Lily is two!

So Lily turned two on the 17th. We decided to copy our good friends the Carneys and take the whole day to spend with Lily - she was excited that morning when she got up we sang Happy Birthday to her - she then immediately asked for a cookie. Apparently when they handed out the cookies at school that I sent in after the singing, she decided she should get a cookie each time the song was sung! We had big plans to go strawberry picking with friends, and as Chris cooked her favorite breakfast "daddy bissits" (that would be biscuits) I packed us a lunch and got us all sunblocked. Right before we were to leave, we heard the strawberry picking was cancelled due to overpicking the day before. (Thank you greedy Wednesday pickers!! Just kidding....)


Our next idea was to go to the zoo - as we pulled into the parking lot, there were quite literally 50 school buses there for some unknown reason. So we punted and ta-da! The Botanical Gardens it is!!





Lily had a great time running around the Japanese Gardens (did I mention she runs...) and looking at the fish and turtles with her daddy. She really had fun watching a caterpillar walk around, and chasing other families down the little walkways around the gardens. We ate our picnic lunch and had a great time! It was fun to watch her run all around and inspect everything.

We then went to visit Grandma Jean and Grandpa John where she got a birthday present - a new "La-La". Her first La-La is her little piano. The xylophone is the latest in her musical instruments. Not sure how she came up with the name for them, unless that is how I was singing along with the piano initially???? She loves it and sometimes as she goes up to bed at night, she can hear Chris move it out of the way and make a little noise and she hollers "La-La!!" down the stairs at him, as if to say "I hear you playing with it!!"



After a much needed nap, we went out for the birthday dinner at Yuki's, a local hibachi/japanese steakhouse restaurant. Everyone made quite a fuss over her, she got lots of special attention and was insistant that they start cooking her rice as soon as possible. She loves her rice!! She did pretty well with the flaming volcano and flash of fire that they always do - hugged us pretty close but couldn't look away! It was fun to watch her take it all in.
Then we stopped off to see Grandma Jane, and she really enjoyed her new cash register with its little coins and buttons to push. On the way home Lily sang "Hap' Birtday" to herself and asked us to sing it - of course asking for a cookie (see above!). It was a great day and I think we were all ready for bed at the end of it!!