Almost Three!

To celebrate Lila's third birthday, this Saturday I decided to have some photos taken of her at the photography place in the mall. Unfortunately I had no idea that you would actually need an appointment? So, bound and determined to get my photos, Lila and I bypassed the professionals and went straight to the photo booth.We did actually make an appointment for today and they turned out pretty darn cute. Hopefully they'll be ready for us to bring to Spearfish the end of the month.

Dog-Sitting

This past weekend was beautiful. 40-60 all weekend and we took full advantage. Saturday we went out for breakfast, to the Home Show and then took the dogs to the dog park. Lila did great during all of it. It's nice that she's getting old enough for us to take her places. Sunday Eric and I went shooting while Lila stayed with the babysitter who she actually talked to (a first) after being bribed with candy.

Lila spent the rest of the weekend entertaining a dog we were watching for a friend. It was love at first sight. Mostly because Jet (or "the black one" to Lila) loved playing fetch more than air and didn't care how far she threw it. Jake has gotten a little tired of fetching 3ft throws over the years.



Lila was so inspired by Jet's enthusiasm that she decided to try playing fetch. While I wouldn't let her pick it up with her mouth (ew) she did crawl on her hands and knees to get whatever I threw. Yep - that's my little girl.

Love Warm Winters

We have really been loving the nice weather we've had these past few weeks and this weekend we really took advantage. Saturday we ran to Red Lodge to see the animals at the Beartooth Nature Center. Lila was pretty young the first time we went so it was fun to see her get in to seeing all the animals.

They had a little education room where they had a few tanks with turtles.
Lila loved the bear and kept "roaring" at it.

She also enjoyed playing in the snow since Billings hasn't had any for a while.


Today we all took Jake to the dog park. Lila ran around like crazy and must have fallen about every 5 minutes, but she just loved every minute of it.

Her favorite part was the large rocks for her to climb on. We finally had to haul her out of there because Jake and I got tired after about an hour.

Christmas in the canyon

Feeding the Ducks

Lila and I went to the duck pond again this weekend. She must be getting more comfortable with them because she chased the ducks around throwing food at them and yelling "ducky eat! ducky eat!"

Happy Halloween

Lila had a good Halloween weekend this year. She dressed up as a witch and we went to one the the churches in town where they were having a big party for the kids. It was crazy busy but she walked around saying "trick or treat" to the people with candy who we pointed out to her. She would then reach into her stash and try to hand them a piece of candy. She never really got that they were suppose to be giving her candy.

The same weekend of Halloween Lila got a new "pet," or at least she thought she did. Eric got a couple pheasants when he went hunting and Lila became attached to them very quickly - petting the bird and telling it how pretty it was. She cried when she couldn't take it inside. (probably didn't help that she then got scrubbed down head to foot in the bath)

After the incident with the pheasant, Eric thought he'd try introducing her to some live birds. They went to a park in Billings where you can feed the ducks and she had a great time throwing her cereal to the birds.

My little artist

I picked up some finger paints for Lila this weekend so we thought we'd try them out today. She was a little unsure at first, wanting me to wash off her hands each time she noticed she had paint on them. I finally convinced her that the fun of finger painting was getting a little messy. 15 minutes of painting and 1/2 hour of cleanup later I began to wonder what in the world I was thinking trying to make my kid messier.