisurely through the supermarket aisles, getting everything we needed, and I decided that I wanted to bake cookies from scratch. So I did! Maya watched peacefully from her bouncy seat as I baked chocolate- and peanut-butter-chip cookies. And then she watched as I showed her how to eat cookie dough, haha! (Alayna, I totally had flashbacks of sitting in your living room eating cookie dough that we begged your sister to make for us!). All in all, it was a great day.