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Easter 2009

For more pictures - including Lily's 1st haircut: http://picasaweb.google.com/michellehulsrice

We spent Easter in Chicago this year - at the Sheraton. We had an excellent time taking in the culture. We went to the Chicago History Museum - thanks to Elizabeth & her connections. I highly recommend this museum. It's awesome! We were able to view an exhibit of couture as worn by Chicago's most elite (aka-rich) women. Fantastic!!!! Those dresses were amazing. The older ones were had incredible detail and even Oprah donated an off-the-rack Chanel (her cost - $17,000)! They also had exhibits on the Chicago fire, blues, racial tensions throughout the years, and much more. This place is a must see!

We did a little shopping - mostly for Shaughnessy (yes, that's true! I abstained). We finally gave the ok for Nanna to buy an American Girl bitty baby! And it's a good thing because the Easter Bunny had a pumpkin outfit for the baby! The Easter Bunny must have remembered our pumpkin patch because otherwise it might have been odd to give a Halloween costume for Easter.

Shaughnessy & I went to a fantastic service at St. Paul's Lutheran Church for Easter. They had a choir, orchestra, and opera singers! Wow!

Then (most of) the Miles clan met at the Museum of Contemporary Art for an amazing brunch - Wolfgang Puck style. Thanks to Elizabeth & Frank for organizing! We stuffed ourselves silly. And of course Lily was the most beautiful girl there. Thanks to the super-cute dress from G G Huls.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! Sending our love.

Obamas Paying For White House Redecorating Personally

This is impressive and ridiculously unselfish. What leaders!

Obamas Paying For White House Redecorating Personally
Added by Mark Nickolas on Mar 30, 2009 - add as a friend | PM me

Relates to: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama

I think this is called leading by example:

At a time when people are having trouble holding on to their houses, Barack and Michelle Obama have sensibly decided not to use taxpayers’ money to renovate theirs. New presidents are allotted $100,000 to overhaul the White House residence and the Oval Office, and the Obamas hired Hollywood decorator Michael S. Smith (known, per his site, for mixing “Old World classicism with very contemporary settings”).

But the First Couple isn’t spending that money. They “are not using public funds or accepting donations of goods for redecorating their private quarters,” says Camille Johnston, director of communications for the First Lady. Nor is the couple, who reported $4.2 million in household income in 2007 tax returns, using money from the White House Historical Association, a privately funded foundation that paid for a $74,000 set of china shortly before Laura Bush left town.

Jindal Considers Speech Torture

We haven't posted in way too long. I need to edit video and add pictures. But. . . this was really funny (not about Lily!):

They're not allowed to show my speech at Gitmo anymore," he said. "They've banned that."
-- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal joking last night on his widely panned speech last month.

If you didn't catch the speech, it could be considered torture having to watch it. Glad he could make fun of himself.

Lily's 1st Birthday

For all the pictures, visit our picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/michellehulsrice

Lily turned one yesterday. We had her party on Saturday and it was a success. Unfortunately, she's been sick for the past few days so she wasn't in top form for the party. But she made it through like a trouper. We all loved having everyone over to help her celebrate. It was a lot of fun. Can't believe how much she's grown in a year and how fast the time has passed.

We think everyone agreed that the cakes were a success. Good thing I did a practice run on the bear cake before the real thing. And thanks to Maris for making the other delicious cakes. Lily enjoyed it all!
We'll post video later this week. I have a lot of editing to do on that I think!

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.