31st Birthday

Happy birthday to me!

For some reason saying I'm 31 sounds so much older to me than 30! I guess now I'm *in* my 30's instead of just 30. Oh well, moving on!

We attempted to go out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, which just opened here in Dubai in August. I thought if we got there before 6 we would be fine. Nope! It was a 3 hr wait! I'm not sure what kind of food people think they have, but I don't think it's worth waiting 3 hrs for. 

Instead we went to PF Changs, which was yummy. The munchkin did fine as long as she was running around. Once we got to our table, she did fine as long as she was eating. But once she was done eating, she was DONE. She does not like sitting in her high chair longer than necessary, and she pretends like she just wants to sit in my lap so I will take her out. Eventually I gave in and took her out, but she sat it my lap for 5 seconds then squirmed out, ready to run around again. Granny came to the rescue and took her back out into the mall to run around. Next time we will get a babysitter!

It was Jim's mom's last night in town, and my dad is back in town from his crazy adventures in Afghanistan, so it was nice to celebrate with so much family!

Jim came home last night from taking his mom to the airport and told me he was going to sleep in Lily's room and get up with her in the morning so I could sleep in. That was probably the best present ever! I slept until 9 am. Jim's mom has also been getting up with Lily every morning since she's been here. I've had an awesome 2 weeks of sleeping in till at least 7 am every morning. I guess it's back to reality tomorrow!

Life, According to My iPhone

Apparently knowing how to hold a purse is in her genes, because I never taught her to do this. She just walked out of her room one day carrying her purse over her arm.

Jim put a headband on her and she cheesed for the camera. Doesn't she look like a totally different baby without her hair in her face?

I took her walking around our little market near our apartment right when she started walking full time and she thought it was the best thing ever.

This is a t-shirt one of her friends gave her for her b-day. Isn't it awesome!

This was in the business lounge on the way to Rome, and she was having a blast running around this little area we blocked off with chairs. We thought she would have run off enough energy to crash on the first plane, but nope! She stayed awake until 2 am.

Finally crashed! I followed pretty soon.

Once we got to our hotel in Rome, Lily decided to help me unpack. We were only in this hotel for two nights, so I was not planning on unpacking everything!

Walking around a park near our hotel

This is back in Dubai. She was running around the food court at the mall wearing her new birthday shoes. (This picture is for Aunt Katie)

Still carrying around that purse!

I'm way behind on blogging! The amount of pictures we have and the many places we went to that I want to recap is overwhelming, so I'll probably just do random posts every now and then of each city. I'll do my best to get caught up!

We're Back!

We've been trying to organize pictures to upload, but Jim told me I took 1700 pictures, so it's taking a while. whoops :)

In the meantime, here's a longer video of the one I posted on Facebook last night of Lily talking to the iPad.

Lily's Birthday

On Lily's actual birthday, August 7th, we let her open presents that morning before Jim went to work. I remembered my mom had gotten her a tutu for Christmas, so I decided to dress her up a bit for her birthday. I think she looks flippin adorable!

We decided to go simple for her birthday. We just got her a few books and one new toy.

I thought she would love tearing the paper, but she really wasn't interested and we had to do it for her.

When Jim got home that afternoon we had cupcakes! 

This was really her first taste of anything like that. The only other sweet she's had is a bite of frozen yogurt and some banana muffins I've made.

She really didn't know what to think. I thought she would tear into it because she pretty much eats whatever we put in front of her, but she just picked at it for a while.

She didn't eat more than a quarter of it and Jim and I finished it off for her. Darn!

On August 9th, I had a few of our friends over that we see pretty regularly at either playgroups or swimming. We had 4 moms with their kiddos, two 15 month olds and two 5 month olds. I'm sad I didn't get a picture of all the kids, but I was busy wrangling Lily who's been pretty fussy since her 1 yr shots. 

I told the moms not to bring gifts, that we weren't having a big party, but all of them did. It was sweet and I'm just grateful to have friends to celebrate with.

Of course Lily was more interested in the card than the gifts.

We have playdates often with these two moms and these three kids are always stealing/sharing/begging for food! Poor Kim pulled out a snack for her little boy Luc, and all three walkers swarmed her!

I finally got Lily to sit in my lap for a few seconds to open her gifts.

I got this cake from the Bloomingdale's bakery in Dubai Mall. I know it sounds hoity toity, but it's the closest thing to us and I knew I could walk there and pick up the cake if Jim couldn't drive me. I still don't have my driver's licence! :)

Everyone sang to Lily then the moms had cake.

I pretty much only decided about a week ago to even have a party. We just don't know that many people and I feel like our apartment is too small for too many kids. I'm glad we did it though. It was the first time I invited the girls over, and they invite me to their place all the time. I need to get better about inviting people over, but I let it stress me out too much. You should have seen me the night before. We've been having an ant problem and I turned into a mad woman on the hunt for ants. Jim finally found where they're entering and we caulked up the hole, but I was freaking out that the poor little 5 month olds were going to have ants crawling all over them. Embarrassing! 

I'm off to eat some leftover cake! Diet or no diet, you can't waste a Bloomingdale's cake!

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