This is how she lives

Nothing too exciting to see here, but here's Lily moving from one activity to the next, with a lot of stair-climbing in the middle:

Failure

Some days are just a complete waste. It is after 4 and Lily has not napped yet today. I haven't gotten any work done, the house is a wreck, and soon I'll have to make some attempt at making dinner. We actually have far too many days like this. So that is why I don't post much. Lily is a sweet and wonderful blessing, but the girl does not sleep! Mama needs a break.

The Stats

Lily had her 1 year well-baby visit this morning. She weighs 22 lbs 12 oz and is 31 1/2 inches. So she's still holding steady at 75th percentile for weight and is 95th for height. The doctor said she has seen similarly crazy teeth before, so no need to worry there. :) She put up a spectacular fight while getting her shots. It was a lot of red-faced yelling and kicking the poor doctor in the gut. And she pulled out the old alligator deathroll trying to get away from the needles, so I had to practically lay on top of her whole torso to hold her down. It was intense. So by 10:30 AM Lily and I were both sweaty and stressed out and ready for the day to be over. But it's not, so I'm going to go try to get some work done.

Play Date

Lily's friend Owen came over to play yesterday. :)

Owen loves Lily's toys, and Lily really loves Owen.
She treats him a lot like she treats our cats. Meaning she gets so excited around him that she just kind of wiggles and squeals, and then tries to tackle him. Having him in the walker helped because she wasn't able to bop him on the head like she sometimes does.
But there was an awful lot of mouth-touching going on.

Lily's First Birthday Party

Nana and Zoe came early to help get ready for the big party. We cleaned the house and Nana took Lily outside to rake while I baked the cake.
Thank you Aunt Elizabeth for the awesome cake pan. :) We chopped and cooked and I iced the cake while Lily napped in the afternoon. Unfortunately this is the best picture we got of the final cake:
I had made the tablecloth with fabric Lily picked out at Joann's. :) Benjamin and Zoe picked up the balloons and decorated during naptime. When Lily woke I put on her party dress and brought her downstairs to this:
She was in awe. :) About 20 people came for the party. We had delicious Indonesian food (chicken satay, yellow rice, etc) courtesy of Nana. The cake was a banana cake with buttercream icing. Lily cried when we sang happy birthday to her. Otherwise she had a fabulous time.






She got lots of new toys. She was great at opening her presents herself, though Maya insisted on unwrapping most of them. Here she is eyeing up some delicious cardboard:
And Chuck the Talking Tonka Truck was a big hit. Thank you again, Aunt Elizabeth!
The other little girls got worn out and had to go home (crying), but Lily just kept playing. Grandpa and Gogo sent lots of books that Lily has been enjoying.
Eventually Lily got tired too.
And then suddenly had a second wind and wanted to play with the trash:
And this is an awful picture but it's a good sign of what's to come...
I had some dishes fall out of the kitchen cupboard and make a racket, so Benjamin ran to my rescue. Unfortunately in the less than one minute she was unsupervised, Lily managed to pull the little chair out from this table and climb up:
So I walked into the dining room to find her on the little table, waited for Benjamin to snap the picture, and immediately took the wild child up to bed. And then I'm such a sap that I had tears in my eyes as I rocked her to sleep because I can't believe that my baby is one. It was a wonderful day and she was sweet and happy and made just the right amount of trouble. :)

Happy Birthday Lily!

It's going to take me some time to sort through the pictures from tonight's party, but I will try to post them tomorrow.

I didn't want to let the day end though without saying how overwhelmed I feel by Lily turning one. We are so blessed. She is an amazing little girl and such fun to have around. She still doesn't sleep through the night, still sometimes hates riding in the car, and keeps us on our toes every second, but I cannot imagine life without her. So happy birthday baby girl. We love you more than you will ever know. :)

What do you do when the food is too hot?

Lily learned tonight, sort of. And if you turn the volume WAY up, and listen to it a few times, you might even hear her blowing on the food as she puts it in her mouth. (right after Jelly leaps over the baby gate.)

Getting a jump on the troublemaking

She had woken up only a few minutes before, in her usual fashion:

Ah, Memories...

That was me on November 1 last year. Lily was due November 2. Please forgive the sad face (those were dark days!)