better late than never! my sister and i took our dad on a canopy tour a few weeks ago for his belated father's day present. we had a lot of fun, laughed a little too hard at beaver jokes, and probably annoyed most of the people on our tour in true donovan fashion.

dad with his girls

erin gets ready for the first zipline

this is the bridge where erin bit me. (i have been bit twice in two weeks)

coming in for landing

moon in motion

lily has a new game where she likes to play peek a boo with you. she checks to make sure you are looking at her, then she squats (her version of hiding), then she pops back up with a big smile!!

i took these today while trying to tie my shoes, pay attention to lily, and play with my new camera all at one time :)

sweet lily. her eyelashes go on for days.

its quiet moments like this that help me forget that she bit me yesterday. (yes. bit me.)

i don't have any adorable pictures of lily in red, white, and blue or even any fun firework shots. i've been sick the past day and a half or so, but i did manage to get a few of lily out for a walk with kevin this morning.

these aren't the usual fancy pants pictures, just snapshots of my new toddler :)

as if her walking isn't cute enough, she insisted on clapping as she walked...

if this doesn't make you laugh, you either

a) didn't go to showbiz for a classmate's birthday every other month in the early 80's

or

b) your funny bone is broken.

for those of you wondering how miss lily did tonight, we had a GREAT time at erin's show! i'm so glad we stretched her boundaries and went out past bedtime. as you can see, she was ready for her pajamas and bottle, but she was a HIT at the show and did a wonderful job of being flexible!

can you believe lily margaret only has 4 weeks until her 1st birthday? i'm mostly in denial about it still! her two best playgroup friends have turned 1 already and we had a mini cake smash party at our house today to celebrate!

you can see pics on the photography blog of the fun (and the mess)!

my dear friend erin ivey is headed to africa on a mission trip very soon and one of her last shows in town before she leaves the continent is 6:00 this wednesday night at cedar street! anyone in austin should definitely try to make it! she is an amazing singer and i plan to be there with miss lily and the baby daddy.

yes thats right, you read correctly. we plan to take little miss "get me bathed and in bed by 7pm or you'll be sorry" out past her bedtime. hopefully she will surprise and thrill us all with her charm and flexibility when life throws her this little curve ball. i'm sure she will be so enthralled with erin's melodies that she will hardly notice her bedtime creeping by...

and, yes. i'm posting this in hopes that i don't chicken out.

there are those days that i feel that i have been divinely placed squarely where i need to be fed, and today was one of those days!

in church today as we (slowly) make our way through the book of 1 corinthians we landed on the start of chapter 6 and the discussion revolved around our call as christians when wronged or mistreated. man did i need today's sermon! i feel so much peace and i know it is my call not to react harshly and instead to endure and trust in my God.

my hope and help comes from God and i was reminded of that today. i will cast my burdens on the unshakable foundation of His love and promises.

when you do what is right and suffer for it you
patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.
1 peter 2:20

for those of you who want to hear more, check out the podcast of today's sermon once its posted at austinstone.org

moving on to a MUCH more controversial topic.... high heels for babies. yay or nay?



those are the kayla, my personal favorite. too bad they only go up to size 6mo.

i think they are too funny and a photoshoot waiting to happen. you can check them out at www.heelarious.com

thanks to my fashionista sister for sending me those for a good laugh last week.

i just heard about ed mcmahon losing his house due to foreclosure and despite all the thoughts running through my head of how in the world he could be 80 and broke after all those years in the entertainment industry, i had a positive thought.

maybe he should enter the publisher's clearing house sweepstakes?

just plain bored or downright silly? i'm still 50/50 on this one....

thank goodness for self timers :)

we have a new blog layout! whaddya think? i wanted something more personal and my new addiction to photoshop came in handy :)

here are just a couple of pics from our inaugural trip to the lakehouse. more pics with lily's cousins soon to come!

she thought the lifejacket sounded fun at first...



but quickly changed her mind.



much happier in pajamas on the dock.



trying to eat her way out of another life jacket.



and finally dressed in her cutest outfit for uncle mike's birthday dinner

i think my dogs are smarter than lily.

on some subjects they tie. they would both eat their poo if given the chance and have actually done such on occasion.

the dogs eat their throw up while lily just plays with hers like fingerpaint. i consider that a tie.

lily knows how to walk on two feet, so she scores one there.

she also doesn't try to smell anyone's butt which is nice.

however, the dogs still win in the vocabulary competition. they have known "no", "sit", "stay", "walk", "hungry", and "off" for quite some time, but this morning i realized that my consistent use of "all finished" (followed by the appropriate sign language) in an effort to teach lily continues to fall on deaf ears on that front, but the dogs have picked up on it.

as soon as i say "all finished" after meals they swoop in like vultures ready to lick up any piece of wayward banana or waffle that found its way to the floor.

i'll just let them enjoy their intellectual superiority for now :)

am i the only one that had a 'goonies' flash back when obama was speaking last night saying 'this is OUR time'. i kept expecting him to add 'its all over, the minute you ride up troy's bucket'. :)

lily and i meant to go to the grocery store this morning. we really did... but we ended up doing a photo shoot instead :)

i love this field. we pass it all the time and for once we stopped the car for some fun. looks like my lily is finally turning into a little of an outdoors girl!

i went to see the sex & the city movie tonight with two wonderful ladies. if you haven't seen it and are a fan of the show, it really put a huge smile on my face. i probably cried 4 times. without giving anything important away, i will admit i let out a little scream when charlotte revealed their adopted daughter's name was LILY!

i also felt very lucky see it sitting next to my sister- the one girl i know would be there to feed me breakfast in bed if i couldn't gather the energy to feed myself.

miss lily is on the mend and she and i had a gorgeous walk this morning at the botanical gardens. here are a few views from our day...

pink water lily

my lily in a gazebo

yummy giant butterfly

i wish i could have heard the inner monologue of the cashier checking me out at the grocery store last night. i was buying the following:

infant motrin & tylenol
beer
pregnancy test

what a day we had around here! poor lily is SICK! she has mono AND strep throat! she is on antibiotics for the strep and mono is just a waiting game. we are on a quarantine from public places until her fever is gone for 2 days.

poor thing! she has been such a trooper. i knew she didnt feel great, but i never would have guessed it was that serious!

and no, i'm not pregnant.

i am so so excited! i have spread my love of etsy.com on here before, but today i'm even more in love. i found the coolest shop with adorable pillowcase dresses a while back and the talented gal behind the shop agreed to make lily a custom dress for her birthday fiesta out of a vintage embroidered mexican dress.

its SOOO cute! check it out:





visit her store for more adorable stuff - click here!!

my two favorite people doing one of my favorite things.

my big girl is almost walking! :) she loves 'cruising' our furniture and walking around the playroom with one hand on the chaise but today without thinking about what she was doing she let go of the chaise to step towards something in the middle of the room and after just one step toppled over and kept crawling like nothing momentous had happened.

new things pass by her every few days... waving, clapping, standing on her own, and now the first baby steps. it doesn't even phase her. all this growth and mobility is so exciting to her and just gets her where she wants to go. its mom who has a hard time admitting her little baby is nearly one year old! :)

i can't wait to see this... it looks super interesting and has my favorite place in the world in it - barton springs!! :)

indian dinner. self fed.

need i say more?

somehow on the way home from church i convinced kevin (a reluctant participant) that lily needed to try out fingerpainting before her nap. she was definitely a fan!

...and to our surprise, didn't try to eat any of it!







i especially love that last one b/c if you look closely, you can see all FOUR teeth! :)

i am on a mom message board that is great for getting advice and helpful when you have questions. every friday people come out of the woodwork with hilarious confessions. i think we can all get a good laugh out of them. its kinda our own version of 'post secret'.

here are a few of the funny ones from today. the names and details have been changed to protect the innocent (or is it guilty?!)

when baby eats grahm crackers she's a huge ball of goo by the time she is done. I give her a quick wipe down but then I set her on the floor for the dog to finish off... they both seem to enjoy it. :)

baby girl is walking around with my bra in her mouth and I won't take it away from her because she's being quiet.

i was glad baby was fussy at our "walking" playgroup because I didn't feel like doing any more laps and it was a good excuse for me to leave.

i watch 'the hills' so much i've started braiding my hair like lauren.



.... ok i admit that last one was mine :)

we were in dallas this weekend celebrating mother's day and charlie's first birthday! it was so much fun! here are a few pics, courtesy of michelle & erin, from the party :)

the family


not so excited about turning one...

dad you have something on your chin

lily is pumped to be in the ball pit with all boys

big girl lily walking around


hot rod lucy

my family (don't they look thrilled?)

this little gem was taken in 1979 at silver dollar city in branson. don't we make the perfect civil war family?

check out my cheeks! lily has some serious chubbing up to do if she wants a pair of those babies :)

check out the fun present that lily gave kevin for his birthday! they both love it :)

look how tiny she looks in there! :)