Little Helper

I have a little helper in everything I do!When I was Windexing off our window drawings she wanted her own paper towel and had so much fun helping clean. Then she was all about helping me sweep and clean the kitchen floor.Yesterday instead of battling around with her after work I decided to let her "help" me fix dinner. I got her a plastic fork, her own cutting board and a potato. She couldn't have been happier! (Potatoes weren't even on the menu, but they were great for her to play with and not easily bruised.)Of course she was a lot more interested in the garlic and onion I was chopping for dinner, but that's fine! We worked "together" and had all the veggies chopped before Brent was even home.
Pippin was even mesmerized by us preparing dinner on the floor, ha!
Tonight we had another great and healthy dinner - homemade chicken enchiladas! So good and she loved it! The enchiladas were made with (fat free) refried beans, green chiles, and salsa, with cheese sprinkled on top. Much lower in fat and calories than a lot of enchilada recipes. We had black beans and rice on the side and Lilli gobbled it all up. Some days I think she has a better palate than a lot of picky adults we know.

Daddy Date

Last night I made plans to go out with my good friend Julia for a nice little "Girls Night Out". We met after she got off work at Suzy Wong's (where Brent, Lil and I had already eaten back in April). We had a great dinner out on their mega-relaxing patio and just enjoyed some nice, uninterrupted girl talk! Just what I needed to recharge my batteries!

So, with me out of the way it was just Lilli and Brent for the evening. First he made her do some chores, a girl's gotta earn her keep!
He prepared a nice dinner for them - chili dogs! It had 3 of Lil's favorite things covered - chili, hot dogs and cheese! She's not a big bun fan, so she eats her chili dogs "deconstructed", like any fine restaurant would serve it.He gave her a special dinner treat - he pulled her high chair in the living room and turned on Bee Movie. Normally her TV attention span is right around 12 minutes, probably in large part because we don't really watch much TV in front of her. He said she watched most of the entire movie, I think she was mesmerized by the great graphics and all the animals, and plus it was a special treat to get to see a movie!

Mmmm, chili! She's doing great feeding herself with utensils. Tonight we had spaghetti and she stuck with her fork most of the time.
And they even finished dinner with a "deconstructed" Oreo, our treat of late.
They capped off the evening with a little dancing (which we also did tonight - it works up a great little sweat and burns off the evening Oreo!) and when I got home she was sound asleep (with her pants on this time), the kitchen was clean and lunches were packed for the next day.

What more could a girl ask for?

Baby Vader

Several years ago we bought a Darth Vader sprinkler on clearance for just a couple of bucks at Target. Ever since then it's been in our attic (probably about 5 years). We were looking for some ways to stay cool Saturday afternoon so we got the sprinkler out for Lilli. She saw it as soon as we walked outside and was instantly interested.It's really a super pitiful sprinkler, it hardly sprays any kind of distance, and the King of Darkness doesn't even go around in a full circle.
But it is PERFECT for Lilli. Our regular sprinkler sprays just a little too hard, so she can really get into this one and attack good ole Darth. Good versus Evil in our back yard, and it looks like Lilli had the upper hand!

She had a blast playing around and splashing in it.


It probably kept her occupied a solid half an hour, which is eternity in toddler time!

Stormy Nights

The last few days have been full of the little summertime thunderstorms that come out of nowhere. Two days last week after work it was raining in downtown, but nothing at our house 3 miles away from work! And the last two nights it would cloud up and thunder, and then just completely miss us. So this morning I had to break down and put the sprinkler out, and it ended up running a little longer than I would've liked after I got distracted with Lilli. And then naturally about an hour after I ran the sprinkler we got a little bit of rain. Then tonight after we got home from dinner we got a HUGE storm. I had gone out in the yard to do some weeding and work in my garden and the sky got dark very quickly. I wasn't done with my work, but Brent had the banister he'd been working on drying out on the deck so I ran in to tell him a storm once again **might** be coming. By the time he got his tools in and I went back outside with Pippin to finish cutting back my herbs the storm was HERE! We stayed outside just a minute longer and then both ended up running for the house when the lightning was getting right on top of us.

BOOM!
This super-cell thing popped out of nowhere and it was really quite the storm. We had lightning pretty solidly for over an hour, which delayed us giving Lilli her bath and getting her to bed. The news people said in a 5 minute amount of time it went from 15 lightning strikes per minute to the 675 you see above. Brent had to run out to the garage for something later and the rain had come so quickly that water had pooled in front of the garage and wasn't too far from starting to flood it, the way it did during the Flood back in May. We were able to turn off our electronics, but it did knock our network off for a while (even though we do have surge protectors EVERYWHERE. We have learned that lesson the hard way.) Hopefully tomorrow we won't see any storm damage or downed limbs in our yard!

During the strongest of the lightning we were huddled down in the kitchen floor - and my lap was THE place to be.Pippin HATES storms - he followed me all around the house while I was hanging up laundry while the lightning was still strong. And Lilli was a bit unsure of this one too (there were a few times I screamed which probably didn't help....). It's a good thing they can both fit because NO ONE was going to give up their spot tonight!

The Free Zoo

Tonight for dinner we went out for Mexican food at my favorite (Las Palmas on Franklin Pike). It was super crowded but everything was really good, as usual. They sat us in the same seat where they always group together people with kiddos. It's kind of comical how much we notice that they always put us around other babies/toddlers. Lilli was great - waving and saying Hi to everyone and ate most of her quesadilla, rice and beans. She loooves Mexican food. They seated a family with two twin babies next to us, they were probably 5 or 6 months old, and they also had a toddler probably not too much older than Lilli. I can't imagine! Lilli was infatuated with one of the babies and kept trying to offer him quesadilla. And wouldn't you know the kids were well behaved until the second they got their food and then everyone was crying? I was pretty happy to not be them tonight, and not be outnumbered. Afterwards we went across the street (kind of) to Petsmart. Petsmart is awesome, it's like the free zoo. Lots of animals, no crowds, no sun/rain/wind. Lilli loves it.Her biggest draw is the birds. She loves birds and loves to watch them fly around. She'll blow them kisses, wave and just squeal when they fly around. She could watch them all day.
The mice were also pretty popular tonight too. They would run up to the glass so she really liked that.
She even loves just running around the aisles there, and it's usually not crowded so she can just roam. She likes looking at all the packaging because most of it has animals on it. And she loves looking at a lot of the dog/cat toys because they're all similar to stuff Pippin has.
I taught her how to spook the fish and make them swim off, and she just loved that.


Of course a big fit was thrown when we left, so we had to tell all the animals good-bye and head home. But visits to Petsmart are high on my list of things to do during this insanely hot summer!

More Father's Day

I haven't had a chance to say anything about Father's Day other than post a couple of pics in her cute outfit! I surprised Brent with it on Sunday, he always gets her dressed so I had laid it out with the shirt turned around where he couldn't read it. I had designed it with the seamstress I've bought several of Lilli's outfits from (St Patty Skirt and Easter Skirt) off of Etsy. I was having trouble finding anything cute in her size that said I Love Dad, so I thought of her and described what all I wanted as well as fabrics, style, colors, etc and it turned out EXACTLY PERFECT! She's so great and I am usually pretty last minute but she always gets it done and has such attention to detail! I just love it so much!

However getting her to pose in it is no easy task. Especially since she feels like it's a great mowing outfit.She did enjoy helping Brent open his card! He was super excited about his new pepper grinder and book to share with Lilli!
We drove down to Brent's grandparents house and she had a big time playing peek-a-boo with her grandparents. She loves to "scare" you these days and jump out and say "Boo!". It's pretty cute but not a bit scary!

That's it for tonight! Lilli went to bed a half an hour early so I think we might watch some TV. What's that?!?!?!

So Thoughtful

Lilli is so thoughtful. She is always leaving things for her brother in his bed. Yesterday she left this entire bag of tortilla chips that he couldn't figure out how to work around. Today she left him a smaller bag of Goldfish that he couldn't figure out how to open. It is infinitely easier to get Pippin to pose for the camera these days than Lilli.
She also helped me with some sweeping last night. What a good little helper!She's all about the fresh foods....something about peppers just attract this kid. Every time the freezer door is open she jumps in there, grabs a pepper, take a bite, melts down because (duh) it's not good. She also likes sucking on fresh lemons in the fridge, and the other day had to be stopped from taking a bite of fresh onion. (Our onions lately have been POTENT.) Speaking of fresh foods, we're looking into joining a local CSA - where you pay upfront for a seasons worth of fresh veggies, and each week (or every other week) pick up a box of your goodies. The upside is eating healthier, fresher, and locally grown organic foods that you KNOW where they came from! And I'm pretty sure when I get a chance to watch Food Inc and Jamie Oliver's show I will be even more convicted! Tonight on our way home Lilli and I stopped at our weekly neighborhood farmers market to ask some questions. I just have to crunch some numbers and see if we'd want every week or every other week. The boxes this week looked great - potatoes, Broccoli, lettuce, squash, eggplant, zucchini, corn and lots of other stuff. I really want us to be even more focused on eating healthy and raising Lilli to just think that's normal. It's no struggle right now for her to eat her fruit and veggies and I want it to stay like that. She loved tonight's healthy version of a carbonara dish, and happily ate it along with some corn and lots of fresh fruit. She also dipped her bread in olive oil & herbs like she saw us doing - she is so cultured, ha!

It was SO hot at the market this afternoon - when we got back in the car at 5pm it was 100 degrees according to my car. Insane. We did pick up some locally made cheese, and I got brochures on several other local food companies. Our weekly neighborhood market sells everything from produce to meats to milk to candles and flowers! We are gonna be so GREEN!

Odds and Ends

We've been busy around the house organizing and getting some projects finished, so not much time for posting. It's been life as usual the last few days!

My little helper loves to put on my oven mitt when I take it off. We've been doing a lot of meal planning and using up some of the massive overstock of groceries I have in the pantry and freezer the last couple of weeks. Tonight was just a nice and simple chicken stir fry in the wok using some of the frozen vegetables I have WAY too much of in the freezer. Tomorrow night will be a light and easy linguine carbonara. We're "health"-ing it up by not using heavy cream and using skim milk instead along with low fat sour cream. There's WAY too much obesity in America right now and I want Lilli to continue eating healthy, balanced meals each day with fruit and veggies. She can be such a good eater, and normally every day she will at least try what I've fixed for dinner. Playing with some of her sunglasses and looking cute!Pippin and Lilli are still big buds. She just won't leave him alone....Friday night we went to eat burritos and then do some shopping at Target for some baby and wedding gifts I needed. She had lots of fun trying on their cute little Patriotic hats.That's all the news for now! Way too late for bedtime now!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day to the best daddy ever! Thank you for styling my hair so nice every morning, helping me brush my teeth and eat breakfast and getting me to school every day!Thanks for letting me throw up on you sometimes (like tonight, woops - maybe too much sugar today!) and for taking care of me when I'm sick and making sure there's always a cool washcloth on my head when I feel bad.
Thanks for playing with me and scaring me and chasing me around the house and watching Dinosaur Train with me. Thanks for sometimes letting me climb in Pippin's bed (but maybe can I do that all the time?)
But most of all just thanks for being my Daddy!!!
Love you!!!

Lilli Anne.

P.S. You know I don't do holidays!!!

Happy Birthday Levi!

Lilli's friend Levi turned one this week! It seems like just the other day that we took Lilli to meet him, that we partied together and of course celebrated Lilli's birthday! With a nice summer birthday Levi is guaranteed pool parties for years to come, starting with this year. And MAN, it was hot today and a GREAT day for it.

First we played inside for a while, then ate some lunch, and then all the kiddos suited up to play in the kiddie pools. Lilli was the only little girl there, with about 5 other little BOYS to play with! They had two kiddie pools set up, one down below the deck and one on the shade in the deck. In this one Lilli was watching the boys splash around! So cute!!!First she and a younger little boy splashed around....
Then Levi got his cake. The other hand is his big brother Micah. I think Levi's in for a lifetime of having a bigger hand in his cakes!
Mmmm, cake!
The proud parents watching him enjoy his cake!
He had NO problem knowing what to do! And he's only got 1 tooth!
Lilli and one of the older boys also had a big time splashing around....
They would fling water on each other and just lauuuugh.
She was flirting with him big time!

Then we all had cake. Lilli LOVES cake. As in fork in each hand loving some cake.
She made a mess and got cake everywhere!

Great cake! Great party!
Before we left we wanted a picture of the two kiddos together. Photographing 1 year olds is pretty much impossible!
This was as good as it got! Probably not bad considering how tired all the kiddos were at this point. Lilli did GREAT - this was about 1.5 hours after she normally goes down for a nap, and she could've kept playing all day and was in a great mood.
Happy Birthday Levi! I can't believe how big all our little friends are getting!