Spring is here! 13 Months and Easter!

Things are looking good around here...the sun is shining, report cards are sent home, and Spring Break is right around the corner! We are also happy because we've been getting some good sleep lately! Hurray! Lily actually slept an entire night, in her crib, without waking up. Well, until 5:30 anyway, but that was close enough to our alarms that we called it! FINALLY!

Lily learned to hammer the balls, and sometimes can even get enough oomph to push them through!

The sun is out in Seattle, and, like true Seattle-ites, we threw on our sandals and headed right out to enjoy it! We stopped short of strappy tanks and shorts though, so maybe we aren't TRUE after all.

On Saturday we kicked our weekend off with a visit to the pediatrician for a goopey eye (these visits feel like a bi-weekly activity around here!), but luckily we were planning a hike near Woodinville anyway so it was on the way. We checked out Paradise Valley Recreation Area. It was perfect! Fairly level with lots of trails. Lily loved the bikes and dogs, and we even saw a woodpecker!

 We walked for 3 miles, and when we were almost back we decided to let Lily "hike" for a little bit. The uneven ground is still a little tricky for her...she ended up face planting and popped up with a bloody nose!

 Then it is time for...EASTER! Lily loved finding the eggs the Easter Bunny left all over our living room last night!

 Then we got all dressed up (thank you Grandma Nan and Grandpa Ron for the perfect dress!) and headed up to Marysville for Easter with the fam. We were so lucky to get another beautiful Easter, just like last year!!

Lily had fun following Kenley around, and then shaking all the eggs.

Lily loves Grandpa's fountains!

Catching Up - 13 months

Oh man, we are way behind on our blog! Things have been crazy for the Brehm-King-Friesen family for the last month. We have a lot of catching up to do!

The last month has been a whirlwind of baby activity. She now signs milk and light (and spots them everywhere), and has started to say words! She says "hi" and "Mum Mum" and sometimes other things that sound like words like "uh oh" and "gentle!" Mostly she is babbling like crazy, which is totally adorable.

She is walking like crazy, and starting to pick up the pace! It seems like she'll be running any day now! She still waving goodbye a ton, and also blew her first kisses!! She like loading toys into containers and carrying them around, especially in buckets. She still loves her dance parties!

Major photo catch up time: Back to Valentines' Day...

Lily got a high fever and decided to cut out of school for an early vacation (and mama missed her class' Valentine party...). We also decided to skip a friend's 1st bday to make sure we didn't share.

We had a busy mid-winter break! We headed to a friend's cabin in Wenatchee to try out Lily's new sled (thanks, Youngs!). She loved it!

 

 We met our baby friends for a "party" at the Seattle Children's Museum!

We found out Lily is going to have another BOY cousin!

And then we popped by the locks to check on the fish.

 We met up with Kristina for a chilly walk through the arboretum!

We took Lily to her 1 year well-child visit. She is now 28.94 inches (38%ile) and only 18.15lbs (7%ile). Dr. K was a little worried about her weight drop and told us to start fattening her up! She also got 4 shots, which 10-14 days later resulted in this crazy rash all over her body! It turned out to be a reaction to her MMR vaccine. She wasn't uncomfortable at all (maybe a little itchy around her crazy swollen eyes), but it sure was scary (and another sick day for us)!

 We volunteered Lily to model a "cake smash" photo session with a local photographer, and she did not like it one bit! She wanted nothing to do with that cake, and screamed any time we got her close to it! Apparently cakes are scary...

 Luckily, she got this one cute shot...only because Lily did not have to let go of Daddy to get it.

  Bath time is Daddy's role, and he gives great baby manicures, too!

 Enjoying a sunny day in Snohomish!

Whew! Busy, busy baby. I'll try to post some videos in our next post. :)

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!