Week 51

This week we celebrate the life of my great Uncle Julian who passed away on Father's Day. I am so grateful to have captured the moment below of him with Lily when she was only 2 weeks old. According to my mom, he was always the one to take the babies and calm them down during their large family gatherings. I think you can easily see his gentleness in this picture. That is how I always think of him, a presence of kindness and warmth and never without a smile.

All of these pictures were taken at my mom's cousin Carla's house. It is a beautiful century old farmhouse passed down from Larry's (Carla's husband) parents. In our relatively short time here in Johnson City, we have had the fortune of wonderful family gatherings in this house, celebrating the birth of Lily and now the life of Uncle Julian.

We just wanted to show that Lily isn't always so upset to be walking....
actually she's taken to it quite nicely.

Week 5-0

Week 50... I can't believe we only have two more weeks left.
This week, thanks to Mark Peacock and his post yesterday (Appalachian Trails) we thought we too would take advantage of the rhododendron festival this weekend on Roan Mountain. That's one of the events around the area that we've heard about, but have not had the chance to make. So, not knowing what next year will bring, we figured it was now or never.....

Luckily for us, the weather was beautiful and even a touch cool, considering the significant elevation achieved once you finally make it to the gardens. There were plenty of people, dogs and bees (thanks to the lovely fragrance of the pretty pink flowers) enjoying the day and Lily did great, except for getting a little antsy on the way home, which lead to placating her with 3 teething biscuits, which lead to this pic and the need for major clean up when we got home.

Finally, this is the best shot of the 'fangs' that I've gotten in awhile, so for those of you who haven't seen her recently, I thought you might enjoy this!

Every new beginning is some other beginning's end

As most of you know, Chipper is set to get hitched in September. I just recently found out from Maroof that he and Ashley have a wedding web page on TheKnot.com, so Gator decided that this was definitely a place you need to visit and posted the link in his section of Gator Approved links. Maybe Chip will update it more often than his regular site....

DDC

Thankfully, out sitter's husband is on the mend. Though it was a little touch and go for a while, he is home from the hospital and healing quickly. We are very happy for their entire family. And while we are celebrating his quick recovery, I am a little down because I know that the lazy summer days of Daddy Day Care are drawing to a close. But what is a bummer for me is a boon for Lily, as she enjoys getting to play with the other children at Mattie's. So, in honor of our last week together (at least until the first week of July), here are some pictures from DDC.

The morning bowl of cereal never seems to come soon enough!


And here Lily is playing with some blocks...it seems like she may have tried to spell something out but I can't quite tell for sure...


Finally, a couple of pictures from the new pool that Gran got for her. As time goes on, we are beginning to believe that her brothers may have got most of the water genes in this family.



OK, so Gator's picture does not actually feature him in water (in liquid form that is), but take our word for it, he loves it!

Strawberry pies forever

With our sitter being unavailable the past couple of weeks, Lily and I have been hanging out a lot lately. We read, and play, and laugh at the dogs when they are acting silly (almost all the time); and recently we have decided to test our baking skills in an effort to impress Emily. Our first attempt resulted in a sad state of affairs....lesson for all you aspiring cooks out there, if the Crisco looks funny and smells funny, the outcome will be funny as well. At least, it will be funny to everyone but the chef. In my disbelief that we could actually have a can of lard go bad, I chose to use the Crisco anyway, and it was a bad decision.

At this point Lily took a more assertive role in the baking process and we successfully made a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Emily approved, and thanks to contributions by the whole family, it did not last long. Feeling good after recent spell of good fortune, Lily and I decided to make a pie yesterday. We started out with designs for a raspberry pie, but the raspberries are a little pricey right now. So we substituted strawberries instead. I am pleased to say that the pie turned out great (yes, Emily liked it too!)



While encouraged by our success, Lily and I were left to contemplate a deep and disturbing question...if they are so delicious, why don't you see more strawberry pies?

Week 49: I Heart DDC

Lily made this shirt for Dave to show her appreciation for the time she gets to spend with him in Daddy Day Care (lovingly referred to as the DDC). Our sitter’s husband has been in the hospital this past week in critical care and luckily DDC was there to come to the rescue. What a relief it is to know Dave is available especially during the summer, should a childcare situation come up. On this Father’s Day, Lily and I both thank Dave for being such an amazing father.

Walk This Way

Week 48 (aka Month 11)

Today is Lily's 11 month birthday. I can't believe we almost have a one year old! We made an impromptu decision to visit the aquarium in Gatlinburg today. The idea was to find a way to do something fun, while beating this oppressive heat, so we thought we'd go take a swim with the fishes...(not in the "Mack the Knife" sense).














I think Lily really enjoyed the day and her attention was split between the new sights and sounds of the sea-life.... and all the other little kids there to enjoy the day. The aquarium is super kid friendly and there is an interactive area for the kids to play.














The "fish" resting on the tunnel is called a "sawfish", though it is closely related to sharks and rays. This one was probably about 6 feet long, but we saw some of his relatives that looked like they approached 10 ft. Other residents included sand sharks, nurse sharks, hammerhead sharks, tarpon (Jimmy Buffet fly fishes in salt flats for this big fellas), all kinds of clown fish, puffer fish, lobsters (the lucky ones anyway), jellyfish, lion fish, king crabs, and an ugly looking fella named a stonefish which is supposed to have the world's most deadly fish venom. There was also a ray pool where you can pet the rays. We were open to it (despite the Crocodile Hunter's misfortune) but they seemed more interested in resting peacefully on the far side of the tank than fooling around with the tourists in flipflops.

As for this last picture, what can we say. We tried to keep Lily out of the water, but she shares her brothers love for swimming...and selective hearing. Emily had to go in after her...

Week 47

While gone on our fantastic voyage, we were worried we would miss our yard blooming. Luckily that wasn't the case, and most of the flowers and plants are just starting to hit their stride. Lily is posing by the tiger lilies which are going to peak in about a week and are always so full and vibrant and a nice sight to greet us as we come home.

Lily is so mobile and so on the verge of walking by herself, that mishaps are bound to happen....at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself. You may not be able to fully appreciate Lily's two shiners in the picture on the left, but there's one under her right eye and in the middle of her forehead. I'm not too certain what she did to get the one under her eye, but the forehead was courtesy of the Babies r'us tile floor face plant. If you want to see the sometimes weird (new moms you know what I'm talking about) Babies r'us employees get even weirder, have your kid take a face plant right in front of them....oohh, they start to squirm....

And last and in this case least, there are now two 'adults' in the house with a 3 to start off their age...though Dave has been very generous to allow me to call it 29 version 2.0......hmmm I think I could get used to that. I had a great birthday last Friday, thanks to Dave's planning and Jonathan's babysitting....thanks to you both!

Who is 31, and who is almost 1

Right about now, you should all be feeling very sorry for Emily....

Round 1

You can tell Mary Hudson has done this before....
we'll have to put Lily in training before the rematch.