Books are the Best

This is my favorite shot every day, Dusty and Lily reading before she goes to bed. Until recently Lily would only go to sleep for me so Dusty read to her before I would put her down. She would crawl over to me when he finished and I would sing a couple of songs before I put her in the crib. That's all changed since she has been teething but the book reading has stayed the same. 

Dusty and Lily both love to read and I adore watching them read every night. She points and cooes at the book while he reads it to her. Since Lily is refusing to take two naps anymore, she is really tired when bedtime hits so Dusty has to read fast. Its funny to watch him try to read Dr. Seuss quickly, it doens't always work with the tongue twisters but he does his best. She doesn't care, she loves anyone who will read to her. 

Fourth of July 2014

The Fourth of July, 2014

This Fourth of July, we decided that fireworks shows would be too late at night for the little lady, and so we decided to have some fun at the park, and picnic early in the day. The best part of this plan was that we were pretty much the only ones at the park, since everyone else seemed to be saving their partying for the evening.

Thanks to a park more or less to ourselves, we had a really great impromptu family photoshoot. Here are some of our favorites, based on some of our favorite things to do with Lily.

Lily loves to crawl in grass, but she hates to let her knees touch it, so she does a really funny bear crawl all around at the park.

Lily also loves to sit on my lap, so here we are on the seesaw (mom said that we couldn't go on the super swing chair after she saw how high I pushed Cole when he was in town)

Lily is an herbivore when picnicing, preferring the indigenous growth to the vegetables we bring from home.

Mom said go slow, so we made sure to slip and almost fall when we flew off the end of the slide.

We found another seesaw! Score!

I have been training Lily to drink from fountains since she was about 3 months old. She is finally getting the idea after months of sneaking out of church to go to the water fountain in the hall.

Lily was allowed to swing without dad.

"Dad who?"

Again, the knees can't touch, or you're out!

She was REALLY into the family shot. Always happy to stay put... or something...

She has recently been really into sunglasses, and normal glasses. She will steal them off your face, eat them, then try them on. When she gets sick of them, she tries to push them back on your face, but isn't very accurate, so watch out for poked eyeballs.

Lily and mom like to play and laugh. I hear that is what they do all day while I am off doing work stuff. Jealous!

Lily LOVES the dishwasher. If she hears it open, she will drop what she is doing and book it to the dishwasher. She either climbs in or goes for the knives. I don't know which I like less.

Well that is a small smidgen of what we are up to these days. Not to exciting, but we sure wouldn't want to be anywhere else! The three of us love just spending time together and being silly!

Fort Fun

When we watch Brock and Boston we always make forts and Lily thinks they're the greatest. She loves crawling under them to play peekaboo and thinks its hilarious to pull them down. I've made a few forts for her recently and she has been in heaven. I hope she is always this easily entertained.

Lily's Chaw

Lily holds things in her mouth in the most interesting way. It must be because her teeth hurt but it sure looks funny.

She even likes binkie's now, just for chewing though

Dada

Lily said "Dada" for the first time on the 7th. Today I finally got her to say it on camera. Dusty is so happy that she calls for him. I think he was secretly bummed that she said mama first.

Giggles

Baby giggles are the best, I could listen to Lily giggle all day long!

8 Months

This was a hard month for Lily. She cut her first two teeth and got a terrible cold, so there were a lot of sleepless nights and napless days. She's still teething but we're hoping that it ends soon. Lily is so much fun everyday. She is constantly learning and I love watching her explore the world around her. We took out our living room rug this month and that enabled her to move around the house on her own more. I guess its easier to drag yourself around on a slick surface than a rug. She loves going to the park, we go almost every day. Swinging is her favorite but she likes the slide almost as much. I'm so grateful every day that I get to stay home and play with her. We have the good life!

Trying to Fill Mommies Shoes

Dusty and Lily were goofing off the other day while I was getting ready. That's what happens most of the time, they find something silly to do and Dusty calls me to come over. It makes getting ready take a very long time! Today Dusty put Lily's feet into my shoes and she thought it was hilarious. She didn't want to move out of them. One day she can fill them but that's not quite yet. 

Parks Parks Everyday

We've had the first week of good weather here so Lily and I have gone to the park every day. She got a little sunburned one day and now has a cute little farmers tan but that didn't make her love being outside any less. Here are some shots of our park week:

Hiking

Samm and I decided to start taking the kids on a weekly adventure (as long as we are both in town). This week we decided to hike Kamiak Butte. It was a lot of fun. Poor Lily fell asleep and my backpack didn't have enough neck support for her but Samm would fix her head every time it got kinked. Lily loved seeing the woods and people watching. I had a hard time getting her to eat her lunch because all she wanted to do was look at everything. I think her favorite part though was on the ride home. Brock was throwing food into her carseat and they thought it was the funniest thing ever. They giggled with each other the entire drive home. It was an absolutely perfect start to summer!

Baby Sign Language

In Ross yesterday Dusty was letting Lily play with the clothing price tags and after she started trying to pull them off he moved away. Lily started signing "more, more more" until he let her play with them again. It was adorable. We weren't sure if Baby Signing Time was teaching her anything but it must be if she's signing now. Today after I fed her she sat down and signed "more milk" at me. I love her signing almost as much as I love her saying Mama.

Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere

We introduced Lily to bubbles today. I had Dusty blow them on the floor in the living room with her while I cleaned up. After that Dusty put bubbles into her bath and she thought they were the bee's knees. She tried to scoop them up and eat them just like she does with the bath water.

Rain Rain Go Away

Its been raining for most of the last week and that means we've been stuck inside. We're both starting to go a little stir crazy so today we spent time looking out the window. Lily loved it! She was jumping as fast as she could and squealing. It's so much fun to watch her when she gets really excited about 

something.

Happy Easter

Susie came in town for my birthday and while she was here we decided to take some easter pictures. We took Lily to the park and spent about 10 minutes taking easter photo's. There was a freezing wind but Lily loved it. It was the first time she'd ever seen easter eggs and we had a hard time getting her to look away from them for a picture. They're her new favorite toy. 

7 months

Lily is always on the move and doesn't sit still very well. When we were trying to take her usual photo in my arms she kept squirming out and just wanted to stand so we let her. Life with Lily is the best thing ever! She is full of so much personality and always wants to be doing whatever I am. She does everything with purpose. You can watch her think about something before she makes her move. She always does exactly what she wants to, even if we're trying to get her to do something else. We're so grateful for every moment that we have with Lily and are so blessed that she is our daughter. 

Lily's First Word

Lily said her first word on April 10th. Dusty brought her into me in the morning and when they were leaving the room she started saying "mama" and trying to get back to me. We weren't sure if it was for real or not but in the middle of the night a few nights later when she screamed it over and over we decided that it was her first word.

I couldn't be happier and dusty couldn't be sadder about it (just kidding, he is fine with it). She screams it when she wants me in the night and Dusty has her or pretty much any time he has her and she wants me she says it. It's the best sound in the world!

Words of the Lord from Modern Day Prophets

General Conference is the best, I love spending two days in my pajamas listening to our modern day prophets. My favorite talk was by elder Oaks in the Priesthood Session of conference. He was truly inspired while preparing that talk.  I've been struggling to understand the Ordain Women movement, they truly puzzle me and his talk addressed their frustrations exactly. He always shoots straight and I appreciate that. Throughout the rest of conference I felt like every talk was speaking directly to me and telling me ways to improve my life and relationship with the savior. I have a lot of work to do before October conference. 

Lily was especially cuddly during conference. She got a cold as she finished teething and isn't sleeping very well. We loved the extra snuggles since she usually doesn't like to do that anymore. She also discovered Dusty's chest hair, and loves pulling on it. It is so fun to watch her learn and discover new things every day. She payed attention to conference for the most part and tried to talk back to the speakers. As I was sitting in the women's meeting I got excited for the day when Lily can come with me and we can learn together. I loved going to the Young Women meeting with my mom when I was growing up and want to share that experience with Lily. 

What was your favorite conference talk?

Bath Water

Lily is obsessed with drinking her bath water. In fact, she has made herself throw up twice because she's filled up on bath water after dinner and overate. And I'm not talking spit-up, I mean projectile throw-up. Because of this I banned all toys that she can drink out of from her bath. She's left with a mirror and a rubber duck. The mirror has two little ties and somehow she figured out that if she dips the back of the mirror in the water she can suck water out of the ties. She would do this the entire bath if i'd let her. She's so creative and always finds a way to do what she wants to. 

Guess Who Finally Got Bottom Teeth?

Lily has been going through another round of teething the last couple of weeks. We were praying that her teeth would finally come in this time. I feel like, The Mom Who Cried Teeth because of how many times her teeth have come in and out but they finally cut this morning. She has her two bottom teeth. They just barely cut through the gums so all you can see are their little tops but they are there and we are ecstatic. 

The last week has consisted of Lily biting and everything in sight. She really likes to gnaw on my chin if I let her. She's been leaving red marks and I'm sure the neighbors think that its super weird when they look through my front window. Once she even gave me a hickey when I was trying to put her down for a nap. She latched onto my bicep and started sucking as hard as she could. We are so happy that her teeth came in. It seems like she's been teething since Christmas. 

She was super happy yesterday after her teeth cut in. Oh and Dusty got a haircut and shaved off his beard. His beard was giving Lily a rash so it had to go and without his beard the long hair looked terrible so it had to go also. It's really weird seeing him clean shaven, its been three years since he's shaved regularly.

Here are some of Lily's favorite chew toys as of late: