Happy Birthday Lily!

Lily is a year old today!

All good things must come to an end and it's a good thing! Here is the finally installment in the "12 months of Lily" (of which there exist only 11 installments and were almost only 10).

I was lucky to get one more pose out of Lily, she is getting way too busy to be sitting for a silly portrait! I'll let all of you see what I mean for yourselves.










Oh! This one would have been good but I had to be all shakey!

Oh well. I gave up.

Then she was out the door and smiling so pretty for her picture...going...

going....

gone.
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I wrote this a year ago to our sweet newborn baby Lily. What a joy to have experienced all the changes she's gone through this year. I look forward to seeing all the ways she'll keep growing and changing in the next.

Lily Ruth, you've been with Mama and Daddy for one week. How quickly the days have gone. To think seven days ago you were still in my tummy. I loved to feel you moving around in there; kicking, squirming and even those hiccups that sometimes seemed would never go away. I do miss that special time when you grew inside me, watching my belly get bigger and bigger with you and seeing the smiles on the faces of others as we all waited for you. I miss how much your Daddy would talk to my tummy knowing you could hear him and the joy of those first kicks even he was able to feel. Now that you are here, I feel relief to finally be able to see you, hear you and touch you. What joy each of these bring us, every movement, every sigh, every little squeak and grunt you make. What a miracle Jesus has made for us, every detail of you is perfect. You are our little blessing and you'll grow and grow until this small fragile bundle is just a memory. I will miss this tiny you but know you'll bring us so much more joy as we watch you become the fat funny baby, the playful little girl, the teenager and someday the woman the Lord is making you.

Lily News.

Lily is learning to stack her blocks not just attack her blocks!

Wednesday we took some of the kids in our youth group to the Lewis and Clark state park for some swimming and cookin' out.

Lily had a good time in the sand.



And in the water. She's much braver than me.


Our worn out Lily had to relax with a cold one and her dogs up.


Our kids on a very old tree with many large roots.

Phil inside the very old tree with many large roots and a big hole to crawl into.

No one else could seem to figure out how Phil got in there.

Makala wasn't sure she even wanted to try to figure it out.

After Phil crawled out of the tree he was acting a little strange.


We were able to climb aboard a replica of a keel boat Lewis and Clark used to explore the Missouri.

Capt Lily and Mr. Smee.


Lily is getting much better at walking (with assistance). Look at that hiney!!

Batty.

Look what we found in the church! A wounded bat! Yuk! It was squeaking in that batty high pitch squeak bats have, but it recorded on my camera like a purring sound. Very interesting.



Phil took it outside to kill it. He had to use the foot on one of our benches to do this. I ran. Gross.

Beer Festival!

Phil's beer will be one of the "local beers" featured in the Bancroft Beer Festival on August 1. He is also the guest speaker for the evening and was interviewed by the Norfolk Daily News. You can read the article here:

http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=104&ArticleID=17654&TM=37902.79

From the John G. Neihardt Center's website:

Besides being a renowned writer and Nebraska's "Poet Laureate in Perpetuity," John G. Neihardt loved good beer. On August 1st that love will come full circle in the first annual "Bancroft Neihardt Beer Festival," a specialty beer-tasting fund-raiser sponsored by the Neihardt Foundation.

The fest will be held at the Country Pub, 409 Main Street in Bancroft on Saturday, August 1st from 7 to 9 PM. More than 20 brews provided by area distributors and brew pubs will be available for sampling, along with appetizers, a demonstration of home brewing, and a silent auction of specialty items. "We'll be serving up a healthy helping of good cheer for a good cause," said Event Coordinator Paul Hammel.

Tickets are $20 and $25. Purchasing a $25 in advance includes a beautifully etched glass Neihardt mug. Proceeds benefit the Neihardt Foundation's programs and projects of the Neihardt State Historical Site, which requires additional private funding to operate.

Tickets are available through the Neihardt Site and at several businesses in the Bancroft area.

So join the fun, enjoy some of the finest new beers on the market, and help a good cause.

At The Parsonage

"Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with
Little girls!"

This was one of my "Miss Hannigan" days.



Lily and Clara are starting to play together so well! But Clara hogs the pots and gets so mad when Mama scolds her and tells her to share.

Our little "bow head"!

Our "Little Lutheran" (note shirt I thought was HUGE when someone gave it to us at the baby shower for Lily, but I had to get it out for her to wear before she outgrows it!)

Our sweet corn is ready for harvesting. Some of the ears are pretty big.

And some are pretty small.

One Month Old.

What is this?

*UPDATE: Thanks for your thoughts Ann! I took both girls to the doctor this morning, he said this could be a viral infection, I don't think he called it roseola, but he said something I missed and the rash is just one of the last symptoms of this virus, so perhaps that's it. Lily sailed through it without us knowing she had anything until now, but it looks like poor Clara has picked it up too and she's miserable with a fever (100.4) and on a antibiotic. Hopefully both girls should be rid of this by the end of the week.

Phil can't stand when grown ups respond to babies as if they're actually saying something an English speaking adult would understand, so this one is for him.

Clara had something to say too.

Jimmy this is for you. We had a nasty storm blow in pretty fast last week. It sent me and the girls to the basement. It was real exciting! I thought about how brother James always gets excited about a good storm coming in! Sorry the video doesn't really do it justice.

Our town celebrated its 125th anniversary last weekend. It was a busy and fun filled 3 days for everybody. We estimated that we had about 4000 people come!

Here you're likely to meet nice folk like the Schwedhelms!

I only went for the food; free ice cream cones at the library, snow cones, kettle corn, funnel cakes, burgers, pork on a stick and even delicious Mexican( I had that twice)!

Our neighbors really helped me out with girls so we could get around to all the events. Phil was very busy with different fundraisers so we didn't see much of him.

He was able to get away for Lily's first pony ride! She was nervous at first but quickly decided she really liked riding a pony.




She didn't like having to say goodbye to her new buddy "Token".

Here's the beard and mustache competition I had to watch. There were some very nice handlebar mustaches!

Clara just wondered when we'd be having another funnel cake.

"Seriously. Another funnel cake anyone?"

Lily kept cool with Mr. Vernon.

The girls were asked to model in the vintage style show. The models wore wedding and confirmation dresses from the 1900s through 2007. Clara wore a baptism dress from 1953. I had one of the models walk her down the aisle.



Lily wore a flower girl's dress from 2004. Phil even got in on the catwalk action sporting the suit he was married in. (And I must say he looked good!) He carried Lily who debuted asleep on Phil's shoulder. She was a still a little embarrassed about this when we took this picture and Clara still thought it was hi-larious!



After the style show we appeared in our parade. Phil's fishing boat was all gussied up for the occasion and pulled by a 1940-something Farmall tractor....

that Lily drove...

well wished she'd driven at least.

She had to sit in the boat with us and look really cute in her life vest.