lily's beach party birthday bash was a big hit! she still has one more day until she is officially twoooooo (as she says it) but we had friends over yesterday to celebrate. here are a few pics from the day. more on flickr

its my party and i'll wear a tutu over my bathingsuit if i want to...

giggles with e

giggles with grandma and daddy

octopus cupcakes in sand

issac pinch hits the candle blowout

aidric and kyla love cupcakes

yummm

are toddlers allowed to be this gorgeous??

GaGa and lil

the happiest sam on the block

aidric has really embraced the beach theme

cutest juliet i know

presents, presents, presents!!!

we had one of our last playgroups last week with lily's favorite boyfriend, aidric. these three have been friends since they were teeny tiny and we are so sad that aidric's family is moving to california. there will definitely be something missing from austin once they leave, but we wish them the best and are so excited for their new adventure.

(see no evil, hear no evil, giggle no evil)

she's on the move...

in honor of the entrepreneurial spirit of those around me, here is a new business i'd love to share with you:


energy menders
home energy audits. our friends, the scotts, are one half of this new business. new regulations recently put in place require an energy audit on any home sold in austin that is over 10 years old. if you are buying or selling, use energy menders!

i'll be posting erin's 16 week maternity pics on the photo blog soon, but i just had to share this sweet snap of her with lily. the smile on lily's face is SO 'lily'. i love it. she was thrilled to see her auntie e yesterday.

they say you learn something new every day.

today's lesson: don't turn your back on your baby at playgroup...

apparently lily's 2-year-old friend, kyla, thought eve looked lonely :)

three month-olds can be a tough age for pictures- not young and squishy like a newborn and not strong enough to hold up their heads super well or sit up. now that miss eve is hitting the awkward stage, i find myself taking more and more candid pictures of her but had to steal a few sweet sleepy moments today...





then she woke up and i kept going just a bit :)

but clearly i bore her ;)

the cute white blanket in these pics was hand made for eve by my aunt patty's close friend. eve loves it!

there are three things of note in this picture:

1) lily is wearing halloween pajamas. i figure she can work through any issues this is causing her emotionally in therapy in about 15 years.

2) lily is HELPING!! (or so she thinks) either way- its fun that she is taking an interest in her baby sister.

3) miss eve is playing with her feet!! she just found them this morning! its so cute to watch :)

we're on a ROLL!

.... literally!!! eve is rolling! she was struggling to roll back-to-stomach tonight on her play mat and i thought, if she is that close to rolling back to stomach, i wonder if she can roll stomach to back already?? (since it typically comes first)

so i told kevin to plop her on her belly and voila! within a few seconds she showed off her skills and rolled to her back! we all cheered- including lily! :)

i didn't get a shot of the roll, but i snapped this of kevin coaxing that gorgeous smile out of her earlier and since you know i'm a sucker for daddy-love, here she is...

waiting for him to look at her...

eye contact = giant smile!! :)

i'm trying to be good about taking 'snapshots' of every day life with eve and not be too much of a perfectionist. there's something sweet about our regular routine that i want to capture along with the planned shots.

i haven't been on top of 'tummy time' with eve quite like i was with lil (are we ever as vigilant the second time around??) but i plopped her down for some yesterday and pulled out the camera. lily wanted in on some of the fun :)

giving her a break while lil dances in the background...


check out that confused pout!


more tummy time


finally gave the girl a break :)

music to my ears!!

i just got eve to laugh for the first time and immediately grabbed my phone to record it! literally, lily did not laugh until she was 6 months old, so i guess this means eve is going to be even funnier than lily. is that possible?!! :)

we've had a lazy fourth of july so far. we had breakfast with friends at their house. it was quite the party and lily loved their son's play car. after the party, erin and i took lily to the pool for lots of sliding and swimming. eve has been pooped all afternoon, snoozing on the couch. all in all a pretty great day around here!

i wish my heart didn't ache when things change. i'm not good at 'rolling with the punches'. its just not my strong suit. i was just watching a video on youtube of lily laughing with me and saw that one of the videos i had uploaded was 5 months old. its a video of sweet lily at a picnic with me and erin ivey pointing to a cracker calling it a 'ckk ckk'.

how was that five months ago? how in five months has she gone from 'ckk ckk' to 'mommy, yellow crackers, please!'

my heart just aches. i wish i could stop time and soak in the life and breath of my children in this moment and be able to come back to them at this precise moment in time and enjoy them for who they are today.

i wish i didn't worry about things like keeping my house clean or emptying the dishwasher. i wish i could just revel in them endlessly.

i went for a run this morning and came back sweaty and tired and told kevin 'i feel like a person when i'm working out.' he replied with 'well you ARE a person.' and i said, 'no, i'm a MOM, working out makes me feel like a person!' i'm not sure he got it or that i explained it well at all, but in my quests to feel like a person, i hope being a mom is so intertwined with who i am that it never leaves me. not even for a second.

"the only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize" -steel magnolias

goodness knows i'm better at conceptualizing cute accessorized looks than actually pulling them off from day to day, or being able to afford them, but i am super excited for my dear friend jill's new venture with stella & dot!


the jewelry is super cute- just the right mix of modern and romantic- and the price tags won't make you faint like most anthropologie-esque styles do these days. i'm hoping to host a party for her in austin soon- drop me a line if you want to come! in the meantime, you can shop on their site and support my wonderful stay-at-home mom friend by using this link: stella & dot

look who is sitting up! (in her bumbo of course!)

the nice thing about transitioning to a mom of two has been my mornings. eve wakes up around 6am and we have about an hour or hour and a half together before she is ready for her first nap. it is perfect because lily wakes up around 7:30 and we get to make breakfast and have an hour or so to ourselves before eve is awake and ready to join us again. i just appreciate being able to give both girls a little bit of individual attention to start the day.

eve and i snapped these this morning around 7am before her nap. she is so alert in the mornings!