A girl, her purse, and a cat

What more could a little lady need besides a fabulous handbag and a feline friend?

What a difference a year makes!

Here is my little bathing beauty at 3 months old, and again at 15 months old--almost exactly one year apart. I can't believe how much she has grown and changed in the last year! When the first picture was taken she was just starting to smile and coo. Now she talks! I wish I could figure out how to slow things down a bit:(

Emily at 3 months old (August 22, 2007)

Emily at 15 months (August 21, 2008

Playdate with "Weed"(Lily)

Last Saturday, my friend Kim invited us over for a playdate. Kim's baby, Lily has been featured on this blog before as she is Emily's bestie. So, we went over for a little play-time and fun was had by all. I'm quite sure we exhausted both the newly expecting Kim and the darling miss Lily, but hopefully we'll be invited back again;)

The Hostess with the Mostest, Lily(aka Weed). Ben is having issues pronouncing "L"sounds so Lily ends up sounding like Weed or Wheat. She doesn't seem to mind, though I constantly remind Ben that Lily is a flower, NOT a weed.

Ben loved Lily's special chair/stepstool. The took turns sitting on it, and also sat together. Sometimes, one would sit on the other, but neither cared=)

Emily was more interested in playing with Lily's toys than playing with Lily and Ben.
She DOES have a lot of really cool toys=) Ben especially liked this pop-up toy.

Extreme close-up of my best girl.

Ben and Lily in the kitchen

An exhausted Lily takes a breather in the kitchen. Hosting is hard!

Ansel Adams Who??

Here are some cool shots I took with my fancy new camera=) I am rather impressed with them!

Day-trip to Sacto Part 1: GG-Bill and GG-Patty's House

Our first stop of the day was at Ben and Emily's great-grandparent's house! We were thrilled because Dan's great-great aunt, Gail, great-aunt Jackie, aunt Susan and second-cousin, Michelle(got all that?!) along with Susan's daughters Rachel and Kara and Michelle's new baby, Sydney(still with me?!) all were able to join us for lunch. In case you are wondering, Dan's extended family got started out early and skipped a generation or two along the way. We're so lucky to have all these greats still young and healthy enough to share our children with! It means so much to us that our children are known and loved by the same grandparents that helped raise us both=) It definitely makes the 5 hours-round trip visits up north worth it.

Ben, giving his great-grandma Patty some snuggs.

Emily and her co-namesake enjoyed swinging together while
watching Dan and Ben play with the D-O-G.

Ben loved exploring their big back yard and playing
with their dog, Libby(or, Wooby as he called her).

Milly had a love/hate thing going on with Libby. She loved watching her play, hated having her come too close. The second Libby would come near her, Emily would scream. Poor baby! Her whole little body just tenses right up whenever she sees a dog come near her:( As long as Libby was far, far away, Emily was all smiles and giggles watching her, though! You can see her 4 teeth!

Emily and her 2nd cousins, Rachel and Kara. Sydney is her daddy's second cousin's baby, so who the hell knows what that makes them?! Second Cousins Thrice Removed? 3rd Cousins? Who knows. They were cute playing together, though=)

Emily and Great-Aunt Susan (she's way too young to be a great-aunt already!)
She is pretty great, though;)

They really love eachother! Whenever they were seperated for too long, Emily would start to look for Beh-bah('Ben' in Emminese). Ben would ask, "Where Emmie? Where Baby go?" I love that! I guess I didn't ruin his life by having her, after all;)

Rachel gave Ben a hug good-bye, and as you can see,
he's already starting to think girls are icky. Mwahahahahah!!!!!
My evil plan to keep him home with me until he's 40 is already under way.

He obviously doesn't think his Grauntie Susan is icky, though! He hugged all the ladies good-bye. He even gave Michelle(not pictured) a big hello-hug, despite it being their first time meeting! Isn't he so sweet and friendly!

Day-trip to Sacto Part 2: Papa's House

After lunch, we headed over to Dan's dad's house(aka papa). By this point, Ben and Emily were both very tired, so we just relaxed and watched a little TV. Benny loved sitting in their cool saucer chairs, but loved riding on the office chair even more=) Emily enjoyed running around on the cool tile floor(toddlers are so odd!). She also found a baby-doll that belonged to Dan's step-sisters and had fun dragging it around by it's head.

We also spent some time at Dan's grandpa and grandpa Gabbard's home, but I was tired of taking pictures at that point;) We enjoyed dinner and play time with more second-cousins. Ben and Dan swam(Emily and I went in briefly, but Miss Priss wasn't a fan of the cold water). They also have a dog that stays outside, so she wasn't feelin' the back yard! I think she must have been a cat or mail-carrier in a former life. Ben loved playing in the pool with his dada, though.

Ben climbed right in and relaxed to some soothing Sponge-Bob cartoons.

Emily couldn't resist laying down on the nice, cool floor=)

Dan, giving me a dirty look for daring to point
the camera in his direction.

Papa giving Ben a ride on the office chair. Fun!!

As you can see by their faces, no one really wanted to
pose for this picture. Oh well!

The Drive Home

After a fun-filled day of visiting, Ben and Emily were all-too ready to head home. Both kiddos were SO tired from lack of naps. Emily enjoyed some quick reading before passing out. Ben followed shortly after. Ahhhh....silence! Um, no. The car nap lasted all of 15 minutes. We got to spend the next hour and a half listening to dualing whiners from the back seat. The funny part was that they were both very particular about what songs we listened to. If a song came on that one of them didn't want to hear, they'd yell, "No!" until we changed it. Sheesh, everyone's a critic;)