Moms & babies playdate

On Monday afternoon, we attended a moms & babies playdate. The "babies" ranged from only weeks old all the way up to Lily's age (including siblings).

Making snacks the night before. I'm not sure where this pose came from.

This is not a great picture, but our treats were made to look like eggs & bacon. They are actually made of pretzel sticks, melted white chocolate and a yellow m&m. They are super easy - a quick and manageable project for Lily to do, and they're fun & tasty.

Chillaxin' poolside

William and Patrick bonding at the water table

Check out those curls!

Doesn't she ever tire of all the doting? Really.

Nature center

We love the Nature Center so much that we visited twice in two days! On Monday, Lily attended an educational program about caterpillars and butterflies.

Vanna shows us her caterpillar craft project

Hey! Ho! Butterflies got soul!

Checking out one of two venomous snakes in Missouri. This is the Timberland Rattlesnake, maybe?

The copperhead

Today, Lily met her 4-year-old gal pals (along with their little brothers) again to explore all the cool nature center exhibits. They were so funny - running around the center with pencils and papers, jotting down their notes and observations about animal tracks and other important matters. William quietly enjoyed the more peaceful parts of the center.

Never too young to appreciate creatures great and small

Discovering beauty in tranquil waters

9 months

We went for William's 9-month check-up last week, and things are looking great. His stats this time were:
weight - 22 lbs. 2 oz. (75 %)
height - 30.75 in. (>97%)

His recent growth bumped him over his pumpkin seat weight and height limits (22 lbs/30 in) so we moved him up to the big boy seat on Monday! I can't believe that Lily just moved out of this seat about 6 months ago, and William is already in it!

William's fine and gross motor skills continue to improve, and he wants to walk so, so bad. He still doesn't have any teeth, but his hair is slowly growing in, and it looks like we have curls!! Overall, he's healthy & happy and seems to be right on track.

Chow time!

After the zoo on Friday, Lily and Angela whipped up some gourmet homemade pizzas. Here they are working on their special white pizza.

William worked on getting his hands on his own pizza.


What would a trip to Memphis be without some bbq? We say, "Yes, please!"

Yay for visiting with Aunt Angela!

C - M O M

On Saturday, we went to the Children's Museum of Memphis (CMOM). I'm not sure who loves exploring new places more - me or Lily. The museum was excellent, and when we came home, Lily had to tell Carl immediately about how she and Aunt Angela searched for bugs all around a (play) house, and they got a prize for finding all the bugs (at the Terminex exhibit).

Lily thought this horse just screamed "Photo Op".

Lily loves all things domestic and probably would have stayed in the grocery store the entire time if we let her.

This kid was really into the dance the room.

A little play area just for William! I appreciate tiny tot areas so much more now that I have two children. This allows the little one to play too instead of just sitting and watching the older one have all the fun.

Ready to serve and protect

Jammin'

Lookin' good

If practice makes perfect, Lily should be a stellar fisherwoman when she gets older.

Memphis zoo

The kids and I took a trip to Memphis to visit Angela this weekend. The kids did GREAT in the car. We got there a little before Angela got off work on Friday, so we went straight to the zoo. It was nice to be able to get out and walk around a little after all that time in the car.





I love the way the Memphis Zoo is organized. They do a great job highlighting the different countries/regions of the world from where the animals come and creating a mini-cultural experience for those areas.

Pandas are the highlight of the Memphis Zoo experience.

Lily loved the meerkats!

More summer classes

Lily attended an Arts & Crafts class last week. They made dog houses and even got a little stuffed dog to put in it. Needless to say, this was right up Lily's alley. Lily and her dog "Sparkly" went on a carousel ride together after the house was finished.

Lily went to her second and final Cooking Class for the summer. These classes are great. Lily made and ate lunch while I did the grocery shopping. Here, she is holding the dessert that they made - a lawnmower cupcake for their "backyard picnic" theme.

Swim club

Lily has been doing great swimming underwater. Way to go, Lily!!!

Marching on

William - July 2010

Lily - July 2006

This year marks 4 years since the death of Tricia, a 30-year-old friend of our relatives who battled with metastatic melanoma for over a year. When the picture above was taken of Lily, Tricia (or Teb, as she was called by her friends and family) had just 6 days to live. On Saturday, July 25th, there is a 5K run in Chicago known as the March on Melanoma. You can go to http://www.tebstroops.org/ to register for the run or to donate to support cancer research. You can also read about Tricia's battle with melanoma in her own words at http://www.tebspage.blogspot.com/. It is a moving journal of sorts, detailing her brave battle and a good reminder of the many reasons for which we have to be grateful.

Playdate

We went to Carl's work picnic a little over a week ago and met a new resident and his family. They happen to have a 4-year-old girl and a little boy (named William). Lily and the little girl hit it off immediately and spent the entire picnic hand-in-hand and making up all kinds of play scenarios. Of course, the little girl was missing her friends from her home state so I wanted to introduce her to some of the other 4-year-old girls we know (all of which also have little brothers). So, we had hosted a playdate that was lots of fun, and hopefully we will all be able to get together again soon.

Sack races in the backyard

We had an ocean-themed lunch with octopus hot dogs, fruit and cheese sailboats, goldfish, gummy fish, submarine sub sandwiches, shell mac n cheese (not pictured) and a pudding and jello island dessert.

Our 4-year-old girls


Their little brothers


Playing in the kiddie pools


Terra's ultimate dream: Playing ball while taking dips in the pool between runs


A popsicle convention around William

1000th post

So here it is, folks - my 1,000th post. When I asked Carl what I should do for my 1,000th post, he said, "Why don't you post your top 10 favorite posts from the blog?" What a mistake! A mistake because then I had to do it...go through 5 years worth of posts (999 to be exact) to find my favorites. As you can imagine this is no small undertaking, but I did it. I scanned through every month of every year and came up with my top 12, and that will have to do because I do not want to exclude the last two.

A couple of notes: 1. These are my favorite posts, not my favorite pictures or my favorite videos (read: you will see a list of favorite pictures and videos from the past 5 years in the not-so-distant future). 2. To be honest, my favorite things to re-read from the blog are things that Lily has said and that Carl has said - the day-to-day interactions that keep me laughing and keep life fun. But, I really don't have the time right now to re-read all the "writing" posts. So, these posts are mainly pictures with some captions.

I hope everyone has enjoyed our blog over the past five years. When the idea was originally suggested to us by Roger and Nadine, I really did not know if this was something that I would keep up. And while there are certainly times when I'm more "into it" than other times, overall, I've really enjoyed this forum. I am grateful that we have had the ability to keep others connected to our family despite the distance between us and some of our family/friends. It has provided a way for others to feel like they know the kids even if they only see them once in a while. Also, I like that you can read it if your interested, but if not, you can easily avoid all the stories and pictures we think are so adorable (because they are, after all, our kids) by just not logging on to the blog. Also, this is a far, far more detailed baby book than I would have ever attempted to keep. I love that both Lily and William will have this record of their younger days, and might be able to appreciate, even to a small degree, just how much they are loved and what good times (and challenging times) we have shared as a family.

So, without further adieu, here are my top 12 picture posts:

12. Watch me grow!

11. What little boys are made of

10. Sleigh bells ring

9. The napping house

8. Playing with toys on the deck

7. Angela and Lily

6. Destined for greatness?

5. Our trip to the pumpkin farm in movie titles

4. Swagger wagon

3. Visit with Santa

2. Residents Picnic

1. Father's Day 2006 (technically two different posts but posted on the same day - click on Father's Day and then on 2006 to view both)

Lunch date with daddy

Today we met Carl for a picnic lunch at his work. They have a great playground (actually now 2 playgrounds) just steps away from the entrance of the hospital. Conveniently, there are some trees next to the playground that provided nice shade for our picnic. We love to see daddy in the middle of the day!