We’re all having more fun for Halloween this year as Lily is 2. She has a better understating of what’s going on and has been practicing her Happy Halloween and Trick or Treat.

Costume Sneak Peek

This year she’ll be going as a pink cat. It’s a warmer costume which is nice but also has quite the big belly. Trying to get her into the car seat in it sure was a lot of work.

Cleaning Out Pumpkins

Lily also helped clean out some of the pumpkins this year. She wasn’t so sure about it, but eventually stuck her hand right in.

Tonight we’re going to the grocery store for indoor trick or treating and then around the neighborhood. After that we’ll be handing out candy at the door and having some Halloween fun.

Then, after she goes to bed, Dad is taking most of the candy and hiding it away. Halloween is a lot of fun, but Lily doesn’t need a whole pumpkin full of candy.

Happy Halloween originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

It started out with Uncle Josh visiting on her birthday. That’s pretty special as he was in from California. Josh gave her some plastic food so she could feed her dolls and pretend she was cooking like Mom.

Uncle Josh

Then she had the weekend with just Mom and Dad. She got plastic plates, bowls and cups to go with her plastic food and she loves to play with them. She also got some Elmo things and other fun toys. Plus we had ice cream cookie sandwiches!

Cups and Toys

Dinner with her dolls.

Since it was her birthday weekend, we took her to Edinborough Park to play in the bouncy house and the maze of tunnels and slides. We also went to not one, but two, beaches to play in the water.

Giant Slide

A very fun weekend for sure!

Her second birthday party was this past weekend with the grandparents and family. A second birthday means more presents including a kitchen, some very cute clothes and toys. Plus what’s a birthday without cupcakes; Elmo cupcakes!

Elmo Cupcakes

Lily's Kitchen

After that, it was time to run around outside and burn off some of that sugar and play with the family.

Family Time

We also took some time and went out to visit the cows on my parents farm. Lily loved feeding them, seeing the corn and all the different things. Grandpa Tom even took her on a tractor ride which she thought was a ton of fun.

Riding in a Tractor

We are extremely blessed to have our families close enough that Lily can go and experience different things. Animals at the zoo are fun, on the farm is even better!

Lily

It’s hard to believe that Lily is already two. She’s growing up so fast and it’s amazing to see how much she’s grown and how much she has learned in just two years. She’s an amazing little girl and we are grateful to have her in our lives.

Cupcakes, Cows, Presents & Water originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lily enjoying the parade.

From the horses to the floats to the candy, there was always something to look at and something to do.

When floats played music, we danced. When there was something being handed out, we wanted it. When the big vehicles honked their horns or backfired, we ran into daddy’s arms for safety.

We all had a great time, but I never realized how much work a parade was before. Keeping Lily entertained wasn’t an issue, but she was always on the move. By the end of the parade, I was ready to take a nap!

Parades are so much fun when you’re a kid. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Going for a drive.

My little girl is behind the wheel; buckled in for safety of course. Oh and the car is on thanks to remote start.

This could get dangerous. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Spew Photo

Sometimes parenting is messy. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lily loves to swing, so we looked at getting her a swing for the back yard. We went back and forth on the decision until we found the one we wanted on the clearance shelf at Target. It was such a good deal that we couldn’t pass it up.

Lily and her swing.

A few days later we were out for a walk and came across a garage sale that had a trike and a slide, two other items that we knew Lily would love. They are priced anywhere from $50 to $120 each new so we hadn’t been convinced to buy them. But when we got both for $10, it was a done deal.

Yea! A Slide!

Lily's new trike.

Lily has always loved being outside and going to the park, but now that she can just go out the back door and go for a swing or down the slide, she loves it even more.

Spoiling Lily and getting great deals. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Within 5 minutes Lily picked up a bag of chips and dumped them all over. Then we had to pick them all up; well most of them up. And of course eat some along the way.

Then she grabbed a bag of kettle corn and turned it upside down. It didn’t all fall out, so she shook the bag and swung it around until it was empty.

In the process of picking up the popcorn, Grandma S threw some at me. Lily saw that and decided to join in. Then everyone was throwing popcorn. It may not be a good lesson, but it sure was fun!

Indoor Picnic Mess

Indoor picnic turns into a food fight. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lily in her rain boots.

Thanks to all the rain, we now have a water garden. However Lily doesn’t seem to mind.

We now have a water garden. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Safari Island

These parent & toddler swim lessons are to get the little ones use to the water.

We got there a little early and Lily headed right into the water to play. She has no issues with the water, but she does try to go and do just as she does out of the water not realizing that it’s different.

During our swim class she had fun, but Lily isn’t the kind of girl to sit still long. She wants to be active and moving and so listening to the teacher and doing what we were told was hard at times.

Overall she did great. She took a few accidental face dives into the water, but she just shook them off.

We go back again every Monday and Wednesday for a month and I think she’s going to have a great time.

First day of swim lessons. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

At first we thought she’d freak out because her socks go wet, but it didn’t faze her. Then we got her to take them off and go barefoot and once again, she didn’t care.

She ran up and down the beach, played in the sand and even laughed it off when she nearly fell face first into the water.

We didn’t go swimming as we weren’t prepared for her to love the water so much, but she starts swim lessons next week and I don’t think she’s going to have any problems with that.

Put the sand in the bucket.

Got sand in my hands.

Dumping out our sand.

Into the water we go.

Lily loves the water this year. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

So I was wondering what I was a nerd about. There are more than a few topics I could go with and I decided to make a video on Lily. She’s been brought into my techy world since day one and we do plenty of nerdy things together.

Out of everything we do, I decided to focus on the photos we take.

I’ve taken over 3000 photos and we even have a daily photo together. I’ve got some amazing shots and some not so hot ones too. Either way, the images are priceless and I felt I was a bit of a nerd for all the photos I take.

Here is the video I made with Stuperflix, QuickTime and iMovie.

If you’re a nerdy dad, or just a nerd in general, join others like you at the Nerdery. We’re always looking for more like us.

I’m a nerd about my daughter Lily. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

And, as it turns out, most parks by us have a rock climbing wall on the play equipment so we started showing her how it works.

Learning how to rock climb.

No, she won’t be going solo anytime soon, but she’s experiencing something new and having fun.

Lily’s practicing rock climbing. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lily is having to much fun playing in the dirt.

This is the way we plant the flowers. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Look. I got a plant!

We'll take this one too.

She found more than a few plants, lots of puddles and had quite a bit of fun.

Now it just needs to stop raining so we can get out and start planting.

Lily’s getting ready to plant the garden. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Mmm Goldfish originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I found out yesterday that iPhoto, when integrated with Flickr, alters your sets based on iPhotos limitations and doesn’t let the user know.

I’ve been using Flickr for years and have been very happy with it. Once Lily was born the number of photos I uploaded increased dramatically. I’ve now got nearly 900 Lily photos, all in one album.

A while back I got iPhoto ’11 (v9) and was very excited for the Flickr integration. I hooked it up and realized that iPhoto allows a max of 500 photos for a Flickr set. This meant I couldn’t use iPhoto to continue adding photos to my Lily set. I was disappointed, but I left the integration anyways as the backup was nice.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized that nearly 1/2 of my Lily photos were gone from her set on Flickr.

I panicked! For a moment I thought I had lost hundreds of my daughters photos that I uploaded to Flickr. Yes, I had them on my machine, but how did I lose so many online?

Then it hit me, all I had left in my set was 500 which was the same as iPhoto’s limit. Turns out when iPhoto’s max is hit, it removes the excess images from Flickr as well with no warning to the user!

The good news is that iPhoto merely removes them from the set, it doesn’t delete them from Flickr. So I had to go into iPhoto, remove the Flickr integration, and then go into Flickr and add all the photos back into Lily’s set.

I’m not sure who at Apple thought that limiting an album/set to 500 was a good idea, or better yet alter Flickr’s photo sets without getting buy-in from the user, but this is a huge disappointment. iPhoto has now lost some of my trust.

Don’t trust iPhoto with your Flickr photos. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lily finding Easter eggs.

Happy Easter! originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

What better than wild animals in their natural environment? Cute animals in the comfort of the indoors

Cute animals at the petting zoo. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

There’s nothing like sitting down for dinner and spending a little time with the family.

Family Time originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

No matter what you’re doing, or how you do it, I hope this Christmas puts a smile on your face and warms your heart.

We are having a great Christmas already with Lily taking on everything from baking Christmas cookies to saying Ho Ho Ho.

I’m sure that come Christmas morning, she’ll be more than happy to rip open her presents and play with the packaging. Ohh and possibly the toys too!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com