Lily's Memorial Day Friend

We went to Heather and Matt's for a Memorial Day cook-out on Monday afternoon. We were glad to spend some time with John, Heather's brother, who is a Marine and was in Iraq. We forgot to give him the thank-you card we brought, but we hope he knows how much we appreciate him and all of the other men and women fighting for our country. He is such a great person and we are lucky to know him! Lily made some friends as well at the party--Heather's neighbor was there with their 2 little girls, including 3 year old, Tess. Lily loved playing with her and actually was good about sharing!! It was a Memorial Day miracle!

Memorial Day

We are so blessed to be able to spend Memorial Day with family and friends and it's easy to sort of forget why we have the day off. Let's all make a point every year to remember and say thank you to a veteran or soldier still serving. If you a know a veteran, young or old, please take take the time to thank them for what they have done for us. A great way to express our appreciation to troops still serving is through anysoldier.com. Please check it out! Heather and I sent a care package once (and it's been too long, so, Heather, let's do another one soon) and it's very simple to do.

http://www.anysoldier.com/

As I said before, we enjoyed ourselves at a cook-out at Heather and Matt's. Lily was very festive in her red, white and blue! She absolutely LOVED holding the sparklers!! Anything dangerous is fun, I guess. She was the only child who didn't burn herself!

Flower Child!

I couldn't get her to look at the camera at all this afternoon, but I still love these pics I took of Lily in the yard. I made her some flower necklaces, which she loved and we just enjoyed the nice weather.

This one is my fav.

Hanging with Kai!

Baby Kai comes over to play on Tuesday afternoons and we have such a good time with him. Poor Kai gets a bit ordered around by my tiny dictator, but he is generally in good spirits about it all. He is such a sweet boy!

I believe here she is trying to tell him to smile for the camera--she'll tell him "Say Cheese!".

Here she is smiling, not realizing he isn't smiling yet!

Uh-oh...she's checking to see if he's smiling...he's going to get in trouble!

I think here she figures, "I guess I'll have to take over and do it myself!"

And he's lost the hat...I'm pretty sure he wasn't too upset about that!

Anna's Dance Recital!!

I was so lucky to get to be in Greenville for Anna's first dance recital!! It was so fabulous and she did a wonderful job! I went with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and nephew, who was so good to sit through an hour and a half of dancing to see his sister. They danced to a song from High School Musical and I was very proud and impressed!

Pre-recital.

After the recital--she is very proud of herself...as she should be!

3 generations of women who know how to shake a leg!

Mother's Day!

I got to spend Mother's Day morning with 2 of my favorite people in the world. Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend it with my mom because she had to go to a funeral in Wisconsin the day before. We picked her up from the airport around 12:30 and my dad got home from volunteering at the soup kitchen shortly thereafter. I haven't spent Mother's Day in Greenville in an awful lot of years, so it was good to be there.

Visiting Greenville

We went to Greenville for Mother's Day weekend because my niece, Anna, had her first dance recital and I wouldn't miss that for the world. Lily had a great time playing with her cousins while we were there. She, Anna, and D climbed onto the table on the porch and Lily actually asked me to take a picture of them!! First time ever! How could I say no?

Here are Lily and D enjoying my parent's treadmill--this looks like a lot more fun than how you are supposed to use it!

Easter--A little late...

We moved the weekend before Easter weekend and my parents came to help us unpack and get settled on the actual weekend of Easter. It was the first time (not including the Easter after Lily's birth) that I can remember that I didn't go to church on Easter. We did go out for breakfast and worked around the house, but at that stage of the game, I couldn't have found myself church clothes if you'd asked me too. I also couldn't find my camera and took these with my moms, which I just got from her when we went to visit this past weekend. Anyway, here is Lily enjoying her "bunny basket" as she calls it!

More Cute Pics!

First of all...most of these pics were taken in the same day, hence the exact same outfit for the last few posts. I must have gone camera crazy that day! Anyway, Lily has discovered her pockets and that she likes to put her hands in them. I think she looks awfully cute!These pics below were from today...and she had refused to wear a shirt at that moment. Well, actually, she'd had one on and I took it off to make her try on something--we are very in between sizes right now, ranging from 24 months to 3T, and I force her to try on new clothes now before I pull the tags off--and she didn't want to put her shirt back on after the fashion show, and it wasn't a battle I was picking at that moment. Anyhow, her hair has finally gotten long enough for real pigtails. It was bound to happen, considering she's never had a haircut. My little chatterbox wouldn't stop talking for me to get a good picture, but you can still see her piggies! The stickers on the wall are new--we just put them up today on a whim and she loves them because she can pull them down and put them back. I promise soon I'll post pics of the house, including her room so you can get the whole picture.

Spongebob!!

Lily loves Spongebob--well, she doesn't actually like to watch the cartoon, but she knows who Spongebob is and gets very excited to see him! The thrill of her life is driving by Burger King when he is sitting on top. It all comes from the fact that cousin, Collin, watches Spongebob and Lily thinks Collin hung the moon. So, when we heard the ice cream truck in our neighborhood and happened to have cash and ran down the driveway and saw a Spongebob ice cream, she HAD to have it!! She very much enjoyed it as well...as did the rest of us who were all forced to take bites. What a fun, sticky moment!

Spongebob's eye-balls were black gumballs. Yuck!

Showing Daddy what she got...
and forcing him to take a bite of the fruit-punch flavored treat!

Don't worry...shortly after this one was taken, Spongebob got abandoned and melted away!

More Playing in the Hallway

Uh-oh!! Hopefully, she didn't get my gracefulness...or lack there of. Also, please listen when she says "What?". It sounds much more like "Vhat?" We think she was German in her former life.

2 minutes in the life of Lily...

"Where did Daddy go?" is Lily's favorite question second only to "What are you doing?". She asks me about 400 times a day where her Daddy went and she will still ask it even if he is standing right in front of her. I have now started answering with "I don't know. Where did he go?", at which time, she usually yell "There he is!" and act proud that she found him. This is a video of Lily playing with her Daddy right after naptime. You'll have to excuse the hair!