HapHealy Ever After

last night as an only child

2013-08-01T15:03:00.001-05:00

last night as an only child, a set on Flickr.

little did she know how her world would change in a few hours...

pals

2013-08-01T14:58:00.001-05:00

pals, a set on Flickr.

just some great pictures from dennis's 40th bday.

lil loves her some daddy!

last day of school at wilma rudolf

2013-08-01T14:53:00.001-05:00

last day of school, a set on Flickr.

lil loved her classroom at wilma rudolf. we did too - her teacher sarah and aides colleen, maria, and christy were wonderful.

it was a great year for her and her friends bobby, louis, lois and matthew challenged her daily.

rudolf school picnic

2013-06-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

swings are her fav

lil's school had it's annual friends and family picnic. they do a nice job with activities for the kids. they set up games and crafts and then have a petting zoo and a train ride. i dont get to see lil in her school environment all that often so it was great to see how she does with her class and teachers.

her bff bobby

the petting zoo

the best thing about this train ride was the hats

lil and bobby

lil and trace or dennis's birthday

2013-06-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

dennis got to ring in his big 4-0 birthday at a kids concert with one of lil's best friends from LEEP, trace.

happy birthday daddy!

rock on!

dancing queen

dads playing chicken

daddy's head makes the best drum

we're back!

2013-06-01T16:13:00.000-05:00

an entire year of a broken camera lens meant no blog posts. nothing like an impending birth to get you motivated to finally get that new lens!

go blue! go #2!

the first pics we took were of lil's last day at soccer. she was part of AYSOs VIP program. it's a wonderful program for special needs kids that allows them to play soccer in a more accessible environment. each child gets a "buddy", or non-disabled kid, who works with them on the field. it was great watching the kids interact with each other and see how much they got out of it.

kicking with encouragement from coach and her buddy

the kids that volunteer their time are pretty special. lil was paired w/ a couple of girls who knew some sign language and were really excited to work on it with lil. all the volunteers and coaches were extremely patient and worked so hard to make sure each individual child had a good experience.

she dribbles down the field and scores!

getting her trophy

every good player deserves a cupcake celebration

lil LOVED her first day, then we had a series of days with tears, and then loved the last day. the only thing we can chalk it up to is weather. the soccer fields are right on the lake and we had a very chilly spring...except for the first and last days which were sunny and hot! so i guess you could say lil likes soccer, but only in nice weather:) as she always does, lil impressed us with her soccer skills. for a kid who didn't used to like walking on uneven grass, watching her run down the field "dribbling" was kind of awesome. she is so much more comfortable on different surfaces and her coordination--running, kicking, keeping her balance--is starting to be age appropriate.

i love that we live in a city that offers these kinds of services and programs so that we can continually push her limits and give her an avenue to show us what she can do -- which is almost always more than we thought.

Happy Father's Day!

2012-06-17T10:13:00.001-05:00

DSC_0804, originally uploaded by mheal732.

i am lucky. i've got my own great daddy, plus heaps of wonderful men in my life.

cheers to you all!

xoxoxox
lillia

beka's visit 2012

2012-05-06T20:46:00.001-05:00

beka's visit 2012, a set on Flickr.

because in this family the grandma's do things in pairs, beak and grandpa came to visit us too! :)

we had much better weather and were able to spend most of our time outside...on the swings of course!

grandma's visit 2012

2012-05-06T19:27:00.001-05:00

grandma's visit 2012, a set on Flickr.

grandma digs came to visit us in march. we played on the swings and went to see the butterflies!

grandma and lil had a great time together!

random march, 2012

2012-05-06T16:53:00.001-05:00

random march, 2012, a set on Flickr.

we had some crazy-great weather this "winter". lil and i hung out at lincoln park one day. of course all she played on was the swings.

they make her so happy!

adventure's in weekending

2012-02-26T09:11:00.000-06:00

having a car on a three day weekend has it's advantages. so we packed up the car and headed to indiana for a little family adventure.

every time we drive east i say "we really need to stop and see the dunes." but we've never gone and they are only a little over an hour away. with the unseasonable weather we decided now was as good a time as any esp since we wouldn't hit the summer crowds.

i'd also read an article about an eco-friendly farming community out there that i was curious about called tryon farms. so off we set for pastures and beaches!

tryon was beautiful! it's a 170 acres of pasture, woods, dunes and wetlands. it even has a stream with trout. it is the epitome of bucolic. there is an old farmhouse that they've turned into an inn plus a barn, community garden and stables.

they have different settlements like the Woods Settlement where the house are built high like a treehouse and the Dunes Settlement where the houses are built into the dunes and have sod roofs.

an example of the "Tree-top" house from their site

we walked their walking trails, visited with the hens and goats and marveled at the quiet!

this is about as much snow as lil likes

after that we headed to the beach to see the dunes. the whole area is very odd. it should be ridiculously beautiful, but it's just not quite there. unfortunately, the city planners allowed industry to ruin the lakeshore. so you can be sitting on a gorgeous stretch of beach and then to your left is a huge power plant (probably completely polluting the area and lake). it's sad. we wanted to love it, but we both decided it would not be a place we would frequent.

it's hard to see here but you could actually see the city skyline across the lake!

kids w/ moms in adland support group 1

2012-02-26T08:40:00.000-06:00

i had an idea to get a bunch of my working mom friends together. i have worked with all of them at some point and we all have kids around the same age. i love all the moms and rarely get to socialize with them...i figured the moms could drink mimosas and let the monsters run around together for a few hours.

we hosted the first one and it went great! the kids all got along and EVERY. SINGLE. TOY. was played with--which signals success in my book! we will be doing it again for sure since we don't have the chance to do too many playdates.

oliver makes his mark

owen chows down on goldfish pbj's, cheese and milk

madeline and ida play on the scooter

gray's tent domain

we let oliver in even though he had a packers jersey on:)

madeline and ida w/ the stickers--the sleeper hit of the party

michelle and gray

madeline and lil on the trampoline

lil watches madeline at the easel

khol's children's museum

2012-02-26T08:30:00.000-06:00

despite being located in the burbs in a pleasentville-like subdivision, the kohl's children's museum is a pretty awesome place. we spent the majority of our time in the music room. no surprise there.

making sandwiches at potbellys

future meg white (badass drummer)

playing in the water room

ohio xmas (mlk wknd 2012)

2012-02-26T08:23:00.000-06:00

we celebrated ohio xmas this year mlk wknd. in the rush to make sure we packed all the xmas goodies we forgot the camera! luckily cell phones aren't the worst stand-ins.

lil always has a good time with her ohio cousins. she pretty much just follows them around and when they aren't there her favorite thing to do (when she's not stealing grandpa's chair) is to stare at their pictures:)

lil had fun opening gifts, but it's more fun watching her actually play with them now. her uncle pat got her a book that has music that she "reads" almost every night and beka and grandpa got her an easel which she loves. her healy cousins got her a unicorn (yes!) pillow pet that has a permanent home in her tent.

lil's baby blue ukulele - for now she'd rather you strum so she can dance

lil and her fav pastime at beka's

my awesome and very unexpected gift!

cousins! gifts!

alt uses for an easel

birthday's past and present

2012-02-25T07:35:00.000-06:00

11 birthday's ago i was unemployed, but atop the eiffel tower, during a snowstorm in paris...10 birthday's ago i had moved 8 hours away, and had just started dating this goof named "dennis". the above picture is from my "birthday week" celebration 10 yeas ago.

fast forward to this

lil stealing my birthday cake :)

i got two goofs now!

a very diglio christmas

2012-01-04T21:26:00.000-06:00

christmas week was spent in nj doing the usual. lil and killer followed each other around, ran circles in the house and in general laughed and giggled their way through the week. these two are really something special together--they are the perfect pair of little monsters!

lil also seemed to develop an attachment to maggie. she was very interested in her and wanted to do everything i did to maggie. if i was holding maggie's hand, she wanted to do it or if i was patting maggie's back she wanted to do it too. she wasn't jealous, she just wanted to be involved.

it took us two tries, but amanda and i were able to get the annual santa picture with the kids. and to further the annual-ness of it she and i were the only ones smiling! again. unfortunately they wouldn't let us take our own pics this year so hopefully she will post it (hint amanda).

the tree with the unspoiled gifts

the kids in their matching pj's 'cause at some point amanda and i turned into sisters that do this to their kids

lil opening her "makeup" from grandma - she loves playing with my makeup brushes so now she has a set of her own

getting their remote controlled trains

pile 'o cousins

uncle jerry and maggie

very serious about opening gifts

maggie moo's baptism

2012-01-01T21:43:00.002-06:00

lucky for the 'rents, they have one child who is not a heathen and fulfills all the required church activities. lucky for amanda we have a beautiful family (bongiovanni) church, st stephen's, to go to. we are very fortunate that st stephen's agreed to do a special ceremony for us knowing that dennis and i were coming in from chicago. we got to have the church all to ourselves and had a very sweet, but short ceremony for little miss moo!

she was fantastic the whole time. not a peep out of her, even when the priest put the oil and water on her. keiller, on the other hand, was quite the character and had me holding back tears of laughter throughout the ceremony.

maggie's baptism, a set on Flickr.

'cause we need a little christmas

2011-12-11T10:30:00.000-06:00

right this very instant!

it's easy to forget how great christmas is when you don't decorate for it. we never have any christmas spirit around here until we get to our destination.

this year we kicked our xmas into gear by riding the santa train. so. stinkin. fun. love this thing. for once i only have great things to say about the cat. they really do it up. the train is covered in lights, santa has a sleigh and elf helpers, all the poles inside the train are candy cane striped, all the adverts inside the train are for business in the north pole and so on.

it was hard to tell what lil thought of it all. however she goes NUTS when she watches the videos we took. so she clearly enjoyed it.

the loot

2011-11-02T21:39:00.001-05:00

DSC_0280, originally uploaded by mheal732.

my SIL does a picture of the kids and their loot from the night. i just had to post this, knowing that her kids gets pounds of candy, and here's lil and killer playing with 1 piece each!

halloween is cancelled?!

2011-11-02T21:29:00.001-05:00

yes, but not to worry. we still had good times. and really does it matter? especially when the kids don't even want to dress up!

we had a great time in nj despite an early snowstorm and a halloween with barely passing "costumes". as always, lil had a great time with her cousins old and young.

took forever to get them in the same place for one stinkin' second. all i wanted was one picture of them in their matching cowboy shirts.

on a "walk" with keiller

the virtuoso

best team of trick or treaters on the east coast (thank you morris plains for NOT canceling halloween!)

"i got 5 pieces of candy!"

"seriously? you really think i'm wearing this hat?"

i can't write a caption for this because i'm too busy laughing at amanda hiding behind keiller

and the rest of the fun:

maggie moo

2011-11-02T20:54:00.000-05:00

i had to do a whole post dedicated to this perfect little thing. cutest, happiest, smiliest, little girl ever. love her...although lil might love her more. she couldn't get enough of her.

halloween angels

giraffes and fingers are necessary for sleeping tight

love you maggie

lady bug

seriously? look at that chin.

mcdinan mcpumpkin mcparty

2011-11-02T19:58:00.001-05:00

as always lisa and joe throw one helluva party! and the best part of this one was that we could actually go--having a car has its perks!

while the rest of the party was busy carving ridiculous pumpkins (these are not your spooky face people), we were making a mess with paint and chasing the doogies. too bad we couldn't stay and see the rest of the creations.

power tools were used

dogs were kissed

portals were carved

babies were stuffed

messes were made

saturday in the park

2011-10-22T20:32:00.001-05:00

no nap means a day in the park. lil doesn't move from the swings--big kid or little kid swing--doesn't matter. she's an equal opportunity swinger:)

prelude to a butterfly

2011-10-22T20:28:00.001-05:00

in theory lil is a butterfly for halloween. however, yesterday, at the party she refused to wear the wings or the rest of it for that matter. this morning she wore them with her monkey pi's. don't be surprised if this winds up being her costume!

halloween dry run @ digitas

2011-10-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

apple juice and oreos

hopscotch

tantrum

marimeko reflection

and that about sums up the adventure at the office halloween party. please notice that there is no "her costume" photo.