A Playful Weekend

For awhile now, I've been thinking about getting Lily involved in a play group or class of some kind and have been checking out the different options available to us. Well, last weekend we decided to try out a free class at our local Gymboree gym. She had such a great time! She was able to visit with all the kids in her class and play on all the fun Lily-sized gym equipment they had to offer. She was one of the younger ones in the class, but that didn't stop her at all - she dived right into all the fun everyone was having. I really liked the set up of this class. At the beginning, everyone got together for a song and a game and then had free play time around the gym for awhile. After free time, we all got together again for some more songs and fun games, including parachute time, which Lily loved! All the kiddos took a ride on the parachute and then got to sit under it while all the parents took it up and down. Lily took a great nap that day! We're still thinking about enrolling, as it's kind of pricey, but I know Lily will love it if we do. Check out our busy girl at the gym:

On Sunday, Lily and I headed to the park not long after we woke up, as it was forecasted to be a pretty steamy day (and the forecast was right!). We had a nice morning walk around the park trail and then headed over to the playground for some baby playtime. We were really only able to play on the swings, as everything else was pretty wet from storms the night before, and Lily really enjoyed her swing time :

Also that weekend, we were able to get together with the Fine family, some of our best friends. They are expecting a new little addition to their family pretty much any day now, so we were glad we could get together for a fun dinner out before Holden makes his arrival! We went to Kanki, yum, and since Lily's only been once before (and was so tiny, she slept through the entire meal), I was excited to see what she would think about the fancy dinner prep. She liked it, as far as we could tell, but really wasn't extremely impressed. She was much more impressed with the tempura chicken fingers and smiley face french fries she had for dinner!

One last thing we did during our busy play weekend was to visit daddy's new office!! On Saturday, Illuminati Karate, Inc moved their office downtown to the Professional Building, located right across from Nash Square. It's a great location and an exciting step for them - plus, their new office is so big, Lily gets to have a play yard inside to play in! She's going to love working on her office days. Of course, we had to take some pictures of Lily checking it all out - one of her favorite things to do now is to open and close things - doors, drawers, books, toys, pretty much anything - so the glass door at daddy's office was too much fun!

Lily's ONE YEAR!! Update

Holy cow! Lily is a the big ONE!! This past year was unbelievably awesome, not to mention that it was also the quickest year of my life. I absolutely can't believe we're here already, it went by way too fast and we enjoyed every second of it. Lily is such a fun, enjoyable, easy-going baby and we have loved watching her grow over the past year. She's changed so much and in such a short time - it's just incredible. At the end of this post I'll do a montage of Lily from birth to 12 months and you'll see what I mean!

We had Lily's 1 year doctor's appointment yesterday and she did wonderfully, as usual. Dr. Franklin checked her out and was pleased with both her growth and her development. I think he might have some pretty shy patients, because he always comments on how happy and outgoing she is. While he did her exam, she sat on his lap, played with his pen and his stethoscope and pretty much just enjoyed herself. Of course, she did have to get some shots (only 3 this time), but she only cried for a little bit and then she was back to her happy self. As far as her stats go, Lily weighed in at a whole 19lbs and was 29.5" long! She's grown a lot in 3 months. Her weight puts her in pretty much the same percentile it's always been, right around 25%, but her height bumps her up to over average - where did that come from?! Maybe she'll end up passing mommy in the height department...

I think I say this every month, but Lily at 12 months is so much fun!! She learns on a daily basis, which is such a fun thing to see. She loves to play and definitely has her favorite toys - at her birthday party, she got the alphabet train from Grandma and Grandad and she plays with it all the time. She loves to both push it around and ride on it while daddy pulls her around the room. She's not walking on her own yet, but she loves to use her push toys and cruises around all the furniture, as well as walk while holding hands. She's a super speed racer crawler and loves to crawl around while making sound effects - it's so cute! 

As far as eating goes, she eats pretty much everything. We still try and feed her organically, unless we're eating out where we can't really be sure if the food is organic or not. She still LOVES cheese and is also pretty fond of cheesy ravioli, Mexican food (cheese quesadilla, rice and beans), broccoli, bread, zucchini, carrots, cantaloupe, kiwi and yogurt. I'm excited for the summer fruits and veggies to come into season - I can't wait to see what she thinks of them. 

This year has been such a year of change for us and we are extremely blessed in everything we've been given. We're so lucky to have each other and our little family is the center of my world. There was a song that came out before Lily was born, Highway 20 Ride by the Zac Brown Band. It's a song that describes a pretty common, but still sad, divorce situation between a dad and his son and tells about the drive he makes every week to see his child. Although the song itself obviously doesn't describe our family, there's a line in the song that I love:

"And my whole world, it begins and ends with you..." 

It didn't really affect me much before Lily was born, but made the biggest impact on me the first time I heard it after she was born and does every time I hear it, because it perfectly describes me and my world now.

We love you Lilypie!!

Birth

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

1 Year!

Happy Birthday Lily!!

Well, our little munchkin is a whole year old - such a big girl!! We celebrated her first birthday in style, with a birthday party the weekend before and family trip to the zoo on her big day. All in all, I think we all had a fabulous time celebrating this milestone in Lily's life. 

The Saturday before her birthday, we invited family and friends out to Durant Nature park for a birthday party for the Lilypie. It turned out to be an absolutely perfect day, both in regards to the weather and to the party. We rented Sassafras picnic shelter (perfect name!) for the afternoon and had a cookout. Lily's party was a cupcake theme, so we had cupcakes everywhere - on the plates, napkins, banners, decorations, her birthday cake(s) - pretty much on everything! Lily had a wonderful time - she was busy eating lunch, opening presents, smiling at everyone and diving into her smash cake. Here are some pictures from Lily's party day:

Adult favors (cupcake parfaits) and kiddie favors (cupcake crayons)

Lily's Birthday Cake

Birthday girl!

Diving into cake

Asking daddy for cake eating tips

On Wednesday, after a special birthday breakfast, Daddy, Mommy and Lily headed to the zoo to celebrate Lily's big day. This was Lily's first trip to the zoo and she LOVED it! She's a big animal fan and seeing some of the exotic and amazing animals at the zoo was so much fun for her. I wasn't sure how much attention she would pay to the animals, but she really loved looking at them. Her favorites were the seals and the gorillas, from what we could tell. Lily also got to try pizza for the first time at the zoo; it was her special birthday lunch treat!

The highlight of mommy and daddy's day was a up close and personal visit with the chimpanzees - we stayed at their habitat for about a half an hour (Lily was sleeping in the stroller), while they talked to us through the windows, signed, danced and basically entertained us (or maybe we entertained them?). It was such a cool experience - I've never seen them interact with people so much. We also found out some very exciting news - one of the gorillas at the zoo, Jimani, is pregnant! This is the first gorilla pregnancy at the zoo in 22 years and only the second one ever for the zoo - definitely an exciting event! She's due in late summer and I can't wait to check out pictures of that baby. Here are some pictures from our zoo day:

Birthday breakfast of blueberry waffles, kiwi and scrambled eggs

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After the zoo, we headed back home, where Lily had dinner and then her birthday cupcake! She knew just what to do with this cupcake - after a little warm up, she dived right in. She also got her small birthday presents from mommy and daddy - a new book and a whole set of cupcake crayons!