One Year Old!

Lily is officially ONE year old! We had fun celebrating her actual birthday on Monday. They decorated at school with a special banner...

 Each month they do a new bulletin board with the kiddos...we are back up to 8 now!

 Here is the birthday girl, ready for breakfast at school!

 We took her out for sushi to celebrate...

...and had to have one more cupcake just because.

 Lily loves Rody, and can really ride him herself now that Papa got her the rocking part!

Lily's party decorations and gifts are now decorating her room. We have tea parties every night now. We are trying to teach her to cheers!

 Lily is communicating!! She is doing her first sign...milk! We can't decide if we are happy or not that we taught her this one (like when she signs it at 3am, or grumps and signs milk all the way home from work...), but it's fun and exciting to think that words are coming soon! She is definitely more interested in what we are saying, and starting to repeat sounds.

Lily is still loving the stairs, which Jason now refers to as our "main attraction." We had a small PEPS night at our house recently, and the kiddos were up and down the whole night. We are excited because Lily has started working on going DOWN the stairs, and can do about 3 at a time. It's so cute to watch her stick her little toes out and see them reach all around for the floor.

 We have finally finished our monthly photo project! This turned into quite the big project, but it fun to see all the pictures together now! Here are some out-takes of month 12. It's getting more and more difficult to keep her still for these!

Lily says, "I'm going to get mommy's camera!!!"

Lily says, "That's a wrap, folks!"

 Just recently Lily has become a very confident walker. She now prefers walking to crawling, and can also stand up in the middle of the room (with nothing to hold on to). She cruises around and around the house checking out each room, nook, cranny, and cabinet over and over. Another funny thing is that she seems to have a thing for fleece...she pulls out anything she can find that is fleece and carries it around the house (like this swaddle blanket, snowsuit, her purple fleece coat, diaper covers, whatever).

We can't believe it's already been a year. We feel like we can't remember anything past yesterday, so it's a good thing we have about a billion pictures! Thank you to everyone who has helped us get here. We feel like toddler-hood is a whole new adventure that we know nothing about. Here's to Year 2!

Busy, Busy Baby! - 11 Months

Lily is 11 months old today, and she has been SOO busy this week, we can barely keep up! She is cruising all over the house now looking for trouble to get into. These are from earlier this week. She is hanging out between our dresser (so many knobs it's like a baby climbing wall) and our bed, where she can hang out and cruise. Baby heaven!

Then, she discovered our stairs. I love the expression her face on this ascent. She is thinking, "DUDE, did you guys know we have stairs in our house?? This is awesome!!" It is too cute watching her little butt go up the stairs. Butt up, leg up, leg up, butt up....

Now that she has discovered climbing, she thinks she is going to climb everything. I caught her holding on to the baby gate and lifting her little knee like she was thinking she might try to scale it! She gets really, really pissed when we put the gate up at the bottom of the stairs. She just hangs on for dear life, shakes it, and wails. The injustice of the baby gate!

She is exploring new and previously undiscovered territory in our house, never before seen by baby-kind...and finding lots and lots of ways to slam her fingers into things.

We are certain that she has joined a Baby Fight Club, and that MUST explain the current condition of her face. She was just healing a cheek bruise from a mouse cart injury (I looked over and could only see her legs flailing out the top!), and then she encountered the activity cube (if you don't let go to the bead part on top when you start to fall, you can really ricochet your face into the corner really good) and slammed her forehead into the tile at the bottom of the stairs. Lily says, "Learning to walk hurts my face!"

Today she did some real walking! She is actually putting a few steps together on her own. Check out a video here (<--click this You Tube link!).

We can't believe we only have one more monthly photo session to go! We were also shocked that we were able to get her to sit still long enough to get any good shots. One month until the BIG DAY!

10 months old! Snuggly Girl

Lily is 10 months old and MUCH too busy for a photoshoot! We didn't really get any winner photo this month that had our 10 month sign in it. Oh well!

 

I'm blurry, but I love to clap!

 We have been having so much fun with Lily this month! I seriously wanted to stay home from work one day last week so I could just stay home and watch her practice standing! She can now stand for about 8 seconds on her own, and she is cruising (walking around while holding on to things). Rachel brought over a push toy, and she is just starting to figure out how to walk behind it. It's all very exciting, but it sure feels like she is about to leave baby-hood behind in favor of toddler life! She also started waving (usually only after we have said goodbye and the person is long gone).

 One of Jason's favorite jobs is bringing her sleepy self in from the car when she crashes in there. We love cuddly time! We seem to be all up in stranger anxiety (she no longer is up for letting anyone hold her) and likes to snuggle in when we are in crowded places or large parties. She has been super snuggly in general lately and we are enjoying every minute of it! Now that she is mobile, she can also crawl her way over and try to climb up our legs, which is pretty fun.

Just doing some reading in the tub.

Precious little toes...and hands!

We have one more week of school, and then we have two straight weeks to spend with our Lillian! We are really looking forward to it!

9 Months Old!

Lily is 9 months old today!

 Doesn't she look HUGE? Or I guess the 9 month card looks very small compared to her early pics. :)

 This is her new trick. She sits funny with her legs sideways and scoots to where she wants to go. We are suddenly have to really think about what she can get to!

 This is as close as she gets right now to all fours....then she either sits back up, flops onto her tummy, or falls on her face. But she keeps trying over and over! It's only a matter of time!

 Lily is a busy busy baby these days with all her new tricks: clapping, peek-a-boo, and shaking anything she can find to check for rattles. Today we were working on high 5, and she started doing a funny chest bump thing with Jason. She's got a pretty good arm and likes to throw things (baby Angry Birds?), or flip them toward herself. Her other favorite past times include injuring Mommy and Daddy with her bites and pinches (such a wonderful expression of love). We have been joking we should have changed her costume to a lobster since she has been so busy pinching!

 I just can't stop taking pictures of us in bed! This was too precious!

Today we went to see Nan and Ron and celebrate many things, including Jack's 6th birthday!

 We managed to get a couple of pictures of Nan and Ron and all 3 kids!