Coosa Ball is Lilyspeak for "Foosball"

Again - a - coosa - ball Uncle Ed lookout, I'm a fierce competitor and I'm ready to take you on.

La Coooo Caahh Raaahhh Chaaaahhhh

CHA CHA CHA!!!

Happy Birthday to Lily!

On November 20th 2007, Lily came into our lives. It is two years later and she continues to amaze us every day. This year we had some family and friends over for a birthday party, and we had such a great time!




Here I am with my birthday crown. Cover my eyes! For the wonders of this birthday celebration are too great to behold!!! Then it was time for a birthday cake. Look, it's Dora!!!








After the celebration was in full swing, we retired to the basement. Would you like to come to a tea party? Here I am with my favorite cousins - Casey, Christine and Caitlin.









George is there too. We're having tea at the table my Paw Paw built for me! Would you like one lump or two?










Now it's time to dance. Who has the best Grandma and Auntie on the East Coast? I do!!! Here I am dancing with all my favorite people.

What a weekend!

We decided to cut some hairs this weekend. At this great place - they put Lily in a little car, and she was able to watch Dora on tv while the stylist clipped away at her famous hair. They even let us keep some of it...





On saturday we decided to get dinner. The restaurant was Basilico's and the food was Italian - Lily had pasta, Jay had spicy red sauce with lobster and shrimp and Katy had the veal special - delish. Guess what? It was NOT the relaxing sweet family dinner we imagined! This shot sums it up.



Want to know how to get Lily excited? Give her a backpack from Dora (available at your local Target) and point her to the park. She sprints off with glee, as shown.







Swing swing! She laughs and clutches her backpack as she swings and swings. These are the kind of laughs that you think about all week. Here's to next weekend!!!

Jersey Shore 2009

Hooray for the Jersey Shore 2009; we set out on a joint Finnin-Ferguson family vacation down the shore. Long Beach Island was our home for a week, and we stayed in Beach Haven. What a great time.





Here's a picture of Declan after he nailed the five stroke bonus on mini golf. The course was a riot - looked like it was designed by a mad genius but the course itself was falling apart before our eyes.





Here's us waiting for our seat at Showtime ice cream. This place was Ian's ultimate dream - show tunes and a staff mocking the patrons while you eat ice cream. What more could you want on a Jersey shore trip??? Good thing Uncle Jay and Aunt Sarah went early to hold a place in line for the family.





When you order ice cream, the wait staff makes certain people sing for some reason. In this video you can see the sisters Finnin performing to earn their Peter Pan sundae that they shared.





These dudes just look cool. Liam is a natural in the surf and Declan did a great job finding a jackpot in shells. In fact, we had to call waste management to get rid of the massive pile of shells he left in the back yard...





Here's Lily and her dad walking on the beach, making memories. Good thing we watched the shark week special after we were done at the beach, otherwise this picture wouldn't have even happened.

Turtle Back Zoo with my Long Isand Family

In July I got to go to the zoo with Pop Pop and Grandma. Sometimes people ask, "do you go to the zoo every weekend?" My reply is that if you lived near the Turtle Back Zoo you'd be there a lot too!



This is me and my grandparents on the merry go round. It's not as nice as the one in Disney World but ... what do you expect. We're in Jersey. Ohhhhh!







Choo Choo. We had a great time on the train. It takes you into the reservation, along the lake and back into the zoo.








That's me and Grandma. I'm so thankful for our weekends in 2009. What a great idea Grandma had!!!











I'm starting to think this place is for the birds. You hold the stick up with birdseed and these parakeets just flock to you - great fun.

It's a BEAR!

Lily, tell me what you see... Is it a lion? A tiger? No... It's a b-e-a-rrrrr!

Happy Fourth of July

So we packed up Lily and went on a family bike trip to South Orange Diner. We spent about 50 minutes biking in total, and about 30 minutes figuring out how to lock the bikes up. Those quick release wheels don't really release very quickly...



What a perfect weekend. We biked. We swam. We took field trips to downtown Maplewood. "Do you like my outfit? It's from Grandma and Pop Pop. I'm so patriotic!"

How about this? In this little video Lily is chasing after bubbles. "Why are they so little and so sneaky? I can't seem to catch them." Sure this video may not be from the 4th but we had to work it in...

It's Finally Sunny in Jersey

Well it was a long stretch of dreary weather. We were pretty stir-crazy so by the time the weekend came we couldn't wait to get outside. Here's Lily strutting her stuff - with her movie star glasses she was all the rage in the kiddie pool.




Now for some quiet time. The sun was a bit exhausting so we took a break, ate some dried cranberries (Lily's new favorite snack) and had some quality family bonding.







Floppy hat and sunglasses - she really knows how to make an impression. And here she is with Mom in the three-foot pool - you can hear the giggling as she soars freely through the water.

Grandma Weekend 2009!

Hooray, Grandma came to Maplewood, and did the good times ever roll... We had such a fun time reading, cuddling and walking to the park. (In case you're wondering we walked to the far away park.)



Here's me reading with Grandma.



And here's another. Hey Grandma, this is fun.



Wamp-wahhhhh. I highly recommend this book. Let's do this again sometime, ok?

Love, Lily

Get Back Into Your Sidecar!

We went to the bike store this weekend. Wow. Then we thought about it, checked our budget and went to Target. The bullseye allowed us to get bikes for family bike day!
Check it out.



First she puts on her helmet...she likes it because it has Dora - I don't know how she knows Dora but she does.



Then look at her coming and going. On her first trip she was quiet, as long as we kept moving.



Then after awhile ... we realized she had fallen asleep. Which was nice, until she woke up and her helmet had creeped down to cover her face, and at that point - party over.





She probably didn't know where she was or why she was going so fast. Our hope is that she'll grow to love little family excursions like this... but who knows. She'd probably rather be roaming free - maybe we'll open the screen next time so she can feel the wind in her face...

Crawfish in Maplewood? Now I've seen everything!

We had a blast on Memorial Day weekend. We made some crawdads (shipped up live from the land of Lily's ancestors) - boiled up with Zatarain's spices, new potatoes, sausage, garlic cloves, lemons and corn. Katy really did the work and it paid off. Mmm mmm. Aunt Cheryl was a champ with the crawdads, though we had to freeze a good number of the leftover soldiers.


All in all - it was a great day. Thanks to Brad, Abbie, baby Brabbie, Grandma, Pop Pop, Aunt Cheryl, Uncle Ralph and Chrissa for making the trek.

Poochi Poo Goes CHOO CHOO

We took Lily to the zoo to check out the choo choo train. Thanks to our Ferguson-ness, we were first ones at the zoo, and therefore the first on line to get on the train. Check this out.

We really thought it would be some dinky ride in a circle, but before we knew it we were in a tunnel, then going through the gates, exploring the reservation.

It moves fast, to the sounds of 'chugachugachuga..."

Here's how the whole thing played out in live action - trust me, she loved it. It was a little chilly but she was well snuggled by mom. "We're go-in, we're go-in, on the express... go-in, on poochi's Turtle Back ex-press..."

This is Lily's latest visit to the Turtle Back Zoo. She enjoys running around - not sure if she even notices all the great animals (red panda, bears, peacocks, or the mighty cougar) - but either way, she loves it here.


We take Lily on the merry-go-round and she's not totally sure whether she likes it...


If you watch closely, you can see the native Jersey Lily in her natural habitat. She lets out her signature Lily call and wears herself out in a ritual that will ultimately lead to a three hour nap. Ah, weekends are sweet...

Lily likes her music.
As you can see here she is very hard at work trying to compose her first masterpiece.



The determination... the focus...

And for all of you who can't be in New Jersey every night- this is our evening routine. It's brusha-brusha time at the Ferguson house. She's basically got the hang of it - though it can be confusing to know which end of the brush to use sometimes... But she's got the best teeth in Jersey...