Party Highlights part 3

Loving her presents...
With the whole fam-damily....
...and crazy Uncle Ryan!

Party Highlights part 2

Digging into her cupcake (the second one of the day!)

Opening presents (thanks for the puzzles, Julie!)

Party Highlights

Lily wore her purple tiara (thanks cousin Aurora!) from morning until bedtime. She had a great time eating frosting and opening presents.


Getting the party started with Fitz and Josie...
Ready to blow out a candle!

One Year Portraits

Lily loves the camera, and her 12-month portraits were no exception!

You Know it's Your Birthday when...

...your Mommy and Daddy serve you a cupcake for breakfast! That's right; we figured this is Lily's only first birthday, so we've been working it since the moment she got up this morning. We'll post lots of fun video and photos from her party this afternoon, so stay tuned.

Big Girl

We are just days away from the one-year milestone, and every day when she wakes up I think Lily looks bigger. It got above 80 degress today and Lily enjoyed wearing a sundress as we went out and about in DC with her Grandma and Great-Grandma.

Sunny Weekend

We had a fabulous weekend, and enjoyed the beautiful 80 degree weather here. Tried to balance our time doing home projects during Lily's naps and then enjoying time outside the rest of the day. She continues to LOVE being outside and going to the park.

Our Little Monkey

Lily has turned into quite the climber lately. Her new toy castle, a basket of clean laundry, it doesn't matter what... she's up for a challenge!

Big Kid, part 2

Whenever we play with Julie, part of me cringes because I hope Lily's not too rough with her. Although every time we get together, the difference in their age seems to lessen a bit. When they first met, a few months seemed SO different. These days, with Julie sitting up so straight, I can already picture months ahead when they can really start to play!

Lily definitely gets excited to see Julie, but as you'll see from the video, there's no easy way to explain the concept of sharing with a baby that's just a little younger than she is. (And why is my daughter so delighted by taking off socks these days??) Side note: Aly and Greg's baby is the happiest little thing, and luckily, she seems to find Lily very entertaining. Based on all the fun (trouble?) their moms have had together, I think this is just the beginning...

Bookworm

Jeremy shot this cute footage of Lily this morning. She loves reading, but apparently by showing interest in one of my books, is indicating she's ready to move on from her board books to more challenging fare...

Queen of the Castle

The birthday presents are starting to arrive early. My mom and dad got a little castle/playground for Lily... and though we wanted to wait to assemble it until they were in town, it rained ALL DAY today and we needed something to entertain our little girl. Lily was a little scared of the slide, but she loved honing her climbing skills. Thanks Mom and Dad... you saved our rainy afternoon!!

Kisses

It just doesn't get better than this when you're a mom... check out Lily during one of her sweetest moments.

You can't take that away from me...

Lily never liked her Baby Papasan vibrating chair much... most new parents swear by the bouncing/oscillation factor, but she never was that into it. Our dog George, however, loved it! He has enjoyed the papasan so much that we decided it was time to get a dog bed for him downstairs (he already has one in our room upstairs). Anyway, Lily has never paid much attention to George when he's in the chair... until we decided to get rid of it, that is! The plan was for Jeremy to put the chair on the curb this evening, but check out what Lily did this morning... do we still get rid of it or are we obliged to keep it around now that she's showing interest??

A Baby Girl's Best Friend, part 3

Yet another chapter in the adventures of George and Lily. She has always liked to feed him, but now Georgie has officially taken to sitting next to her booster chair until he gets his share of her meals.

Pretzels and the Remote Control

It just doesn't get any better than these two things...in Lily's eyes, that is. As you can tell from her messy face in the pictures, she just had a snack of pretzels when she found the remote control. Usually we manage to keep it out of her reach, but she stumbled across it and had a lots of fun playing with it for over a half hour (meanwhile, none of her actual toys will keep her entertained this long!)

Lily Discovers an Easter Egg...and she LOVES Josie!

We had friends over for brunch today... and hid some eggs for their 2 1/2 year old daughter, Josie. Lily was surprisingly adept at finding the eggs, so we shot some video. You can see how much she adores Josie... it's so funny to see how amazed she is by "the older woman". Enjoy the video and Happy Easter!

Eggs-travaganza

We had some good, cheesy fun at the Easter Egg Hunt in Lincoln Park today!

Eating and Singing Skills

As long as she eats...right??

Okay, this may be gross.

And maybe it makes me a terrible mother... regardless, it's a good snapshot into what our daily life is like. I feel obligated to not sugar-coat my experiences as a stay-at-home mom.

For whatever reason, Lily didn't eat much lunch yesterday. Maybe she was tired, maybe she was teething, who knows? She just threw most of her food on the floor and fussed.

Anyway, I finally got her out of her booster and let her play while I went to get the broom out of the closet. Before I could even begin to turn around and clean up her mess, she crawled back to the kitchen and started eating from the floor.

Here's a rundown of my reaction:

1. HORROR! As in ew, gross, "Lily, don't eat that!"
2. Frustration: Why wouldn't she eat it in her chair?
3. Sigh/roll of the eyes/shrug of the shoulder; Typical that she would eat the food of of the floor, but not her tray. On the verge of laughing...
4. Amusement - She even ate the veggies :) "Stay there, Lily... Mommy's going to grab the camera."

Hmmm... yet another example of how parenting is a lesson in realizing that you are no longer in control!

Side note: I swear, I swear that because of Lily's eating habits I clean the floor daily... so try not to judge me too harshly :) Just trying to keep in real!

Two Front Teeth

I got a few pictures of Lily playing yesterday morning where you can see her two front teeth... she has also figured out that if she hangs on to her catepillar's yellow string, it will follow her around!

The weather has been nice in the afternoon lately, and Lily is really enjoying our small front yard (notice she's discovered flowers!)

Cherry Blossom Time

We stopped at the Capitol for a photo opp with Grandma and Grandpa on our walk to the Tidal Basin.Posing with Mommy
Family on parade!Having fun climbing on the strollerEnjoying my first pickle!