Happy 1st Birthday, Lillian!!

This past Friday (October 22) we celebrated our beautiful girl's very 1st birthday! We enjoyed a nice quiet day at home on Friday and then had a party on Saturday at Tim's Pumpkin Patch in Skaneateles. The weather was gorgeous (55 and sunny...considering it's snowed this early in years past, we were very grateful for the weather we had)! The party was lots of fun and Lilli received many girly gifts as well as a few very special gifts, including a quilt from Grammy and Poppy Rigby (which was comprised of quilt blocks from my grandmother's unfinished trunk of quilts) and a beautifully framed photo of Lilli's feet at birth from her Auntie Moo, Uncle Terry, Emma & Tyler. It was such a wonderful weekend of celebration and it's hard for us to believe that a year has gone by already!!

P.S. Aunt Ca and Auntie Nee (and your families, of course) - We missed you all very much and wish you could have been here to celebrate with us! Hopefully we will get to visit with you soon!! We love you!!

Photo Shoot - Year One

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Lilli's 3/4 Birthday

Today Lilli turns 3/4 of a year old! It's hard to believe that I'm already planning her first birthday party, knowing that it's just around the corner. Our baby is getting so big!

8 Months

WOW! 8 months!

Month 7 was full of milestones. I feel like I say that every month, but this past month seemed the biggest by far. Lilli cut her two bottom teeth in one week, mastered her army crawl and quickly went into a full crawl, mastered pulling herself up and walking along the edges of the furniture, and is still making great strides at standing on her own. She's also learned to clap by herself (of which she is most proud), mastered her pincer grip, is feeding herself snacks, and has even climbed stairs (yes, we quickly remedied that with more gates). We're so proud of our big girl and how quickly she is learning things! She is such a little sponge! I'm sure that month 8 will be just as amazing and that in her 9 month post I'll be saying..."Month 8 was full of milestones" yet again!!

Ocean City, MD

Over the long holiday weekend, Lilli and I took a girls trip to Ocean City, MD. A few of my girlfriends and one other baby went along for the trip as well. We rented a beautiful condo right on the Boardwalk in Downtown Ocean City. The location was perfect and very family friendly! Lilli loved every minute of the trip, right down to the sand and splashing around in the pool! She was such a good girl! My girlfriends and I decided to take a nanny along so we could also go out and play, which was such a great idea!

Also while we were gone, Lilli had her first tooth cut through, which was very exciting. She is now also budding her second bottom tooth! Ryan stayed behind and was able to get a lot of the house projects finished or nearly finished, so it was nice to come home to some much needed changes. We're happy to be back home with Daddy and enjoyed our first trip to the beach!

7 Months

It's hard to believe that Lilli's first year has officially tipped past the halfway point! I don't care to talk about it a lot, because it means that our girl is getting so big and that makes me very sad...but it's been such an amazing ride so far and we're very proud of all the things she's accomplished in her short 7 months!! She sits up like a pro, babbles "dada", "mama", "baba" and "lala" in long and amusing strings, is intrigued by her Daddy's silly face (and copies by making her own, as you can see) and, oh yeah, did I mention she's CRAWLING?!?! She's officially mastered the army crawl and while she does get up on all fours and wiggles herself around, we've found that she's not really a fan of crawling while she's on all fours. She also managed to stand on her own for a solid 20 seconds just prior to her 7 month birthday, so I'm afraid we may have an early walker on our hands. Every day Lilli wakes up with a new trick up her sleeve and we are enjoying every moment of it! And I suppose now that we're on the downhill slide to the 1st birthday, I better start planning!

Lilli's Half Birthday!

Big news! Lilli is now a half of a year old! WOW! Time goes by so quickly. I do have some new photos to post, but am late on getting this post up as it is (it's now the 29th and Lilli turned 6 months on the 22nd...oops). More to come... :-)

All Fours!

This week has been full of accomplishments for Lilli (just in time for her half-year birthday this coming Thursday)! She's mastered getting on all fours and even pulled herself up to a standing position in her crib over the weekend (yikes)! While we're not quite ready for the standing/walking yet, we are excited to see Lilli prepare to crawl. I'll be spending the next few days crawling around the house myself and doing some extra baby proofing!

Five Months

Today Lilli celebrated her 5 month birthday (or should I say yesterday...it is 2am)! Month 4 was full of milestones...starting solids (she does great with cereal and pears, but still isn't loving any veggies - I hope it isn't the way I'm preparing them, because it takes a bit of work to make your own baby food!), scooching, and sitting up on her own for brief periods of time! We're very proud of our girl! The weather is also starting to get nicer, so Lilli has been able to experience a bit of the outdoor world without the shield of the BundleMe and layers of clothing. Soon we'll be able to go out and sit in the grass. We're looking forward to seeing her reaction to all of the new textures the outdoor world will provide her with. Here's to new adventures!

Adventures in Cereal

Now that Lilli is a big 4 month old, we decided to dive into cereal (with a spoon)! We have been mixing some rice cereal with breastmilk in bottles at night for a while now to help with her acid reflux, but we thought it was time to see how she did with utensils. She does an awesome job of mashing the cereal with her tongue and got the hang of it very quickly. It was a messy adventure, but definitely a fun one! (sorry the quality is grainy - we didn't think about how dark it was in the room when we captured this!)

4 Months

Wow...time is flying! Lilli is 4 months old today!

Reading already?!

Well...not really, but Lilli just loves her soft play book from her friend Nathan! She especially enjoys the page with all of the fishies. They're so colorful and really capture her attention. This girl will be reading in no time the way she's growing! But for now, we can't get enough of these adorable moments!

Three Months

Wow! Our baby girl is three months old already! This month we successfully rolled over, started grasping things like rattles and small toys, and babbling like crazy! It's been a fun month! We are eager to see if Lilli will sit up on her own in month four as she's been working very hard at it!