Double shot

I meant to post some of these a couple of weeks ago, but well, you know. I do the best I can.

Anyway, a coupla Mondays ago, I decided Lily and I would have an arts and crafts day.

First up, play doh.




No? I can't eat it?


Next up, window crayons. What a cool thing from Crayola.



The crazy bedhead just adds that special something to her crazy art, no?

Then we moved on to finger painting. We had to make a birthday card for Daddy.


She eyes her work critically.


She's not pleased. Ah, it is hard to be a perfectionist.


Moving on.

A couple of weeks later, we decided to go to the pumpkin festival in Bradenton.


We had planned to meet up with my friend, Carol and her family. This is Camdyn, her amazingly sweet 3-year-old. Cam loved Lily's pigtails.


Ugh, but it was way too hot. Forgive me, but WTF? Too hot for a pumpkin festival? Ugh, what was I thinking when I moved here.


Khan and Lils chilled out with a pink lemonade. Oh, she loved that lemonade.



I was determined to get some kind of fall themed photos for our effort, though. If I could've gotten her to even glance up at me, ah...well, oh well.

Grandpa's visit recap

If you've wondered why I stopped putting up Shutterfly albums (I'm sure you've lain awake at night waiting for more, ha ha), it's because I keep putting more and more up straight on the blog, so there's really not much reason to anymore.

That said, here's a bunch of pictures from Grandpa's weekend visit.

I think Lily thought Grandpa was a great new toy for her to play with. She cautiously approached him, screeched, and ran away over and over --and over-- again. And of course, he loved to play with her, too.


She liked to step on his feet.


And she showed him where his nose is.


In an amazing twist of luck for Grandpa, the weather cooled down considerably for the first time in six insufferable months. Mama and Lily wore matching sweaters.




On Saturday, we went to Ikea and Lowe's to do some stuff around the house. I got a cute little planter for Lily and I to make our own garden. I don't have a good track record, so we'll just have to wait and see how this works out.


At Ikea, Grandpa picked up a little table and chairs for Lily. Lily loves her very own little table.


On Sunday, we went to the aquarium. There was no crowd! It was great. Lily enjoyed the fish.


And she got to touch a real starfish in the touch tank.


But really, everything catches her interest.




On Monday, we went to Busch Gardens. Daddy does his monkey impression by the chimps.


Lily's happy with her mum mums.


We had a great view of the gorillas.


And we watched them while Lily had her milk.


I insisted we ride the carousel.


I think Lily knew she was on one that didn't go up and down. Next time, baby girl.

Lily did not enjoy the giant bug/character/whatever-they-are things in Jungala. I thought she might be drawn to them like she is to Elmo, but not so much. Do you see her nails digging into me? I still have marks. She clutched as tight as she could and she wrapped her little legs around just as tight as she could, too.


Yup, not a fan of those guys.


After a quick lunch, Grandpa thought it would be funny to take a picture of Lily with a beer near her. Ha ha, real funny, Dad.


So she stuck her mac-n-cheese crusted spoon in his beer. That'll teach him.

Baby's first sandbox?

With just a little bit of shame, I bring you Lily's first "sandbox."

Yes, it is just a pile of dirt at the end of my neighbor's driveway.

We don't have real dirt in Florida. Just sand. The engineering on our little road sucks, and there is forever a little pile of sand that flows down from my neighbor's yard and onto the road.

Beyond that intro, these pictures are pretty self-explanatory, no?











Daddy got the sand off her before coming back inside.

"Baby baby baby"

Lily's been chattin' up a storm lately! Most of the time I don't know what the heck she's saying, but she just keeps on babbling away. Yesterday I don't think she stopped talking from waking up until naptime. Her two new favorite words are "baby" and "nose." (/no/)

We started to hear "baby" after she got a new baby doll. We went to Target Saturday, and we stopped in the toys section. I picked up a cheap little baby doll to see what she thought of it. Well, she loved it. She carried it all through the store. Yesterday, she started carrying it around the house with a little blanket saying "baby baby baby baby." Once she laid it on her music table and said "nigh nigh." Cute!

Her other new favorite word is "no" for "nose." Ask her "where is Mama's nose," and she'll point to Mama's nose and say "no." Ask her "where is Lily's nose," and she'll point to her own nose and giggle. Also cute!

Oh! That reminds me. She almost never says "mama." She says "Dada dada dada" all.the.time, but never ever "mama." I say, "mama mama mama." She looks at me and says "dada dada dada." I say "Where's Daddy," and she starts looking for Daddy saying "dada dada dada." I say "Where's Mama," and she just stares at me. Boo.

But it was cute when I was folding laundry and she picked up daddy's tee shirts and said "dada dada dada."

Our little explorer

Part of me wants to hold her back, but I know better. She wants to see the world. Lately she's been so excited to go out and about, so we're going with it.

She looooves to go for walks now, so we go for a walk before or after dinner almost every night. Usually we stick around home, but occasionally we try to find a more interesting place.





This last weekend, it got miserably hot again outside, and so we went to the play area at the mall. For the longest time, she just stood there watching the other kids and taking in all the stuff to see.







Then she started to get a little more hands-on. Her favorite thing was this little tunnel to climb under. Actually, I think it's a giant baseball glove. Anyway, I swear I tried to give her some distance and let her do her thing.


But the older kids are crazy. Yes, I know that's my future, but for now, they're crazy, reckless kids whose parents are clearly negligent. (And no, I won't be so negligent because I will be the perfect parent of an older child. I can make that claim so easily right now, and I'm stickin' to it.) But seriously, the older kids were jumping off the top of the glove, and I don't expect them not to, but I also don't expect them to watch for babies crawling out below, either.


So I hovered and we found something else to play on. Yes, I'm a helicopter.