Lily is a year and a half

Lily is a year and a half today. She is 17 months plus in these pictures...

This is one of my all time favorites:

These ones are very cute too!

Giddy'up

Here's Lily riding a horsie at her Uncle Donny and Aunt Kimmie's house...

Lily at the park

Here's Lily at the park last week...

At Leela and Raji's wedding

Mini's good friend Leela got married to Raji today, and we took these pictures at the wedding...

Keys please!

Lily likes to put the door key into the lock and practice turning it. Some day she's going to want the car keys...

Pigtails

Lily's hair is getting longer and longer and we sometimes put them into little pigtails these days. So cute!

At the Long Beach Aquarium

We took a family outing to the Long Beach Aquarium two weeks ago. None of us had ever been. We got in free thanks to a promotion honoring employees of non-profits, and saw it all for $5 parking. It was astonishing! The Long Beach Aquarium is world class.

Here is the family in the "Lorakeet forest."

This giant Spider crab nearly attached itself to my head a la the original motion picture "Alien." Somehow Lily convinced it that she needed a father and I escaped unscathed.

All it wants is a hug! Even giant spider crabs can reform.

It's not every day that you can take your daughter out to pet the live sharks and manta rays! (for real, you can pet them!)

And a splendid day it was!

Lily, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana

Here are some pictures of Lily waking up from her afternoon nap...

Is a move to Seattle and a gig with a grunge band in her future?...

What a difference a little H2O makes!...

Our trip to Ensenada, Mexico

Last week, we all went down to Ensenada, Mexico for the first ever SP all staff gathering. This was Lily's first international trip since we returned from India when Mini was six months pregnant. It was a fabulous reunion of the whole SP family. Here are a few pictures. First, a group shot of almost everyone who attended (a few people were busy during the group photo)...

Here's a family photo that we took at the hotel in Ensenada where we stayed...

Here's a picture of Lily cruising around the hotel grounds...

And, here's Lily strolling along the beach in Ensenada in what has now come to be known as her "Marilyn Monroe" dress...

Here's Lily lounging in a lounge chair...

Here she is sporting her new SP T-Shirt...

Little swimmer

Lily reached 13 months on July 11. She discovered "swimming" this past month, and she can't get enough of the water. We definitely have an outdoor girl. She cries when we take her back into the apartment again after being in the pool! Here are some pictures:

Tooling around on her birthday

Here are some pictures of Lily walking and tooling around on her first birthday (June 11).

Happy Birthday Lily Grace!

Happy birthday Lily Grace! Today is your first birthday. We praise God for bringing such a delightful, beautiful, wonderful little girl into our lives a year ago today. You are the most precious gift we could ask for, and we love you so much. It was been such a joy to watch you grow up before our eyes. You have changed so much in your first year. You’ve gone from a completely helpless infant to a curious, fearless toddler who loves to explore and climb and play. We have so much fun with you, laughing and playing together, and we live out each day in amazement of who you are and who you will become. We can’t wait to see what the years ahead have in store! We love you with all our hearts!


Here's mommy helping you blow out the candle on your first birthday cake!

A Passage to Narnia

Here's Lily two weeks before her first birthday. We laughed about how it almost looks like C. S. Lewis' famous wardrobe has been replaced by a bookshelf, and Lily is exiting Narnia after being a queen there for decades and hunting the white stag (and of course no time at all passed in our world)...

Reading with Daddy

Here we are this morning reading Animal Babies

Special delivery

This picture of Lily was taken yesterday -- 11 months and five days old... Who needs a stork when the postal service delivers packages like these!

Sweeter than Chocolate

Here's Lily earlier this week, wearing a shirt that was gifted to her by friends. It says, "Way Sweeter than Chocolate"... :^)

Lily is 11 months old tomorrow

This past month I've gotten knee surgery, and the whole family has been sick - all three of us were sick for about two weeks (poor Lily Grace) and Mini and I continued sick even after Lily recovered - hence I've gotten pretty backed up on my work and one thing that fell by the wayside was posting to the blog! My knee recovery is coming along. Lily Grace is coming along too, so I'll post a few recent pictures of her...

This one was taken just yesterday (two days shy of 11 months). She is wearing her "Jesus loves me" T-Shirt and she looks happy to know that he does!

This one was taken the day before yesterday (three days shy of 11 months). She's got a bit of remnants of her sweet potato meal still sticking to her face, hence the slight orange color. Look at those eyes!...



Here she is playing the guitar with daddy about 2 weeks ago. (Look closely at my right knee and you can see where the two incisions were for my knee surgery - one of them covered by a band-aid, the other not.)

Here she is on Easter Sunday with her flower - namesake...

Sleeping beauty

Here's our sleeping beauty at 9 and a half months.

Lily's dedication to God

Lily got dedicated to God yesterday, at both of our churches -- Fountain of Life Covenant Church in Long Beach, and East West Church in Anaheim. It was a very special day. We prayed Jesus' words in Mark 10: 14 over Lily:


"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."

We pray that as Lily grows she would come to Jesus, and know him as her maker, her lover, her friend, her redeemer, and her Lord. We also pray that God would help us be good parents who will always help her to do so and not hinder her in any way. And we pray that as Lily grows she would retain that childlike quality that marks those to whom the kingdom of God belongs.


Here are a couple of pictures from her dedication day: