Catching up with Marika and Bettina

Lara, Bettina and Marika have been good friends for nearly thirty years. They have shared giggles, tears, and many, many diary entries. They have had so many sleepovers, they've lost count over the years.

They cannot wait until their little ones get all cozy and pj'd up for their own sleepovers. Lily hopes that Lara will put together breakfast scavenger hunts for her and her friends just like Bettina's mom, Christine, always did.

Can you guess which pictures of Lily are current and which are from her third month? If you only look at hair growth, this will be hard.

Merry Christmahanzakwanikah!

To start off the holiday festivities, Pepere flew in to visit from New Hampshire. He greeted Lily with a stuffed zebra as he was inspired by her dancing story. Lily fell in love with Pepere's many musical numbers (from "Singing in the Rain" to the "Sound of Music"). His singing made the albuterol treatments just fly by!

Our childhood friends, the Loughrans, had our family over for Lily's first Hannuka celebration. We enjoyed all of the laughs, the stories and the homemade latkas! Evy noticed that Lily's outfit matched her bedspead...some rather art-sy photos were taken. We were hoping to introduce Lily to Julie (who is Hilary's age), but unfortunately she was stuck in the Seattle storm.

We had our traditional and yummy Christmas Eve dinner with the Brimhall family and Auntie Janet, Uncle Nick, our cousins, Katie, Kenny and Meggy. Lily got to play with Ken and Katie's son, Aiden. Aiden is going to teach Lily how to be a cute rascal. Every time we meet with our cousins, we try to figure out the relationship between Aiden and Lily. They are either second cousins, or cousins once removed.

Christmas morning, Grandpa, Nanny and Hilary came over. Lily didn't quite open her own presents, but she sure did suck on the wrappers. Lily got wonderfully thoughtful presents from her family, including a miniature table and chair set for her future tea parties, soft and practical outfits, a matching apron (to go with her mom's new apron), wooden blocks, sweet books, and even a start on her college savings! Though Lily will enjoy her gifts immensely, she seemed most impressed by the company.

In the afternoon, we all went to our family's favorite restaurant, Saul's. Though the wait was over 45 minutes (being Christmas and the fourth day of Hannukah), we were seated after only a couple of minutes...the hostess said "Ok, the wait will be around an hour...oh, are you with George and Maryjane? Just follow me."

Christmas night, Uncle Jereme and Auntie Ariel came over for dinner. They brought with them homemade bread, festive cookies and apple pie. After a couple of hours, we all started to miss Lily, so we woke her up. I think she appreciated it, she semed to have a lot of fun...she especially enjoyed Jereme's fun facial expressions!

The next morning, Lily wanted to experience more of Jereme's expressions, so the five of us went to Ocean Beach to catch some rays and to fly kites. Not a bad way to spend the holidays... we hope all of you had equally enjoyable, sharing, and relaxing times too.

The Cars

Lily adores spending time in cars. She loves feeding, sleeping, babbling, and goofing around in cars. We don't quite understand the appeal, though we are enjoying going along with it.

Lily Math

We just got home from Lily's sixth month check up. She currently weighs 15 pounds, 14 ounces. She is just over 26 inches long and her head measures 17 inches around. This puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and nearly the 75th percentiles for height and head circumference! In addition, her lungs sound great. Nice job, Lilybug!!!

Our Sweet Pea

Lily does peas and she does them well.

Our mini monkey meets Marika, Mo and Meggy!

Continuing on with my alliteration theme... 'Tis the season to visit with friends and family! This week, Lily got to bond with Lara's two oldest childhood friends, Marika and Maureen. Lara met Marika in a ballet class when she was two (Marika came over and gave her a kiss on the cheek). Lara and Marika met Mo at the Berkeley co-operative nursery school, "Dandelion." Lily couldn't take her eyes off of Mo's luscious lashes and Marika's beautiful hair. Cousin Meggy also came over to cuddle with Lily. The ladies chatted over cupcakes (Meggy shares Lara's passion for delicious desserts). Lily tried to sneak in a few icing licks.

Bubbles

Lily is starting to really enjoy bath time. She used to only like floating on her tummy and she is now starting to be comfortable with her back stroke. Perhaps her swim classes in the BHS warm pool are helping out. Lily was super pleased with herself when she figured out how to stand (with our support) in the tub.

Go Lily, grab hold of that foam variable! Oh, how exciting....future math teacher???

Lily loves laundry!

(and apparently mom loves alliterations)

Insulation

It looks like we are all putting on a few ounces this holiday season. We are so pleased that Lily is happy and healthy.

Lily gets her groove on!

We've been trying to spiffen up Lily's daily treatments. We got her a Baby Einstein video which has a great musical piece with dancing zebras following the lesson on the seasons. Lily finds the zebras and the tune quite inspirational. Following the treatments, we set Lily free. She really becomes one with the music...she has incredible rhythym!

Ladies' Luncheon

Lara, Leah, Audrey and Lily dined at Cesar for lunch today. Leah and Lara talked about teaching math at King Middle School, while the kiddos talked about incoming teeth and the latest teething toys. It was wonderful.

It won't be long before the mamas need to share their manchego and greens bocadillos!

Lily's first solid food!

It was rice cereal mixed with breast milk, it was bland and we are pretty sure that not much actually made it into Lily's mouth. Uncle Dan documented the event for us. We all enjoyed ourselves. More to come!

Thanksgiving at Memere's House! (and a long trip on the road...)

We decided to hit the open road with Lily over Thanksgiving week, and drove (yes, drove) from Oakland, California to Green Valley, Arizona to visit Memere, a 1700 mile round trip. It was a whirlwind of a trip, two days on the road each way, with a stop in Palm Springs on the way down, and Palmdale on the way back. (We learned that Palmdale is no Palm Springs, but they do get to see the Space Shuttle land at Edwards Air Force Base from time to time, including just a day after we drove through... oh well.). We learned much about traveling with our Lilybug, including that 15 minutes out of the car, does NOT count as a rest stop. Those need to be more like 1 hour, and they better involve lots of playing and giggling, and reading rest area signs on the local attractions (including, might I add, that California's Interstate 5 through the Central Valley provides numerous opportunities for sight seeing and recreation. - Nice try.). We also learned how to go "cord free" with Lily's nebulizer treatments, including a slick 12 Volt battery/inverter set up that allowed us to keep up with her schedule while on the road, either in the car or at a rest area picnic table.

Thanksgiving was terrific, and we shared our thanks with Brian's cousin Marie, her husband Alan, their son Alan, and friend of the family Jill. We also had a chance to tour around Green Valley, including a trip to Tubac to look at the beautiful Mexican pottery - Lara's favorite! Memere was a great host and had toys, a crib, blankets, even a swinging chair just like Lily's at home, for us to use. We felt right at home, and Lily was more than happy to stay put for a couple days.

Thanksgiving meal was wonderful, Memere did a lot of planning and cooking... lots of fun, lots of turkey and all the fixings. But poor Lily only had the one thing on her menu... milk. Not to worry, Lily's been watching us very closely these past few day, wondering what it is that we keep putting in our mouths when we sit at the table... solid foods are coming soon...

We hope you enjoy these new photos...

Rise and shine...


















Rest stop playing and nebulizing on the go...

















Lily's first Thanksgiving!

On the road again...

Home again and wiped out...

On a hike with Nanny...

Lily loves to cozy up in our jackets when on hikes!