Staying Cool

First, Tyler's team won their first game on Friday. Lily and I didn't make it to that one, but we hope to go soon. Today was one of the hotter days of summer in Indy. We decided to cool off by playing in some water. We even got the hose out for a while!

Splashing in the water.
Showing me a really cool leaf she found!

We have tons of these flowers in our backyard. Lily was absolutely intrigued by them. As she felt each flower, she was very gentle. It was so precious to see!

Can you guess the new food Lily tried?

Blueberry pancakes!! Can you tell that she absolutely loved every bite? As she was finishing up, I went to load and unload the dishwasher. When I came back over to her, this is what I found....

She managed to take offer her bib and she had blueberries from the top of her head all the way down to her legs! ha! The onesie is still being soaked to get the stains out. She cracks me up. She also totally melted my heart today. When I went in to get her out of her crib, she was sitting up. I put my face in between the bars and asked for a kiss and she gave me a big one, right on the lips. It was so cute and made my whole day!!

Crawling Shot!

Lily is on the move and getting into everything!

NO More Mulch!

We had another eventful weekend! My really good friend from grade school, Katie Wales, got married. The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and we had a great time at the reception. We have definitely become professional wedding goers.

The other picture is of Lily driving the truck! We're so happy it's back in action. You can't tell from the picture, but it's parked in the driveway!!! That means......the mulch is GONE!! Tyler had a humongous, gigantic, enormous pile of mulch delivered in May and the last bits finally got spread this weekend.

Lily had her first day at school and I had my first day at work. Work was fine. Tyler is moving offices, so it's basically just organizing. My office isn't ready yet, but it should be done soon. Lily did well her first day. I was WAY more traumatized than she was. I missed her so much, but I know she's having fun downstairs. By the way, she is full out crawling everywhere. Things are getting more interesting, but she can get into much more trouble. She also loves to point at everything. It's her new thing.

Double Digits!

Happy 10 month birthday to Lily! Lily's cooperation level for these pictures was quite low. She wanted the camera and the piece of paper. As I type, Lily is crawling around the kitchen floor. She still sometimes incorporates the army creep. She has two bottom teeth. I tried to get them in the picture, but she didn't want to show them. She drinks from the sippy cup all by herself and really isn't into baby food anymore. She would much rather have finger food, so that she can feed herself. The DVD's, pantry, and drawers of rags are her newest favorite toys.

Tomorrow (I think) will be Lily's first time going to the Chatard Preschool. I'm a little bit sad. I know she will love it, because she always has so much fun when she's around kids. The transition will be much harder for me. But she will be just a flight of stairs away and in wonderful hands.

I can't believe she is almost a year old!

Surrey with the Fringe on Top

Here's a little bit of information many of you may not know about the Mark family....we own a surrey. Yes, it's true! On Christmas morning we came sprinting down the stairs to find the surrey in our living room. I remember being totally excited, but also a little confused as to what exactly it was. We took it out, snow and all, and blared Christmas music on the cassette player! Anyways, the surrey has been basically gathering dust in the shed, because it had some broken parts. Just recently my dad decided to get it fixed. Do all you think it was maybe because he wanted to take his first grandchild for a ride in it?

So here is Lily's first ride in the surrey. We rode over to the park and went on the swings. On the way home Lily FELL ASLEEP!!!! WHAT?!?!?! Not my child! But yes, it's actually true. I have the picture to prove it. We hope to get Tyler on there soon and go through the drive-thru in it! ha!

Other updates...Maureen's doctor's appointment was postponed until September 5th. But please still keep those prayers coming. Also, Tyler FINALLY got his truck back today which was towed to the shop on July 8th!!! He's excited to be driving it again and I'm excited all the mulch in my driveway will be hauled away in the truck.

Megan's Wedding!

We are back from Cleveland and had an AMAZING time!!! Everything was absolutely gorgeous. Lily had so much fun finally meeting the O'Brien family. So I have the counter on my blog and it tells me how many people visit our blog each day. I can also see the city each of you is checking from. We have visitors spanning from Hawaii to England! Anyways, we average about 30 hits a day...but not on Saturday! I think we only had about 15 hits. So thank you to the O'Brien family for always checking to see what Lily is up to. Our site suffered when all of you were busy on Saturday! ha! Here are the pics from the weekend!

Lily and the BEAUTIFUL couple! Megan and Matt...Lily needs a little one to hang out with!

My two cuties!
Tyler's cousin Ali, with Lily.

Lily and Tyler's cousin Katie.

OUR FAMILY! What is Tyler doing?

There we are!
The two oldest grandchildren what Grandma O'Brien!
Thanks Grandma Mayer for my totally cute dress!

Lily with her cousin Ellie and Monica!

Thanks for an amazing weekend everyone. We had way too much fun.

Prayers, Updates, and Such

Lily and I have been busy packing and getting ready for the wedding! Grandma Mayer bought her a new dress, so we're very excited to see it. We also haven't seen most of the O'Brien family since our wedding, so it will be fun seeing everyone.

Tyler STILL does not have his truck back. It's getting painted this week, so hopefully he'll have it back soon. We never did find out who hit it. Boo!

There are two new additions on their way to the Mark family. My cousin Kate and her husband Brian are expecting in November. Also, her brother Patrick and his wife Becky are expecting in December. Lily will have lots of little buddies to hang out with. She's hoping that one of them is a girl! :) Congrats to you both!!! We can't wait to meet the little ones.

Lastly, most of you know that my cousin Maureen has melanoma. She has a big doctor's appointment on Monday, so please keep her in your prayers. Her treatment is almost over!!!! Yeah!!!!

Sorry...not exciting pictures this time. It's been a little crazy lately!

Hanging out in a box!

I should seriously never have to buy another toy again. Lily does not want toys, she wants real things! Today we were in the car and she was rather grumpy, so I handed her her plastic keys...she threw them. Then I gave her a little rattle....she threw it. Then I tried this other cutsie plastic toy....tossed! Then I gave her a box of kleenex (I was desperate now!) and she loved it. She played with that the whole way home. Who knew?!?!

Lily thinks it's REALLY cool to hang out in this box. Seriously, she will sit there forever playing with Dad's old phone.


Whoa...hey double chin and cheeks!
This is an older one, but it makes me laugh.

We went to Michigan!

Don't worry...I didn't ditch all of you, I just took a little vacation. My parents rented a house in South Haven, MI and we joined them for the week along with Gregory, Katie, and Andrew. Grandma and Grandpa Mayer and Auntie Emily even made a quit visit too. I included LOTS of pictures in this post. We had so much fun this week. At first, Lily wasn't too sure of the sand or the water, but by the end she LOVED them both. Also, her two bottom teeth have finally poked through. Yeah, hopefully no more restless night for her. She also learned how to go from the crawling position back to sitting up. She's quite proud of herself.

Enjoying the lake with Dad. She thought it was so cool that she could stand on the bottom.
A bathing beauty!
Hanging out with Nana.

They had a totally awesome park right by the beach. Lily wasn't quite old enough yet, but still enjoyed the slide and swings!
She's laughing so hard right here!

Lily survived her first 20 mile bike ride. Most babies would fall asleep for hours in this thing, but not our Lily Grace. She took maybe a 15 minute cat nap.

Tyler acting like he was milking one of the cows on the trail. We rode the Kal-Haven trail. It runs from South Haven all the way to Kalamazoo (where I was born).

This was Lily's new favorite toy. In this picture she is SCREAMING on the top of her lungs.
She would close the shutters and then open them to see......
GRANDPA!!!!! She must have played this game 100 times.
Chillin with Uncle AJ.
Hanging out at the pool with Dad.

We had a very relaxing week enjoying fine brewdogs! I was even able to finish a book, which never happens. I read Certain Girls, by Jennifer Weiner. I love her, but this one wasn't my favorite. If you have a baby or are pregnany I totally recommend Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. It's one of her best books! Totally girly and a great beach read.

Back to the grind this week. Tyler begins 2-a-days for football and my "boss" told me he wanted me to start working. I am nannying 2 days and we are leaving Friday for Megan's wedding (Tyler's cousin)!!!! So there won't be too much down time.