Time for cereal!

July 18th - Today was a big day! Picnic, dinged Element and then came cereal! This was by far the best part of our day. Lily was so excited while sitting in her high chair. She would pull the spoon to her mouth, chew on it and we'd have to pull it away from her to give her more food. She was even blowing raspberries on the spoon, which had cereal flying all over the place. We'll start to thicken it up over the next couple of days to see how she does with the texture, but I don't think it'll be an issue.

Ding!

July 18th~ While we had agreat time at the picnic, when we went to leave, it wasn't such a great time. Michael's car had been hit. It's scraped from the back quarter panel to the front door, and knocked off the mirror. This put a little damper on our fun afternoon. We've already brought the Element in for estimates and it's scheduled to be fixed on August 3rd.

Company Picnic

July 18th - Today was my company picnic at Lakewood Forest Preserve. It was a "sports theme" so Lily got to wear one of her Cubs t-shirts. I tried to convince Michael that she could wear her Red Sox t-shirt and Cubs hoodie, but he said "you can't mix the teams like that". I would've but her Red Sox shirt didn't fit her. ;) There were a ton of activities for children and adults. There was SO much food, drinks and my favorite, ice cream! Emma and Lily even rode the ponies. A good time was had by all.

Lencioni Family Picnic

July 12th - We went to the Lencioni Family Picnic today at Crow Island. We had amazing weather. There was a lot of food, dancing, water balloons, and laughter. I was "safe" from the water balloon fight this year because of Lily.
Here are a few random pictures taken.

Relay for Life!

July 11th - I want to thank everyone for their continued support of me and my team in the Relay for Life. This year was our 12th year and over the last 12 years we've raised over $80,000. As always, we had a great time, got to catch up with everyone and a "dirty" cake made an appearance. This year J was the recipient of the cake to celebrate his 50th birthday. Steve was the brave one to order and pick up the cake. :) Toni didn't make it out this year because she just had baby Lucas two weeks prior. This years team consisted of: J Buell, Steve Steres (who brought Carly and Addi), Jennifer Rattner, Jen & Dave Randolph, Terri Miller, Michelle Rice, Christy Newell (she brought James and Jaxon) and myself.

Michael was in Milwaukee, so we asked Grammy and Papa to watch Lily so I could participate in the Relay. They were kind enough to bring Lily over after dinner. I didn't bring my camera, but I know a few pictures we're taken. I'll post them when I get them. This was the first time I didn't spend the night, believe it or not, I missed it. I look forward to the Relay every year. Next year, Michael and I will make sure that we don't have a schedule conflict so I can stay the night again. Grammy and Papa did offer to keep Lily over night, but she hasn't been sleeping thru the night lately, we think it's from teething. Thanks again everyone!

5th Months old!

July 6th - Lily is 5 months old today!

Stats:No doc appointment - but she is about 16 pounds. She's wearing 6-9 month onesies comfortably, but I can see that she'll grow out the torso length in the next month or so. Her pants are only 3 months.

Sleep:UGH - up and down. At the beginning of the 5th months, she was awesome. Self-soothing. Sleeping Through The Night. All of a sudden right before her 5 mo "birthday", all hell broke loose. She's been waking up every 2 hours some nights. We think it's because she's teething. We don't really follow the 90 minute rule for naps anymore. It's pretty easy to follow her signals. Generally, she takes 4 naps per day, but they are only 30-45 minutes long. She goes to bed every night around 8 & falls asleep easily. Generally wakes up between 7:30 and 8am.

Development: She is more and more fun every day. She's a little flirt. She smiles & laughs at everyone. She is comfortable with almost anyone & will flirt with them if they give her attention. She's still a really smiley, happy baby. Her little crime scene investigations have just accelerated - she will watch ANYTHING & everything going on around the room. She loves being held & loves being walked around to get a good look at everything. We like to take her and the pups for nightly walks, weather permitting.She rolls tummy to back, but she doesn't try it very often anymore. She is definitely trying to roll back to tummy & it will happen any day. She gets stuck on her side halfway over like she used to going tummy to back. She's getting stronger & stronger on her legs & likes to stand with support.I imagine that she will be sitting by 6 months - she's making progress towards sitting unsupported every day. Right now she will fall backwards or occasionally forward when we stop holding her hands when she's sitting.She does a lot of babbling, but it's mostly vowel sounds. Lots of squealing & squawking.

We'll be starting Lily on cereal in a few weeks.

Happy 4th of July!

We started the day off with going to the Vernon Hills parade. Chris & Gwen's home is very close to the start of the parade. The police wouldn't let us thru to their street, so we parked around the corner and walked over. We had bagel's and watched the parade. Lily was great at the parade. She didn't get scared with all the noise, next year might be a different story. It was a little chilli out, so she didn't get to wear her cute red, white and blue outfit. I ended up dressing her in her only other red, white and blue clothes...her Cubs hoodie. After the parade we went back to Chris & Gwen's for a while, then home so Lily could take a nap, feed the pups and then back again for dinner. We didn't make it to the fireworks because Lily needed to get to bed, maybe next year.

Happy 30th Birthday Michael!

June 29th - We celebrated Michael's 30th Birthday today. He was having a bit of a hard time turning 30. :) He didn't want anything big, so it was just us and his family. Lily, Bean & Winnie helped him blow out his candles.

Lolli GTG

June 28th - We spent the afternoon with the Lolli family today. Cyndi was in town for her baby shower, she's so adorable pregnant! We had a great time getting caught up with everyone. The kids had fun riding bikes, playing golf and just running around. Lily was at the beginning of what we think is a cold. She was still in a great mood and was very social.

Happy 1st Father's Day Michael!

June 21st - Michael celebrated his first Father's Day today. Lily made a hat for him at school, it's even Cubs colors. We spent the morning together and then went to the Janzen's for dinner and to celebrate with Dad and Chris. My battery was dead, so I didn't get any pictures. :(

Happy Father's Day Dads!

~We celebrated with my dad on the 28th, since I couldn't bring his gift to the game.~

Trip to Cheeseland!

June 20th - We went up to Wisconsin today to spend the day with Andy, Kim, Sydney and Luke. We haven't seen the Youra family since our wedding. We had a great time hanging out and meeting a lot of new people. Lily was a great baby. She slept on the drive there, and home. I hope it's not another 2.5 years before we see them again. ;) Here's a picture Kim took of Lily. Kim is a photographer: http://www.kimyouraphotography.com/

Cubs game with Dad!

June 19th - We went to the Cubs game today with my dad, Jimy, Teena, Theresa, and Michael. For my dad's 60th birthday we got him a Cubs brick, this was the first chance we had to get down there to see it. It rained all morning, we weren't sure if we would get the game in or not, but after a hour and a half, the game started. Michael and I had to leave a little early to get Lily, and we missed a pretty exciting ending. I hope you had a great time Dad.~Can you tell who's not a Cubs fan?~

Tummy Time

Lily will roll over when she wants. Most days she decides to suck on her two fingers and take a quick nap. We still can't get her to roll on a consistent basis, yet.

oooo...new toys!

We took down the swing and put up Lily's Jumperoo. Grammy and Papa tried her out in the Exersaucer at their house, so we put that together at our house as well. The toys just seem to keep getting bigger and bigger. She really likes her Jumperoo. She's still figuring out her Exersaucer.