Pippin's Big Night

One of the things I'm trying to make more of an effort on this year is getting out of the house more - withOUT Lilli. There really are a lot of friends around here that I'd trust watching her, but sometimes you just feel bad asking, or it can almost not be worth the trouble at times, etc. But, there's not very many people I'd feel comfortable with putting her to bed at night. She's actually really great about going to sleep - about 97% of the time she's out within 5 minutes after her bottle - but I would still worry about someone who really doesn't have a little one trying to put her to bed and how that might turn out poorly!

Several of her teachers had said they'd be more than happy to come over and watch her, which is so nice of them. Probably her favorite teacher is "Miss Shannon", and Miss Shannon just loves her right back! She was her teacher for about 6-7 months in the class Lilli just moved up from, and she was PERFECT for coming over and watching Lilli so we could go out on our triple-date with some friends. Of course when she showed up Pippin lost his mind - as usual. I'd guarantee he thought Shannon was here to play with him. He did his usual array of pain-in-the-rear jumping all over her while I showed her around, and when we left he was still pretty wild. We were never worried about Lilli....Pippin can generally be more of the pain around here with visitors.

We met two other couples at Urban Flats, over in the Gulch. We've done stuff with both of them with Lilli, but it can always be a little difficult when her attention span gives out and one of us always has to have an eye on her so she doesn't eat crayons, etc. So it was VERY nice to get to have uninterrupted conversation and have a full meal from appetizers to desserts and not worry that anyone would get fussy! The food was great - it's all flatbreads (thin style pizzas) and we ordered lots of things to share so we could try more. I'd highly recommend it - it was super busy and if we hadn't made reservations beforehand we would've been totally out of luck. Even their desserts were flatbreads - we got a smores one that was DELICIOUS! But I totally forgot to take any pictures of the restaurant or the food because we were having so much fun!

Here's Keaton and her boyfriend Eric - we've actually known him a lot longer than her. We know his sister through our neighborhood's art scene, so when we ended up meeting Keaton in our Sunday School class it was a weird "7 degrees of separation" situation! He's been in the Whiskerino beard growing contest that Brent was in back in 2007 (and he was also in it back then.)

Me and JuliaBrent and Eric looking sweet.....
Adam and Julia
We had a great time and when we got home about 10:30 Lilli was sound asleep in her crib, Pippin was asleep on the couch, and Shannon was curled up reading a book. All was well and she said Pippin calmed down right after we left and she promised us both the kids were well behaved. Lilli went to sleep easily and had a great time playing with her favorite teacher.

Like every other Sunday we tried to get some cute pictures of Lilli dressed up. Most pictures these days look like this - with her just trucking on and right out of the room....
A semi good shot....
I bought her some little bracelets and necklaces in the Easter $1 section today at the grocery store and she had the best time playing with them.
Me being artsy.....
She'd put the bracelet on and then right back off...

Pippin was running around and playing in her room. I was able to channel my inner-Brent and get Pippin in focus and Lilli blurred. I love the annoyed look he's giving her! Right after this he ran out and she chased him down the hall. She has spent most of today terrorizing him as much as possible!
We've had a great and insanely fast weekend. I'm already ready for another one - even though this upcoming one is even more packed than this past one! I think we need a vacation from our busy lives!!!

Friday Night Out: The Local Taco

I'm pretty sure when Lilli starts piecing together phrases and words it's going to be in Spanish considering how often we eat Mexican Style Food. And tonight was no exception.

Earlier this week Groupon had an offer for The Local Taco and since it was fairly close to us (it's just over in Sylvan Park) I decided to be one of 2,256 Nashvillians who bought a certificate for $30 worth of food for $15. Not a bad deal at all. And when we couldn't come up with anywhere we really wanted to eat tonight we decided to go ahead and use our Groupon, along with pretty much all of Nashville. (They usually don't expire for anywhere from 6 months to 1 year.)

I can't believe we didn't take any pictures of the outside! I think we were a little off our game tonight! It was over in the neighborhood with several of Sylvan Park's popular little trendy restaurants and we were really lucky to even score a parking spot. Then we were even luckier to score a table, much less one in the back where Lilli wouldn't get run over because this place is TIGHT. You order at the register and then they bring the food to your table, so it's a little fast food-y mixed with restaurant-ism. Their stuff is really reasonably priced and we got 3 tacos each, some cheese dip, a side and a Kids meal for Lilli (quesadilla + rice, of course!)
We were pretty flustered at first - totally confused about how it works, it's kind of noisy, and was very crowded. And none of their high chairs were operational - the safety strap was broken on ALL of them. And what's even worse is they knew it and the lady behind the register said something along the lines of "yeah, the kids keep breaking them" to Brent. Um, that's kind of a problem because even WITH the strap it can be next to impossible to keep Lilli from trying to climb out! We go to a lot of restaurants and have never seen this type of problem so I'd say they need to invest in a better brand of seats! Anyway, we had her portable seat in our car so Brent ran back out and got it. No biggie.

She's about to turn into a blueberry any day now, so as we waited for our food she ate blueberries and Goldfish. Then when our food arrived her rice had lots of tomatoes on top so I thought I'd see if she'd eat them and she actually loved them, so I think that's a new food to keep rotating in!
Brent's tacos. They were all stuffed full! I had spicy shrimp (my fave), tequila lime chicken (not very good) and fish (just ok). Brent got a carnitas (type of pork - his fave), southern fried chicken, and buffalo chicken (I tried this one and it was AWESOME, I would get it next time!)
Lilli is trying to keep Daddy away from her dinner!
Get your mitts off my quesadilla!
Aaaah! I love it when Mommy doesn't have to cook!
Anyway, once we got past the initial inconvenience and confusion it was a pretty good place. And you could actually eat there really cheap - since we had $30 of credit we ordered a lot (you have to spend it in one visit) but we could've eaten for much cheaper. We got there around 6 and got the next to last table, but by the time we left a little after 7 the line was literally out the door and people were standing around stalking tables so they'd have somewhere to sit! It was pretty nuts, and if we had gotten there much later we would've skipped it and come back some other time.

So maybe next Friday night we'll have to show Lilli what American food looks like!

Tomorrow night is a big night - we have a babysitter hired and we're going out with a couple of other couples. We've never had someone else put Lilli to bed for the night (or watch her here with wild man Pippin), so we're hoping it goes well! One of her favorite teachers is coming over, so I know if anyone can handle it Shannon can!!!! However I don't totally know her feelings on crazy dogs.....

Story Time at the Library

We finally made it back to story time at the library for their monthly Bedtime Storytime. The last time we were able to make it was back in November. In December we had a sick Lilli, dealing with her ear infection and series of colds, and in January Brent was working late the night of storytime. But finally we were back!

We got there right on time after a quick dinner of potato soup and grilled cheese (Lilli loved the soup!). The librarian who led storytime last time retired right after the one we went to, and was replaced by a new guy. He was really friendly but just didn't have as much going on as the older lady did (she had lots of hand-outs and flannel things on a board). There were only two other families there, and just 6 kids including Lilli this time. Last time the room was PACKED.

At first she was really shy and just sat in Brent's lap taking everything in (fine with us!). We started off with some stretches and songs, and then he read a fairly long story about bedtime.
By the end of the first story she was starting to feel more lively, and during the second set of songs she started feeling a LOT more comfortable and even got up to do a dance solo in the middle of Thumbkin. And then he read a second story about bedtime to the kiddos.
At Thanksgiving we made a cute craft but this time we just had coloring. Lilli was pretty excited about having multiple crayons since she only gets one at school and we usually only give her one at home, too!
She also got milk and cookies while they colored before we did one last little group exercise to end story time. Afterwards we went over to the Kids section to let her pick out some books. She was way more interested in all the cute stuff for the kids and immediately found a little chair she thought was comfortable.
Then she trucked around to find the perfect book.
But got sidetracked again by the puzzles....
She ended up picking out a few books and we got home just in time to give her a bath and get her down for her normal 8pm lights out. Even though this story time wasn't quite as good as last time I'm sure we'll go back! There's very few evening storytimes around town, so it's nice that our local library gives us that option.

Snow Day Re-wind

These are from a couple of weeks ago (Feb 15th) when Lilli had a snow day. There really was not enough snow for school to be canceled, but there's not a lot we can do about that! Mod-morning we bundled up and went out to play. Lilli just went back and forth up and down the sidewalk.About the only thing she could think of to do was wipe the snow off the lights. Then she figured out she could take the snow off her "glove" (a sock) and wipe it on Pippin. He wasn't a huge fan of this fun game.
She's still a huge fan of Pippin and always wants to make sure he has a toy.

She wants to sit in his chair ALL the time and has pretty much run him out of it! And she can almost climb up in it herself....I guess I wore her out pretty good that day! This is how I found her when we went to wake her up from her afternoon nap. She puts herself to sleep for naps and will sometimes play for a while before she goes to sleep. I think she had quite the busy naptime that day!Hopefully that will be our last snow day this year! It's been so cold here again today and there were also a lot of snow flurries. At lunch I went consignment shopping with some coworkers and the flurries were heavy the whole time. We got lots of great deals and I got a ton of summer clothes for Lilli at amazing prices! There's a lot more sales coming up the next few weeks we're all looking forward to so hopefully I can get a nice summer wardrobe built for her soon.

Playtime Pointing

Lilli is big on pointing. At first it was more random, just pointing at everything all the time. Now she is actively trying to communicate, all the time. Sometimes I'm amazed how much she understands, even though she can't answer back with the same level of words. She knows where her bellybutton, nose and shoes are if you ask. Over the weekend after she got up from her nap I asked her if she wanted milk and told her to head towards the kitchen to get some. She walked all the way down the hallway and to the fridge then waited for me to get her sippy cup out (I let her lead the way to see if she understood me.)

So on this particular night last week there was something she REALLY wanted on her bookcase, that she couldn't reach. If you can see the state of her toys you can see the level of my perplexity. Girlie has some toys. (Very few of which I have bought - between gifts, hand me downs and samples from work I really don't need to buy any!)
I thought she wanted to play in her tutu. Clearly she did not.
We tried my Memphis pom-poms.
That worked for a little while. (And reminded me of this photoshoot!)But there was still something she was wanting.....
We ended up coloring for a while, and she helped me finish up the rest of her thank-yous for the little kiddos who brought her presents to her party. I never really figured out what she wanted that night, but we did have fun playing and got down pretty much every single toy! It will be so nice when she can just tell me what she wants.

I think she still had a great time, and probably her favorite part was just using me as a chair. If it's not moving fast enough she will sit on it! Sitting (for short periods of time...) is her favorite.
(And yes, I do pretty much wear pajama pants in every evening picture! It's the only way to keep sticky snack hands off my nice dry clean only work pants in the evening. She's gotten me with cookie hands one too many times so as soon as I get home I throw them on and change if we end go out. Works out perfectly because tonight she got me with spaghetti hands on both my shirt and pants!!!)

Spring-y Sunday

The weather today in Nashville was BEAUTIFUL! Upper/Mid 60's and nice and sunny through most of the earlier part of the day before it started getting cloudy later on.

After we got home from church/grocery shopping we took Lilli outside for our weekly Sunday "what did Lilli wear to church" photo shoot. Today it was a cute little babyGap dress I bought used off a co-worker paired with a black turtleneck and black leggings. She didn't wear these shoes though (we changed her out of her shoes because they're just a little big and kept falling off.)
She is high on blowing kisses these days. That's how they say good-bye to their "friends" each day at school. And when we dropped her off at Sunday school this morning we blew her a kiss good-bye. Her teachers said she blew kisses ALL throughout the lesson (however I say there are a LOT worse things she could've been doing!)

She highly enjoyed my long necklace today.
While I finished putting up the groceries Brent threw some steaks on the grill and Lilli in her swing. She's grown a lot since July when we'd had it about a month!
She still loves it! Poor thing points at it every afternoon when we get home. There's been a few frigid days she looked so sad I thought about putting her in it for a minute.
Wheeeee!
I was watching them from the laundry window and the whole cherry tree was shaking. She was loving it!
After lunch we took her to the park. This side of Shelby near the dog park has a nice, smooth turf she can easily walk on. Sunday afternoons she is always SO tired that she really didn't enjoy it much and just wanted to people watch. She was watching this girl on a round thing you run on. This little girl was very social and wanted to know if Lilli was a boy or a girl and she put on quite the show for her. This is Lilli blowing her a kiss and the little girl absolutely eating it up!
The little playground was PACKED and the two infant swings were taken so we had to share a big swing. She was sooo tired by this point she just wasn't even interested in swinging much.
Before we left we took her over to the dog park (which was SO packed!) to watch the dogs. As soon as she saw where we were headed she started squealing. She loves to watch them play.
We don't take her in there, just let her watch over the fence. She just holds on, watches and screams (in glee) if one comes running by her.
Within a few minutes she had put her sleepy little head down on the fence, so we left and brought her home for a nap. She is taking some colossal naps lately - I pretty much usually have to wake her up at certain time. She slept from about 2:30 until 4:30 when I woke her up!
For dinner we headed to the new Chipotle's on West End. It's fairly new and the only ones in the state are here (I guess there's another one in Green Hills somewhere now.) We'd been in Cincinnati with Bruce YEARS ago, but Mexican is our fave so we gave it a whirl tonight.
We decided we'll stick with Blue Coast as our fave burrito joint. Chipotle's was just sort of "hot" with no real flavor. But, their kids menu quesadilla was only $1 so that was a big win, and you can have it made with whatever so we had lots of veggies put in it. And their guacamole was delicious. Lilli had a great time (as always) flirting with anyone sitting around us and Brent and I just felt old. It's right by the Vandy campus so everyone in there was soooo young!

And a video.... this is on our way to dinner (so it's kind of bouncy and a little dark). This is a great video of her 3 favorite "tricks" currently. About 40 seconds in she swaps to trick #2 (fake coughing anytime she hears someone else cough) and then trick #3 (fake sneezing) isn't too far behind.