A little video of Griff being sweet.

Well, here we are, back to the month of September. Lily is nearly a year old - only a week and a half to go. And Griff is not far behind her. Things are pretty exciting these days. Both kids are mobile and they are doing great. Griff has taken a few steps, though he still prefers to crawl. As you can see, we've turned the house into Shawshank. They learn new things all the time. They love to read books with Melissa. They have a lot of fun together and with the rest of the family, too.


The kids have made some good advances this month. They quit their binkys cold turkey. They have also graduated from bottles to sippy cups. Let me tell you something, I had no idea what a task it would be to get them to make that transition. Holy smokes, it was much worse than the binky cut-off. We're going to have to work on Griff though about his irrational fear of the vaccuum. He cries really hard whenever Melissa uses it.


I started school again and it is going pretty well. It's keeping me pretty busy these days. Melissa is in 1st birthday party planning mode. Lily will be having a lady bug themed party. It should be pretty cute. Griff is going to be having a baseball themed party, which came as quite a shock to those who know us.


We also were quite pro-active this year and already got the kids their Halloween costumes. Lily has a very cute lady bug costume. Griff is going to be an adorable little devil. We're looking forward to it. Of course, no pictures will be posted until we are much closer to the event.


It's hard to believe that Lily and Griff have been around for so long. We're lucky to have two great little kids like them.

Just a couple of pictures of the kids looking cute to start things off.

Lily and Griff went with some of their cousins to Gardner Village to feed the ducks. Of course, Griff is a pretty big fan of bread himself and was somewhat stingy. The ducks could be a little intimidating though, and Griff was obliged to share.

We were lucky to be able to strap a camera to the head of one of the ducks. This is what it looks like to be offered a piece of bread from Lily, from the perspective of a duck.

Griff's favorite hair style is his mohawk. I think you can see why.

This is Lily's response to Melissa asking her how old she was going to be. She will only do this when she is at home and there are no visitors. This is her most secretive trick, for reasons that have yet to be discovered.

Practicing on the stairs. This was basically his first time on the stairs. He was so proud of himself and was doing so well (as you can see from the picture). Unfortunately, about 10 seconds after this was shot he started to get interested in something behind him and tumbled to the bottom of the steps. He survived, but wasn't quite as thrilled with the stairs afterwards.

This is documentation of Lily's first significant wipe out. We were walking together on some concrete when she stubbed the toe of her shoe and couldn't get her hands down before her face hit the ground. It was pretty sad. She got a little bit of road rash, but has since made a full recovery. She did have a distinguished little Hitler scab for a while, though.

I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful.

Lily is becoming quite picky. She used to eat everything. (Griff still does.) Now if she doesn't like something she acts like it is on fire and tries to spit it out. Unfortunately for her in this case, avocado is not easy to get rid of. This is also a good picture of the aftermath of her wipe out. (I can't blame her about the avocado, though.)

He gets so dirty when he eats. For some reason, it's not good enough to spoon the food into his mouth. Once the food is in he has to stick his hand in his mouth and shove it in even further. So, he gets food all over his hands which he then transfers to his face, hair and ears. For the life of me, I cannot figure out a way to get him to stop doing this.

Ah, our little evil genius. Clearly some mischievous little scheme has just hatched in her head.

I must've been laying on their copy of 5 Little Ladybugs or something. They're trying to roll me over with all their might.

Just readin' the paper. He likes to go through the ads, looking for good deals on milk and juice.

The loveseat now rests in front of these plantation shutters. Not long after this picture was taken Griff literally began climbing the shutters. He is a monkey.

The kids took a little trip to the park to ride the spring-loaded ponies. What could be better?

As you can see, they love to swing. Griff's smile in this one makes me laugh. This is their favorite thing to do at the park...

...sliding, not so much. Lily is flat out terrified. Griff has emotions a little more under control, but he is still awfully skeptical about the whole thing.

I'm not sure why he is so distressed in this picture. Either way, he is ready to party.

All the drool, snot and tears that you can handle.

What could be more fun than a full box of tissues and a little time to kill?

Here are a few pictures that we got from Olan Mills.