Joey Jog

I know it's been a long time since our last post! No, the blog did not end with Lily's birthday :) We have been busy traveling, celebrating new babies for several of our friends, as well as Mark's 30th birthday! I do have new pictures of Lily to post, but I haven't quite made it to transfer them from the camera to the computer just yet... Soon, I promise!

In the meantime, I wanted to let you all know about something very special that we participated in yesterday as a family. Mark, Lily and I were all part of the Joey Jog 2009 to support the American Liver Foundation. A close friend of Mark's lost his two year old daughter, Josephine (a.k.a. Joey), three years ago to acute liver failure, and this is a 5K event that they hold to honor her memory each year. Joey was an otherwise incredibly healthy little girl, and was struck by this illness with no warning. The Heppner's hold this event in the hope that their fundraising efforts with help prevent this tragedy from happening to another family. You can learn more about Joey and her story (and see some adorable pictures!), at www.joeyjog.org.

The day was amazing!! The event had an incredible turnout, great weather and over 250 participants. The final totals aren't out just yet, but they raised more than $30,000!!! Mark did the 5K run, and I pushed Lily in the stroller. We had a blast, and the rain held out until about 5 minutes after everyone finished the walk! It was a great atmosphere, and a great way for Joey's family and friends to remember her. They had funny, wonderful stories to share about a little girl who sounds a lot like she would have gotten along well with Lily (girly, fearless and independent!). Today would have been Joey's 5th birthday.

Thanks for still reading even though I've been terrible about posting, and come back soon for some new pictures of Lily!

Picture Overload!

To those of you who check the blog regularly, my apologies for the lack of posts in the last month! We have had a LOT of visitors since Lily's birthday and work has been crazy for both of us. Lily has thoroughly enjoyed the time we've spent with all of our house guests and it's been fun to watch her interact with everyone.

She has been teething over the last couple of weeks and hasn't been her usual cheery self all the time, but we're almost done, with just one more baby tooth to go until her next set of molars comes in. Lily also started walking full-time just a day or two after her birthday and it's been a fun transition. She is quick!!

Many of the pictures below were taken by a woman we found on Craig's List who wanted to work on her portfolio and gain some experience - we enlisted her help to get some birthday pictures of Lily and some family shots as well. We had fun running around on the Riverwalk downtown, but it was HOT out there! I think we're looking forward to some cooler weather in the next few months after all of the heat and humidity down here this summer...

Congratulations to Chris Horgan (one of the groomsmen from our wedding) who is getting married today in Brooklyn! Wish we could have been there to celebrate!

Happy 1st Birthday Lily!!

I think Mark and I have been in denial that this day would actually come! It's just so hard to believe that our little girl is officially a toddler now and no longer a baby. It's been an incredible year, and one that we'll definitely never forget. We've been blessed with a wonderful daughter who we couldn't love any more if we tried. She is beautiful, smart, hilarious, sweet and a joy to be around - we are proud to be her parents and can't wait to get to know her more as she grows up.

We had Lily's birthday party this weekend, and it was great! We had a great turnout, got to use our new back yard, and our friends were incredibly generous to share their weekends to celebrate with us! Lily was a little social butterfly and enjoyed every minute :)

Olivia in the sprinkler

Bella making a run for it!

The crowd in the back yard

Pierce

Josh

Fourth of July Weekend & Fun in the Sprinkler!