Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

So our little baby turned 1 this past Friday - sigh. Grandma and Grandpa Hammonds came in for the weekend to celebrate with us. We were fortunate to have an absolutely beautiful day for the party. Thank goodness, because entertaining 10 kiddies inside a house can be a little tricky...especially when you throw in 20 adults, too. Actually, the kids entertain themselves, it's the adults you have to worry about. The Borzenski clan (Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Meghan and Uncle Brian) also drove in for the day.

Here are the "warm-up" pictures from Friday...



And pictures from the big bash- friends, family, food, good times!

I Flip...

...for moments like this.

To preclude this awesome gift, I found out this week that I will be getting video capabilities on my G1 phone in the next couple of weeks. After sharing this news with Pat his reaction was "Great! That is awesome!" I should've known something was up because normally it would be a simple "Really, that's nice." Anyway, Pat and the girls got me a Flip video recorder. A cute (yep, cute!) little video recorder for moments like these. (And, no, Lillie was not prompted!! )

Happy Mother's Day!

To all my fellow mommies out there... this one is for you. Pay no attention to the cinematography. Holding an 11 month old (because she will not let anyone else hold her) and video-taping is a little tricky. Enjoy the show! (PS- this is an .mp4 video and ignore the watermark, I'm still deciding which one I want to buy...)

Lillie's Garden

For the past few weeks, Lillie has been in a "Go Green" extra class at her preschool. This class takes her up to 4 days a week which she seems to like...and, ok... so does Mom. She has been planting seeds in this class including 3 Gladiolus, tomatoes, basil, sunflowers (the "mammoth" variety), and strawberries. Here is her hard work paying off. My window sill is packed, but it is fantastic!

The theme of the class is simply learning about earth's resources, how to grow your own plants, how to recycle, etc. So after a trip to the outlet mall, Lillie came up with a little recycling project of her own. Hey, they fit and should be quite waterproof... introducing Gap plastic shorts! I think this should be #11 on the "Top 10 ways to reuse this bag" list printed on plastic shopping bags!

We have also been enjoying the nice weather as it appears in April and May in Chicago. Here are the girls having some backyard fun. We are planning on enrolling Lillie in her first golf "lessons" this summer. I think she's getting the hang of it..I'm just envisioning Charlotte with golf ball dimples imprinted on her forehead at some point this summer for getting in the way.




And speaking of Charlotte... in just 16 days she will be 1! Hard to believe. She has chosen to scoot herself around on her bum to get around. She is getting quite good at it. She has also given up her walker for the holding of Mom's and Dad's fingers and walking around. This type of activity is OK for a 5'4" Mom, not so good for a 6'3" Dad.