A Texas Sized Concert!

Last time was the first time ever (with the exception of her first few nights in the NICU) that I did not put Lily down at bedtime!! It was a pretty big deal for both of us, but it's been nearly 2 and a half years, so it was time! :) My Mom watched Lily yesterday while Chip, Eric, Kristi and I went to the inaugural concert at the brand new billion dollar Dallas Cowboys Stadium. George Strait was headlining, with Reba McEntire, Blake Shelton and Leanne Womack (it was supposed to be Julianne Hough, but she got sick). Eric is a huge George Strait fan -- the came to visit us really just to go to the concert! Anyone who know me knows that I don't really listen to country (with the exception of Willie Nelson and the one Keith Urban concert Mindy dragged me to). In fact I did not know a single George Strait song before last month when Chip started playing them for me. It is surprising actually since Strait is the 3rd biggest selling act of all time, after The Beatles and Elvis!! So it is a pretty big deal -- especially in Texas!!!! It was also a big deal to be at the new stadium on opening night. They were literally still working on the stadium up until the very last minutes and there was still a lot that was not quite finished. In a lot of ways we were the guinea pigs last night as they apparently had some major issues with food service, traffic and souvenir lines (non of which really affected us too much). But even though I only knew one song by each artist (literally, each one sang one song I knew) I had a great time!! I love concerts and love music and it was so much fun getting out with friends. Eric is a member of the George Strait fan club, so he got us pretty good seats on the floor. The venue is SO huge, that without good seats, it is not that great of a place to see a concert. But they do have the largest TV screens in the world, so you can always see the show there! :)

Chip and I outside the stadium -- it is the largest dome structure in the world.

It is just massive.

This one of the ginormous screens.

Leanne Womack

Blake Shelton

Reba! I was kinda excited to see Reba.

Me & Kristi

George Strait.

Apparently they call him "King George" since he is the King of Country Music.

The coolest part was that George started the crowd chanting "Jerry, open the roof" to Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys and this massive stadium.

It was the first time the roof opened, ever!

Eric and Kristi

There were 60,188 people at the show!

I guess after that, I am officially a Texan now! :)

Eric & Kristi Are Here

Eric and Kristi got here last Friday night. But before they arrived Lily and I made them some Cinnamon muffins to have for breakfast.

Lily was a big help. She put the cupcake liners into the pan.
And mixed the batter. She also poured all the ingredients into the bowl for me, but I couldn't take a photo of that since I had to stand nearby to ensure that all the ingredients made it into the bowl!

Of course, she had to taste the muffins first before we could offer them to our guests!

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Then Saturday morning/afternoon Chip and Eric went to work (yes, we put Eric to work). They had a huge tournament and wedding at the course, so Chip had to work a little even though he was hoping to take the weekend off. While they were working Kristi, Lily and I went shopping!!

Lily was hilarious with her many many necklaces and bracelets that she had to wear to the mall. But they kept her entertained, so that was good!

Showing off her new black bracelets (I bought earring and it was one pair of earrings for $6 or two things for $7, so she got this set of bracelets.) She was pretty excited.

A Whole Year of This!

I can't believe I forgot my own blogiversary on Tuesday!! I have officially been blogging for a year. To be completely honest, I never thought I'd actually stick with it, let alone complete 316 posts! I can't believe that I have been able to babble on about nothing for so long and more than that I can't believe anyone actually reads it! But you do, so thanks! :) Personally, I am SO glad I started this blog and wish I would have done it sooner. I just completed my first blog book which is 360+ pages (can't remember the exact # and it is on the laptop upstairs and I am too lazy to go up right now) and contains 1358 photos -- and is just covers June-Dec '08 of this blog! As soon as I get the first one ordered I am going to complete the next 6 months! Then I want to go back and do Lily's first year and a half, so that I can have her whole life documented. I love to scrapbook, but have only done 2 pages since Lily's birth -- neither of which was a photo of Lily (pregnancy and labor pictures). I know I will never ever get to scrapbook all the photos of our daily life; and photo albums are great, but there isn't much room (if any) to document the stories, milestones and funny things Lily does. So, for me, this blog has been great -- I am sharing Lily's life with my friends and family, all while completing a photo album and journal! It is perfect. The best part is that I got all those photos printed (in various sizes, some as big as 8x11) bound and in a large book for only $87 (plus shipping and tax). That comes out to .06 cents a picture -- not counting the book!! Can't really print pictures cheaper than that! So that is my opinion on the blog and I urge y'all to start one. :)

This week we haven't done anything too exciting. We had Gymboree yesterday at their new location which is 10 minutes farther away and a total of 25 minutes on the other side of town! I am glad Lily is starting to outgrow it and has preschool in the fall, because it is kinda far to drive! Other than that I have been cleaning since one of Chip's best friends from Merced, Eric, and his wife Kristi are coming to visit again this weekend. They were here last summer and had so much fun, they had to come back! :) So it has been a great excuse to really clean the house -- especially upstairs since it often gets neglected.

We went to my Mom's this morning -- I thought Lily looked totally 80's in her jean shirt, hot pink top and pearls.

Painting & Squirting

Last night we played outside -- shocking isn't it? Lily loves playing outside and thankfully she has gotten into the habit of going out after her nap, when the backyard is shaded rather than earlier in the day when it is super sunny out there. I didn't feel like getting the sprinkler toy and pool out so I suggested we paint. We bought paints a few weeks ago after she had so much fun painting at Grace's birthday party. We had gone out before and painted while sitting on the ground and she didn't like that too much (I can't blame her), but when I tried to cover the table with a tablecloth or newspaper to paint on, the breeze would blow it ever so slightly and she would go bonkers. So that didn't work either. Then last week while at the Hobby Lobby I spotted this little Crayola easel on sale for $11 (normally $34). An easel was at the top of my list for her next birthday or Christmas (I hate that they are so close together), but when I found this one on sale I just had to get it for her now. If it is a huge hit, we can upgrade to a nicer one later. She has been having fun with it inside the house since there is a magnetic wipe-off board on one side and it came with 2 sets of letters and number magnets -- so that has been a huge hit. The other side is a chalkboard which she has also enjoyed. It is perfect for her now.

I didn't notice until now that she was painting left handed. I am pretty sure she is right handed, think she was using the left hand yesterday since she had a extremely large plastic ring on her right hand and probably couldn't use it. Typical Lily -- fashion accessories before all else!

See the ring?

It was super cute because she was humming while painting!

Attempting to finger paint -- we've tried this before, but it is too "messy" for her.

After a while she was having more fun serving me paint food on the plate pallets than painting.

After painting we played with the hose. She loves to chase me around the yard yelling "I'm gonna get you messy" and trying to squirt me with the hose.

She actually did get me good a few times. I was just in a t-shirt and shorts and got pretty soaked.

When Daddy came home she had to "get him messy" too, although it was hardly fair since she just filled a small cup of water to dump on him and he was wearing a bathing suit!

Here is a random picture from this morning of Lily putting lipstick on.

My Mom also came over this afternoon and played with Lily while I cleaned the house some, but I didn't get any pictures of them -- I was too busy vacuuming, I guess.

Random Photos

Here are some highlights from the last few days: This picture is actually from Saturday night. She was filling up the buckets and trying to get me wet. The funny part was that she would turn the bucket towards her and just dump the water on herself. But instead of pointing that out, I yelled "oh, you got me!" every time and she had a blast and I stayed dry! :)


Sunday night after the Rangers game, we came home to relax and watched "Wipeout" from earlier in the week. Suddenly, Lily is climbing onto the ottoman and rolling off. I asked her what she was doing and she said "playing Wipeout!". I didn't get any pictures of her doing it on Sunday night -- but Monday morning I caught her doing it again. What a great thing for her to learn and copy.

Monday morning we had playgroup at Ava's house. Since it is summer vacation already for some kids, there were 3 older sisters with us today who were nice enough to let the little kids play dress up with them. At first Lily did not want to wear a dress, she was only into the shoes and accessories. But then she came around and put on the Minnie Mouse dress (that is her dancing on the left). I am not sure what Delia is dressed as with the mesh see-thru shirt! They had one of those Fisher Price Entertainment karaoke toys that projects the kids images on the TV set up in the media room -- so everyone was loving watching themselves dance and sing on the big TV screen. That blur on the right is Lily dancing by.

Her favorite part was the shoes!

After playgroup a couple of us decided to go to lunch at Pei Wei. I knew it was probably a bad idea since Lily had been whiny and disobeying me all morning, but I thought maybe she'd do better with all her little friends there. I should have gone with my first instinct. She would not sit (even though everyone else was sitting nicely). She would not eat. She took her shoes off. She was a disaster and I was exhausted so I made her say good bye to all her friends and we left. I was kinda hoping she'd be more upset about it and learn a lesson -- she was upset as we were leaving, but then over it as soon as we got to the car. When I asked her if she knew why we left she said because she wasn't listening to Mommy and didn't eat her chicken. So that is good. Hopefully someday soon it all sinks in.

She ended up taking a much needed 3 and a half hour nap when we got home and I was hoping she'd wake up in a much better mood, but she was still fussy. We went outside and played for a bit:

She dumped more water on herself.

See how she turns the bucket towards herself?

Even with all this fun, she just wasn't listening to me and was acting out. Chip was getting ready to leave to go to the airport to pick up my parents and I did not want to sit at home and deal with Lily and her attitude the rest of the night so we decided to take a ride with him out to DFW and surprise Grandma and Grandpa.

On the ride there the sun was setting and it was really pretty. Lily was really enjoying it and kept saying "look and the sun and clouds. So pretty. Look Mommy! Look Daddy" then she told me "take a picture Mommy!", so I had to take a picture. :)

Take Me Out To The Ballgame #2

Yesterday we went to the Rangers game again! Lily was SO excited to go to the "baseball game" again, she has been talking about going to a game again since we went the first time 2 weeks ago. I knew that we had tickets to go again, but didn't tell her we were going until the night before -- she has no patience and it would have been the longest two weeks ever if I told her sooner. She was a little too excited since she woke up at 7am (nearly 2 hours early) on Sunday ready to "go to the baseball game with daddy". Too bad we weren't leaving until 1 o'clock -- it made for a really really long morning trying to keep her entertained until Chip came home from work and it was time to go already!

Thankfully she napped in the car on the way there for about 45 minutes (but she didn't sleep on the ride home). She actually wanted to sleep on the way there, she told Chip "I'm going to sleep in daddy's car on the way to the baseball game."
Jason Giambi up at bat. I knew more A's players than Rangers. But at least I could cheer for the Ranger's this time. It makes it a lot more fun when you are cheering with the crowd rather than against it!

We got there right as the game started, and right as the waitress was coming around taking orders. We were in the same seats as last time, in the Lexus Club level, so it is nice that they have menus and in seat service. Lily's meal was a good deal, she got chicken tenders (which she actually ate), potato chips, oreos and a drink.

It was also free hat day -- so I got 3 free hats (since Lily and Chip probably won't wear theirs!) :) It was great to get a hat since it was 91 degrees out! Of course yesterday was the hottest day of the week and we were a little nervous about going to the game in the heat, but it didn't feel that hot at all. In fact Chip and I agreed it wasn't too much different than last time when it was 74 degrees. Go figure.

It was hard to get any good pictures of Lily since she sat on my lap 99% of the time. It also made for an uneven tan -- my right leg is way tanner than my left now.

When we first got to the game Lily started crying and wanted to go home. She said "no baseball. I want to go home!" I was a little surprised after how stoaked she was to go, but she quickly warmed up and started to have fun. I think she was just tired and still waking up from her super short nap.

Lily had the most fun pouring water in my empty lemon chill cup and playing with it. She ended up drenching us both, but the water felt nice and dried quickly. It was a little disgusting since she would put her hand in the cup and then drink the water afterward. Probably tasted like sweat and sunscreen. yuck.

Orlando Cabrera at bat and Adam Kennedy warming up. Both former Angels. Kennedy hit 2 home runs yesterday which helped Oakland win 5-4. It was a bummer than the Rangers didn't win, but it was still a super fun day!