Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Happy First Birthday, Jake & Lilly!

Jake and Lilly had so much fun at their birthday party this past weekend. My friend Shanna made these adorable shirts to match the "owl" party theme.

This is Jake's owl cake. We had to cut it and eat it fast before all the frosting melted off, thanks to the July heat!
This owl had a blue bow just like the bow in Lilly's hair!
Plenty of cupcakes for all! (Thanks to Auntie Bri for decorating them!)
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday, Jake & Lilly,
Happy Birthday to you!
Yummmmmmm! This is delicious!
A new hat for Jake....
A baby doll for Lilly....
Farm animals, sea animals, bubbles and more!
Uncle Dave & Jake with Poppy & Lilly
Grammy, Jake & Cody
Noni, Poppy & Lilly
Lilly wants to walk everywhere now that she's a big girl!

We had such a fun time with friends and family! After cake and presents we all cooled off in the pool! Some of us even rode the paddle boats and canoes. Both kids were exhausted by the time we got back in the car to head home!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

One Year!

It is so hard to believe that our two little ones are one! What a whirlwind this first year has been! And I am sure that this next year will fly by even faster!

Jake and Lilly had an exciting birthday this past Friday, and got to spend lots of time with family over the weekend.

These are some of Jake and Lilly's first year pictures. Birthday party pictures are coming.....

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Best Swimming Pool Ever

This Memorial Day Weekend we took Jake and Lilly swimming. They had a blast splashing in the kiddie pool! Lilly was determined to get her whole head under the water, while Jake was a little more reserved. My parents (Noni and Poppy to Jake and Lilly) were in town for the weekend. My mom saw how much fun they had in the pool that she had to buy them their very own pool for our house so they could splash around all summer long. We found the perfect sized pool for both of these water loving kids… and the best part… it came with over 50 brightly colored plastic balls!! Now the kids can enjoy playing inside and outside! It’s funny how much entertainment they got out of a $12 blow-up pool! In their opinion, it is the very best swimming pool ever!!


Having a blast throwing the balls inside...."Mmmmmmm....tasty!"

"Brrrrr....this water's a bit chilly!"


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Walking and Talking

Walking and talking…that’s Lilly these days. She is on her way to walking since she took her first step a couple days ago. She catches herself by surprise when she realizes she is standing up without any assistance. Often, when she is balancing her weight and standing up, she’ll start clapping, so excited with herself. Of course, her enthusiastic clapping usually causes her to fall down! Her little vocabulary now consists of the basics: Mama, Dada, bye-bye,….. and dog. She is obsessed with dogs… if she finds a picture of a dog in one of her books, she pets it just like she learned to pet Hemi a couple weeks ago. She also loves to kiss the dog, getting the pages of her book all slobbery!

Speaking of kissing, that’s Jake favorite thing to do lately. We have caught him a few times kissing Lilly while they are playing. It is the cutest thing ever! I even got lucky enough to record one of his “smooch episodes.” Of course, I had to send it to the whole family! What everybody doesn’t know is that right after I stopped recording, the sweet little boy who was kissing his sister started pulling her hair…hard!! Needless to say, she was soon in tears and the moment had passed!

We are enjoying having Great-Grandma here. Both kids are not going to know what hit them when she leaves. They adore her! I also love having an extra pair of hands to help out. We are trying to take more pictures of her with the kids during this visit since the last time she was here (for six weeks in the fall) we only took one!!! But those were the early days… life has gotten sooooo much easier now that Jake and Lilly are older. We have a very nice routine that works out great for the whole family.



Here are a couple shots of Grandma with both kids. They love rocking in their rocking chairs! Except they both want to rock at the same time!


Lilly loves to rock on her own, and then when she decides she's had enough, she just puts her arms out and lunges forward. Whoever is near, better be ready to catch her because here she comes!

Jake is always making funny faces! I have a hard time capturing them, though, because of his fascination with the camera! I'm not sure what is going on in his little brain right here, but he looks like he is thinking hard!


Lilly loves brushes.... hair brushes, toothbrushes, etc.

And Jake loves hair bows.... Lilly's hair bows, that is! This one lasted only 10 minutes in her hair! If she's not pulling them out, he is!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Happy 90th Birthday, Great-Grandma!

This past weekend we celebrated Jake and Lilly’s Great-Grandma’s 90th birthday. (Great-GrandPop turned 91 the day before!) My mother-in-law helped us surprise her with a beautiful photo quilt. She loved it!


Of course there was plenty of time to play with Poppy, Noni, Uncle Dave and Auntie Bri and Uncle Jay. Even Jake and Lilly’s other Great-Grandma from New Jersey was there to celebrate with us!









Both kids discovered Hemi, Noni and Poppy’s rat terrier! They loved crawling after her, chasing her around the house. I have never seen that dog run away so fast! She literally spent the whole first day hiding in my parent’s bedroom. By the end of our stay, Hemi would tolerate the kids petting her, but she was still not so sure about them invading her territory.


Monday, May 9, 2011

Every Day Is An Adventure

Never a dull moment in this house, as we now have two extremely curious and very mobile babies! Things we love: windows, blinds, stairs, doors, and everything we are NOT supposed to be playing with! Here are some pictures of them exploring new territory.

Lilly loves looking out the window! We have a bunch of low window sills that are right at her level!


Both Lilly and Jake are intrigued with the stairs. They can both climb up onto the first step, and Jake even surprised us by climbing up about 10 stairs last week. He is still learning how to come down once he's climbed up as far as he wants to go!


Whenever Jake or Lilly come across a door that is open, they think it must be shut immediately. I bet "closed" will be one of their very first words!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

New Teeth

I can't believe that Lilly and Jake are already nine months old! Each time I look at them lately, I can't help but thinking how much they are turning into little people.

Both are crawling, standing up on every piece of furniture in sight, getting into kitchen cabinets, stealing each other toys, and talking to each other non-stop. They love to play peek-a-boo with each other, too!

Jake now has a pair of top teeth and a pair of bottom teeth, while Lilly has two bottom teeth and four top teeth! To celebrate, we bought toothbrushes last week. They love brushing their new teeth!