Lilly has discovered BABY DOLLS!!!

I have been waiting for the baby doll stage since we found out that Lilly was a girl at our 12 week ultrasound... I LOVE baby dolls and pretending to be a mommy... (which is probably why I love BEING a mommy so much!)

 In the last few weeks Lilly has been noticing other children, especially other babies, wherever we go.  She excitedly says, "Baby!" whenever we see other children (even if they are older than Lilly...)

 So the other day when she randomly said "baby?" I said, "Let's go find your baby!" and got out a little baby doll that Lilly's Great-Grandma Iris bought for her first birthday.

 Ever since, she's asked "baby??" every few minutes, and we have to go find Baby wherever she dropped her last :)

 We are still learning how to keep track of Baby, and she gets unceremoniously dropped wherever Lilly happens to be when she is distracted by other things...

 Introducing Baby to Cat ("cat" always said in a whisper)...

 Checking out Baby's face

 Giving Baby a kiss!!

 Well... maybe chewing on Baby's face???

 Greg took these photos when he got home from work (I hadn't gotten home from work yet).  Lilly was just chillin' on the couch with the cat and the remote :)  She loves anything that ISN'T actually a toy...

 notice Baby at her side

 hmm, which button was I looking for??

 and WHY exactly are you taking my photo?? (look at those eyebrows!!)

 Mama's home from work!!  Time to "nur!!" (nurse)

 And say hello to Baby!

 She was asking for my water cup at this point, while I was trying to squeeze her - "wawa!"

 playing with Baby on her head to make her laugh  (look at that SMILE!  I can't get enough!)

 She thought that was funny and wanted Baby to stay on her shoulder.

 aww... hugging Baby - SWEET GIRL!

Oh I just love my sweet girl!  She is so happy and fun and interactive.  She is 14 months on 7/4 (in 2 days!) and can say about 40 words, about 25 of which she uses on a regular basis.  I'm so proud of her communication skills!  And her inquisitive nature.  She is knows what she wants and knows how to ask for it :)  She is constantly in motion, exploring her world, and is not content to sit and just play with regular baby toys... which makes Mama a bit crazy at times, but mostly proud that Lilly is so interested in the world around her!  She constantly keeps her Mama and Dada laughing and amazed at just how her brilliant little mind works.  What a love!

Lilly meets the Atlantic ~ 5/27/12

First day on the beach this year... I wasn't sure how Lilly was going to react to the ocean, but it turns out that she LOVES it!  Given the opportunity, she makes a beeline to the water :)  She has no fear of the waves!  Elisabeth introduced her to wave-jumping :)

I can't resist posting these as well.  She started giggling and laughing as she "jumped" waves with Elisabeth in this next clip... so cute!  I'm so glad she enjoys the beach since I love it so much :) :) :)

Such cuteness, if I do say so myself... :)

Colors

Lilly and I spent a little time playing with her blocks and working on learning colors before I had to go to work for the day.  She wants to talk so much and tries to imitate a lot of what we say.   It's so cute!!  I'm not sure she quite gets which color is which yet, but she sure does like to say them!  Adorable :)

PS more birthday posts coming :)

Happy 1st Birthday Lilly! (part 1)

Hard to believe that a year has passed since Lilly was born.  And what a year it has been!  Greg and I are just so in love with our little girl.  She is just the best thing ever!!  We celebrated her birthday with several parties and events :)  Here are photos from her actual birthday ~ Friday, May 4...

 Birthday candle in her waffle didn't go over so well...

 not sure what to think about this!

 hmm, interesting...

(you can see her rash pretty well in a few of these photos... poor girl got some lovely viral illness the week of her birthday with fever and a full body rash.  she was a trooper but unfortunately we had to postpone her party because of it...)

 Lilly in her birthday outfit!!  And with her toy Lemonade set to go with her party theme :)

 Cutie :)

 Didi (Greg's mom) came over with a gift for Lilly.  :)  And took us out to a birthday lunch with friends!

 Noah and Lilly are too distracted by laughing at each other to look at the camera :)

 so cute together!

 me and my birthday girl :)

with Didi at the restaurant

Greg and I took Lilly out to a local Italian restaurant for her birthday dinner, but didn't take any photos. I can't believe my girl is ONE already!  What a joy and a blessing she is.

(many more photos to come from her various birthday celebrations!)

Best Buddies x 2

Greg got up with Lilly this morning and let me sleep in, since I worked nights this weekend and then all day yesterday... he snapped a few cute pictures of her playing with the kitchen we got her for her birthday.

 Lucy is hanging out with Lilly, of course!  I don't understand why Lucy likes Lilly so much, given that Lilly is anything but gentle with her, but she always wants to sit right next to her!

 Lucy thinks she is smaller than she is... and is trying to fit into the little box that Lilly's pretend veggies came in :)

 Isn't my girl so stinkin' cute??  Her hair is getting long-ish in the back and there is a definite curl... I LOVE it!

Noah came over today to check out Lilly's water table.  They were so cute splashing together!

 Yay!  Water!

 Lilly's toy of the day (she always has one that she carries around with her) was a plastic otoscope from a Fisher Price doctor set :)  Apparently she didn't know how to use it properly, because first she splashed with it in the water table, then she hit Noah over the head with it several times!  Apparently I need to take her to work with me and teach her how to use my equipment... :) ...and also not to hit her best friend!

Lilly's new word of the day was "Noah"!!  She says it quite clearly several times, although it's a little hard to tell in the video because she's walking away from me.  

Sorry for my commentary :)  The sign for water, by the way, is a "w" made with your fingers held up to your chin.  Which seems difficult to teach a child... although the word "water" is pretty hard to say too.  I've been trying to teach Lilly "water" since we are going to the beach in a few weeks.

Aren't they cuties??

hard at play

Lilly was so cute playing yesterday that I couldn't resist taking a photo or two (... or 97...).  I was going to send a few to the grandparents, but couldn't pick which ones... and didn't want to send them like 7 emails with photo attachments, so thought I'd just throw them up on the blog!  Didn't quite get to it last night after she went to bed, though, so I'm posting them today.

Lilly is 11 months old today.  Where did the time go??  It's also her Aunt Emily's 13th birthday!  Happy Birthday Aunt Emily!

She is such a delight, our happy girl!  She has started giving us hugs, and it just melts my heart!

Her hair looks almost red in these photos!  It's not really red, but it is light.  Mine was too, when I was little, so maybe it will darken when she gets older.  Although I always had brown eyes, and hers are blue, so maybe it will stay light?

Everything goes in her mouth :)  She now has 6 teeth and I'm sure will be getting more any day now!

She was so funny putting her legs over the blocks!  Not sure what she was doing, but it was so cute!

Lilly almost always sits with her feet crossed at the ankles.  It's so adorable!

Waving her arms and cheering for herself :)  When she does something that we've been working on, like wave "bye-bye" or sign "all done," she claps for herself!

After ignoring it for a while, she has started enjoying the tunnel and crawls through it frequently.

I know I'm biased, but isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen?!

:)