A long overdue update

It's been a long time since I actually wrote anything on this blog so I thought I would take a few minutes to update our friends and fam on life in Williamsland.

Lillian is fully walking now, in fact she's almost running. She loves to climb up (and down) the stairs although they are generally gated off. She's also saying more and more words, mostly surrounding stuff that she wants to do or eat. She says no (her first word ever), cracker, bread ("bree"), garage ("ghorah"), mama, daddy, Maria (the nanny - that one is new just this morning and sounds more like "mah-ee"), and key. She recognizes many more words though, too many to count. She also has some signs. She can say diaper change, apple, milk, food, and all done. She also recognizes the sign for "no" and a few others. She developed her own sign for requesting music: a single hand clap with a very expectant stare that screams "hey! I'm bored, sing to me!"

Lillian is teething right now. She has five teeth and the fifth one seems to be extra painful as it slowly pushes its way through her gums. Last night she was up every hour crying and wanting to be cuddled and held. She was the same way the night before last too, so mommy is very very bleery eyed right now.

I'm starting my fourth class today - it's a survey of Chinese business law. So far it seems pretty interesting. It's a compressed schedule - so I'll be cramming an entire semester of class into five weeks (which is pretty great).

Other than that we are winding down the semester. Just a few more weeks to go until finals start April 24th. This Saturday was one of the few weekends all semester that we too time off. After a short but sweet visit from grandparents we took Lillian to the Dallas arboretum which was really crowded but also really pretty. It was nice for Lillian to be able to wander around and explore in the grass. The grassy park near our house is really a big dog run so it is filled with dog poopy and not all that kid friendly. We are one of three families with children in our six square blog neighborhood, most everyone else has dogs (and I mean literally everyone).

Dad starts his clerkships this summer, mom is going to keep her job at SMU. Lillian is going to enjoy the rare treat of seeing her parents every night for three months straight - the first time in her entire life (which really makes me sound like a bad mother but oh well). Right now I'm thinking about enrolling her in swimming classes and music class on the weekends this summer. We've had some bathtime traumas where she breathed in a huge gulp of water and was very freaked out by it. I'd like her to get more comfortable in the water so that she can be a summertime frog like her mom was as a kid.

We have a few trips lined up this summer, a family vacation to the beach in May right after finals, and then some short jaunts to Iowa and Baton Rouge. Hope to see as many of you as possible. Love to everyone,

Gen, Ave & Lillybug