Hat!

We had many new words over the last week.....hat being one of them. A few others were "chuga, chuga, chuga, chuga"(for a train sound), "its stuck" and as many have already seen "tickle, tickle" (that is what she is saying in the beginning of this clip).I just love how she unnaturally swings her arms at the very beginning of this. She loves to walk around oddly swinging her arms.

Patty Cake

Just a normal day!

Colin's days are filled with playing, library time, eating, cleaning-up, eating again, doing the dishes, doing the grocery shopping, making the dinner, doing the dishes again, playing, distracting Lily from getting into something she shouldn't, distracting Lily from many dramatic break-downs, and cleaning-up again. On this particular day he was doing the dishes, talking on the phone and giving Lily a snack of peas, beans and corn. She was done and was starting to cry and fuss and he was busy talking on the phone not listening to Lily's every word (as she would like him to do every minute) and so he was trying to get her down from the chair and in doing so the tray of food spilled every where. I laughed out loud at the look on her face and her giant tummy just sticking out. Then I saw the picture below........

Priceless!

Petting Zoo

Most nights after I get home from work and we have dinner as a family this is what Lily and I do....we walk down by the water. Stairs are one of her favorite things and so we spend a lot of time going up and down the stairs to the water.

Last weekend we went to Domino's Farms petting zoo. We didn't let Lily pet anything but she loved seeing all the kids and animals. Above pot belly pigs!

Goats!

A hay ride around the pastures with Aunt Megan.

More goats! While we were taking this picture the goat made a very load goat sound and Lily burst into tears. Now when she looks at this picture she whines. How do they remember those things?

Water Park

Today marked the 44th day of above 80 degrees here in MI. So needless to say we have been swimming a lot. We have a great park 10 minutes from our house so of course Lily had to go.

Ok, maybe Colin was the one that had to go and play.

Oh and I may have gone down the water slide 3 times. Aunt Megan came with us but she would kill me if I posted a picture of her in her bikini!

It took her a good 20 minutes to warm-up to the idea but by the end she was walking/crawling and squealing every where she went in the splash park.

WALKING!!!!!

Well I kept saying that I wanted to see Lily walk before starting work and I thought for sure walking was still a few weeks out but my little over achiever proved me wrong. The night before I started work she took her first step....it was definitely not walking but a first step is such a big deal. Then last week I was able to meet Lily and Colin at my parents house for lunch and 1 minute before I arrived she walked 5 steps all on her own. She proceeded to walk a few more times that day but I really missed it so imagine my excitement when on Friday I went to my parents house and I walked through the door and she walked to me from across the room to greet me with the biggest, most proudest and loving smile a mother could ever imagine. It was such a great end to the work week. The video above doesn't capture much but it gives you a small glimpse of how adorable she is whilst toddling around.

Visitors

Many of you know how much I LOVE Howell corn, well as it turns out Lily is loving it too!

Sadly because of the heat and humidity our work-outs are not what they used to be in Oregon. Instead of 6-8 mile runs we are lucky to make 4 miles. So we have been riding our bikes lot. The first week I scored an old free beach cruiser from a garage sale down the street and Colin bought a great mountain bike for $30 so our bike riding has commenced again. Lily absolutely loves it. She points at her helmet and squeals, she loves to put it on and play with the buckle and wear it around the house. We can typically get 10 miles in before she asks to get down. Her vocabulary is changing/growing by the day. Our first day back on the bike she pointed at the bike and said, "buh-pff." Now every time she sees a bike she points and says buh-pff. Not to be confused with boat which is "buh."

It was a nice transition to have Katie and Harper here for our first few weeks of being in Michigan. We were able to see them a few times for lunch and dinner. Grandma Carol even made yogurt popsicles for the kids.

They came over one night with Katie's parents and my parents and we all swam after dinner. The kids were adorable.