we miss stanford football

we had a lot of fun watching the stanford game.  byu, sadly, not as much.

like father like daughter

clapping for a good play

she really was captivated

pick and choose

it appears someone is getting a little selective about their kashi. the same someone who used to gobble it all down has decided that now she doesn't like the tiny square shaped ones. what am i supposed to do with them? put them back in the box?!

this was her reaction when i confronted her about things. she's not really budging.

separate but equal

tonight i caught my christopher telling baby girl that when the time comes, we will love her equally as much as our new baby. think he's anxious for more kids?

no pressure or anything.

the face

my baby can make a funny face. on purpose. it is absolutely hilarious. 99% of the time it is when she's in her highchair. i can tell her to make her face and she will. or i can just do it and she'll laugh and mimic it. anyways, the funniest part is that she cracks herself up. she can't even see her face but she knows she's doing something funny. how do kids learn these things?! i'm blown away. so when she started making her face while we were playing, i attempted to take pictures of it. the settings were all wrong (as you can tell from the horrible picture quality) but i didn't want to take the time to change it. the first two pictures i got were the laughing after the face was over. but the third time i finally got the face! it just looks creepy in the picture. what i really need to do is get a video of it. of her making the face, laughing, face, laughing, face, laughing, and on and on. it is priceless.

so yes, i took almost 100 pictures today and these are the three i chose to share. i'm really behind on my picture sharing. i've been watching too much gossip girl.

in other news, it went from summer to winter overnight. today was maybe the first day i can ever recall of a day in colorado where the sun didn't even make an appearance. seriously, it is sunny every day here. except for today. today was the first day in the history of colorado that it was overcast all day long. i took advantage of our 55 degree weather thought. we spent all morning at the library for story time and playing and then we came home and made zucchini bread while listening to piano music on pandora. and when it came time for baby's nap, i put her in these fleece froggy pajamas. it was such a cozy afternoon and one of those perfect moments in time. i wish i could put that moment in a freezer bag and save it for later. why can't we save our moments? there needs to be an app for that.

anyways, let's come to a general consensus and also take a general poll. first, this blog is extremely boring. second, does anyone still read this?!?!

an important milestone

yesterday morning i caught this little girl destroying my closet and trying on my shoes. trying on my shoes!!! lately baby has been doing an incredible amount of new developmental tricks. she opens lids and puts them back on. she steers her push toy (and boxes). she can walk backwards. she steps into her pant legs and pushes her arms through her shirt sleeves. she attempts to put on her own shoes.

but for her to go in my closet and try on pair after pair of my own shoes?!?! that marked a very special day for me! does there exist a more significant motherly milestone?!?! indeed there does not.

i know she looks like my clone (which, oh my goodness i had another person at church tell me they could see so much of her DAD in her --- that is always a little (a lot) bittersweet for me), my mini-me, myself reincarnated but really? i want her to want to BE like me too.

for me, my mother has always been the person to be. i'm always striving to be as giving, as selfless, as humble, as honest, as hardworking, as patient, as faithful, as serving as my mother. in college i wrote a paper on how my mother was the most perfect example of honesty i'd ever seen. i wrote story after story illustrating how she went above and beyond. and how she inspired me to be honest in all things. i used to have a hard copy and a digital copy of that paper. i have since lost both. i don't think my mother ever even got the chance to read it. but honestly (no pun intended!), what does it matter? because i have her, and every day, i have more examples of her perfect honesty.

y'know that primary song, i'm trying to be like jesus? well, i'm trying to be like jesus. but i'm also trying to be like my mother. lucky for me, she's so christ-like that it's really the same thing.

i just want to be christlike enough that my little daughter will want to be like me too.

my long lost friend

today was fun

i've been feeling very lazy lately.  i think i'm just in mourning that mom and emmy aren't here anymore and i don't have any house guests to look forward to.  anyone want to come be my house guest?!

this morning we hung out at home for a bit trying on a bunch of new clothes given to me by one of my visiting teachers.  while we were playing, baby figured out how to open the puffs container of cheerios she'd been using as a shaker.  because i didn't want to discourage her creativity or accomplishments, i left them spilled on the floor and let her eat them all she want.  but eventually i gave her some breakfast too.  because i'm a good mom.  i love telling myself that.  i really believe it too.

we went to the park where i attempted to take pictures of baby running and walking and playing but really she just wanted to eat everything in sight.  and was extremely successful a little too often.

see that on her tongue?  i'm not entirely sure what that is.

see the dirt on her upper left lip?  she ate one of those dirt pebbles and dissolved in her mouth.

and of course she tasted her fair share of rocks.

and chewed on this stick for at least 45 seconds.  count it.  it's kind of a long time for one stick.

we met my honey for lunch at costa vida.  first time i've had costa vida in absolutely forever.  it was delicious although not as good as provo.  strange.  the best part though was that baby and i got to have lunch with her dad and uncle mark and uncle brian and aunt kelsey.  it was a whole lot of hillier family fun packed into one tiny table.

they were racing.  how cute is that?

she can run now.  kinda.

baby with her uncle mark

nap time then long overdue play time at kirstyn's.  honey got home and we went on a walk to the christensens... two streets away and it started pouring so we were running and laughing like crazy til we arrived on their driveway as they were closing their garage and about to pull out.  turns out, they were actually on their way to our house!  what a coincidence!  so we hung out and all eventually made our way to behind our backyard.  hayden, baby's biggest admirer, and his little brother, like to catch tadpoles, frogs, toads, grasshoppers, snakes, butterflies, and anything else alive, in the grassy area behind our house... so we all did that together.  i sooooo wish i'd had my camera on me for that impromptu adventure.  next time.

then it was dinner and bedtime.

so jealous.  she won't relax like this for me. 

and now my dear little christopher has been passed out on my lap for three hours.  i should probably get him up and to bed, huh?  i love my simple life.

"they look like hooker socks"

that's what he said.

when she knows we're going somewhere, she rushes to the back door.

baby can not get enough walking.  ever.

the crossed legs!  the crossed legs!  adorable.

lucky for baby though, her mother begs to differ.

who needs a walker when you have a diaper box?

too bad the memory on my sd card ran out because she was doing this for a good ten minutes.  through the dining room, kitchen, great room and back again.  round and round and round.

and then she had a good fifty million scream fests until i finally decided it actually IS okay to put your kid to bed in the 6 o'clock hour.  she was sooo beyond tired.  it was kind of like putting a maimed animal out of its misery.  ;-)

ps- she cries with her tongue out.  isn't it cute?  and oh my goodness her eyes!  i think her eyes get brighter every day.

a picture

i love these kids.

ordinary things are fun

it was after 9 and mom and i were anxious to get a start on our day so i went up to check on baby.  turns out she was awake but not making a peep.  when she has a pacifier, she is perfectly content to hang out in her crib all morning long.  this kid knows how to lounge.

check out my beautiful mother.  she makes me so happy.

this is us (mom) heating up the water for homemade yogurt.  i'm learning how to be wonderfully domestic.

this is mom doing a sort of shirt-curtsy pose to show how happy she is in her blow up air mattress guest room.  a much better set up than either time she came to visit me in california last year.  (air mattress on floor of living room and then a few months later on a bed but sharing a room with a newborn that had to be woken and fed every four hours).  who needs nightstands or a dresser?  this is five star treatment here at hotel hillier.

we also went to the denver botanical gardens (pictures on mom's camera), ate a delicious roast beef bacon blue cheese panini, hit up good times for a turtle spoon bender and a handspun frozen custard chocolate malt, filled our cart at walmart, made garlic chicken and homemade mac and cheese for dinner, and watched dvr'd america's got talent.  it was a fun filled day.  just ask baby.  she would know.  she only slept for 7 minutes today.

goals for tomorrow: castle rock outlets, parade of homes, normal three hour nap, PICK UP EMMY!, and the help.  now i just need to find a babysitter...

my mom is here!!!

we stopped at costco on our way home from the airport.  it was fabulous.  i spent several hundred dollars on food storage... including those oats you see over moms shoulder (for granola).  and a number of containers of giant nutella. ;-)

i'm in heaven!!!

summer is fading too fast

and we are going to die when the pool closes.

my baby can walk

i've had a million people ask me when baby started walking.  "well, she doesn't yet.  she won't even stand on her own.  as soon as i let go, she just sits down."  if i had a dollar for every time i said that.  honestly, it's really well rehearsed now.  

today at the pool the lifeguard asked me how old she was and then how old she was when she started walking.  i gave her the same spiel.

we were out on a family walk this evening enjoying the thunderstorm pre-rain weather and stopped at jodi's for a bit.  she kept saying, "she is totally walking on her own.  she doesn't need you at all."  (well yeah, i knew that.  a few weeks ago i was having her walk from me to the sofa by herself.  it was like five steps.  but then she learned the drill and wouldn't put weight on her feet anymore because she knew i would just send her off walking and let go of her waist after two feet.  so i never bothered again.)

so tonight when we got home i said, "okay, enough of this.  our baby can walk, i know she can, let's see her do it!  go sit across the room and i'll send her over to you."  and then it happened.  barely wobbly, our baby walked perfectly the six feet from me to her wonderful father.  and then he sent her back to me.  we did this probably twenty times.  we didn't get very good video of it but here is a short clip so you get the idea.

my baby can walk.

regardless, i'm pretty sure she'll still be holding my finger until she leaves for college.  and i won't even be upset about it.  it's cute.

happy birthday liza!

i spent the day teaching my child to be more like you.

thanks for being such a wonderful big sister. you let me borrow baby clothes (we get LOTS of compliments on them!), share great recipes, motivate me to keep up this blog, and call me when you need a driving companion.

i love you lots and lots and lots.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

pictures of playing

we do a lot of things during play time.

we read.

we lose our balance and fall down.  and look like this.

we climb on things.

we make this face.  frequently.

it's a blast.

tiny town

kids or no kids, if you're ever in colorado, i highly reccommend it. it's in morrison. google it and go.

the best grilled cheese ever

this is my latest obsession. i've had a lot of these in the past ten days since my first. and by a lot i mean double digits. times two. try it. you will thank me. because it is heavenly.

muenster cheese, thin slices of soft pear, and strawberry preserves. and don't forget to butter the outside of your bread real nice. as i always say...

everything's better with butter.

we do fun things

sorry, no pictures yet.  i'm being lazy.  tonight we went to a rockies game.  my first one since we came back.  summer baseball games are fabulous.

and i really need to get pictures up from our family day date on saturday.  we went to tiny town and it was amazing.  i have a special thing for miniatures and this was a whole outdoor village of everything i could ever hope for and more.  i think i took over 200 pictures there.

i kid you not.