Queeny Park

St. Louis has been having some awesome, almost fall-like, weather the past few days. We decided to take advantage of it by heading out to Queeny Park for a hike.
And we're off to the park...
We wound up using our Ergo carrier for Lillie. If we were avid hikers, we'd probably splurge for one of those frame carriers. The Ergo works for now.
Lillie with Dad...

And Lillie with mom... I must point out my "short-waistedness". Notice how Lillie's head is parallel with my chin and now go back and look at where Lillie's head comes on Roger! We are the same height folks, just proportioned totally different!

After 45 minutes of being cooped up in the carrier, she's free! (And hard to capture with my camera!)

In other random news, I caught these moments of Harvey and Lillie playing together. She was sitting on the rug and he came up and laid in her lap. Too sweet!

And here she is giving him some invisible kibble, aka a little piece of lint she found on the carpet.

Gotta love that Harvey!

1st Birthday Party

Happy First Birthday Miss Lillie!
(thank you to Melissa for this wonderful photo!)

The Friday and Saturday before Lillie's party, Roger and I built "Lillieville" out of some cardboard boxes left over from our move. Lillie napped really well on Saturday and we were able to add some extra touches like the trees, shingles, mail and mail slot, and a little sunshine!

Lillie loves her new playhouse!

We had approximately 12 kids plus their families over on Sunday afternoon - it all added up to about 35 people! We bar-be-qued and the kids made crafts (shaker bottles filled with things like sequins, jingle bells, wooden beads, etc.). The kids played and we ended the evening with yet another cake smash!

The birthday banner that I made (thanks to inspiration from Amber).
The next morning, we let Lillie open her gifts. She's such a proper girl - reading the card before opening the gift!

Playing with her gift from Genevieve!

No surprise - she loves the mountain of tissue paper!

Apparently, Lillie was needing her cake fix for the day!

Happy Birthday Girl! What a long way you've come!

Birthday Party - Round 1

The three women in Roger's life (his mom, his wife, and his daughter) all celebrate their birthdays within 4 days. As a first, Roger made us a cake - double layer butter cake with cream cheese frosting.

But let's face it, the world is all about Lillie and I've grown used to the fact that my birthday will never be important again - especially since it is the day before hers and I will spend my remaining years planning big birthday bashes for Lillie!

We wound up giving her a small piece of the cake to try. We had gone out to eat earlier in the evening and for some reason, she was not so happy on the 35 minute car ride back home. I put her in some pj's and Roger decided that we would open gifts and have cake - a full hour past her normal bed time. She's pretty resiliant though and wound up enjoying the celebration.

Overdue 11 month post

The 11 month photo shoot was a tough one! It was taken right after bath time and we started out with some naked baby shots! Gotta love the 25 pounds of Lillie-goodness!



And now for the onesies...

We've started transitioning to milk in a cup for her two middle of the day feedings. She seems like such a big girl with her sippy cup of milk! Around the middle of her 11 month, walking became more comfortable and she began walking away from me - no longer needing my motivation. Around a week before her 1st birthday, walking became her main form of transportation as she learned how to stop in mid stride and turn and even walk sideways without falling. It was at that point that she also relaxed her arms and kept them by her sides instead of holding them out and walking like Frankenstein! There are so many changes these days - I feel like she shows me something new everyday!

Stay tuned...