The Outlaws No Show

This baby girl just exudes happiness! All the way down to her toes. ;)

Yes, I realize I'm clearly biased, but how do you not just love her???

Apparently,because she's related to ME and if you're my mother-in-law. 

MIL was a no-show for Lily's 1st birthday.  Can't say I'm truly surprised after things didn't go as planned at camp.  Nor did she call, text, send smoke signals to her only child on his birthday two days prior to Lily's.

See, I don't understand people like that. So angry, bitter and hell-bent on being "right" and in control that you forego life.  While Lily knows no difference because in all honesty, she doesn't even know her grandmother. The woman has seen Lily a total of SEVEN times in the year she's been alive. Yes, I've kept count because of the absurdity of it.  She lives 5 minutes away from us.

I mailed an invitation to George's parents because was the right thing to do. They were still at their summer home, but came home the previous Wednesday (our anniversary). Instead of making any contact to acknowledge or rsvp one way or the other, she simply sent my father-in-law up to our house promptly at the start of Lily's party to get attention bring a card. He refused to stay because my MIL would have been pissed.

George asked him what the deal was surrounding his own birthday and the inability to have anything to do with Lily and the other kids and even his dad not acknowleding his birthday and simply got shoulder shrugs. 

While, of course, it's my outlaws inlaws loss, it still is hurtful to my husband. And that is hurtful to me.

As I said in that previous post, I'm so proud of him for expressing his feelings and not holding back about it all. It just doesn't take away the hurt.  The last thing he said to his dad, "You all have made yourselves clear. It's my daughter's first birthday, I have to go." 

And that is why we have family we choose, in our lives. We never take that forgranted.

I quit letting that woman berate and hurt me a long time ago. There are 938430523 other elements that fall into my feelings as well as George's, but trust me, the feelings are well beyond justified.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm handling sending her "thank you" for the card, but she doesn't change who I am regardless of her attempts.

Character.

I have it.

Birthday Odds & Ends

 

I think this is the only picture we have of Lily's complete outfit from her party. The onesie and headband were custom made for us by one of my former colleagues in Arizona, Nicole at Ella Jo Customs. She also has left the classroom to stay home with her beautiful children and has a business creating beautiful items! The only other thing done was I had a local woman embroider " Lily " across the #1.  Here's a closeup of Nicole's work:

I'm a little overwhelmed with the 300 pictures from that day, so I'm going to put a couple different things together here and there. :)  So, there may just be random birthday photo posts in the future, but I want to cover gifts and the photo shoot for her invitation too. I'll get there.

A snippet of some of the candids from the day. ;)



I adore this picture!!!

Andrew is such a good big brother and he has completely embraced this more entertaining baby sister of his and she adores him right back! So lucky and it makes my heart just swell to watch them!

We didn't get one picture of all 3 of us looking at the same camera. :(

 

In the meantime, I've managed to get out of my funk and am totally enjoying Lily in her one year old self. She's been cracking us up with all of the new things she's been doing and "talking" too. I'm also working on a picture video from her first year. The music is making me tear up a lot though ;) 

Happy 1st birthday, baby girl!!

It's Your Birthday!

1st pic of Lily on her birthday

Lily woke up happy and laughing first thing! Totally her. Happy and excited from the moment she wakes up. We're so lucky she has the personality she does.  It was also party day!

She drank her formula, had cheerios and yogurt for breakfast and was off to play! Andrew was helpful with watching her and playing with her while we got finished setting up for the party. Daddy was working on putting something together. ;)

Special friends (who are our family) came to celebrate with our girl! We are so blessed to have them all in our lives and despite the heat, it made for a really special day. Really special for me.  I have felt so loved and connected in recent months, it's been at times very overwhelming (in a good way) emotionally.  Lily, of course, won't remember, but I always will.

We had a pink and green daisy themed party!

I spent a billion hours on Pinterest scouring for ideas to find exactly what I was looking for.  And as anyone who party plans knows, sometimes you have to scrap some ideas due to time or because they don't come together.  So, there are a few of those details that only I was bummed about, but not too badly.

We really just wanted to have everyone come together, have lunch and hang out together. Very low key. Aside from the heat, it was everything I hoped.

 

Cake time!

 

Obviously, there was a TON of pictures, so I'm going to do more than one birthday post to get it all in. :)

Lily loved the icing on her smash cake and it took a little while for her to get down to the cake, but we did get lots of "mmmmm"s as she got bites of it! I had make a little vanilla cake --my 1st ever from scratch--and oh boy, did it ever taste so good! It tasted like a sugar cookie. Yummaroosky!

For the main cake, I made fondant for the first time ever. hooooo boy was that an adventure! I was happy with it too! This was a chocolate cake recipe that was sooooooooooooooo moist and delicious, it wouldn't have mattered what the outside looked like! :)

We grilled burgers and hot dogs, had potato salad, fruit and a yummy creamsicle tasting fruit dip, chips, salsa, baked beans, Lily's Lemonade and Lily's Lime punch to drink, (pink and green) chocolate dipped pretzels, brownies and I'm sure some other goodies I'm forgetting right now.

We had a great day hanging out and celebrating our girl!

more to come soon...

The Invite

Obviously, I blocked out our personal info, but this was Lily's birthday party invitation. I glued them together, so it was just a double sided card. Getting the picture was a lot of fun!

It turned out exactly as I had hoped!

1 Year Doctor Appointment

 

Today, Lily had her one year check up. As always, we love to see Dr. Kelly! I mean, come on, who doesn't love to see someone who tells you your baby is perfect???

Lily weighed in at 20.5 pounds and as you can see above, she was VERY excited about it! ;) That puts her weight in the 35%.  She's 30 inches long which is 75% and she has a head that measures 46.5cm. Her head circumference is 90% to house that big growing brain of hers, of course. ;)

I've mentioned before that Lily is working on A LOT of teeth at one time. It's now SEVEN! Dr. Kelly said that when the front teeth are delayed coming in it's because of strong gums, so that was good to learn. She was happy with her strength and development.

I learned the average age for walking is 13 1/2 months and I am A-ok with whenever it happens for Lily! We know it's soon because she is doing everything except actually taking the steps--standing, cruising, letting go, getting up without holding onto anything. It's going to be soon!

The one thing Dr. Kelly said that made me laugh because it was so on target for Lily's personality was, "It seems like she's a mix of easy going with a little bit of dramatic." That is EXACTLY right!

We talked about food, milk, bottle, carseats, shots, talking, walking, blood work, and teeth.

We stopped using bottles officially last week. She had a pretty easy transition to the sippy cup which we were thrilled with. Again, something I didn't push early and still met my goal of being done when she turned one. The paci will follow soon, but with the mouthful of teeth she's working on and an upcoming trip, it will be a few weeks. She usually uses it just for sleeping anyway, so I'm hoping it's pretty easy when we do it. *crossing fingers*

There were 3 vaccinations given today. And they were sad. :(  But, the pretzel she got afterwards cheered her up...not before I captured her big tears though.

She napped after we got home for 3 hours. Between her shots and her birthday party yesterday, she was one exhausted baby girl.  So was her mama. ;)

Birthday posts and party pics soon!

Anniversary Date

We had a great time on our anniversary date!

The kids were dropped off with Granny and Pappy (my parents' friends who've taken us in as their own) for their own fun night of swimming and supper and just general grandparent-type enjoyment. ;)

This was the first time we left Lily with anyone except each other too. ;)  She didn't miss us.

We went to The Cheesecake Factory, as we've wanted to go there for a couple years and just haven't.  George LOVES cheesecake, so that's another reason we've been wanting to go.

We enjoyed our entire dining experience...which is a HUGE feat because inevitably when we go out, there's something that gets messed up and we have horrible or mediocre service.  Thankfully it was all GREAT!

The food was delicious, the cheesecake was yummy and we. were. stuffed.

We had a ton of leftovers, so we got to enjoy all that goodness again today. ;)

Our First Married Anniversary

George and I celebrate a lot of anniversaries together.  We have a family anniversary--the day Andrew and I moved to Pittsburgh and we became a family of 4.  Our "moon-iversary" when we knew we were falling in love. The anniversary of the date we met in person.  Our engagement anniversary. You get the idea.

Our wedding anniversary comes at the beginning of a couple other important celebrations in our lives...George's birthday and of course, Lily's birthday.  We apparently just do it big. :)

We had planned on a lovely fall wedding and that was "the plan".

In all reality, we got married last summer because it was important to my husband that we be married before our daughter was born.  He asked my mother for permission and told her he wished he was able to ask my father too.  There was no mistaking that I was 9 months pregnant and we wanted something private, just for us.  Our witnesses and the reverend who married us were (are) dear friends of both of ours who have walked beside us in some of our darkest days and it was only fitting that they be part of this intimate, special time for us as well. We're grateful for them in our lives still.

We do still plan on having a public ceremony in the future in which we will celebrate with our children as well, as the only child present at our private wedding was Lily (in mah belly).   We're very much looking forward to that.

It was hot.  Not quite as hot as this year, I don't think. But, 3 days before being induced and 4 days before Lily's birth, I just remember feeling swollen and sweaty! :)  Aside from that, I cried throughout the ceremony. I was pregnant overcome with love and emotion and just cried...he made me laugh.  It was simple and sweet. We didn't dress up--we probably would have had heatstroke. 

I. wouldn't. change. a. thing.

Happy 1 year anniversary to my husband! I am so proud and honored to share your name and your life.

Catch UP

I obviously got almost all the way caught up on my 365 project of Lily! yay! Now, I'm only behind with last week's pictures. :)

I've been busy with birthday stuff, cleaning stuff and you know, dying of heat stuff. This humidity is horrendous!

This week looks to be the worst yet...of course. Since Lily's party is this weekend. Oh well! It will be awesome and I'm hoping I'll get everything done as I'd like it to be. ;) 

Pink and green has taken over my dining room!

Andrew had hockey practice yesterday and it was hot. hot. hot.  It's been awhile since he's played, but he played really well and travel team practice does a lot of good for Andrew's skills.

While we were on the way home, we stopped by a yard sale and I found a backyard swing for Lily for $5! One of those Fisher-Price ones you can hang from a tree. :)  I was super excited!  Then, we passed a Little Tykes toddler slide by the side of the road out for garbage pick up.  It was just dirty --nothing a good scrubbing won't take care of.  I was really excited!

I'm a lucky mama! I've been working hard to get out of my funk about Lily not being a little baby anymore and embracing the moments of who she is! She's a really funny little person and keeps us cracking up. She loveloveloves her big brother and when he comes in to see her in the morning she literally jumps up and down screaming excitedly!  It's pretty much the same on his end too. Like tonight, when I picked him up after Scouts, he got in the car and the first thing he said, "Is Lily already in bed?"   I love that about them.

This is pretty much how these two are about each other:

6 days left until 1st birthday. :)

365.days185-191

07.04.11:

i'm still trying to get up on my own without holding on

07.05.11:

what? i'm just playing on my computer

07.06.11:

let me in! i'm ready!

07.07.11:

still tryin' to stand up

07.08.11:

i'll just crawl like a crab on my hands and feet instead forget the knees

07.09.11:

i love my new pajammies and hanging out with mama reading books

07.10.11:

i love summer and swimming!

365.days178-184

06.27.11:

oops! mama caught me sneaking to stand up when i should be napping!

06.28.11:

i lovelovelove my big brother reading books to me

06.29.11:

mmmm waffles with blueberry yogurt...i can't get them in my mouth fast enough

06.30.11:

i kept trying to stand up on my own without holding on

07.01.11:

this is part of my new look...tilting my head at people

07.02.11:

i have a love/hate relationship with the shower. the noise scares me, but it's fun with dada

07.03.11:

this face just made mama laugh

365.days171-177

06.20.11:

andrew went to legofest and all i got was this hat

06.21.11:

getting around a little more each day

06.22.11:

mama took me downtown to play in the watersteps by pnc park

06.23.11:

why yes, dada, i love ice cream

06.24.11:

what? i'd rather have mama's empty diet dr pepper than my sippy

06.25.11:

sometimes i take a break from reading books to chew on keys & check out what's on tv

06.26.11:

my eyelashes are real