Lily- 4 months

I had Jim bring home his nice camera from work, and I tried to get some good pictures of Lily......She is now 41/2 months old!

I also took her into JC Pennys to get some professional pictures, and then last night I went to a cancer benefit for a sibling of one of my students and I won a $150 gift certificate to a photo studio! Since we just had her pictures taken I will wait a couple months, but I am pretty excited about that!

We have been on summer vacation for 2 weeks now....mostly I have been cleaning out my storage shed, and getting rid of things.  Lily had her first dip in a lake- at Lake Wazee- when we went to Black River falls to apply for her passport.  Today we are headed to Jaeliah's 5th birthday party.  Lily is quite the social girl- loving social events and lots of people.  On Friday we went to the kiddie parade in Winona and she thought it was great- laughing at the kids going by. At the benefit yesterday, she was laughing at the guitar music.  She is one smiley little girl!  And this week she has finally started to take real naps!!  Maybe it is just a growth spurt and she is tired out, but it is great!  She has been sleeping for a 1-2 hour stretch each day!...even a couple times a day sometimes! This little girl typically does not nap long during the day- but she has been sleeping wonderfully at night for quite a while now.

Lily's Trip to Alaska

I am way behind on my updates.....I see I haven't posted anything since I started back at work.  Maybe now that I am on summer vacation again I can post a little more, or at least catch up a little.  One of the most important things to note is that Lily is now 4 1/2 months old.  At the end of April she took her first plane ride (taking 8 different flights) going to Alaska and back for Bert Karmun's funeral.  It was really nice to visit with people and be back for a little bit.  We even went to Elim for one day, and I got to visit with some friends and see a bunch of my old students- who have gotten HUGE since they were in Kindergarten 4 years ago! Anyways, I don't have time to write too much about it- Lily will wake up from her nap soon.  But- we had a great week up there, and I even got to hike on a couple of my favorite trails again.  Lily did wonderful under my jacket in the front pack.  Thanks to Mark and Eric and Selena for letting me crash with them while we were up there!

 Sleeping in front of a mammoth skull....

Sleeping in front of the Iditarod Finish line....