Move it! Move it! Move it!

Crawling

Standing

Cruising- kind of

Walking?

Going Outside

I am really not a Summer person. I like Autumn the best because I get to be inside and look out at the beauties of nature. But if I have to be outside I’ll do my best to enjoy it.

I absolutely love my rose bushes this spring! They have been amazing!

Even my mini rosebush is doing well. I honestly thought that it wouldn’t make it, but it is thriving! 

Lillian is beginning to understand that roses smell better than they taste. But really, that is one of those things best learned through experience.

 

 

We have done other outdoor activities as well. I’m not much for the heat of summer, but Lillian has so much to learn and it really is fun to take her outside to explore this big ol’ world.  We went with Aunt Alex and Bennett to the park to swing in the swings. It was awfully bright out though, so we didn’t stay too long.

 

She has sat on the lawn and learned how to pull the grass out. She’s not quite sure what to do with it once she pulls it out though. Once she discovered that it tasted bad and freaked out Mom she decided it wasn’t worth eating but it still is worth pulling on.

 

After she got over the strangeness of the grass she liked to sit on my lap and watch the strangeness of other people. We saw a little old lady on a walk, we saw a delivery truck driver who waved to us, a small tractor drove by, and so many other fun things!

Mother’s Day

There is some sort of irony, or divine intervention, that Julia’s birthday happened to fall on Mother’s Day and that it happened to be the first Mother’s Day that I could celebrate openly.

Imagine this: Julia would have turned 4 today. She would be a Sunbeam this year, and so she would have gotten to walk up to the front of the chapel and sing Mother’s Day songs with the other primary children. The cake that we ate at dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day would have had four fun candles in it and what a perfect way to celebrate MY day by enjoying the blessing that made me a Mother in the first place.

Except that is not reality. That perfect beautiful scenario didn’t happen because … well, because it didn’t.  BUT that didn’t make today any less perfect.

I became a Mother four years ago, but today I got to openly celebrate because I have been blessed with the most amazing miracle.

Imagine this: Another mother loved her daughter so much she picked out someone else to raise her. She entrusted to my care the most precious thing in the world: a little soul to teach and train and love. So today on Mother’s Day I walked the halls with a sleepy, cranky, baby who will someday get to sing those Mother’s Day songs, and we did eat cake (though she had mashed potatoes) and we were happy.

I was even lucky enough to get to spend today with my own wonderful mother who made my favorite dinner. We picked asparagus, cooked dinner, did the dishes, and played with baby kitties.

It really was a most wonderful day!

 

In fact, I think that the baby kitties were the only ones who didn’t have too great of a day today.

Dinner time

We’ve been slowly working on exposing Lillian to all of the standard fruits and veggies. We give her one new food a week. Going slowly has helped us figure out that she breaks out in a rash on her back whenever she eats bananas. I hope she grows out of that.  

Most of the time she hates the foods we give her.

Occasionally she likes one okay.

A few weeks ago my friend, Amanda, came over and helped me make a TON of baby food. We cooked, blended, and froze green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, pears, peaches, and mixed veggies.

Most of the time, I mix the mushed up food with baby cereal because… well, because several people, including her doctor, had said that it would make the food more palatable. It does seem to help. She rarely eats her fruits and veggies plain any more.

My sister and nephew are trying a system called Baby Led Weaning. I haven't researched it, yet,  but basically the child eats whatever the parents are eating minus the salt, butter, etc.

So I gave it a try. Below are two videos, 24 hours apart. In the first one I am feeding her peas and cereal with a spoon. The next day she is feeding herself green beans. 

Eating her peas and carrots. Kind of.

Eating her green beans.

She gagged a few times but never choked. After she ate her green beans, she still accepted several big bites of cereal and squash. I’m too invested in the mushed up veggies to stop completely, but I can see the appeal of letting her feed herself.

They’re both messy but at least she’s getting food in her tummy!

Crawling!

 

Lillian is crawling!  She’s a little bit unsure of herself still, but she is super gung-ho to keep trying.

Videos of the big event!

Almost crawling

Any day now I should be able to post a video of Lillian crawling for the first time. She is so close it is funny and frustrating at the same time.  She is really good at going backwards but she doesn’t want to go backwards. She is very determined and doesn’t give up easily. 

Yesterday during the afternoon session of General Conference she really wanted to get ahold of the dog’s toy.  We all had to take a break from watching to watch her instead.

 

If she had been able to get the rope, we would have taken it away. I promise.

Scrapbooking

I realized a few weeks ago that I have not printed any pictures of Lillian since she was born!  How could this be? 

It turns out that I haven’t printed any pictures whatsoever since May of 2010. Oops. I know that was a dark period in my life, but so many things have happened since then and I haven’t scrapbooked a single one of them.  (Now, before anyone gets their hopes up, I’m not a real scrapbooker. I’m a fake scrapbooker. I just put the pictures in photo albums but I leave occasional slots blank and I journal in those blanks instead. It’s pretty easy.)

It should be easy, but it’s not going to be. When I realized that I haven’t printed or catalogued any pictures in the last 3.75 years, I had a bit of a heart attack. So I got to work. I printed 142 pictures of deployments, vacations, holidays, weddings, family reunions, and more.

       

Then I got to August of 2013.

Lillian.

 

Lillian Grace.

 

I started printing pictures of her and then I couldn’t stop. I printed 141 pictures of her and that’s just the first six months of her life!!! I think I need help!

But she’s changed so much. She looks completely different! And which events should I not record?

First Halloween costume? (She was a pumpkin).

First Christmas jammies? (Candy cane stripes!)

This?

Or this? (Squash isn’t really her thing).

 

I think I might be obsessed with this child. And more than just a little bit. But how am I supposed to cut back? Or keep up?

So if you need me I’ll be in my craft room, trying to scrapbook and journal 243 pictures. Oh my.

___________________________________________________

P.S. Most of the pictures were taken with my cell phone camera and printed to Costco.com. They turned out surprisingly well for cell phone pictures and were really cheap too!

Finding the Words

I’ve been neglecting the blog. Sorry. It wasn’t on purpose, but it wasn’t completely accidental either.  There’s a lot going on around here  and a lot to blog about. 

I could write about how the adoption is final and we’re so happy! We’ve been sealed in the temple and are a FOREVER FAMILY!

I could write about how strong Lily is- she holds herself up like a champ, she sits up, feeds herself, and is almost crawling:

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old

6 months old

I could write about how much she loves to laugh and play:

7 months old!

I could write about how going back to school has been both really hard and really fun. Lily goes to a wonderful babysitter which makes going back a little bit easier, but I really miss her smiles when I’m away. I have to block her out of my mind completely or I’d go crazy. I have the best group of students and coworkers ever so that does make my time go quickly and enjoyably.

I will write about going to the temple because that was as incredible experience that is very near and dear to my heart.  That will be another post.

So if there is so much to write about, why have there been no posts, you ask?  Well… it’s complicated.   This will sound silly, so bear with me.  This blog has the potential to turn into a mommy-blog. It’s what I’ve wanted for years. I’ve always been jealous of my friends who get to post about their family activities and their children’s milestones. Now I can do that too. I’m one of the in-crowd! And I feel a little guilty about it.

Not that I’d change anything for even a millisecond. I love this baby more than words can express. I can’t imagine a life without her. But every time I talk about her, I wonder about the people who aren’t so lucky. I wonder if they’ll sigh and say, “there’s another blog I’ll stop reading because I can no longer relate.”

Another reason I’ve slowed down on blogging about the baby is for security reasons. I know that I don’t know all of my readers and that was fine with me when it was just my husband and I. (Just try to stalk me- I have more guns in this house than fingers to count them on) but now there’s Lil’ Lil to consider. Does the whole world need to know about her every smile?  The super proud Me say Yes! and the more cautious me says NO!

So I apologize for the lack of blogs and updates. I apologize for the length of this post.  Please bear with me. I’m back. I’ve missed blogging so I know I’ll figure this out somehow.