Pig and Paci

Lily was never too interested in a pacifier when she was a little baby, but I randomly gave her one when she was teething recently, and she's decided that she likes it. I don't want her to get too attached to it and have to break the habit one day, but for now if she is cranky in the car or is awake when I put her down at night, the paci keeps her happy and she'll go right down with. She has also started snuggling with her pig. When we found out we were having a girl we went out and did some shopping that day. Phil found pig at Gap and decided we needed a $22 stuffed animal for her, so that's how he came to live in our house. Lily has really taken to him, and it is pretty cute. If you give her pig she will give him a big hug and snuggle him. Can you tell we are both finance/accounting geeks that lack creativity? Sometimes we call him Mr. Pig. Maybe she will want to name him one day? We had a fun little pajama play date this week, and that's where these pictures were taken.

We have a walker!

I'm a little behind, as always, but Lily started walking on July 29th! She had been so close for a couple of weeks and would take a step or two between things but always with the intention of catching herself on whatever object she was going towards. Then one morning she just took off. She still prefers crawling, and she seems to prefer walking on carpet which we don't have in abundance in our house, but it is pretty cute to see her go. She has to do everything at full speed and her version of walking is borderline running most of the time.

I took her to the school by our house the other day to see if she would want to walk in the grass but most of the time she wanted to play with her stroller. I tried to move it away but she threw a fit and the crocodile tears started up.

Good Friends

Back in April I had an upcoming wedding to coordinate, and I always call or e-mail the vendors to make sure everyone is aware of the timeline and confirm their arrival time. I called the photographer, Jennifer, and she could hear Lily in the background and we figured out that our babies were only a month apart. We ended up working two weddings together within a month. I love to chat up [annoy] the photographers, so we got to talking while we quickly ate dinner at a wedding and we decided we should have a play date for our girls. Fast forward a couple of months and Jennifer and I have become good friends, and Hayley and Lily have become good friends. It is pretty cute to watch them play together. They are both all over the place and we're constantly having to keep them out of the cat/dog's water, keep them from pulling each other's hair or running each other over with their push toys.

Jennifer is an amazing photographer and these first two pictures are from her. If you get a chance, check out her work at Jennifer Strain Photography . She is very creative and I just love her style.

Lily being a cheeseball. I love this one of her. It is so hard to get her to look at the camera these days. Thanks Jennifer!

Here are the girls getting into trouble by pulling up the blinds.

11 Months

Our little bit is eleven months old. Hard to believe that she'll be a year old in just a month. She is such a spirited little baby, so full of personality and energy. She turned eleven months old at the beach with my family and she is having so much fun with my cousins and brother and sister in law. Her face in this picture is classic Lily. She loves to flash her two toothed grin at you whenever she catches your eye. We love this little face so much!

Surfer Girl

Fun on the 4th

Phil was lucky to have a four day weekend over the 4th of July and we made good use of it by getting out as a family most of the weekend. We went swimming, attended our first Lake Highland's parade with Mimi and Pops, had dinner with the Browns and Kretzes and had too much fun so we decided to do it all over again the next morning during the men's Wimbledon final. It was so nice to spend four days with my family and friends.

No Need to Exercise...

...when Lily is your baby! She is always on the move and she is getting so fast. When she is on a mission she crawls and makes her own version of a huffing and puffing sound, then pulls up when she gets to her destination and speed walks around. She has started standing for a couple of seconds at a time on her own. She still refuses to walk holding our hands. If you try to hold her hands and put her feet on the ground she will crumple her legs up and let you know that she's not happy about the situation. Right now she has multiple teeth that are coming up and every day is a bit of a test of my patience, but in spite of the grumpiness she is still a silly little thing. She is very aware of what she is doing and sometimes I'll catch her doing something she's not supposed to be doing (like digging in the ficus tree) but she'll wait until we make eye contact and she'll smile and let out a little laugh before continuing in her naughtiness.

This is the "I'm contemplating doing something naughty" look

"I pulled out my bow mama, are you watching?"

Most of my day is spent chasing after this little booty