Lily walking with a walker (Video)

Lily received a toy lawn mower for Christmas from Aunt Kelly and it didn't take her long to get the hang of it!

Lily meets Santa!

Lily met Santa last weekend. Santa was impressed, Lily was not. But she allowed us to take some photos. She was rather indifferent about the entire situation. He told us that Lily wants a new Britex car seat - like the one he uses on his sleigh. We told Santa he better work on bringing it.

Quote of the Day

"This afternoon, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear a motion to throw Governor Rod Blagojevich out of office. Afterwards Blagojevich thanked the Supreme Court and said, 'Your check is in the mail.'"

-- Conan O'Brien on Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Crawling!

Lily is now crawling! Nov. 30 she took a few knee movements forward and followed up with a few more the next couple of days. It wasn't long before she was crawling around like she was born to do it. She has perfect form. I can hardly believe she couldn't do it before. For a few days, she would forget about this new skill and cry because she wanted to move - but she'd soon remember and off she went. Now, she is relishing this new freedom and is beginning to speed crawl. It does make me feel good when she crawls straight toward me! M

The Christmas Tree

We put up the Christmas tree this weekend! Lily could not keep her hands off of the ornaments...hooks and all. (Although she handled most of them quite delicately, picking them up with her fingers and letting them sway in the light while she gazed upon them.) We have a 9 footer with 4000 points of light covered in both antique and new ornaments. About half way through the decoration process, Lily was laying flat on her back at the base of the tree staring up...as if in Christmas heaven!

Thanksgiving & a Wedding

Lily's 1st Thanksgiving!

Eating lunch - she loved it! Especially the couple tiny tastes she got of G. Norbert's pumpkin pie!




Hanging with Kim.
Meeting Craig's dog.
Playing with G. Norbert.

Sitting with Uncle Terry.


Lily also went to a wedding this weekend.


















A family photo.


















Late night. Checking out the tie.

Lily on the move

Lily has decided that crawling is not necessary! After weeks of attempting to crawl forward and, in fact, finding backward success she has learned another way. She kind of sideways somersaults/half cartwheels to get where she wants to go.

sr

The Daily

I stopped by to see Lily today at the University of Illinios Child Laboratory...that's right we send our kid to a lab everyday! Anyway, everytime I go in there she is asleep and the lady tells me that she is such a "good eater". I wonder if they are giving her experimental food that makes her unusually tired? Did I sign a conscent for for this last week, hmm, I don't remember, oh well she's tough. So I wake her up and we start playing. I'm teaching her how to catch a ball and say Da Da, this will be my focus until Christmas ( surely she'll have at least the Da Da part down by then) The catch the ball part may take longer, but we have time-

Quote of the Day

"Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Here we go again with the sexism; pigeonholing her as a secretary."

Stephen Colbert on Hillary Clinton.
The Colbert Report

Gift Ideas for Lily

(Disclaimer - Fam, these are only ideas because people have asked and not pressure to get her anything or to follow the suggestions.) With the holidays quickly approaching and Lily's 1st birthday coming up too soon, we wanted to share gift ideas.

Clothes: Size 9-12 month (she's not yet wearing this size but will soon be)

Books are always fantastic - especially educational / developmental board books.

Toys: She needs some more age appropriate / developmental toys. In general, we prefer more natural items - think green. (little plastic)

pull/push toys
balls
bath toys
Haba First Blocks
Haba roller
Haba stacker
Plan Toy hammer balls
Plan Toy xylophone

Good sites / stores:
Art Mart in Lincoln Square
http://www.kangarooboo.com
http://www.euphoriababy.com


Swim lessons: I don't know if the Urbana Park District sells gift certificates but one for swim lessons would be nice. (We're Urbana residents.)

And please, post ideas for yourselves and kids on here so we know what would be good for you!

Thanks!

Halloween pictures!

Lily & Shaughnessy feeling her name scarred on a pumpkin.






































Trick or Treating (we brought the treats) at Grandpa Huls' hospital room.














Lily rearranging her pumpkins.

Our First Blog!

Hello! Welcome to our blog. We decided to create this to share (1) what our family is up to; (2) pictures; (3) thoughts with friends about raising babies (general advice and suggestions on items to purchase for development and convenience.)

A smaller reason was to share ideas for gifts for Lily for the holidays and her birthday. It might be nice to know what she does not have and would get a lot of use from.

We hope to communicate with friends in a fun and interactive way. Make sure to sign up as a member and follow our posts. Thanks for visiting!

Michelle, Shaughnessy, & Lily