Lilly's party

Here are some pictures from Lilly's family birthday party. My mom and 6 of my younger sisters, my older sister and her son, Lilly's godparents (Laura and Terry) and their kids, Pete's parents and one of his sisters all came to the party. Lilly had a great time opening her presents (she preferred the wrapping paper to the actual gifts) and eating her cupcake and ice cream.

the Jackson girls and Allison (friend from Chicago):




Lilly, after eating the cupcake:



Samuel (Lilly's cousin) thoroughly enjoying his cupcake:




Lilly opening some presents:




Lilly playing with Gran (my mom):



Lilly very happy to have a my little pony (she loves to play with the hair and the eyes for some reason):

Seattle

We recently took a trip to Seattle (we were there for Lilly's first birthday!) to visit our good friends, Gregg, Kathy, and Lucy. We had a fabulous time and were really busy the whole weekend. Lilly's absolute favorite thing was to play with Lucy's Elmo car (which we will probably purchase for her for her birthday party this weekend). We also enjoyed a boat ride (and eating fish and chips), beautiful views of the city, visiting the baby-cakes store (Ballard Cupcakes), and just hanging out with our friends (who we miss so much since they moved).

Lucy driving the boat:



Lucy and Lilly (in the baby-cakes shirts):



view of the city (although Lilly was more interested in looking at the dogs that were near us):



Lilly and Lucy climbing:



Lilly on the boat:



Meg and Kathy:



Lilly celebrating her birthday with a Ben and Jerry's ice cream cake (she could not figure out how to eat it at first since it was so cold, so she just put her face right on the plate!):




At the bronze pig in front of the fish market:

Tupperware

Now that Lilly is climbing up on everything, she is beginning to explore the wonderful world of kitchen drawers and cabinets. Her favorite thing to do recently is open the drawer with all the plastic containers and throw them on the floor and yell (make a really loud "ahhhh" sound) while she's doing it. She also enjoys climbing on the garbage can (which we try to distract her from) and everytime she sees Pete or I get something from the lazy susan, she crawls as fast as she can to try and get to it. So far I've been holding it shut while she tries to push on the doors in hopes that she'll just think it doesn't open and she'll move onto something else.

Updates...month of July

S0, we were pretty busy the month of July. Pete, Lilly, and I went to California for a wedding and we took Lilly to the beach. She was not a fan of the sand at first, but then started being brave and actually crawled in it. She loved looking at the ocean, but every time I tried to get her feet wet, she would hold them up as high as she could (see the picture). She has great leg muscles!

Lilly and I went to NY to visit my parents and family. That was a lot of fun. Lilly ended up taking 2 2-hour naps each day and sleeping 12 1/2 hours each night. Lots of kids, cats, and stimulation. She really liked my mom (and my dad too, although she's not a huge fan of men).


Here are some pictures from 4th of July and our July trips:

Happy Fourth!

Lilly trying to find her feet; Lilly not liking the water; Lilly trying to push Jane off of the chair



4 generations!





Lilly hanging out with my dad

Lilly and Molly

Lilly recently had a play date with Molly, my friend, Jane's daughter. Jane, Charles, and Molly (residing in Texas) were in the Chicago area visiting family for the week and decided to take a day trip to South Bend so we could finally introduce our girls! Molly and Lilly have similar interests (activities including climbing and crawling and eating toys, books, and wrapping paper) already at this early age, so we hope they will continue this friendship. Lilly appears to be several weight classes above Molly (Lilly is also about 3 months older than Molly), so hopefully women's wrestling is not in their future (is that even a sport??).

Trip to NC

Pete, Lilly, and I recently went to our friends Dave and Cassie's wedding in NC. It was a great weekend. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun. We had a chance to hang out with friends who we don't see very often: Gregg, Kathy, Lucy, and of course, Joel. Lilly was very excited during the ceremony and made sure everyone in the chapel understood her happiness.
Lilly eating breakfast at "Simply Yummy":

Meg and Lilly:

Joel, Dave, and Pete:

Cassie and Dave:

Lilly's pool

I bought Lilly a pool over the weekend. She loves it! Unfortunately, sometime in the middle of the night on Sunday, some animal either wanted to eat the pool or play in it because on Monday morning it was completely deflated! I thought maybe Lilly had biten a hole in it since she was trying to eat the side of it while sitting in it, but when I looked at it, there were four large tears in it, like a bear's claws. Okay, maybe it was a squirrel. I think I'll go buy a plastic pool that won't tempt any animals.