Pincer Grip

Lily is starting to perfect her pincer grip to feed herself.
She is able to do blueberries and avocado and puffs. She
of course loves the puffs the best and when they are all
gone and she is left with just fruit she wines for more puffs.
She knows what she wants!

So sweet

I apologize for such a long delay in pictures we have had a hectic week here but we are glad that it is the weekend so without further ado.......

One of the best things about shopping for a baby girl is the opportunity to buy such cute leggings and tights.....it may be a small problem of mine.

We got the chance to get the kids together last Sunday. It is so much fun to see the difference between the two of them. Harper is a mover and a shaker as he is seconds away from crawling and Lily is very detail oriented with her toys, she figures out how everything works and moves. They are so perfect.

The one thing in common of course is everything goes in their mouth!

Tall enough to stand and see out the window. Thank you Carol for the adorable dress. (And yes the windows did get cleaned that day, those are all of Chevy's nose marks where he touches the cold window with his nose and fog and condensation follow.)

Loving her grandparents, aunts and uncles!

Aunt Bri

Playing with Poppy

Grandma

Grandma and Grandpa and a very tired Bean

Grandpa

Aunt Megan on a very chilly day showing Lillian around Ann Arbor.

The Simpson Family and Great Grandma (to Lillian) Lillie Bell.

Aunt Bri and Marmi

Uncle Dave

8 months old

While in Michigan Lily had her 8 month birthday. (We went snow shoeing that day.) It was so wonderful to spend the whole week with her. She changed so much in this week and I know many of you got to see the changes but for those that didn't: she has started reaching out for us when she wants to be in our arms; she is constantly blabbering 'dadadadada, babababa, cacacaca;' all she wants to do it stand and jump and all we do it keep her balanced and she is able to get up from her bottom to a full standing position with a hand behind her back.

As every parent does, we talk about what she will be when she grows up. This week we think she is going to be an engineer like her grandpa and aunt Kalie because she picks everything up, turns it, examines it and places the items in the most peculiar places with almost a bit of thoughtful purpose. I wish I had a picture to show you but for now you will just have to trust me.

She loves to stand at the couch and play with her toys on top of the couch.

At my parents house we lost tens of minutes watching all of the wildlife. Here she is watching the turkeys in the woods (there are 5 in this picture in the woods). My mom has bird feeders along the back of the house and she would just watch all of the birds. She also saw 4 deer for the first time.

Michigan

We had a great time in Michigan. We enjoyed the snow as much as we could. With temperatures at a low of 11 degrees and a high of 24 degrees daily we could not get out in the snow as much as we would have liked. It did snow much of our visit though and Lily loved it.

The Nye family.

The Simpson family out snow shoeing.

All bundled up in her chariot, ready to snow shoe! She lasted maybe 20 minutes and the Colin and I carried her the rest of the way.

The chariot and the reindeer.

With many long car rides she handled everything like a champ! The first plane ride required that we get up at 3 am to leave the house by 3:50 am. She did manage to cry through most of that day, so as Kalie said, we did not make any new friends on those plane rides. The total travel time was 14 hours that day because there was a mini snow storm in MI when we arrived and it took us forever to drive to Howell. We woke up early the next morning and after breakfast we drove 3.5 hours to Gaylord. We all loved our time in Gaylord and we were sad to leave. We headed back down to Howell (3.5 hour drive) and spent the remainder of our trip there. We all got pretty sick so she had a much harder time in Howell. Lily never adjusted to sleeping in 2 different places so we were up every 1-2 hours throughout the entire trip hence not beating this cold. Our trip back to Oregon went much better than the trip to MI - a few highlights of course: minutes after take-off on the first flight Lily filled a giant stinky diaper. We all had to sit in the stench until the captain turned the seat belt sign off and then we had to wake the lady next to us so that we could get out of the aisle to go change her in the bathroom. She jumped and bounced most of the 2 flights. There was about 40 minutes total that she cried because she was too tired to fall asleep.....honestly not too bad in my opinion. We arrived home late Sunday night, Lily fell asleep in her crib in less than 30 seconds. Roxie was still at her friend Zoola's house and so Chevy yowled ALL night and morning long because Roxy was missing. Roxy came home this morning and Chev is finally happy. Lily is feeling much better and could not be happier to be home as for Colin and I we have to worst cold we have had in years. It was all worth it though so thanks to everyone back home who made so many sacrifices to see us, feed us and visit with us. Many more great pictures to come.

Bouncing

NYE 2010

Lillian rocked New Years Eve in her sweater dress and festive headband.
Many of her friends were present and she had a great time. Happy New Year to all! We have much to be thankful for and we counted our blessings this weekend.

The three not-so-baby, babies (Harper, Lily, Quinn).

NYE was filled with good friends, great food, good drinks and well behaved kids! (Front Left to Right Geoff, Katie, Harper, Adrienne, Rosabel, Mikey; Back Colin, Lily, Julie, Celeste, Quinn, Brandon, Beck)

We were lucky to get this very interesting but typical kid picture, of course no one looked at the camera at the same time. What would have been a better and funnier shot was what was going on on the adult side of the room. Next time I will try and capture that.

After rockin' in the New Year Lily watched the Spartans get their tails whipped and then
she road tripped it to meet her new Cousin Dreigha (2 months old in this picture) and visit her cousin who was in Portland for a few days. It was a short but sweet trip. Welcome to the family Dre.

Playing with her new toy Santa brought her....Rody the donkey. This was the first of many recorded toy purchases that stemmed from my own childhood fantasies. I some how remember dreams of the giant red balls with a handle on top and bouncing around Toys R Us on them (or maybe it was an old commercial). I always wanted one and was never aloud to get one. So the second we saw a similar idea at a friends house I new Lily needed one. I will admit Rody is weight tested to 300# so I may have bounced around the house on Rody a few more times than Lily has but Rody will grow with her over the years and she will not have to just dream of hopping around on a giant ball, she will actually be able to bounce. Bounce Lily, bounce!