Not so scary...

At least our halloween wasen't, I think that's because we do not get trick or treaters. But that will soon change, well next year, because we are moving at the end of the month, yes after the Disney trip, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Why? Because we are crazy people obviously!So in the next 11 days, if you are keeping track, we need to get ready for our Florida trip to Disney and pack up the house so that everything is good to go when we get back. Yeah this should be fun.

But Halloween 2009 was fun, since Lilly is to small to go house to house we took her to the mall, who awesome people that they are, every year open the doors to trick or treaters and all of the stores stand outside and give away candy, which is awesome. This year they had a picture booth set up, so we took full advantage to get some great pictures of alice before she went down the rabbit hole. The costume was easy of course, we bought the Alice dress on our last trip to see Mickey, along with a Snow White and Cinderella dress, so I laid out all three and let the bug pick, Alice it was.

It's magic

In celebration of the fact that we just booked out Walt Disney World vacation, and that fact that I neglected to share this pictures back in March when we got home from the last vacation, I am going to spend the countdown to Disney posting the pictures from last March. Enjoy!

Day one, we actually got into Orlando after a very long drive late the night before, but just crashed. The next morning we checked into the Polynesian, got a pimp daddy location (hey it pays to go there a lot) and headed out for some shopping at Downtown Disney. Lilly found the fountains and didn't want to leave. Jeff took these pictures. Oh and Lilly looks so small because, well she is, also she was 13 months.

A Ticket to Ride

So a few weeks ago while we were in Illinois my dad convinced us that we should all head over to the County Fair, have some funnel cake, ride the Ferris Wheel and (as it turns out) marvel at some of the home grown fashion. Now as a younger kid I used to love the fair because I loved the rides, now as a grown up and a parent I love watching the kids love the rides. But I will not lie, I also love the funnel cakes.

Dad and Ethan in line for the big slide.


Ethan at the end of his ride.


Lilly coming down the big slide with Uncle Paul, she had a huge smile on her face and demanded more.


Waving bye bye as the Merry go round takes off




Lilly gets a ride from Grandpa


As my brothers family (minus baby Alexis) take a ride on the Ferris Wheel.


Dad and Paul take their lives in their hands as they ride something called a Tomahawk




While the rest of us enjoy the sites




And Lilly passed out


One more spin with my step mother and Ethan had had enough


In the end a fun time was had by all, we all went home with very full bellies and dreams of twinkling lights.

Pool Party

So if you did not notice I redid the blog again, it is not that different, but it will allow me to post bigger pictures, which will be nice. But I did create a cool new header in Photoshop with the help of my husband, isn’t it cool? Anyway, enjoy the new layout.
A lot has been going on lately, namely a trip back to Illinois to visit with the family, and I have lots of awesome pictures from our trip. But first I thought I would first share Lilly’s first time with her new splash pad. Instead of a pool you attach the hose to this thing and it sprays water everywhere, she seemed to have a very good time. Enjoy!

Not Me Monday

This is my first foray into Not Me Monday, but it sounded like fun. I have been reading the blog My Charming Kids for awhile, she is super fun and started this carnival, so head over there and check out what other people are saying.

I did not google information about hair growth in toddlers because I am not, as my husband insists, obsessed with the fact that my daughter has such little hair. Who would be that vain and shallow, definitely not me.
I have not been bribing my daughter with Oreo cookies to get down off of things she has climbed onto because I still am not allowed to lift her after my surgery, which would not be healthy and speak to my inability to ask for help, nope, not me.
I did not stay up too late last night watching the two part reunion of the Real Housewives of New Jersey and googling the “big secret” because I am so not too overly involved in reality shows just because I am on summer break. Those are the sort of things that English professor do not do, so I totally did not do that.
I did not let out a loud string of profanities when I dropped something heavy and pointy on my foot. Nope, not me. I totally did not do thing in front of Lilly and she totally did not find it hysterically funny. And I do not have nightmares in which Lilly yells out her first swear word in the middle of church, which is not one of the reasons we totally sit in the cry room. Nope that never happened.
I don’t love these two people more than anything in this world and I am totally not one lucky girl.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

First that everyone for their thoughts and wishes as I recover from gallbladder surgery. The first few days were not fun, but I am totally on the mend now, only occasionally getting sore. But I am still not allowed to pick up Lilly for another three weeks and I think that more than anything may kill me.

So anyway last week before the whole getting stabbed in the gut four times, Jeff and I decided to take Lilly on her first trip of the summer to Columbus Zoo. Now that may sound far away cause it's in another state and stuff, but it's actually only about 2 hours and totally worth it. Jack Hanna took over the zoo a while ago and has done some amazing stuff with it and it is the closest zoo to us. We took Lilly twice last year when she was 4 and 5 months old. She seemed to enjoy it, but we knew that she would love it this year.

Our first stop was the petting zoo, which was funny because while Lilly loves to pet and love on our animals, she was not so sure about the goats. She liked them behind the fence,



but was not so sure when they were right there.



Jeff and I watched her closely because she tends to get grabby with animals, meaning she will grab a handful of fur and laugh and while our animals will let her, I was not sure how the goats would react, of course we had to get her close enough to the goats for anything to happen and Miss Lilly was not so sure about that.





but soon she decided to venture closer, which is when she dropped her paci in some unidentifable goat liquid, then she picked it up and tried to put it back in her mouth. I swear you have never seen two people move so fast.

Finally after skipping the pony rides (cause well she is only 16 months old and I think a bit young for pony's)we stood in line for about 20 minutes to see the new baby elephant. The line snaked around the outside enclosures of the other elephants and we had a good time looking at the elephants who were not all fancy and inside because they had a baby. Lilly was having fun riding on her daddy's shoulders, but then got a bit cranky.



I figured she was thirsty so set her down for a sec to grab her sippy. She took a long drink and then an elephant meandered over our way. She points and babbled something in baby and held up her sippy like she was offering Mr. Elephant a drink. Everyone thought it was very cute, so thinking she could impress the crowd further Lilly tried to throw the sippy into the enclosure. Fortunately being a small child the thing bounced off of the fence, unfortunately it then rolled under the fence and fell into that big precipice that separates us from the dangerous animals that could go rouge at any time. She was not so cute to the rest of the crowd anymore (well of course she was, but they were all trying very hard not to laugh because you should not encourage that type of behavior). Finally we got to the baby elephant who was very cute.



We then headed to the aquarium because Lilly loves to yell fish whenever she sees one. She was in love with the huge tank filled with all kinds of colorful sea life



and was very cranky when we had to leave, but it was time for lunch. After lunch we killed some time on a very nice playground that actually had a separate areas for the wee ones. Lilly figured out how to slide down and slide and also how much fun those tunnel things could be.



We had a great time and will be heading back as soon as I am healed up and can actually lift her again. Finally I will leave you with one of my favorite shots of the day. technically the thing is so not perfect, but there is something about it that I really like.

Happy Birthday Baby!!

Today is my wonderful husband's birthday. I will admit that this is probably not his best birthday since I am still hobbling around after surgury so besides ordering his iphone and picking up an ice cream cake his birthday has been a little low key. But I promise I will make it up to him when we go on our Vegas vacation! But Lilly and I are happy to have such an awesome dad and husband. We love you baby! Happy Birthday!!



Christmas 2008

Is this a good thing?

So I had my gallbladder taken out yesterday and let me tell you my abs hurt!!! But after sleeping for like 12 hours I feel a bit better, oh that and the drugs** that they gave me. Jeff keeps laughing at me because apparently I can not hide being all hopped up on drugs. I guess it's good to know that if i ever develop a crack addition that someone will notice. But Frank if now gone forever (Frank is my gallbladder, you know from Scrubs when Turk says "““I am going to yank that gallbladder out of you so fast that your spleen is gonna say to your kidney, “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO FRANK!?” That’s right, your kidney named your gallbladder Frank.”) and I am somewhat curious about what they have done with him (and why I have gendered my gallbladder a boy). not that I want him or anything, I'm just curious what is to be done with him. Anyway, I am waiting patiently for a few weeks before I can finally eat like a normal person, oh and pick up Lilly who seems to be a bit miffed at me. I have to admit that my feeling were a bit hurt this afternoon when I cam e downstaors to see her after not seeing her in 24 hours and she gave me a look that said "And where have you been?" Then she took a book to my mom, I guess she will be good at the whole teen silent treatment thing later.

Oh well, I am off to take a nice drug induced nap and will update later will pics of our trip to the Columbus Zoo ealier this week.

*** This post has been brought to you by the drug Percocet

Happy Father's Day!

So Jeff celebrated his second official father's day today. Between Lilly and I we made sure that he had lots of fun and lots of love. Now Lilly is far too young for me to ask her about her daddy but since dada was her first word, I think she's smitten. Obviously we know that since the day she was born,

she has been a daddy's girl.


But as she has grown daddy has become her very favorite playmate.






I do not know if I even have the words to describe the amazing father that my husband is. He is the rock of our little family, the one you can always count on. From charming a baby smile to rocking that same baby to sleep,



he is always there for Lilly and for me. And I know that if Lilly could tell you she would go on and on about how much she loves her daddy,


who is the favorite in her castle and will always be her Prince Charming.



Thank you Jeff for all that you do and for being the most amazing father ever. We love you very much!
Love Jess and Lilly