A good day!

Baby Einstein anyone?

2 weeks ago it rained all week long and Colin was about to go crazy until I mentioned this place. It was 3 stories of fun play house. Lily loved every second. There was even more rooms of bouncy houses and craziness but after climbing through these three stories this one was too tuckered out for bouncy houses.

Help me!!!

Kind of looks like Indiana Jone's with the rock coming after her.

Well maybe not when she is chasing the rock.

The beginning of a fantasy wonderland!

Chicago and the apple orchard!

We had a quick weekend exploring Chicago and spending time with cousins and our good friend Brian from Seattle. We stayed with cousin Katy and Mike at their beautiful new home in Chicago. Here is Lily walking through their lavender.

Brian ran the marathon in 3 hours and 56 minutes. He pretty much killed it! We cheered him on early Sunday morning but in the thousands of people we didn't get to actually see him run. That day we spent the afternoon at the beach. It was a beautiful weekend and Lily loved the sand.

Lily spent much of the weekend opening and closing the door on the left of the picture.

In the sun room, just chillin'.

Cousin Katy and Lily in the entryway with their amazing big door in the back . Check out the door bell, it is a real pull door bell. It was so amazing.

Katy and Mike and famous Olive, everyone we walked past wanted to stop and pet Olive and talk about how beautiful she was. Katy and Mike are 26 weeks pregos! Katy has never looked so beautiful. They were great hosts even if they did force us to stay up until 3 am drinking good wine (well not Katy).

Cousins!

Lake Michigan, 70+ degrees and beautiful this weekend.

Lily slept through most of the walking tour.

There is a great apple orchard 10 minutes from the house. We have been twice already. The apples, donuts, cider and wine are great.

Ahhh, sunset on the lake.

A weekend in Gaylord and a few days in the rain

We headed to Gaylord for a weekend of family fun. Bri and Dermot flew in for the weekend to meet the family and just spend time together. Needless to say we had a great time, got little sleep, laughed a lot and fit in a few activities while we were there. We headed to Uncle Dwain and Aunt Kathy's farm to pick pumpkins. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and more than the pumpkins, Lily loved picking up rocks.

Colin's parents had a huge gathering Saturday night and it was so good to see everyone. The cousins all came over and it was kids galore. Lily loved talking with them, playing chase and watching a game of wiffle ball. Above Lily, Nona and Calvin in the same position as the Christmas photo- they even did it on their own.

Left to right: Dermot, Brianna, Dave, Carrie, Julie, Lily, Colin, Sheila, Charlie and grandma LillieBell.

We played outside a lot. Thanks Andrea, Devin and Alex for the great dress, she looked adorable in it.

We have had a lot of rain and not Oregon rain - real rain but that doesn't keep Lillian inside....she typically goes to the front or back door and begs to go out first thing...rain or shine.

Loving coloring.

More walking in the rain.

Aunt Kalie lives right next to the children's gardens at Michigan State and so Colin took Lily there for a morning with Aunt Kalie. She LOVED the gardens, chimes, kids benches, frogs that spit water when you spin around, piano to march on, and children's maze....so many things to do but the sheep was her favorite. She has been trying to master her animal sounds and baaa and moooo tend to be the most consistent.

Julie and Lily on the phone

This was the dinner table last night. With Julie and Lily both having phone conversations, I couldn't get a word in edgewise. Notice the matching outfits...

So whenever I hear or see Lily start to go to the bathroom
I ask her if she has to go "poo poo in the potty." She typically says "yah or nah" but her answer is not always correct. So regardless of the answer I take her to the potty and she has actually pooped 5 times now on the potty. Today was unlike no other day except that when I asked her she said "nah" and then walked to the pottie and pointed at it. So I being the very instinctive mother that I am (hahaha) followed her lead and placed her on the potty. AND low and behold she went poop and pee! I am hoping we have made a small break through in our very infantile potty training stage.

Now I know you all, and though you are very happy for our small success you are also silently hating us so let me bring it back to the reality of things. 3 weeks ago we had friends coming over for dinner and they were to arrive in 2 hours. Colin was out and my job was to clean the house and cook the dinner and take care of Lily and get it all done in two hours. Well ALL day long Lily was exceptionally needy and was making grunting noises on and off so everytime she got silent and started to grunt I would ask "Do you have to go poo poo in the pottie?" And she would reply "no." I would run her to the pottie and nothing would happen. So I start vacuuming the house and notice a spot on the carpet and think, "hmm that is weird Colin usually cleans the carpet if something spills on it" and so I keep vacuuming, then it happens again and I think, "well now I will have to mention this to Colin and ask him what happened" and that is right when it all becomes so clear. I turn around and Lily has BOTH hands in her diaper pulling poop out, poop is smeared down BOTH of her legs, across her favorite chair and multiple other locations of the NEW carpet in the dinning room and living room. I look at the clock and now have 1.5 hours before our friends are arriving and poop across my daughter and multiple spots of my house. Needless to say dinner was late and I thought to myself....."I asked you multiple times today if you had to go poo poo on the potty!"

Boston.....a wedding, a new "brother" and a hurricane!

We went to Boston last weekend for Brianna and Dermot's wedding. It was a crazy weekend with all of the talk of the hurricane, many wedding changes and of course a two day delay on heading back to MI. It really worked out to our advantage because we got an extra day to see the city and Dermot's new restaurant.

Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dave got stuck with us too!

The happily married couple in Dermot's beautiful new restaurant, The Porter Cafe in West Roxbury. If you are ever in Boston this place is a must see....amazing food with a great beer and wine menu. We were in heaven with family and friends.

This city square was right outside our hotel and was the perfect spot to let Lily run and play. The farmer's market was there twice while we were there. Typically this square is just filled with people. The day of the storm it was crazy because the city was completely empty.

The beautiful bride.

The happily married couple the day after an amazing wedding with great food, family and friends. Brianna looked stunning and Dermot was a true gentleman. Not a detail was missed and Bri was so calm despite the fact that everything had to be changed because of the weather. Welcome to the family Dermot!

A few adorable moments!

We have had a busy few weeks and with everyday this little girl learns something new. We are having so much fun watching her change daily. The other day she DEMANDED daddy put his "shusss" on her and then she had to stand up in them. She was so proud.

Her absolute favorite past time right now is reading books. She will run up to you, do the sign for "book" to you and point at her books or just bring you a book to read with her on your lap. Colin takes her to the kid's library time weekly and they pick out new books after every session. She has a few favorite books, one of them is "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes," here she is pointing to her toes after I gave her that book. She proceeded to ask for every book on her shelf while she sat on her chair.

Aunt Kalie moved back to MI two weeks ago. What a gift to have most of your aunts and uncles in the same state.

Uncle Dave!

Lily yells "Doggie" and then does the sign for dog every time we see the dog. We are still working on what sound the dog makes. She has become a professional signer. Colin has brought home 2 different signing books and after reading them 1-2 times she had most of the signs down......dog, cat, pig, frog, cow, moon, stars, lights, bath time, toothbrush, quiet, book, duck, and butterfly.

She has recently become very opinionated about what she wants to wear as well. The other day it was 90 degrees outside and in since we don't have AC and she wanted to walk around in her leggings and shoes. We were sweating just looking at her. Her "ha(t)" (silent t) and sunglasses are another outfit favorite.