Venice Cruisin

We spent Monday at Venice Beach riding our bikes a long the water with some friends. It was a gorgeous day, the waves were huge and Lillie was so happy to be outside. Fun times. Lillie didn't even mind being in the frigid ocean water. We're gonna have to do that again.

Primer Cumpleanos

The two little party girls are the ones crying in this photo, I wish I would have gotten a better one. But ya know.

This is the before cupcake picture.

And this is the after, this is the happiest she was the whole party. Lame.

Our family photo. I didn't get a single good picture. Oh well.

Lillie celebrated her first birthday back on the 16th. It was a fun filled week, having her birthday on the 16th, then a party on the 17th and Eric's parents were here on the 18th. We threw a little party at the park with BBQing and cupcakes. It was a beautiful day with great friends and good food. The only problem was that we had one grumpy and tired little girl, who ended up crying most of the time. It was her party....

She is growing up way too fast. She is walking a lot now, she can go from sitting to standing by herself too. I don't know if I'm ready for this new challenge, but, what can you do. Another major challenge is that she has made the transition from two naps to one. It was a hairy couple of weeks, but now I'm the one who's trying to make the transition.

She is still jabbering away like always. But now she says some real words like baba, uhoh, wow, mama, dada, and thank you. I've got such a polite little girl.

She loves to climb on things, like our tv stand or onto chairs, ottomans, etc. No major accidents yet, but I'm sure they'll come. She likes going to the park and swinging on the swings, going on bike rides, taking walks, etc.

Sunday Eric's parents had a layover in LA and stayed the night with us before heading to Korea the next day.... and will be staying there for the next couple years! Anyway, it was fun to see them, but was way too short of a visit.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Without a doubt, people have said that Lillie looks a lot like me, but I still wasn't sure how much... until I saw this. Yikes, I apparently have some very dominant DNA.

Birthday Baldness

You know Eric had a wild birthday when he and two of his friends ended up bald by the end of the night...I guess turning 28 causes an early mid-life crisis.

Swing Fun

So this are pictures from Eric's birthday, while he still had hair, I'll post another one to explain that later. We went to the park for a picnic lunch because it was SO DANG NICE outside. 80 degrees in January is quite nice. Eric was even complaining of getting a sunburn, ha ha. Lillie loves the swings and loves being outside, so I guess we're living in the right place to be able to do that virtually all year round.

Happy 28th Birthday, Eric!

So I guess my title explains it all, but Eric turns twenty eight in about twenty eight minutes, and I wanted to get on to let him know how glad I am to be his wife. He's such a wonderful guy, he's so laid back and fun, we have great times together. I hope this turns out to be a fabulous day and that this year will hold great things for him. Love you, Eric. You're the best, Happy Birthday!

Feel free to leave one or some of your favorite memories of Eric or birthday wishes as comments.

Christmas Visit

So I know that it's a month past Christmas and that I've had multiple posts since then, but I had tried multiple times to get these pictures to upload to no avail. I had given up on a Christmas post until I was talking to a friend at church who reminded me that this was our journal and that it would be a shame to not have Christmas remembered, so here they are. It snowed a ton while we were there, which was nice on one hand, because it felt very Christmas-y. But was also difficult because Julee couldn't make it in the snow and we couldn't go anywhere because of the road conditions. We still had a blast hanging out with my siblings and Lillie's cousins. It was really hard for us to come home from this trip especially because I saw how much fun she had playing with them and getting to know them. I wish we lived closer. It was fun to see my grandparents also, this was the first time that I'd gotten pictures of Lillie with them, I know, I'm lame. Oh well. During the whole trip, I was annoyed by the snow because I kept thinking about getting delayed on our way home and we were wanting to take a trip to OR to visit some friends and the roads were bad, but we were able to make it down for a wonderful visit. Lillie was teething majorly on our vacay and she was up quite a bit on Christmas Eve, so I was less than cheerful on Christmas day. It's a good things that we had our little Christmas here before we left or else I would have felt like I had totally missed the holiday. It was a great trip, we loved seeing everyone and wished we could have spent more time with everyone.

Visit to the Madsons

We were able to visit our friends for just one day during our trip, due to snowy roads that shortened our trip. It was still really fun to see them, their children have grown up so fast, it was the first time Lillie and their little girl had met, but they loved each other and played together so well. And their son is so smart and so big, I remember him as a little 3 month old! He speaks english and chinese perfectly, I'm so impressed. They are our dear friends and we cannot wait until we can see them again.

Visit to the Gowens

Lillie was able to make her big debut to our good friends, Jay and Stephanie. We were able to spend their first night in their new home with them. It is such a beautiful house, we are so excited for them. Stephanie insisted on taking photos of us while we were there, so we ventured out into the cold and down icy paths. But it was fun and some of the photos of Lillie turned out really well, like the one above, my favorite. We miss them and wished that we could see them more often.

Finders Keepers...

And I'm the weeping loser. Yesterday I lost a 100 dollar bill (my prized Christmas money) out of my purse on my way to the bank to deposit it. I had just thrown it loosely into my purse because I was in a hurry and went on my way. I made a stop at Target before going to the bank, which is where I think I lost it. I've looked all over my car and turned my purse inside out, but no luck.
So next time you find money on the street corner, while you think it is your lucky day, take a sec to stop and think about the poor loser that dropped it. I had been dreaming all week of the fun stuff I could spend it on... dang it!

Disneyland Christmas

Before we left for vacation in WA, we spent an evening at Disneyland. It was cold (ok, SoCal cold, not cold cold) but was still a lot of fun. The highlights were the Christmas parade and It's a Small World. We waited about 45 min in line for It's a Small World because it had just opened up after a year long renovation, but it was worth it, I loved the ride! Here's some phone pictures from the trip, I left my real camera in the car. It was one of my favorite trips!