Our first trip to Texas

Lilly and I went to Texas to visit my friend, Jane, from college, and her family. Jane's daughter Molly is about 3 months younger than Lilly. Both girls are really busy and neither wanted to smile for the camera (or look at the camera at the same time except for this first picture).

We had a great time in Plano, TX. The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of time outside and playing in Molly's playroom. We also went to the Great Wolf Lodge to meet Aunt Ellen (Pete's aunt) for lunch one day.


Lilly's favorite part of the trip was the Heo's cat, Gemma. I don't think she understood that Gemma was real because everytime Gemma walked away from her, Lilly would have a fit and scream "tat, tat, tat!" If Jane didn't rescue Gemma and put her upstairs from time to time, Lilly would have followed the poor cat around all day. She even insisted she say goodnight to the "tat" every night.

We hope to visit Texas again sometime!

Easter

Here are some Easter pictures:

dying the eggs:






this egg has chocolate in it!


hmmm, not as happy with this egg- it only has stickers

i love easter eggs with m-n-ms

Florida Vacation

Pete, Lilly, and I went to Florida last week. It was fabulous! We stayed in the Orlando area for three nights and then went to the east side of FL for two nights. One of our good friend's parents let us stay in their condo in Melbourne, FL and it was right on the beach...so great! Since my wonderful younger sister, Erin, works at Disney World, we were able to go there for a day. My brother, Timothy, sister-in-law Tanya, their girls (Alex, Sophie, Mabel), my mom, and two of the New York Jackson girls (Mercy and Fiona) also joined us in FL. The best part of the trip, aside from seeing my family, was the weather- sunny and in the 80s almost every day (it rained once, but we were at the luau and we were covered anyway). Here are some pictures of our trip- I went a little crazy and took over 100 pictures for the five days we were there, but I'm only posting a few of those (okay, a little more than a few).

alex, sophie, and lilly hanging out at our hotel

at the luau: lilly, pete, mabel, timothy

the dumbo ride (i didn't want to take lilly on this, thinking that she'd cry the whole time, but the only time she cried was at the end when the ride stopped!)

lilly playing in pooh's playhouse/treehouse play area

mercy and fiona after visiting the bibbity bobbity boutique

feeding mabel cheerios


the cinderella statue


hugging mr. potato head

a hug from gran

did I do that?

giving some goldfish to aunt erin

sharing ice cream with mommy

the Jacksons eating ice cream

i love ice cream

this shell looks interesting

walking on the beach

looking at the ocean

playing in the sand

these waves are so fun

Ponytails!

For those of you who know me well, you know I am awful at fixing other people's hair (mine too which is why it's usually always the same style). I have a terrible time putting ponytails in other girls' hair. Lilly finally has long enough hair (just barely) to have two cute ponytails. I've decided that I will put these in her hair at least 4 times a week so that I can get some practice and hopefully by the time her hair is really long, the ponytails will look decent. Here are some pictures.

The boat show

We took Lilly to a boat show today and she loved it. She wanted to climb in every boat and jet ski that she saw. It was pretty funny to watch. There was a trout pond there where you could try and catch a trout. Pete caught one and Lilly decided that she likes fish only when they are swimming in the water and not flailing about hooked to a fishing pole. She also enjoyed looking at the fake ducks swimming in the pond.

Lilly and her Daddy on a boat


Lilly, Grandma, and Daddy fishing for trout


Pointing at the fake ducks

Visiting friends

Here are some pictures of our weekend in Bolingbrook, IL. We went to visit our friends, Laura, Terry, Allison, and Thomas. I tried to get a picture of all three kids, but Lilly was not having it. Lilly also fingerpainted for the first time and loved it.

Updates

I've been pretty lax with the blog lately and that's mainly because nothing exciting happened in January. Nothing too exciting is happening right now either, but I thought I'd post some pictures anyway. Lilly is 18 months old now and is definitely showing it. She loves the word "no" and likes to throw everything (especially food). She is very cute, too, and is able to fill in words to some songs and books for us now (doe, a deer is one song she really likes, and she loves the book Tumble Bumble). We keep pretty busy during the week with a gym class (imagine a toddler circus), story hour (more people keep coming to this, though and Lilly sometimes gets trampled trying to get to the crayons), and a playgroup on Fridays (Lilly loves this because she gets to play with her friend, Eamon - or "a-a" as she likes to call him). Church on Sundays is always fun with a toddler- Lilly's favorite things are: when the music is playing and whenever it stops she will say very loudly "mo-mo" for more and the baptismal font which she tries unsuccessfully to climb in every week. She also likes saying "peace" and would like to do this to the entire congregation if given the chance. Lilly recently had the stomach flu for the first time and that was a fun time for all involved.


A silly "scrunchy" face


Holding a snowball



drawing on the walls of her "house" (really big empty box)


looking out at the snow

Giving the baby a snack

Taking her puppy for a walk