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..."