Easter!

Yes, I'm still quite a bit behind on things.  Just bear with me while I catch up in life. :)

Easter this year was so much fun!  Just for kicks here's a throwback to Lilly's first Easter last year:

Look at that tiny little thing!!  She was much more involved in the whole thing this year...last year she was basically just a blob that we passed around.  A very cute little blob, though!

My how she's grown!

We started the morning opening her Easter basket.  This year I got her a personalized one (from here on Etsy)  I totally planned to do that for her first Easter, but well I was busy with a newborn.  I really love the one I got though, and am excited to use it every year now.

Her basket had a few Easter themed books in it, a magna doodle, a new pair of sunglasses, a couple of light up toys (one being a rubber ducky which she was/is OBSESSED with), and a few plastic eggs filled with yogurt covered raisins.  We're avoiding candy as long as possible, hoping to try and delay the inevitable sugar addiction. :)  You would have thought the raisins were skittles though, once she discovered them all she wanted to do was EAT THEM ALL.

My genius child can already write her own name!  ha.

After she got dressed we had a little mini photo session in the back yard.  She was more interested in the eggs in her basket than looking at the camera, though.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention we had our first adventure dying eggs this year!  We set up shop on the deck and spent a lovely Saturday afternoon coloring some eggs.

It wasn't nearly the mess I had expected, but mostly because I did all of the dye-handling. :)  Lilly did drop a couple eggs in, which was SUPER exciting to her.  

We also paid a visit to the Easter Bunny this year. {I'm already off on a tangent, so I'm just going with it.}  Lilly was NOT a fan.  Similar to our Santa experience, she was pretty much terrified of him.  But with Daddy accompanying her, all was well and we even got a smile.

side note: I paid like $20 for this horribly over-exposed photo.  Awesome. Sign me up for the sucker-first-time-mom club.

Anyway, where were we?  Oh yes, Easter Sunday. :)

We headed over to Grandma & Grandpa Henry's next, for a little Easter brunch.

Once again, the food-filled Easter eggs were the most popular item (for both her and Daisy...ha!)

We had a lovely brunch (ok it was more of a lunch, considering we ate steaks, but it was earlier so I like to call it brunch)

After we stuffed ourselves, we hopped in the car and drove to the other Grandma & Grandpa's house to round out our Easter celebrations.

Lexi and Lilly both looked so cute in their dresses, we tried to get a nice photo of them together.

Uhhhh, yeah.....not so much.

Lilly was in a phase of not wanting to sit by herself, or smile for pictures.  So that helped the situation.  This next photo was the best I got. :)

Oh, there's my happy girl!

We did an Easter egg hunt while there, and Lilly had a BLAST.  I actually didn't expect her to really understand or get into the whole egg hunting thing, but I was oh so wrong.  She ran around pointing out eggs left and right, and had a grand old time.

Cousins.  This picture makes me smile, it was such a production to even get this.  We had to sit Lilly down, and occupy her with an egg full of raisins (once again), and then convince Lexi to sit down near her and smile (of course she's looking at her own mom, though).  Last we got Jordan to come in, and she was just laughing at how hard we were all working to try and orchestrate this.  So while it is not the perfect, posed, smiling photo, I actually like it better because it comes with a great memory. :)

And that about wraps up our Easter adventure!  The holidays are becoming more and more fun as Lilly gets older, I love experiencing them through her eyes.

And I think it's pretty clear that she enjoyed the heck out of Easter. :)

New Orleans!

Brace yourself, this is a post about something OTHER than Lilly.  {whaaaaaattt?!?!}

Back in March {so I'm a little behind} we set off on yet another 311 day adventure.  This time to New Orleans.  {if you recall, we've done this before - you can read about our first trip to Vegas in 2010 here, here and here, and you can read about our second trip to Vegas in 2012 here}

A little backstory for you... Ashley and I's friendship was practically born at a 311 concert.  We've seen I can't even tell you how many shows together, and we've shared every 311 day experience together.  Our first was in 2006, in Memphis, way before this blog was born {and just before we met/fell for our respective husbands}.  You see, 311 day started in New Orleans in 2000, and has continued every other year since then.  2006 was the first year it wasn't in New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina the previous year, and that was our first time experiencing it.  We had a BLAST in Memphis - we were in college at the time and road tripped there with a group of friends, having the time of our lives.  I will have to dig up pictures of that epic trip...although maybe I should leave those buried...  In 2008 they were back in New Orleans, but Ashley and I didn't make it.  In 2010 they moved it to Vegas, and went back in 2012.  This year, they went back to New Orleans once again, but it was the first time for us.  We had our buddy Nate tagging along for this trip, he went to Vegas with us in 2010, but skipped out in 2012.

I must start my recap by admitting that we sort of failed at this vacation.  Don't get me wrong, we saw an awesome 311 show and overall we had a GREAT time.  But we didn't really do New Orleans right.  I think it was just a lack of planning to be honest - Lilly's birthday party was 2 days before we left for this trip.  As you can imagine, the weeks {months} before we left were pretty much consumed with birthday plans, so I didn't do a whole lot of research and planning for this trip.  Looking back, its kind of humorous, really.  Every time I talk to someone about our trip they'll ask "did you go to {insert famous New Orleans place here}??" or "did you eat {insert famous New Orleans food here}??" and every time I say "uhh, no.".  So yeah, there's that.  But I'm not saying we didn't have a blast!  Because we totally did.  We just didn't do all those N'awlins things that everyone is supposed to do there.  Except for walking around on Bourbon Street.  And drinking.  We did both of those things. :)

We left on a Monday morning to fly out to New Orleans {side note: this was the first time Matt and I left Lilly for more than one night.  Let's just say I was a giant ball of anxiety that Monday morning.  but, spoiler: everything went great, and she did totally fine}  We got to the airport and I got a kick out of this sign which was clearly catered to all the 311 fans traveling that day. ;)

Then we got to our hotel and were pumped to find out our room number.

Ok, so originally we were in a different room.  But it wasn't ready, so they had to switch us, and we jokingly asked if room 311 was available.  Well, it was. :)  

We got unloaded and ventured out to explore the great city of N'awlins.

We stopped for lunch at a tiny little spot called Jimmy J's.  Little did we know that would be the only "authentic" New Orleans restaurant we would visit.  We all got po'boys. This picture isn't all that exciting, but it sure was a cute little place.

Then, we set out to continue exploring.  We walked, and we walked. And we walked some more.  We made our way to Bourbon street, and basically just walked all around the French Quarter.

Matt got hustled by this shoe shining guy - who did nothing but put a stain on his new tennis shoes (HA)

and we saw a lot of beads.  Mind you, we were there the week after Mardi Gras.

We pretty much just spent the afternoon walking around, stopping at various bars to get a beer.

We eventually made our way back to the hotel {we stayed at the O'Keefe plaza - a few blocks from the French Quarter...it was the cheapest and almost only hotel with rooms left by the time we got around to booking.  It was actually decent...considering we spent hardly any time there, it did the trick!} and relaxed for a bit before starting our evening.

There was a pre-party for 311 fans at a couple of bars on Bourbon Street, so we made our way over there that evening, but the lines were INSANE and the crowds were crazy.  So instead we just hung out on Bourbon Street all night.

At one point we went to the Absinthe Bar, where Nate and Zach each had a glass...the night just got weird from there.

see what I mean?  This is probably a good place to stop the pictures from that night. :)
I'll just say there was electronic-bull riding, stumbling through the streets, and shenanigans back at the hotel room to follow.

The next morning {concert day!} we all stumbled out of bed, and decided to check out the Aquarium of the Americas - sounded cool enough.  It happened to be a stormy day, though, and we thought we could make the walk over to the other side of town to get there, and, well, that turned out to be a pretty bad idea.  We ended up getting caught in a torrential downpour.  We stopped on the way to buy ponchos and umbrellas, but that almost didn't even matter.  we. were. soaked.

But, we did finally make it to the aquarium, and wandered around checking out all the sea life.

It wasn't the most exciting day of my life, I must say, but it was a pretty nice way to spend the day, not wasting too much energy since we had a marathon of a concert to attend that night.  Oh, we also realized as we left, that there was a trolley that would have taken us from about 2 blocks away from the hotel, practically to the front door of the aquarium, for a whopping $1.50 per person.  So yeah, glad we knew about that WHEN IT WAS POURING DOWN RAIN.

After we got back to the hotel and dried off (no, really, Ashley and I sat on the bed, taking turns drying our jeans with the tiny hotel hair dryer...), we hit Bourbon Street again for some dinner, and then it was off to the show.

We had some lovely overpriced food and drinks at Hard Rock (and Ash drank a Hurricane - so there's another "true" N'awlins thing, right???), and then we headed out to the concert venue.

Then, we watched 311 play for 5 hours.  FIVE HOURS.  They played 66 songs, including several from their new album which was released that day.  it. was. awesome.

I took quite a few pictures during the show, but they all just came out as crappy iPhone pics for the most part.

Except for this one.  I really dig this one.

We actually ended up moving from these seats after the first couple songs, because the sound was horrible.  Like, it sounded like we were in a tunnel.  Not cool.  But we made our way to the middle of the arena, and it was muuuuch better.  We proceeded to enjoy 5 hours of great music with  10,000 of our closest 311-fan-friends.

{funny how the whole point of our trip, and therefore purpose of this post, is the 311 day concert, and I have 2 pictures to show for it. ha!  just use your imagination for the rest...}

311 never disappoints, and always puts on a GREAT show.  Especially on 311 day.  They pull out all the stops, and really dedicate the night to their fans.  We got to hear several songs they'd never played live before, new cover songs, and songs from the album that just came out.  I know I'm biased, but I just don't know of any other bands that are this awesome for their fans.  These guys have been doing this for a long time, and still, every other year (for 14 YEARS NOW) they give it their all and put on an amazing show.  Ashley and I danced our little hearts out, and sung the words to as many songs as we knew - which was most of them. :)  All in all, it was SUCH a fun night.  An exhausting night, but a fun one, nonetheless. :)

As you can imagine, it was also quite a late night, so no one was in a rush to get up early the next morning.  Our flight didn't leave until late in the evening, so we had another day to kill.  This time, we ventured to the old cemeteries.  This was the one time I busted the big girl camera out, and got some pretty cool shots actually.  It was an overcast day, which honestly just made the vibe at a 200+ year old cemetery extra creepy.  But it made for good photos. :)

After our cemetery adventure, we stopped for a quick drink, and then went back to Jimmy J's one more time before heading to the airport.  We found out they served breakfast all day, so decided to try out a little breakfast-for-dinner, and oh my was that a good idea.  YUM.

After dinner {breakfast}, we hopped in a cab and made our way back to the airport, to catch our flight back to good ol KC.  It felt like one of the looooooongest plane rides ever, but by then I was just ready to get back and see my baby!  Not to mention, my body was missing its little nursling {ouch}.  I spared you the details in this post about my adventures trying to pump breastmilk during this whole trip, but let's just say it was an adventure.  One hotel room, 5 people, tiny bathroom...yeah not the most conducive environment for pumping.  But I made it work!  

So, there you have it.  311 day adventure number 4, in the books.  This was a pretty different experience than any of the others, for a lot of reasons, but it's certainly a trip I'll never forget.  Can't wait to see where the next 311 adventure takes us...

ok, spoiler: we're going on another cruise with them in February.  to Jamaica.  :) 

{13 + 14 + 15 months}

I was on the fence about whether or not to continue taking monthly pictures and doing an update ~  I really loved seeing all her monthly pictures after the first year, and I love being able to see her development from month to month, but it sure seems to be a task to get myself to actually do it.  So for now, I'm at least keeping up with the monthly pictures.  I wrote a 13 month update when she was more like 13 1/2 months, never wrote a 14 month one at all, and now she's almost 15 1/2 months and I'm just getting to that one.  So, I'll share the 13, 14 & 15 month photos, and just do a more general update to cover the past 3 months.  It's better than nothing, right?!

Things have really changed over the past 3 months with our girl...she's now walking (running), talking (some) and has almost 8 teeth (with more on the way)! After the bottom 2 teeth came in, the top two poked through, and then pretty much all at once the next 4 have started coming in as well. Teething is so much fun! More exciting is how she went from just taking a couple steps here and there to full on walking, and now running! She is all over the place now...it's so much fun (and so exhausting!). This is really the most fun age, I just love it!  What I really love, and can't even believe most days, is how stinking SMART this girl is!  I'm sure that's just my proud-mama voice coming out, but seriously, she amazes me every day. She is oh so receptive, soaks in everything we say, and tries to repeat us a lot (which can be a bad thing sometimes...ha!).  She knows so many things, it blows my mind.  I love watching her mind work, and seeing her learn new things.  She picks up on things SO fast, just a little sponge!  She doesn't have a lot of words, but she can communicate with us quite well despite that!  She does several signs (more, milk, eat, drink, please, thank you), says yes & no (but it comes out as "ya" and "nah" ~ the absolute cutest), and says a few other words. All in all, I'm absolutely loving her at this age, and am SO looking forward to this summer and the fun we will have!

Stats ~ 22lbs 15oz (45th percentile)

            31 1/2" tall (85th percentile)

(I didn't weigh her at 13 or 14 months, so I just have the info from her last doctor's appointment at 15 months.)

Size ~ at 13 months we were still getting the last wear out of some 9 month onesies and jammies, but in 12 month or 12-18 month sizes for the most part.  Now, at over 15 months she can still squeeze into 9 month onesies, but I usually only do that to her on laundry day :)  Otherwise we are in 12 and 12-18 month sizes.  It sort of makes me cry that I am moving out of shopping in the baby section for her clothes!  Although there is usually a much bigger selection in the toddler area, I can't handle her being that big!

Sleeping ~ not much change here. Since daylight savings she's been going to sleep closer to 8 than 7 like it used to be, but still sleeping pretty solid most nights until anywhere from 4-6am when she gets up to nurse and then goes back down until about 7. We've learned that her usual 30 minute naps can be lengthened to a good hour or so if she has a snuggle buddy, and as much as we all love taking naps with her I think this is something we are going to work on. I am not a fan of sleep training in general, but am going to try and tweak our routines a bit to encourage more self soothing. We'll see how that goes. :)
I wrote that when she was 13 1/2 months...2 months later not much has really changed. :)  Sleeping the same at night, and signs are pointing towards dropping one of the daytime naps but she still takes 2 on most days.  They are pretty hit or miss, but she has been taking a few longer 1 1/2 to 2 hour naps lately, which is totally unlike her!  I think it's a sign we're moving to one nap, but I am not complaining!

Eating ~  still nursing and still eating just about everything! We are slowly transitioning off bottles.  Over the past 2 months we've dropped 2 of the 3, so now she just has one a day (which means I only have to pump once a day - AMAZING.)  We also started giving her almond milk, which she seems to enjoy (she wasn't so sure at first, but now she chugs it.)  She's trying more and more foods all the time, and for the most part likes just about everything! She definitely goes through phases of preferring certain things, but we just offer her whatever were eating often with a side of extra veggies or fruit. Current favorites include blueberries, cheese, Annie's cheddar bunnies, avocado, pizza, yogurt covered raisins, bread.  Not a big meat fan.

Likes ~ walking, running, everywhere! Anything outside, throwing the ball for daisy, playing in water (particularly the dog water bowl, which is a constant battle), her swing, blowing kisses, dancing, books, bath time.

Dislikes ~ She has started having "mini tantrums" as I call them, crying and throwing herself on the floor, usually over something super dramatic like having to shut the refrigerator door. She's pretty easily distracted though so for now at least they are pretty short lived. And actually, kind of adorable (yeah I know I'll be eating those words soon)  So it's hard to say what she really dislikes, I guess it depends on the day. :)

Current Nicknames ~ boog, boogie, Lills, baby Lills (boogie & Lills seem to be the 2 that have stuck.  Boogie from Daddy and Lills from Aunt Sarah & Lexi. Also, I love that Lexi still calls her Baby Lills.  At least I'm not the only one who wants her to stay a baby!)

Words ~ adding a new category, since we're starting to hear a few words! Not many recognizable ones yet, but a couple. :) the first was "hi" and "dada" (which she says all the time, only sometimes in context), and more recently she's said "block" (sounds more like "bok"), "daisy" (sounds like "dee-thee"), bath, bye (which sounds like she has the most amazing southern accent..."baaaaa!"), yes & no (combined with the head nods). She's said "mama" a few times but she still doesn't use it regularly. sigh.

Well, that's the past 3 months in a nutshell, I guess.  I can't believe how much she has changed even in just a few months.  And I know the next few will hold even more changes. I can't wait!