Curlers

Lily real enjoys volumizing her hair.

The Ballerina Story

Documentation

This is documentation of probably the only time I've been asleep in the last 6 weeks! (At least that's what it feels like--check out those bags under my eyes!!) But who could ask for a better snuggle partner!

'Rina tutus

The other day the PG library had a preview concert of a local ballet company's production of Labyrinth for the kids.  They told all the little girls to dress up in their tutus and they did a mini ballet class for them afterwards.  Super fun!  Lily LOVED getting dressed up in her 'rina (ballerina) tutu. Could she BE any cuter?!

Fancy Lily

Sunday dinners at the Blakes. I'm not even sure where this outfit came from....

Biker Babe

I've been biking quite a bit these days...ever since my dad was out here and hooked me up for my bday. Lily has always loved the bike rides we take with the trailer and it looks like she's just about ready for a bike of her own!

PJ Party

One of the many nights that Dave has been out of town recently Lily and I had a PJ party. Lily created this pillow fort for herself and her baby. We cuddled up, ordered some pizza and watched a movie (or about a half hour of it that Lily would sit through before bedtime).

Hard working daddy

Whoa. Long time no blog...not much overly exciting has been going on. Nothing really out of the ordinary. So all I have to post are a bunch of pictures of everyday things which I of course think are to die for adorable..but that's just because I think Lily is to die for adorable. Unfortunately, all the pictures for the next few posts come from my iPhone so the quality is pretty bad...c'est la vie.

First, a few weeks ago Lily found a pair of Dave's shoes and his hat and decided to pretend she was her daddy. She put the stuff on and headed out the door saying "I'm daddy and I'm going to work. Love you."

How to really love a child

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I ran across this the other day. It was a good reminder for me. I have found that I am easily distracted from some of these...like just being there. I'm working harder on really 'being there' when Lily and I are having play time, etc. I always have my phone out reading emails and blogs and stuff. I need the constant reminder...children really are miraculous!

Make Up Artist

Lily has taken to doing her own make up while I get ready in the mornings. She wears more than I do!

If you look closely you can see foundation, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, lip stick and green highlighter pen...of course all of that is on the lower half of her face. She doesn't believe in make up on her eyes.

Uncle Geg

Lily loves her Uncle "Geg" and I'm pretty sure he's a bit taken with her as well! They like to do lots of stuff together but I think their favorite is making music together:

The girl loves Elmo

This day Lily decided she wouldn't wear anything but boots and Elmo.

Hat

Lily has recently become a major fan of hats. And because she is particularly imaginative she can turn most of her toys into hats. She's a goof.

The Government Can

I just saw this on a friend's blog and being as grossed out by the government as I am--not to mention the huge Willy Wonka fan that I am-- thought I'd share.

Gettin Settled

Lily has been doing all sorts of exploring in our new place. She found the napkin rings.

And a new cupboard/hiding place.

Bag Lady (TOTW)

Lily does so many cute things these days. She's such a blast to hang with! She LOVES bags...any kind. Purses, grocery bags, garbage cans! She carries them around the house and gathers miscellaneous items in them. Then she leaves the bags in secret places. At the end of the day I love finding the bags full of random surprises!

Attention all other bookworms...

This is just one of those facebook tags. I never do them...but I'm enough of a book nerd I was pretty curious.

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

TOTAL: 36 Well, that's better than the predicted 6 but not as good as I would have hoped! There were quite a few of these that I had started but not finished so I didn't count them.

P.S. I have a couple of good posts in the works. All this moving has been keeping me busy! Can't wait to post pics of our new place!

We found this car in the shed the other day. Lily knew just what to do:

I want one of these so bad!

Got Milk?

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So I've never been a big fan of milk. I just don't like it.  I only use it on cereal and even then I only use skim and just enough to make it moist.  Then I discovered Almond Breeze. I like it. It's not enough to make me crave a tall glass of milk but it IS enough to not make me want to gag.

Now that Lily is turning one she'll be off formula and switching to milk.  The question is...what kind of milk? I am a firm believer that cow's milk is not necessary (all nutrients found in cow's milk can be found other places) nor is it that good for you. So I'm looking into the best milk substitute for a one year old: soy, rice, almond?  I'm leaning towards using rice milk, it seems to have the least negative side effects (allergic reactions, possible hormones, ease of digestion and such). Suggestions?

I guess my main concern is making sure that Lily is getting all the nutrients she needs. Supposedly the main nutrients that one-year-olds get from milk are fat (for brain development) and calcium.  I feel pretty confident that she is/will get enough calcium from other sources--she loves her broccoli. But I guess I'm concerned about where she'll get the right fats, I mean it's brain development! I don't really want to be skimping in that area!  

Do any of you have experience with this? What do you do to make sure kids (from ages 1-3) are getting the right nutrients if drinking milk substitutes?

Of course, I'll be talking to Lily's pediatrician about this but just thought I'd try to get a little input for all you experienced moms! THANKS!