In case you were wondering...

...here is my favorite of the Obama in 30 Seconds ads. (Side note - "Playground Politics" was a close second!)

More Presents

Lily had some presents from her cousins waiting for her this afternoon!

"School" Party

When we originally planned to take time off work, we thought we'd keep Lily home from daycare. Her teachers had other thoughts! Goes to show how much they love her :) So we stopped by this afternoon so Lily could celebrate her big day with her friends and teachers at Tiny Findings.

Getting ready to celebrate with the other Busy Bees...

Zakaria and Alexander were not shy about diving into their cupcakes!

Lily shamelessly asked for a second cupcake (can you tell the frosting is her favorite part?) and Miss Jean happily obliged...

Presents aren't just for Lily...

You would have thought today was J's birthday, based on his excitement when UPS delivered our Derby supplies, complete with an "official" Derby pie and authentic Derby glasses for mint juleps!

Happy Birthday!

Lily's first cupcake of the day...

Starting off the birthday right...

Of course we had to start off Lily's big day with a cupcake and a few presents. Click here to see what a difference a year makes!

Lily and Daddy got started on her new puzzle right away.
And the first thing Lily wanted to do with her new Toby and Bertie? Put them away in her train box with the others!

Pool!

Saturday afternoon was so nice that we brought out Lily's pool (and a good thing we enjoyed it - on Sunday, it was only 50-something degrees out!)

Weekend Fun

On Friday afternoon, after dinner, we figured we'd take Lily for a trip to the park and delay bathtime for awhile... She hit the slide first, of course.

On Saturday morning, she and Daddy stopped by to help Mommy volunteer with Hands On DC at a school near our house...

Thomas... live!

Lily is just a few days away from her second birthday... so J. and I decided to take a few days off work and enjoy some family time. Even though Lily LOVES Thomas, I had no idea that they had whole events dedicated to him. My mom and dad noticed the "Day out with Thomas" when they bought their Barry Manilow tickets (nice choice, folks!) so they got us tickets. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

The fun started in the parking lot... with Lily shrieking, "Trains! trains!" in the backseat as we pulled up.
A Thomas made entirely of Legos... Lily had to check it out.
Sitting inside the lego Thomas with Daddy...
Cutie pie
Inside one of the many real trains at the B&O Museum
There were lots of activities... including a puppet show, which had Lily mesmerized.
A wooden train to play on.
Behind the wheel (do trains have steering wheels?)
Check this out... J. and I kept saying we couldn't believe we were at one of these events, but Lily had such a blast! Notice the line to the right of his shoulder and to his left... but all in all worth it to see how much Lily enjoyed a ride on a "real" Thomas!
She was so excited to see him... all smiles here with Daddy.

Family photo

Chilling out with mom before the train started moving. She was shockingly patient.... if only we were so lucky on the Metro!
And Thomas took us on a ride into scenic, beautiful... um, downtown Baltimore. Not exactly the Island of Sodor, folks.
Lily stood on my lap and sang -- the Thomas theme song, of course!
"Bye bye, Thomas" she called as we heading out.

Recent photos

Big and pregnant... but I can still have fun at the playground. Lily having fun with Henry...
Outside our favorite bar, the Argonaut - don't worry, Lily goes for the chicken fingers and not the beer!
Catching up with the Shipmakers... Lily had a good time staying up past her bedtime with Jaime and Chad.

Rainy Day

It rained all day Sunday! Seriously, ALL Day. It was a bummer at first because there was some great live music scheduled to take place down on the Mall, but it was cancelled due to thunder and lightning. After running some errands, we spent the day hanging out with Lily in her playroom. Normally she goes a little crazy if she can't go outside, but we had a really fun time...

Doesn't she look like quite the big girl in this picture? Cute shot of Daddy's girl...
"Giddyup, daddy!"
I cannot begin to describe the love that Lily has for Mr. Potato Head.
Did I mention she LOVES him?

Butterflies!

On Sunday, we took Lily to the Butterfly exhibit at the Natural History museum. She was pretty impressed with the walk-through butterfly habitat... One butterfly even landed on her shoulder and hung out for awhile!