Testing blog uploads from my amazing IPhone

A typical day...

In case you have ever asked yourself "Self, what is a typical day with the Mighty Mighty Boigs?" here is a small peek into a few things.





Lilah continues to realize she can stick one toy on top of another and haul it around the house. To the left you can see "Pretty" being put on top of her lawnmower. And then a serious of action shots as "Kitty" gets a ride on her block cart. (Is it just because she is a girl that all names end in "y"? Well at least it's not Prettie and Kittie and Candie!).


We have also entered the world of climbing and daredevil behavior. Lilah will climb on just about everything - steps, walls. blocks, counters. Here you can see her after a successful climb into one of our outdoor Adirondack chairs
Thankfully I did not have to climb into mine to enjoy it.


And lest you think it is all fun and games in the Boig household. Here is Lilah being put to work sweeping the floors with her nightly chores. (OK before everyone gets upset at us making our 19 month old do hard labor what is really going on is Lilah asserting her even newer found independence and grabbing the broom out of Mommy's hand to show that she can "do it better").

So it's all fun and games until someone wants to sweep the floors!

How did it get to be Earth Day?

Happy Earth Day to all!

Before what I can promise will be a full and long update I wanted to pimp my favorite Earth Dy Nature Conservancy blog entry: Raise an Organic Toast to Earth Day. So join me in what can prove to be one of the easier (and more fun!) ways to celebrate this day.

So...where have we been? Why haven't we updated. If you are a frequent reader of the MBB blog then you know long stretches in between updates signifies crazy fun events on our part. So here goes April...

We at the Boig household spend all of April 1st waiting on pins and needles to be "fooled" by one, two or all three of the Reiche's (yes even Alexander can be a trickster when he wants to be). We got the biggest trick of all when NO trick was played on us for the entire day. That makes us even more nervous for next year when Lilah can actually talk and Alexander will be able to walk.

After surviving the "Day of the Fools" unscathed we spend the next weekend celebrating my mom's bday with some sushi making/eating fun. Lilah of course slept though all the "making" part of the night and woke up just in time for the "eating." That is one smart little girl.

We then continued to what I have now dubbed "Passover Mania," which for those of you who do not know are two nights of Passover fun, with four glasses of wine and tasty food each night. The first night of Passover was spend over at the Eagle/Diamond's where, as you can see from the photos, Lilah had her first matzoh and even found the afikoman hidden in a very very secret and hard to find place called the top of the den table.

The next day Lilah went off to the nanny's and Jason and I stayed home to cook, clean and go to the spa (what does that have to do with Passover - nothing but we wanted to enjoy our day off!). That night we had 17 folks over for some food, fun and Seder. You can see that Lilah especially enjoyed the food and as they say "a good time was had by all."

The next day Lilah had her 18th month check up, where we learned she is still tall and still has a big head. I am still trying to figure out the tall thing with my tiny head - so all suggestions welcome.

Using her big head, Lilah figured out that something more fun than playing with Kitty was to strap her favorite toy Pretty (my 20 year old Preemie Cabbage Patch) to Kitty's back and ride her around the room. What will she think of next!

That brings us pretty close to this past weekend and our trip down to SC. Logging over 1,000 miles the Boig's headed down to Chapel Hill, NC this past Thursday learning that a child strapped in a car seat does count for HOV3 - whoohoo. Friday morning we had brunch with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Jackie who you may recall we visited last summer for Uncle Bob's birthday. After yummy lox and bagels, we continued to head south to Rock Hill, SC taking a "shortcut" that can only be described as the longest shortcut of all time. Thankfully we arrived in time for Jason's cousin Steve's rehearsal dinner. After a quick trip over to the hotel to stretch and let Lilah jump on the bed a bit, we headed over to Jason's Aunt Carole's house where Lilah got to play with her second cousin Izzy (Isabella Rose). We were VERY proud of her sharing as Izzy is quite a bit younger than she is.

Lilah has spent the last few weeks working with Jason and I on colors and she was able to show off her skills to everyone by playing with the pool balls on Carole's table. She has purple, orange and yellow down!

Back at the hotel we got a good night's sleep, well some of us did. Lilah kicked some of us (Jason!) in the face a lot during the night. Thankfully he wasn't too bruised up for the wedding and Lilah got to enjoy some of the morning sun off our balcony before we headed out for the main wedding event.

The wedding (reminder Jason's cousin Steve's wedding!) was held at Landsford Canal State Park. I tried to find a site online that showed just how beautiful this park was, but nothing seemed to do it justice. It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful place for a small, quiet and lovely wedding. Such a nice place, that Lilah wanted to spend the entire time exploring and mastered one of her current favorite words "walk!" (which is promptly followed by grabbing one of our hands and pulling us in the direction she wants to go). After the wedding we spend some day taking photos by the lake as it was a perfect site to do so. This photo is Lilah and Jason with "Grandma Boig" also featured in last summer's NC trip update.

After the wedding, the reception was held at a separate park which, to Lilah's joy, included a swing set with a slide. She enjoyed running around the part and trying to make us catch her.

As you might suspect she didn't each much...but as soon as we got back to the hotel decided she had the late night munchies!

After breakfast on Sunday, we headed over for a day in Charlotte, where we enjoyed the Discovery Place (Lilah got to practice her colors again with the fish) and the ImaginOn where the photos above were taken.

Heading to our last hotel, Lilah decided it was time to play hike and seek behind the see through curtains. As Jason and I wondered where she got her energy from, she feel asleep taking her first and only non-car nap of the trip!

After one last night of being kicked in the eye (poor Jason again!) we headed back to DC with a quick stop of in Chapel Hill again to lunch at Foster's Market (best cookbooks ever) and a bit north of Richmond for me to experience my first Waffle House. My only previous WF experience was watching it through the eyes of "My Breakfast with Fred". What do I have to say about it now? Yummy.

So we are back in MD, looking forward to a quiet week and hopefully even quieter weekend where we will catch up on...well everything!

Including...

New Shoes, New Haircut, New Skills! (oh and she is famous too)

Lilah is growing is all kinds of ways these days! Her hair, her feet and her skills - so we tackled all three of those this weekend.














Lilah was getting tired of her hair being in her eyes, and we were getting tired of trying to hold it all back with clips. So off we went to get it cut and as you can see from the next photo, Lilah is much happier with her new hairdo.

After playing in the mud on Saturday, we also realized it might be time to get Lilah some new, more mud-friendly shoes. Thankfully we were able to get some good advice on age appropriate, easy to clean ones and she is ready for all the puddle jumping spring can bring.

For those of you who don't know, Lilah's favorite song is the closing melody on Micky Mouse Clubhouse called "Hot Dog". She loves to watch just the song over and over and over again, dancing and singing along.

She loves it so much, that she finally got tired of waiting for me to press the "repeat button" and learned how to work my computer herself!

On the "It's always good to pimp out your child for a good cause" note, Lilah is not featured on one of The Nature Conservancy pages on planting native - a cause I very much believe in and abide by as we are working to build a native bird habitat in our back flower garden.

That's all the excitement of this weekend, but we have good things in the works...so stay tuned!

Lilah Meets Spring!

Lilah meet spring...spring meet Lilah

Hi everyone, I am testing out some new tricks from Picassa to see if I can embed the photos we took today.

Click on the photo above and it will launch you into the full photo album.

Hope you enjoy!

Lilah Loves Disco (and blocks and Pi!)

This was weekend was a busy fun one for Lilah and all!

Lilah had her regular music class on Friday, supplemented by the new toddler craze sweeping the nation Baby Loves Disco on Saturday. As you can see from the photos Lilah had a good time shaking it down with Jordan and enjoying the bubble "rain" that came from above.

We had a great time and even got my mom, who was visiting, discoing it up a bit!

Then on Saturday night we headed off to the Reich's to celebrate Alexander Day (otherwise known as Pi Day). For those who don't know Alexander's nickname is "Pie" due to his cuteness and being called "sweetie-pie, cutie-pie" and of course "honey-pie" (OK I made up that last one!). And in case you are wondering what Pi Day is - well check it out here: http://www.piday.org/. You can see how cute Pie looks with his official Pi Day onesie and cake.

Lilah partied so much that by the end of Saturday, she decided to hang out and relax in the most comfortable place she could find - Alexander's car seat. This is ironic to anyone who has ever ridden in a car with Lilah and heard the struggles to get her into her own seat :).

On Sunday we had planned to head out to swim class, since we had missed that last two weeks. However, since we had missed the last two weeks, we didn't realize class this weekend had been canceled due to a swim meet! So we got there just in time to turn around and get back in the car. We decided to wander around Olney, MD (where her class is) and found what might soon become my new favorite garden store and market - GoodEarth.

After a quick trip home to change out of our swim clothes, we headed out to dinner and dessert with some friends. Thankfully Lilah enjoyed the hat more than the dessert and we were able to let her rest her tired self in her own bed that night.

And since it's been a while, some video of Lilah's amazing block action. Two warnings here: 1. I don't have video editing software and our camera only takes 30 second video. Sooo sorry for the logo in the middle of the screen, but it was that or you were going to have to click on 4 videos to see all the action. 2. It's a bit choppy as I learn to edit video together.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

The blog post I have been avoiding....

Sometimes blog posts have some space in between them becuase we get super busy or there just isn't much to say. This time, it's becuase I have been avoiding posting out of fear of not finding the right words to write.

So here goes nothing....

Last Saturday, February 28, we had to make the hardest decision of our lives to put our amazing, sweet Hunter to sleep. As I mentioned on my last post, we found out on the 25 about his cancer and he went downhill very quickly from there. By Thursday evening he was not able to eat hard foods, Friday any food at all, and Saturday morning he was not able to keep water down. We took him into the Metro Emergency Animal Clinic (MEAC) in Rockville around 1:30 on Saturday and within an hour it was clear he was in extreme pain and even drastic measures were only going to prolong his life a few days.

There is no way to express the sadness that we felt making the final decision, but we know it was the right one allowing him the dignity he deserved. We are thankful and lucky that we had our friends rally around us, with many of them there to say goodbye to Hunter and fill the room with love. Jason and I were with him in his final moments and shared with him all that he had given to our lives and meant to us in these past four years.

I have never been treated with as much respect as the MEAC gave us. The staff and especially the vet that we worked with never pressure us, allowing us to make our own decisions and letting us know she would honor whatever we decided. She was also honest and made it OK to let Hunter go. We occupied a private room for many hours, provided the time and privacy needed to make a difficult decision. I can not thank them enough for how wonderful they were.

Hunter came to us via the DC-Lab Rescue: http://lab-rescue.org/index.asp who is now much in need of help due to the economy. They provide us with the perfect dog for us promising a companion who would "sit on the couch and smoke a cigar with us." (not that we smoke!). Through one move, one baby, several jobs and lots of travel Hunter was always his sweet and caring self - showing that all rescue dogs are worth rescuing.

Thank you to all of our friends who made the day a little more bareable and our family and friends whose support this past week has been unsurpassed. The house is a bit quieter and a bit lonlier, but your caring and love has been getting us through.

As has Lilah....wonderful as always. So some photos from this past week

Her first real snow.

Her first motorized car!

Her first boyfriend (What's a post without Alexander.).