Western Days!

Wednesday and Thursday were Western Days at Lily's school and they were all encouraged to dress

"western".  We don't really have any western clothes and I wasn't about to go buy her something special just for this, so we used our imagination and improvised.  

On Tuesday she wore a jean skirt and a rhinestone t-shirt.  We were pretending the pink sparkly boots were cowboy boots and put her hair in a braid.  She looked more 80's than cowgirl, but she was happy.

On Thursday she wore the same boots with a dark blue, almost denim looking dress.  It was good enough for me!  Yee Haw!

8 Months Old!

My perfect angel is 8 months old.  I can hardly believe it.  She is still a joy and the most perfect baby.  She sleeps about 8-9 hours straight and still wakes up once during the night at about 3 or 4am which is fine with me.  She is my super baby who doesn't need naps and is down to one nap a day!!  Usually it is an hour.  Sometimes 2 hours.  Sometimes only 15 minutes.  But no matter how long or short, that is usually all we get.  I do wish she would sleep more, but she doesn't seem to need it and it does make our lives easier since I don't have to worry about scheduling life around her nap schedule.   She goes down at night around 7 or 7:30 and wakes up about 7:30 /8:00am.  She loves to play with her toys, but is still more into chewing on things rather than playing with them yet.  I keep trying finger foods, but she keeps gagging on them, so we'll give it a little more time.   She is just such a fun, happy, smiley baby and we all love her so much! 

For her 8 month pictures, I just took her out in the front yard real quick.  She just wanted to lunge forward and "crawl" off the blanket to play with the grass which made it a more challenging mini photo shoot.  The fact that the front yard is on a slope made it more exciting, since I have to keep catching her to stop her from rolling down the "hill".  But I got some cute ones. 

Just wanting to pick the grass.

I love that she got Chip's eyes!

See her teeth?

So Close . . .

Danielle is so close to crawling.  She lunges forward to get things and will get up on one knee, but she just can't get the other knee up under her yet.  I try to show her, but I don't know why.  Honestly, she can hold off on the crawling for a bit more if she wants.  When she does try to "crawl" she usually just ends up going backwards.  She does get around just fine without crawling.  She still rolls some, but more often she just scoots on her butt while sitting up.  And she'll get all the way across the room this way.   She is getting to be so big!

 

Peek a Boo!!

My Birthday

Today was my birthday.  I went out on Friday night with 7 of my best girlfriends to celebrate and had dinner and cake with my parents last night.   Since Chip had to work, I knew I wouldn't be doing anything too exciting.  I came up with the idea earlier in the week that I would like to take Lily out to lunch and for a manicure and pedicure.  Lily and I are due for a date and especially after last week when she was so sick, she needed some fun mommy time.  Thankfully, Danielle (for once) went down easily for a nap and my Mom was nice enough to come over and watch Dani so Lily and I could go out.  It was the perfect afternoon.  I was in desperate need of a pedicure and sprung for the extra massages which was awesome.  Lily loved getting her first pedicure and manicure -- in fact she wanted to play nail salon when we got home and pretended to do mine and Dani's nails.   Then I let Lily pick where we went for lunch and she randomly picked Mimi's.  We hardly ever eat at Mimi's - honestly, it's not that great here.  But it was the perfect choice for today -- if Lily only realized that I've eaten at the Mimi's in Downey for the majority of my birthdays. 

Yesterday, before we went to my parent's house.  Chip took Lily to Target to buy my birthday present.  Lily had asked both Chip and my Mom to take her shopping because she desperately wanted to buy me a present. Chip was able to come home a little early from work and took her.  She picked out my presents all by herself.  She was SO excited, it was SO cute.  I love her so much.  She is so thoughtful and caring and was so excited to spoil me and wanted me to have the best birthday.  And I did.  It was the best birthday just being able to play and have fun with my baby girls.

Lily got me pink roses.

She also bought me a pink candle, a heart shaped picture frame and a birthday hat.  It is all so Lily and absolutely perfect!!  The best presents ever.

 

Getting her first mani/pedi.

She even got polka dots on her nails and flowers on her toes.  She is in heaven!

Easter/Birthday

On Saturday night we went to my parent's house to celebrate a late Easter and my birthday.   Lily was looking forward to the egg hunt that she missed out on last week and then we went out to dinner and back to their house for cake and presents.  

She found the eggs pretty quick and was pleasantly surprised to find they had treats inside (I told her they would probably be empty that this was just for fun).  My mom brought over their Easter presents last week so Lily would have something new to play with when she was sick.

The "Easter bunny" even hid a couple of books for Danielle.

Getting a boost from Grandpa to reach one up high.

Inside she found chocolates, quarters, a golf ball and some other random stuff Grandpa threw in!

I dressed Dani more for a birthday celebration than Easter since I took those Easter pics last week.

In addition to the eggs, Lily found plastic lizards and this rubber Easter snake!  The snake was a big hit and I caught her playing with the lizards today.

Lily bought me the hat for my birthday.

My mom didn't have a birthday candle, like she thought so we improvised with a couple of lighters.  We're classy that way.

Looking for hidden pictures with Grandpa.

It was a good birthday/Easter celebration!

Sweet Treats

The last time I went to the grocery store (which was awhile ago.  My mom has been picking up necessities for us since Lily has been sick), Lily picked out vanilla pudding that she had to make just like they made at Stay and Play at school.  So on Thursday when she was starting to feel better, we finally got to make the pudding!

Then on Saturday, we finally got to make the Easter cupcakes that we didn't get to make for Easter.  The doubled as Easter cupcakes/ Birthday cupcakes for me!

Being weird, as usual.

We were all excited to make Easter basket cupcakes.  I even found edible Easter grass (that wasn't coconut, since Chip does not like coconut and candy basket handles at Target!

I was pretty proud of the cupcakes we assembled!

Sick Week

Poor Lily was sick all week.  The fever that she got last Friday night did not break until the following Thursday morning.  And if I didn't keep on top of the fever reducers, she would spike back up.  We went to the Dr and he said it just looked like a virus that we would have to wait out.  She had no other symptoms and everything else checked out fine.  So we waited.  She stayed home from school Monday -Thursday and finally got to go back Friday.  We were all pretty excited about that!  It was a long week shut in at home.

 

Poor baby just fell asleep on Monday night.  She was trying to eat part of a baguette for dinner and just passed out.  We carried her to bed and just put her down.  She woke up around 11pm and came into my room and asked in the sweetest little voice, "Mommy, why do I still have my clothes on."

One morning I noticed on the video monitor that she was starting to get up, but didn't quite make it and fell asleep with her head on the bed rail for about 10 minutes.

On Wednesday night she actually asked to go to bed at 6:30pm!!  So I obliged and she was out before I even finished tucking her in.

Of course, Tuesday at the doctor's office she was happy, hyper and bouncing off the walls!!

But by that afternoon she was passed out again on the floor of the living room.   This bug hit her hard, but thankfully it is behind us and knock on wood no one else has caught it yet!!

Teeth!

Danielle finally got her first tooth, actually teeth since the bottom two came through at once.  I first started to see a little break through the gum last Tuesday, April 4th.  And then by that Wednesday and Thursday I could totally feel the top parts of both teeth.  But it wasn't until earlier this week that I could finally really see teeth when she laughed and ate.  The rest of the time, she keeps them covered.  She didn't even want to show them for a photo -- she always puts her tongue out on top of them, but I managed to grab a quick pic with my camera phone!  

Trying to get a photo . . . .

There the are!!