Fall

Fall is coming! You know fall is here when you get a nasty cold and you have to bust out the hot tea in your favorite mug.

Fall is our favorite season. It's just too short, though! So we've already started eating roast and bean soup and wearing jeans instead of shorts. We've been keeping the windows open in the evening, too. I love the smell of the crisp, fresh air. Time to replace the Bahama Breeze candle with Autumn Wreath and buy some pumpkins.

Lilly got a cold during the first week back of "school". She brought it home to me and Matt. It developed into an ear infection and the antibiotic has now caused diarrhea and a diaper rash. What do you do?? Slather on some Beaudreaux's and life goes on!

We did have a fun week together being sick. There were lots of mommy and daddy naps and play-time instead of work-time. We built a fort and watched movies. We played with chalk for the first time. It was a good week.

Laundry helper.

Swinging with Nana. She laughed so hard she cried!

Snuggly baby at her 9 month well visit. She's in the 75th percentile for height and 50th for weight. She also supposedly has an egg, fish, and peanut allergy. We'll seen an allergist about that and hope for the best! Peanut butter is right up there with bacon on my favorite food list!!

Destin

Summer vacation! We went to Destin this year again and it was wonderful! Lilly did great in the car. We broke up the drive into a two day event. She enjoyed having me sit in the back seat with her and we caved in and bought a DVD player so she could watch Sesame Street.

Our condo looked over the bay and the beach was just a short walk over the sky-bridge. Such an excellent place to go as a family if you're interested - Destin West Beach and Bay Resort. Lilly's favorite part was the lazy river. She liked sitting in Matt's lap in the tube and floating around chewing on her sunglasses.

Lilly woke up around 5:30 every morning so we would get dressed and sneak out so we wouldn't wake anyone up. We went to the Donut Hole a couple of times to indulge in some breakfast. At one point Matt and I were eating our donuts - a chocolate iced devils food and a powdered sugar apple filled - and we were like "Hey, we're totally eating chocolate cake and apple pie for breakfast! How cool is this?!" It's allowed on vacation :)

We took Lilly to the beach only once. This face pretty much sums up how she felt about the sand:

Matt and I had several opportunities to go bask in the sun alone since Grandpa and GG were there to baby sit. We saw dolphins, sailboats, and lots of birds. Does anyone know why there are ugly pigeons on the beach? What's up with that?

There was a guy fishing on the beach one morning and this stupid bird swooped down and bit the hook! So the guy reeled him in and a swarm of birds watched as he freed him.

One of my favorite parts was going to the pool/lazy river area during Lilly's first nap, which was around 8:30 since she woke up so early in the morning! There was no one there and Matt and I splashed and played like kids. It was awesome!!

Date night!! We had gelato after our meal and walked around and watched an intense game of beach volleyball. It was a highlight of the trip.

Right after I took this picture, Matt saw a blue crab in the water and scooped it up with the net! He even cooked it that night and make crab dip!

The dance of the swim diaper. It's not easy to get it on. Distraction with the iPhone is a must.
Kayaking in the bay. Yeah, we're cool like that.

The tooth shall set you free

Lilly has been teething. It is rocking our world. Last weekend she was up every 1 and half hours at night crying. Poor baby. But the tooth is emerging and relief is on the way!!

This past week she has been getting so good at walking with her new walker! She will just pull up and boot scoot across the floor! So cute. By the way, if you've never seen her videos, check out youtube.com and search mattschilb and you can see the little thing in action!

Fun times at the Bentonville Square and Farmer's Market.

I had seen some brown paper sacks at Walmart by the bananas several times but never really paid any attention until last week. They are speckled bananas for $.25 per pound. Cheap. That's Lil's favorite food so I bought 3 and a half pounds of them. I searched for fun banana recipes and decided to make banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (which were awesome!) and banana ice cream. The website said to freeze some bananas and just blend them without adding anything and it will become creamy ice cream. Super easy, right? Wrong! Guess what it forgot to mention...you can't peel a frozen banana. I was really upset when I got those frozen bananas out and tried to peel one. So I thawed and refroze them, but the blender couldn't blend them. Huge disappointment.

Anyway. We've been enjoying going to the pool the past two weekends while Grandpa and GG graciously baby sit. Our pool is very shallow and swarming with small children and we actually noticed that the water color has just a tinge of yellow to it...but let me tell ya', we feel like we're on a Princess Cruise when we go baby-less! Laying there basking in the sun like lizards is the perfect way to top off the weekend.

Changes

Just when we think it's smooth sailin', Lilly has to go and rock the boat and change everything up. She is now working through some separation anxiety which is causing more tears at bedtime and when she wakes up in the night. But, alas, we shall adapt and then something else will change!!

The good changes make it all worth it. She is such a joy. Watching her grow is so amazing. She is pulling up on everything! She'll pull up on one couch, then sit back down and crawl to the other couch and pull up on it. She'll do this several times. Up, down, up, down.

Daycare started a couple weeks ago. She just goes part-time twice a week. We both cried a lot that first day :)

She doesn't drink her milk there and they don't give her a morning nap so she's pretty sleepy and hungry at the end of the day.

She is crawling all over the house, the bathroom is her favorite spot to go. Let me tell ya, we've got the cleanest potty on the block. Lysol wipes are a life-saver.

Her second favorite spot is the dish towel drawer in the kitchen. Not sure what I was thinking when I made the lowest drawer the one for the towels, but I'm sure glad I did! She likes to open and close it and pull out a towel every once in a while.

If I'm not paying attention to her, she'll cough twice to get my attention. So I cough back and she smiles. No words yet but at least we can still communicate :)

I love her slobbery kisses.

She likes to turn book pages when we read stories. But we now have to only use the hard, cardboard books because she rips out the normal pages.

Goofy face!

In Daddy's shoes.

Waking up with some serious bed-head.

Soaked after a random rain shower during our walk!

July

Wakey, wakey!

I love it when she crawls over to my lap!
The fourth of July is one of our favorite holidays. What a fun time to spend with family, staying up late, and playing with fireworks! It was super fun this year. We had a feast of hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixins. We also made Grandma Schilb's famous angel food cake.

Uncle Will and Aunt Lisa frolicking with their sparklers.
Matt enjoyed his share of sparklers. I bet we lit about 50.
It was a hot one, but we had the baby pool to cool off in!
Sweet stuff.
My favorite. Our sweet little firecracker.

Lilly slept through all three nights of war zone fireworks outside. We had a box fan going in her room to drown out the loud noises. Matt and I really enjoyed sitting out on the back porch Monday night watching the sky light up. There were two firework stands that we could see from our house and plenty of neighbors were shooting the fancy kinds. Literally every second was filled with sparkling, glittering lights. There were a few people who released glowing trash bags into the air. Slightly concerning but none of them landed near us :)

She loves noses!!
Standing up like a big girl!
The first time she grabbed the door stop. The noise kind of freaked her out!

On Monday we drove around by Beaver lake to enjoy the scenery and look at land. It was raining and Lilly was taking a good nap. Right before she fell asleep she pooped! We were going to pull over and change her but she literally fell asleep immediately! So the car smelled really nice for the hour and a half nap/drive :) When we changed her (in the car) there was poop everywhere! All over her clothes and car seat!

THEN we were eating at McDonald's and I mixed some new formula that she's never had to her oatmeal. Within minutes she had a red rash and hives around her mouth and on her fingers where the oatmeal had touched! It was super scary! It got better as we drove toward the hospital and prayed for it to go away!

The joys of having a baby!! Wouldn't change a thing...we love that silly girl!