One!

Okay, I started this post over a month ago, but I've obviously been quite lazy about blogging of late, so I'm forcing myself to finish it, thereafter to take another blogging sabatical, and you can all read all about Christmas sometime around Valentine's Day. ;)

Lily's first birthday was on the 14th (of November), and we celebrated in grand style. We made a new play area for her in the office and she enjoyed playing with her new Little People sets.

We went to the airport later that morning to pick up Adam's sister, Ashley, who had flown in just for the occassion. We went to a kid's play cafe for lunch and Lily had a blast!

The birthday hat didn't go so well--she kept pulling it off and finally the elastic band snapped and whipped her just under her eye, poor kid. I managed to snap these prior to the near blinding incident.

Lily had a mountain of birthday presents to go through. Ufortunately she was not up to the challenge and got rather distracted by whatever she had just opened to go onto the next gift, so we had to help her a good deal.

And finally the cake! The pictures say it all.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween, and didn't even have to traipse around local neighborhoods panhandling for candy. Ok, so that actually sounds like fun to me, but we'll have to wait until next year.

Normally Tiffany is not a fan of bugs in the house (understatement of the year), but she didn't seem to mind when this rather large (or small depending on your perspective) ladybug showed up.

We had a couple of friends join us for dinner and a rousing few games of Catch Phrase. I pretty much rocked it, but not so much for Tiffany. After that we enjoyed watching a nice Halloween movie, "The Others." We even had a decent number of trick-or-treaters come by. My personal favorite was the 40-year-old lady with no costume, no kid and a plastic bag in her hand. She asked for some candy for her and her granddaughter. Hmmm.... I gave her the vanilla Tootsie Rolls.

This being Lily's first Halloween we took a ridiculous amount of pictures, but we'll spare you all those. Here are some of our favorites from the evening.

Autumn Activities

Fall has come and gone in Michigan--or at least it sure feels like it has. Just a couple of weeks ago the leaves were at their peak colors, the sun was warm, and the air was refreshingly brisk. Now the bitter chill of winter has set in (hopefully only temporarily, but I'm not holding my breath). Inspite of this, I have been thoroughly enjoying autumn. We're making the most of what Michigan has to offer--for example, apple orchards and cider mills are abundant in this party of the country, so Lily and I have visited a couple of them. Let me tell you, cider donuts are pretty tasty. A couple of weeks ago we went to one orchard that also had a pumpkin patch as well as a huge play area and a petting zoo.

A friend of mine from my mission, Lynne Johnson, came out to visit us for a week, so we had a lot of fun visiting some beautiful sights and taking in all of the fall colors. Now that it's absolutely freezing, I guess that means it's time for Halloween. I'll try to be a bit more prompt posting pictures of Lily in her costume lest I am forced to endure more "friendly reminders" that several of you have been so kind in bestowing. :)

Man cannot live on chocolate alone; but woman sure can

Lily passed one of life's major milestones this week--her first taste of chocolate. That this event even occurred in the manner that it did is either proof of my inferior supervision or a result of fate. I prefer to believe the latter--yes, the cacao gods were watching over us that day. While Lily was taking her nap, I sat down on the couch with my book and a bag of chocolate chips. "So, it was that kind of day, was it, Tiff?" was Adam's smart response when I told him the story later that night. No! I only had a small handful of chocolate chips--probably no more than 15, so don't go imagining things. Anyway, in a moment of forgetfulness, I failed to put the chocolate chips away and left them on the couch. Well, after Lily had woken up, I went to check my email while she played in the living room. After a while, I noticed how quiet it was--never a good sign. I walked back into the room to see the Hersheys bag on the floor and chocolate chips strewn everywhere. Lily, of course, was stuffing her grubby little face with fistfuls of them! I grabbed the bag, cleaned up the mess and managed to find the humor in the situation as I wiped all of the chocolate off her chin. I think her belly looks sufficiently full in this shot. I dare say she savored every morsel.

A Day in the Life of Lily

I've taken a few pictures to document a typical day for Lily. It was hard to capture her true essence in some of these because she's a poser, and as soon as she sees the camera she cheeses it (then again, maybe that says more about her personality than her natural expressions do).

One of Lily's favorite things to do is help me load and unload the dishwasher. By help, I mean hold onto the door and push the bottom rack back and forth, grab utensils and occasionally try to sneak pieces of food off the inside of the door--I have to watch her carefully to keep her from doing the latter.

There is but one step in the entire house--from the kitchen down into the office. Rather than buy a baby gate, we made good use of our water bottle supply. Whenever I am on the computer, Lily likes to stand there and yell at me while pounding her hand down on the top of the cases--just so I know she's there. It's one of her favorite spots in the house--this is primarily where she learned how to pull herself up to stand.

Nap time--I bet you've never seen a kid so happy to take a nap! :)

Now I know this picture is a little blurry, but that is because the swing is in motion. Of late, Lily isn't content with just sitting and swinging. No, she has to turn herself around and stand up. She'll just stand there, like she's scaling a mountain or something, as she swings back and forth. She also does this in her stroller when we're out walking. I'll be looking around, taking in our surroundings, and look down to see Lily's head peeking over the top of the stroller, just staring at me. I guess I'll have to start strapping her in.

Bathtime! Several times a week Lily has approximately 15 minutes to swim and splash around in the tub. She ultimately always becomes overly fascinated with the drain, however, sticking her fingers through the holes and whatnot, so that often ends bathtime prematurely, much to her disappointment.

Playing with her activity table: normally she's not nude when she does this, but she apparently got away from Adam after he changed her diaper prior to her bath.

Lily crawls occasionally--rarely is probably the more accurate term. Mostly she just scoots around on her stomach, propelling herself forward by digging her toes into the floor and pushing. She'll do about 5 or 6 scoots, rest her head on the floor, face down, as if she's given up on life, then resume with another 5 or 6 scoots until she reaches her destination. She's usually trying to sneak into the bathroom, for some reason.













Ah, milk--sweet nectar of life.

Playtime with dad. Lily waits at the window for Adam to get home (mostly because I prop her up on the sofa to watch as he's coming up the walk). She loves to play with her dad--they have all sorts of games they play and she's finally figured out there's somebody else in the house just as goofy as she is!

Ah, the VCR. This is one of those ever-so enticing, off-limits areas for Lily, thus the basis of its appeal (kind of like the bathroom). She likes to stick her hands in the tape slot on the VCR and push as many buttons as she can find (before we got this TV armoire, it was her feet that were always in the slot, as the VCR was closer to the ground). She also enjoys the stereo and any CDs or DVDs that happen to be within her grasp. Isn't that a nice shot of Doug Heffernan on the TV?There are many other elements to Lily's day, of course, but I think this helps to capture some of them. Several of these are just repeated multiple times throughout the day, but they all add up to her being an active and curious little girl who takes great enjoyment in exploring her world.

I love baseball!!

Adam, Lily and I went to the Tigers/Royals game Saturday night, and even though the game was crappy (Tigers lost, 3-13), our seats were awesome! Adam got free tickets for us to sit in the GM Suite--right behind homeplate (just up a few levels). This was the first (and only, more than likely) game we've gone to this season, as well as Lily's first-ever baseball game. This was by far the way to do it--I can't imagine her doing as well as she did if we were in the normal seating area. To start off, all of Adam's co-workers were excited to finally meet Lily and even though she was a little shy to start off, she eventually warmed up and had a blast. She was still a little solemn when we shot this first picture.

But not long into the game, she was back to being her nerdy self.

Better luck next time Tigers.

Our 2nd Anniversary

Adam and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary on Monday. It's crazy that it's been two years since we got married. We kept our anniversary pretty low key, but it was a lot of fun. The weather was beautiful that day--more like fall, much to Adam's chagrin--so we laid a blanket down in the backyard to enjoy the cooler temperature. We watched a slideshow I made with pictures of our last two years together and shared some of our favorite things we love about each other.













Lily was mildly pleasant while we enjoyed a nice dinner. She played on the floor for about 5 minutes before having to be picked up.



















Anyway, it's been a great two years and we're looking forward to many more!