July

On Saturday Daddy took Lila for her first professional haircut. As you can see, Lila was less than thrilled. Poor baby girl.



Ed said that once the TVs (usually used to distract and entertain the kids) were turned off, Lila relaxed a bit.



Ooh, what's this? A Slinkey? For ME? Maybe this isn't so bad after all...

Dad and Lila after the haircut. Not so bad, but Ed decided that we can do just as good of a job at home, sans the $16 price tag (and most of the tears...)

This past weekend was warm and sunny and we had a great time celebrating the 4th with Lila's grandparents.

Lila spent the 4th lounging in her splash pool in the back yard.

She is quite the little fish!

Lila's buddy Matthew gave her these sweet sunglasses. One morning she wore them to daycare and kept them on through breakfast. Silly monkey. :)

Lila loves it when we blow bubbles for her, and always insists on helping. She can sort of blow on the bubble wand, but only rarely does she manage to eek out a bubble. Tonight we found out that what she really enjoys is watching her puppies chase the bubbles. Here she is laughing her heart out while Rocco chases the bubbles.

I love her laugh!

Lila is talking more and more every day. She loves to say "agua"(water), "all done!" and she has also started saying her friends' names. In particular she really likes Saul, Harper, and Alma. The other day at school someone bit her on the elbow. Of course the teachers won't tell us who bit her, only that her "friend" did it. Some friend! I asked her, "Lila, who bit you?" and she looked at me and said, "Alma." I thought that we were on to something until she said, "Harper! Harper!" Maybe not. Ha!

Lila loves to read and her favorite books are animal books. She loves the fuzzy animals - bunnies, puppies, kitties, guinea pigs. Animals in books all get kisses and she leans into the pages to give them hugs. It's SO cute!

Speaking of animals, she has turned into quite the little boss lady with her puppies. She will look at them, point down just like we do, and say, "sss!" ("sit!) When they bark or cry she will put her finger up to her mouth and say, "sshh, sshh!" Ooh, we are in trouble. ;)

On the Move!

Lila is on the move! Here she is taking a walk in our neighborhood before dinner on Monday.

See that necklace she's wearing?

That's my necklace, but she decided from the moment I bought it that it is hers. I hesitate to let her wear it, mostly because I don't want her putting things around her neck, especially when she can wander off now. But she is insistent. This is her necklace and she will wear it, darn it!


Walking with her buddy Wally. :)

Lila is chattering up a storm these days. Her favorite words are puppy, shoes, sit, Daddy, Mama, MINE, and NO!

Her grandparents will be here for the 4th and we can't wait!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my two favorite fathers...

Lots of love today to Lila's dad, my dad, and all fathers and fathers-to-be!

Feeding Goats

Lila and the goats were so cute, they get a whole 'nother post. There was a whole lot of cuteness at the zoo today!

Zoo!

Today Lila and I took a trip to the zoo with my high school friend Julie and her baby Autumn. Lila's Grandma and Auntie EM came along as well.

Here's Lila telling baby Autmn all about the birds. She's quite the bird expert. Bet you didn't know that, did you? :)

Visiting the penguins!


Lila enjoyed playing in the eggs, Mork-style.

Lila and Grandma.

Lila, Mama, and Auntie EM.

Lila fed the goats! This was by far her favorite part of the zoo experience. She could have spent the whole day feeding the goats.

Wishing you a happy weekend!

Summer

Lila and I are visiting her grandparents this weekend.

This morning, Lila and Grandma spent some time outside blowing bubbles.

This afternoon Lila met her new baby cousins, Lukas and Penelope. Tomorrow we're headed to the zoo with her new friend, Autumn.

These are the summer weekends that I dream about when there's 4 feet of snow on the ground.

Happy weekend!

Happy Easter!

Last Easter, Lila was 10 weeks old. It is so hard to believe how much she has changed in the last year. On her first Easter, she did a lot of sleeping. There were Easter baskets and she was mildly interested, but mostly she slept. This Easter, she was ALL ABOUT the Easter baskets and the Easter egg hunts!

The weekend started off with a relaxing day on Saturday. Here's Lila chilling with Daddy on the couch. She's chomping on a pancake. I made a big batch and tossed them in the fridge for snacks for the week. She loves them, and I just might have eaten a few as well...yum!


Lila's fascination with putting things inside of things, pulling them out, and then putting them back continues. Now that she's more mobile, she is wandering from room to room and has taken a particular liking to the kitchen. She likes to organize the cabinets for me while I cook. I've designated this the Lila cabinet and loaded it with stuff that's easy for her to slide around and/or pull out and put back in. I'm just hoping that her fascination with organizing lasts well into her teen years.


On Easter Sunday we woke up bright and early and had an Easter egg hunt with our neighbor and friend, Matthew. We weren't sure what Lila would think of hunting eggs, but she was really excited. Once Lila and Matthew filled their baskets we took out the eggs and tossed them back onto the lawn for rounds 2, 3, and 4. They "hunted" eggs for almost an hour!




In the afternoon, Lila's buddies Hudson and Grayson came over for dinner and another Easter egg hunt. Turns out that each of the moms made Easter baskets for each of the three kids. Holy Easter baskets, Batman!



We had nine people at our table for Easter dinner. Lila loved playing hostess and enjoyed the tasty meal.


After hunting eggs with her buddies, we took the push toys outside and the kiddos cruised up and down the sidewalk. Three toddlers toddling up and down the street was quite an adorable sight!


It was a wonderful weekend!

Spring is here!

Lila and I were both under the weather for the better part of the week, but we started feeling better today...just in time for sunny spring weather!

Lila got a Radio Flyer wagon for her birthday, so we loaded her up and took a walk to the park.

We have one very happy little girl!




Lila loved the slide, but wanted Mama to go down with her.

Giant tic tac toe!

SWINGING!

Lila loves the swings. Her laughing in this video is adorable! The video gets a little shaky at the end, but it's still pretty cute. :)

Lila's favorite game is peek-a-boo. She thinks it's hilarious when Daddy suddenly appears and surprises her. I love them together.

Happy spring!

A girl after my own heart.

Lila is still soooo close to walking on her own. She took two independent steps earlier this week, and then decided that was it. She's walking while holding one of our hands now instead of two, and she's also cruising the furniture at a much faster pace every day.

Lila has always loved shoes. I'd like to say that she gets it from me, and the older she gets, the more and more clear it becomes that this shoe-addicted mama has a shoe-addicted daughter. Lila has always loved to carry her shoes around with her. She will wear shoes, no problem, but she really enjoys having at least one other shoe in her hands most of the time. A few months ago she started choosing her own shoes and showing us that she wanted them on her feet. Well, several months ago I found the most adorable red, patent leather Mary Janes, but they're still about 2 sizes to big for her feet. Nevertheless, Lila loves, loves, loves them and wants to carry them everywhere. She took them to school the other day and refused to put them in her cubby. The shoes sat next to her at the breakfast table. The next day, Lila insisted that we put the red shoes on over her Robeez. Well, they fit pretty well when she's already wearing her Robeez. That day she wore both her Robeez and her Mary Janes to school. Today, same gig. Robeez + Mary Janes. Why wear just two shoes when you could wear FOUR? And why just wear four shoes when you can carry around your tennies, too? This girl loves shoes. What can I say? A girl after my own heart.

Shoes + Shoes = AWESOME.

Lila's sweetest "trick" of late is blowing kisses. If you say, "bye!", she will blow you a kiss. If you ask her for a "beso", she will blow you a beso. Last Sunday the three of us went out to brunch for my birthday, and Lila leaned right over to me and kissed me on the cheek, completely as a surprise - without being asked. I melted! It was the best birthday present I could imagine.