Lillian's Baptism

Last weekend we celebrated Lilly's baptism.  My parents flew in town for the festivities as well as to spend a few additional days with their favorite granddaughter.  We had a wonderful time and beautiful weather, to boot!  We enjoyed alfresco dining with live music, visits to the mall and farmer's market, as well as a great time with family and friends at the annual Webster Groves Jazz Fest.  Grandma and Grandpa also got to spend two days with Lill all to themselves as Corey and I headed off to work.

Sunday was perfect.  We got Lilly all dressed up in her baptismal gown (which is the same gown that my brother and I were both baptized in), snuck in a few photo opp's and then headed up to Our Holy Redeemer for the baptism.  Father Ken led us through the beautiful ceremony.  As a little background, he had come by our home a few weeks back to meet Lillian, to discuss our faith and our hopes for Lill and her faith.  To be honest, I was quite nervous for the visit as I thought I might "fail the test" and Lilly would not be able to be baptized.  Clearly, that was not the case and we had a wonderful visit getting to know Father Ken and Lilly was successfully welcomed into the Catholic faith on Sunday. While Lill was a little fussy during the ceremony (it was nap time, folks!), I found it funny that the part where most babies cry is the part she loved the most.  What can I say, our little lady loves bath time :-)

Hanging out at the Kirkwood Farmer's Market with Mom and Grandma

Aunt Mer and cousin, Taylor

Playing "where's Carter?!"

Grandma, Grandpa and sleepy Lill at Jazz Fest

Grandmas feeding the little ladies

Ready for her big day

Grandpa's, Dad and Lill

She loves the stained glass

Lill with her Godparents, Kyle and Meredith

Basically how Bruno family pictures turn out these days :-)

3 months!

Lilly is already a quarter of a year old.  While newborns are adorable and sweet, we have really enjoyed watching Lill start get a little personality of her own.  She's chatting (ok...coo'ing) and smiling up a storm, starting to giggle and is infatuated with her hands.  We don't have a doctor's appointment this month, so we don't have any official stats.  However, I can confidently say she just keeps on growing and I'm sure she's still in the high percentiles for weight and height, and off the charts for brain, I mean, head size :-)

Likes: Laying on my changing table, being held facing out and seeing the world around, practicing my standing (with assistance, of course), sticking out my tongue, putting my hands in my mouth, bath time...and getting tickled during it, Sassy brand toys, Grandma and Grandpa Ferrier visiting and playing with me

Dislikes: Being held 'like a baby', going without naps, being strapped into my car seat (I'm a happy camper once I'm strapped in), Grandma and Grandpa Ferrier heading back to Michigan

Time Out

I wish I had Zach Morris' 'time out' capability.  Actually, I guess I don't wish for a time out but rather to just keep living in this moment for just a little bit (or A LOT) longer.  "This moment" is my last day of maternity leave.  That's right, the inevitable and dreaded day is finally here.  Awhile back, I thought I would kind of look forward to this day; to get out of the house, into cute work clothes, and back into the working world socializing with adults.  These last few weeks, however, Lill has grown up so much and just becomes more and more fun each day.  We have a great schedule down, she's a great buddy to run errands with, as well as snuggle with at home on the couch.  She's sitting up in her Bumbo seat and has become quite the little chatty cathy.  About a week ago, she started sleeping in her big girl crib, far far away from our bed.  Ok, she's just down the hall, but my tears the first night would have led you to believe differently.  Corey joked that he definitely expected one of us to cry like a baby the first night, he just had expected it to be her, not me :-) She was a rock star and took to sleeping in her crib like a champ which made it much easier on us.  I thoroughly expect those tears to come flowing back tomorrow when I leave my adorable best friend and head back to the workforce.  We are beyond thankful that she will be spending her days with her Grandma Carolyn, which makes this transition much much easier.  I am already looking forward to the end of the workday tomorrow.  Here's a little peak into our days lately...

Best buds

I'll miss you, too Ty!

Bring on the visitors! (part 2)

Labor Day weekend was quite the eventful one.  With Corey's college buddies spread all over the country and the fact that just about all of them are married and have had weddings for us to all reunite at, we have to be a little more creative with how we'll all get together going forward.

A few months back, Corey was chatting with his buddy Andy Stone, who lives in Phoenix with his wife and 11 month old son, and discussed the potential of them all visiting 'The Lou' to see us and our good friends the LaRose's.  A 'kill two birds with one stone' type of visit. Once the Stone's had booked their flights, Dave, another buddy of theirs got wind of the visit and decided he wanted to make the trip from Toronto for a 'kill three birds with one stone' type of visit.  Tom Smith, up in Chicago, who recently welcomed twin boys, decided he couldn't miss out so they hit the road as well.

Knowing that we would likely still be getting into the groove of parenthood at 2.5 months in, the LaRose's graciously offered to put everyone up at their beautiful home in Lafayette Square.  That's right...7 adults, 5 children (3 of which are under the age of one), and 1 dog all under one roof for the 3 nights.  Add in Corey, Lill and I during the days, and you have quite the full house.

Everyone arrived on Friday, between lunchtime and mid afternoon.  We all headed over to the LaRose's to spend the day and catch up.  That afternoon and evening was the 'Tour de Lafayette', a series of intense bike races around Lafayette Park in which the race route went right in front of their house.  Their neighborhood basically has a big BBQ/tailgate on their front lawns to watch the races.  Unfortunately, what was a beautiful and unseasonably pleasant summer in St. Louis came to a crashing end with 100 degree heat and humidity all weekend.  Therefore, we spent most of the day and evening inside, but ventured out from time to time to cheer on the racers.  We also celebrated Josie's 4th birthday, complete with a mermaid strawberry cake :-)

We had everyone over on Saturday for some BBQ and college football.  Sunday evening we got babysitters and headed out to dinner sans kids.  While we love the kiddos and enjoyed finally meeting each others children, it was definitely great to get out for some adult fun and really catch up. It was a jam packed weekend that flew by.  While it was quite exhausting for us all (we were basically all falling asleep at the bar after dinner Sunday), it was such a wonderful weekend and worth the lack of zzz's.  We already look forward to the next time we get to see everyone.

Dave with his buddy Bea LaRose

Bring on the visitors! (part 1)

We had quite the eventful week prior to Labor Day.  We were lucky to have a number of visitors for Lillian to meet!

We kicked off the week with a visit from Maro, a family friend that I have known for 25 years (since she was born and this 5 year old held a little baby for probably the first time).  Maro just finished law school and took the bar exam at the end of July so she's trying to keep busy and her mind off waiting for results.  As a former exam taker, I can empathize with that dreadful time waiting for results so we were happy to help keep her mind off things...even if it was only for a couple of days.  Unfortunately we had extremely hot weather (right around 100 and humid) so we spent much of our time at home, playing with and staring at Lill but we did manage to get out a bit in the mornings, before it got too steamy, to walk and show Maro our neighborhood.  We also took Lill to the mall and lunch for her first time.  Maro had fun showing Lilly a bunch of different clothes to get her reaction and see what she liked.  Lill definitely seemed to enjoy the bold/bright color trend going on right now.  She was a great little shopping buddy so I'm sure her and I will be doing that a bit more often ;-)  Before Maro flew out on Wednesday, we showed her one of St. Louis' top destinations, Forest Park, and had lunch at The Boathouse there as well.  It was great to catch up with Maro but I am disappointed to report that we must have been having so much fun that I forgot to pull out the camera and snap a few to preserve the memories.  Luckily Maro had just gotten a new camera of her own so she was happy to try it out on the cutest subject.

Our sleepy shopping buddy

Awake and loving all the bright colored clothes