we had such a nice brunch celebrating miss juliet this morning. here are just a few pics. she slept through most of it, but seemed to enjoy being the reason for all the fuss :)

everyone wrote a note for juliet's baby book.
staci makes amazing scrapbooks!

juliet's grandma was here for the occasion!


the group


the guest of honor


staci and juliet


love her pretty party dress!


we love rebecca!


the neglected children watching noggin on the computer in my office with kevin (the saint babysitter)...


aidric is shocked the party was not for him!

irony. its a funny thing.

i have the tv on while in the kitchen baking banana bread and they just showed a scene where a pregnant woman was sitting on her couch with assorted snacks and an entire tub of ice cream and the thought that went through my head was 'well thats an exaggeration' then i dipped my finger in banana bread dough and then into a bag of chocolate chips and licked it off.

kevin had a little helper while he put together the dresser for baby's room. gotta love ikea! lily and baby will have matching dressers, but instead of pink glass knobs this one will have square lucite ones. i'll be sure to post pics of the finished room when its done... at least by the time the baby is a year old? :)

surveying the job...

discussing their plan of attack...


lily tells daddy to get to work.


lily is placed at a safe distance so kevin can actually get some work done...

for my dallas peeps who are looking for summer photos while i'm on maternity leave, check out my good friend (and personal paparazzi that will be doing my maternity pics in just two weeks!!! yay!!!) jennifer cota's work!

she is traveling to dallas for client shoots june 6-7 and i know you'd love her work!

as if there haven't been enough lily pics lately...

on another note, if y'all could do me a favor and never tell lily that her mama is a photographer, i'd appreciate it. i read horror stories about pks (photographer's kid syndrome) and their general disdain for the camera. as long as lily's dishing out the love, i'm gonna keep capturing it! :)

two nights ago the baby finally flipped from being transverse and suddenly i have a big baby belly!! its about time... just 8 weeks to go :)

the marathon route effectively detoured kevin and i to the outlets yesterday morning in search of a new chair for lily's room (she is losing her glider to baby 2). as we were getting out of the car i saw something falling from the sky that looked like it was on fire!

i told kevin what i saw, and he proceeded to tease me and tell lily her mama was 'crazy'...

oh yeah?! take THIS, crazy man!!! :)

this book has seen better days. jesus took a serious beating when it came to teething time. apparently foam mounted religious figures are not exempt from tiny budding teeth. lily loves this book. i have probably read it 100 times.

today was the first time i think i actually learned something.

i said out loud "Jesus said that if you want to see heaven... you must be trusting like a little child." and i thought, how trusting is a little child? does lily trust me? sure she does. is her trust perfect? no, its not.

she doesn't trust that when i put frozen sausages in the microwave that they are going to be piping hot and on her tray in 45 seconds, or maybe she wouldn't cry 'sausage!?! sausage!?!?!' completely distraught every single morning.

does she trust me when i say that we're almost home and she can get out of her carseat in two stop lights? not really. hence the grabbing of the carseat harness and saying 'out. out. out.' repeatedly.

on the other hand, she does trust that when i close her door at night, i will open it again in the morning. she trusts that my hand in hers is what keeps her safe crossing the street and that having me at the bottom of a slide means she can go down as fast as it will take her without being hurt in the end.

these are silly examples, but it really did make me feel better to realize that the faith of a child, while amazingly beautiful, is not perfect. which is a good thing... because i'm sure not.

lily's newest trick. she tosses everything out of her crib when she wakes up and says 'uh oh!'

i took this when she woke up this morning. i asked 'lily, where is your stuff?? notice the sly smile and both fingers pointing :)

a few updates on my house... well the actual house and me feeling about as big as a house. ;)

kevin put up the pictures i ordered last night in our entry way! i love it :) its a tad more formal than the rest of the house but i love the black and whites and these are three of my favorite pictures. finally we have family photos downstairs! the three i chose...

the wedding image is from shannon drawe, the family group is by jen cota, and lily's first steps by yours truly.

we finally have our living room in decent shape as well. a trip to fourhands last month yeilded my latest obsession- this beautiful console that really opens up our living space! thanks to craigslist, we got rid of our old furniture to finance this purchase :)

and back to me feeling as big as a house, i snapped a few self portraits this morning of all my bellied glory. 9 weeks to go and now up around 14 pounds thanks to a lot of ice cream at gaga & moon's house. in true "second child" fashion, i have been a complete slacker and taken maybe 3 belly pics along the way compared to my weekly obsession with lily!

extreme close up...good morning baby! :)

i've noticed lately that my artistic drawing skills are along the lines of lucky charms. no matter what lily and i are coloring- sidewalk chalk, crayons, etc i am pretty stuck in a hearts, shamrocks, stars, moons, rainbows rut.

then again, lily seems to be a big fan of the straight line, so at least i'm a step ahead of her right?

i was looking through old kodak albums online last night of pictures my sister has taken (she is a very talented photographer!) and came across this one of my niece lucy when she was 20 months old- this was the day after her little brother was born. i can't believe how much it looks like lily!



for comparison, here is a pic of lily at 18 months...



to be fair, they don't always look so much alike, and based on how gorgeous miss lucy is these days, i'm not sure kevin could handle the teenage years if lily heads in her same direction :)

a little vintage lily for you today...

there is just something about this shot that i love.

anyone who has known me for years can tell you my favorite color. it was once more of an obsession than it is now, but there's just something about the color orange. its constantly cheerful, frequently neglected, and relegated to the ranks of halloween decorations in most households. i love it.

i've wondered if it stems from my love of halloween (also my birthday) but regardless of the source, all things orange just make me happy. i've widened my love of orange to include a yellow/orange blend that pantone just named 'the color of the year'

friends, meet mimosa:

i have been planning a nursery around the colors white, navy, and what i've been calling 'marigold' that has a tinge more orange in it than mimosa, but i could definitely get on board with pantone this year!

lily's friend kyla came over to play today. we were sitting on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, but lily insisted on sitting in the 'garage studio' and when kyla joined her, i knew i had to grab my camera and take advantage of the moment :)

how cute are they?? such characters!

then we went to the playground :)

my loves...