SHE plays with him all day: shares her toys, reads him stories, includes him in her imaginary play (he gets to be the handsome prince while I continue to receive the bad guy roles).
HE follows her every move, cries if she is crying (even when its fake) and laughs if she laughs.
THEY are the best of friends.
Their bond makes my heart swell with joy -- the overwhelming, teary-eyed kind of joy.
Lily recently discovered the art of photography. She has taken some great still life photos and I love seeing the world from her point of view. She also takes great people pictures; of course her favorite subject is Phinn! 
Phinn just acquired his first tooth, has learned to "stand" in his round-about toy, now rolls from his front to his back, has killer abs from all doing crunches all day (he's going to be sitting up on his own in about 3 more seconds), talks up a storm to the whole family's delight and is fascinated by his toes, his fingers and anything he can stick in his mouth.
Lily turned FOUR in September! Her butterfly party was rescheduled several times since we were all recovering from the flu (OINK, OINK), but actual day and the eventual party day were happy, balloon-filled, chocolate-cake eating, happy-birthday-singing days!
Last month we all went on a camp-out...in the backyard!
It was AWESOME!
Daddy and Lil set up the tent and built the campfire while
I prepped bed rolls and boiled hot dogs
...on the stove
...in the kitchen.
It was tough, lemme tell ya! :o)
Afterwards, we had s'mores.
Everyone else slept soundly while I stayed up keeping watch, listening to the world and the sounds of my family slumbering peacefully.
Lily reminded us that next time we are supposed to tell scary stories,
you know,
like, "once a little girl heard a noise in the dark and it was a
...... CAT!"
Augh!
The next morning we hiked (I am using that word loosely) the C&O Canal at Lily's pace. We had a great time trying to trick the spiders on their webs. Frank would throw a little stick into the web and then we'd watch the spider go see what he'd "caught". I am sure the spiders were disappointed, but they each shook the stick loose to clean up the web before heading back to the middle to wait again...tidy little boogers!We had snacks by the river where we saw minnows, crawdads, geese and, apparently, the "Ariel rock" from The Little Mermaid. Lily was overjoyed!!!!!!
