Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend this year was HOT, but that didn't stop Charlie and Lily from hitting some cookouts! Thankfully, we travel with our trusty water table so they stayed nice and cool while joining in the fun.

Sunday was the annual turkey fry at Crackers' house.
Crackers set up the sprinkler too, so there was lots of wet fun. Lily loved the sprinkler, but Charlie needed a little help from Aunt Jill to get into it.
Charlie liked spending time with my mom's neighbors, Carmel and Norma. He's such a ladies' man!
Shoulder rides are fun!
And so is Nana!
Today we went to our friends Lauren and Pat's house for a little cookout with them and their two sons, Ryan and Danny. More water fun was had by all!

And Charlie and Lily enjoyed checking out Ryan and Danny's awesome swing set.

After dinner, Charlie spent some quality guy time with Danny.

But Lily made herself at home with all the boy toys. Football? Great!
And after a few trips up and down Lauren and Pat's stairs, it was time to call it a holiday weekend.

23 months and Sesame Place!

Today Charlie and Lily are 23 months old. What better way to celebrate than with their first trip to Sesame Place? Joe had off today, so we decided to check out Sesame Place before the summer crowds hit. It turned out to be the perfect day to go - great weather and no crowds at all! We walked right on to the rides and there was no wait to see any of the characters. Charlie and Lily had a FANTASTIC time - they liked it even better than I hoped they would! I sense season passes in our future...

The first ride we attempted was the carousel.
Charlie was NOT a fan of this, and they ended up having to stop the ride so he and Joe could get off.

Lily seemed to enjoy it though!
Right outside the carousel was the gift shop, and of course we had to check that out. Charlie and Lily each got a small stuffed character (Elmo for Lily and Cookie for Charlie) and a t-shirt.
Then we headed to the water section of the park. We checked out Ernie's Water Works first. Lily was in her glory! She loves the water and was charging through all the fountains and faucets getting soaked.

When we finally managed to tear Lily away from the water works, we checked out the sand slides. Charlie really liked these - he went up and down a million times!
After the slides we started making our way over to the Elmo's World Live show, and ran right into Bert and Ernie!
"Woah - they're so much bigger than on TV..."
Then right across the street we found Cookie Monster!
The Elmo's World Live show was a big hit with both Charlie and Lily. Afterwards, we took a much needed break for some lunch.
While we were eating we spotted Elmo posing for pictures, so we hurried over as soon as we were done. Charlie was SO excited to see Elmo. He ran right to him and tried to get Elmo to pick him up.
Lily made sure to get an Elmo hug too.
Next was Cookie's Mountain. Lily managed to climb pretty high on this thing!
After the mountain, we decided to call it a day. The usual start of nap had long passed and everyone was getting tired. But we all had a wonderful day and can't wait to go back!

NICU Reunion 2011

This past Sunday we attended St. Peter's annual NICU reunion. We were so excited to see some of our favorite nurses and doctors, as well as some of our old friends.

Charlie and Lily with Daddy, getting ready to head inside.
Chatting with Dr. Hiatt, the head neonatologist. Lily freaked when she saw him - I think she remembers freaking when he examined her at her last clinic appointment. Must be a trend. Dr. Hiatt worked very hard to win her over though, and before we left for the day she rewarded his efforts with a smile and a high-five (which she followed by applauding for herself).
Lily catching up with her good pal, Nurse Julia.
Charlie and his NICU nighttime buddy, Nurse Sue.
Lots of cookies were consumed at this reunion. Hey, it was a celebration, right?
Charlie and his NICU roomie, Ethan. Charlie and Ethan, a 23 weeker, shared an isolation room for about two months during their NICU stay.
With Ethan and his family.
The reunion took place 12:00 - 4:00 in the afternoon, smack in the middle of nap time. Miss Lily can NOT skip a nap. By 2:15 she was clinging to me, crying, and falling asleep on my shoulder.
Charlie, on the other hand, could have partied all day long!

Playground warriors!

After 5 days of essentially non-stop rain, the sun finally came out yesterday and we took advantage of the nice weather by hitting the park with Aunt Jill and Uncle Aaron. We'd never been to this particular park before and it was great - so many different play structures to choose from! Charlie and Lily had a blast!

Charlie and Uncle Aaron rock climbing.
Lots of things to spin = a happy Charlie!

Slides! Lily loved crawling into and through the tunnel, but she'd wait at the end every time for Aunt Jill to pull her out.
Bye, park!

The week's lesson focused on the numbers 4 and 5. We didn't do anything too exciting this week - we played our numbers-in-eggs game again, practiced counting our fingers and toes and made counting hand prints for art. We also remembered JW Blakey this week. JW was the son of a friend of mine who passed away on May 20, 2010 at the age of 20 months. Charlie and Lily wore blue on Friday, the one year anniversary of JW's passing, to remember the sweet boy who was taken too soon. (Like "Justice's Stocking" on Facebook for information on what is being done in memory of JW.)

Nana came over for her usual Friday morning visit, bringing with her a new llama book (Llama, Llama Red Pajama) for Charlie and Lily. Lily enjoyed snuggling with Nana and her stuffed llama to hear the story.

Smile! The sticker on Charlie and Lily's Friday morning banana said "Place on forehead and smile" so naturally that's what we did :)

This is crazy Lily after lunch yesterday. She makes an epic mess with every meal, rubbing food in her hair and throwing things around. She's insane!

But we love her anyway ;)