this weekend

today is mother's day.  and my 35th birthday.  twice the fun for me!  i have a little tradition where, if my birthday falls on mother's day, i make sure to spend it with my mom.  so up to eureka we went for some r&r.  my parents took lily all day saturday, so kevin & i slept in, lounged around, and just had a chance to relax that we haven't been able to indulge in in quite some time.  it was the best birthday present i could have received.

a few fun things from while we were in the hometown:

• lily managed to fall in the pond in my parents backyard.  she leaned too far forward and just somersaulted in.  kevin was there and by the time he got to the pond, she had righted herself and come to the side (the pond is only about chest-deep on her).  she is perfectly fine, but has been milking the episode for all it is worth.
• lunch and catching up with my friend, candy.  she's the only one left in eureka, so seeing her whenever i'm back is always a treat.
• the weather could not have been better.  it was gorgeous days and cool weather.  exactly what i needed and wanted.
• lily has annabelle (my parents dog) trained; she "whistles," annabelle comes running.  she eats some cheese, annabelle is right there waiting.  she approaches annabelle to pet her, annabelle runs away.
• lily has taken to approaching annabelle saying, "it's ok, annabelle.  it's ok," since annabelle does not like to be shown toddler affection.  lily insists that annabelle needs her special brand of love.  annabelle disagrees.  maybe someday they'll be friends.

i managed to not take a single picture this entire trip (how did that happen?  who am i?), but it was such a wonderful, relaxing, and too short of a weekend.  i loved every moment of my birthday/mother's day weekend.

life has been a little busy...

i know, i know...you have all been perishing over the lack of updates appearing on my blog.  a couple of excuses: instagram, and we are in the midst of moving.  my life is consumed with work, lily, and packing my life away in cardboard boxes.  work is good, lily is fantastic, moving sucks.  but we're excited about our new place, so i try not to complain.  too much.   in the meantime, enjoy a few photos of lily below.  

this.  this started the madness.  we signed our lives away
in a huge stack of papers, and let the craziness consume us.

maggie had enough of the back and forth between households and
lodged a protest by laying down and refusing to move from the garage floor.
i had to pick her up and carry her to the car so we could leave.  

the master bedroom had some atrocious wallpaper.
i taught lily how to tear it off.
she took to it like a champ.

moving and wallpaper removal = exhaustion.

safety first for everyone.

lily reads!

lily has some favorite books that she has us read over and over and over.  and over again.  she loves pretty much anything by sandra boyton, but is pretty non-discriminatory over books; she loves them all (yay!).  she also has a pretty good memory for what we read to her and has memorized her favorite books completely.  she will randomly start reciting her books (usually it's the same one over and over in an evening) and i managed to (finally!) capture a little bit of her recitation one night.  it does my little heart good to see her loving books, and i hope that continues with her as she gets older.  

 

lily lately

i am continually amazed by how much lily changes and grows seemingly overnight.  it seems like each day brings some new facet to her personality.  i love it.  some of her newest quirks are below...

• lily will randomly exclaim, "are you serious?" (arms lifted up in a questioning manner as you'd expect)
• "look at my crazy hair!" (when her hair is wild and flying all over the place)
• "do it by myself." everything.  no matter what it is or how long it takes. she's suuuuper independent, which is so fun for us. sigh. 
• "i hear the firetruck.  it's going to work to help somebody!"
• "i hear with my ears, see with my eyes." (generally in response to the fact that she hears a firetruck, and says that she sees it.  we're trying to emphasize what seeing and hearing are.)
• "maggie come here!  woo hoo" (the sound she "says" to approximate our whistling)
• lily will fall asleep at night wanting something in particular and wake up the next morning asking for it.
• "look at my dress!" lily is going through a dress phase.  she will only wear dresses.  the fluffier, the fancier, the better.  
• "look! it's the moon!  right there!  see it!?" lily is obsessed with the moon.  she points it out and looks for it every chance she gets.  during the day, the moon is "sleeping."

• 

  she put this lovely combo together by herself.
  a dress with an extremely fluffy skirt underneath.
  because anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

  
  

  

  wearing mama's shoes.  

  
  
  
  
  

  

  "mama, take a picture of my crazy hair.  let me see!"

  
  
  
  
  
  

we bought a house!

we signed a bunch of paperwork on wednesday (seriously, it was a major arm workout), picked up the keys yesterday, and have been busy packing up all our stuff with simultaneous grins of joy and amazement and thoughts of what-the-heck-did-we-just-get-ourselves-into fear.  it was mostly the grins, though.  we are very excited and plan to move into the new digs sometime in april.  the house was built in 1956 and very little has been changed.  the bones of the house are amazing, the yards are extremely well-kept and nicely landscaped, and all that needs to be done is some cosmetic work (i put in some pictures of the current state of everything below).  the kitchen is original (we bought a dishwasher yesterday because we're grownups now and made a grownup purchase...and the kitchen lacks a dishwasher).  we need to paint everything and are going to lift up the carpets (there is original oak hardwood underneath), and put in some ceiling fans.  and some other stuff.  it will be lots of projects, not as much money for fun things (like travel and adventures, dang it!), and best of all, it's ours.  i'm grateful we were able to stay in livermore, and grateful we found the little home meant for our little tribe.  i'm sad to leave our current ward, but am excited to meet the cast and crew that makes up livermore 4th ward.  andiamo and on to new adventures! 

the master bedroom.  it's kind of a cave.

lily's room (the photo does not do justice to how
 bright a yellow this room is).

our vintage kitchen

why move furniture when you can
just paint around it?

the end!

i received a call the other day from the assistant district attorney for the county of santa clara that was prosecuting the case for the armed robbery that i witnessed three years ago.  he let me know that the jury had come back with a verdict of guilty, and that the bad guys (my term) would be going to jail for a "good, long time" and that it would be "many, many years before they were eligible for parole."  i am so glad this is done and over, that i don't have to have it in the back of my mind anymore, that i don't have to worry about rearranging my schedule to respond to a subpoena whenever they decide to send one in case they do go to trial on the day that they are preparing to.  it's nice to know that justice has been served, that right prevailed, and that my duty as a citizen (in this instance) is completed.

the plague has hit our house

i was setting up for a meeting at work when a table collapsed on my foot.  the end result was a two broken toes (the tips of the bones basically cracked off) and damaged nerves and soft tissue.  kevin left work, picked me up at work, and drove me to the er (after an embarrassing display of being surrounded by three security guards and four paramedics, bandaged, strapped to a gurney and delivered down to the first floor and out to the jeep).  after bouncing around kaiser urgent care, occupational injury, and then being sent to a completely different er, i was x-rayed and bandaged, given some crutches, and sent home.

the next day, i went back to the doctor, was sent to an orthopedic specialist who put in some stitches and gave me a walking boot with instructions to sit with my foot up.  i was basically an incapacitated invalid.

poor kevin had left work early on wednesday to rescue me, took thursday off to deal with my myriad needs and appointments, and then was awakened at 5 am on friday by lily throwing up all over herself and her bed.  that continued through friday, into saturday, with me being immobile and useless to the situation.  our house was a plague-ridden disaster zone.

by the time monday rolled around, we were sick of each other and the house.  but the fun does not stop there.  oh, no.  why would it?  i came down with the stomach flu (shared by the delightful lily) on wednesday.  joy.

it is now friday, and we are barely coming out the other side of this plague.  the house is still a disaster and there is much cleaning to be done.  my foot is continuing to heal, i have more mobility, and everyone is healthy (knock on every piece of wood you can find).  hopefully the stitches come out next week and the boot a couple weeks after that.  i'm ready to get back to my normal, mobile routine.

lily thinks my crutches are a new toy to play with.

poor, sick baby

she slept like this for an hour.  comfort is relative.

ready to roll; she's feeling better.

*****semi-disgusting foot/toe photo below.  proceed with caution.*****

they tell me it's looking "great" and healing "beautifully."
at least the swelling and bruising has gone down significantly.