16 months

I wrote in my journal

I’ve been neglectful in my writing about Lily, so this entry should be a long one! Lillian is such a funny, happy toddler. She really has her own personality and is a very determined little girl. She is adventurous and daring and fearless. She is no longer just walking, but loves running everywhere- and when she does, her little bum shakes back and forth :). She loves taking my/our things and hiding them in the most awesome places- such as the trash cans…We are really going to have to monitor ourselves because Lily is a little copycat. She wants to play with everything we touch and she has started to get more comfortable with things like watching T.V. with us. It is kind of scary to see how our habits now can have such a major effect on her future. I am really focusing on cutting down on T.V during the day so she doesn’t get used to it.

LIl is very interested in figuring out how things work and doing things by herself. She is always trying to put lids on things or is pressing buttons to see what happens. She loves new things and sometimes says “wow” when introduced to something new :). She still isn’t saying too much, but what she does say is pretty cute. She will say “hi-eee” and “bye-eee” at the appropriate times, followed by some sort of wave. Clark got her to say “baby,” but I’m pretty sure she has no clue what it means. We just try to reinforce anything that looks like progress :). Lil LOVES to spin on the computer chair or to put toys on the chair and spin it. Any time this happens Lily says “weeeeee”- which is so cute! The interesting thing is that she started doing it on her own- it just naturally comes out. She also says “dada,” “na” for banana, and “mah” for more, though  only our trained ears would understand.

We spend lots of time ta the park and Lil goes all over the place and loves the slide and swings. Speaking of roaming around, Lil refuses to sit still these days. She’s not quite old enough for nursery at church yet, but we usually go in there almost every Sunday. It’ll take her a minute or two to let go of my skirt, but she seems to do pretty good in there. She loves to run around, whish is why Sunday school and relief society are impossible with her these days. At least she hasn’t started screaming in church yet!

I just gave Lil her first mini haircut. She didn’t need much, but there were a few bits in her eyes and a couple that were a little too long in the back and looked like they would turn into a mullet very soon. Luckily that was all she needed because she didn’t hold very still :)

Learning at an early age how to assemble IKEA furniture

Flashing that grin

Easter fun

Memorial day trip to Portola Redwoods state park

13 months

At Lily’s 1 year checkup she weighed 18 lbs and 14 oz and is 31 1/2 inches long. Poor thing had to get 5 shots :( but she was such a trooper. Lillian is becoming such a little person now. She is so interactive and inquisitive. It is really fun to watch her go through all of these changes. She’ll play with a soppn and plate like she sees us doing. She’ll open a DVD case and try to get it in the dvd player somehow. She can open the player but hasn’t figured out how o put it in yet. It’s just amazing what she picks up just from watching us every day. I have started her on a bedtime routine that is working great! We change her and read to her and sing and cuddle for a few minutes and then I turn out the light and put her in her crib. I’ll stay in the room but I just rock in the chair and don’t interact with her any further. She’ll cry for a couple of minutes and then just sit there for a few more minutes and then she’ll lay down and go to sleep. It has been really awesome. She is also sleeping without her swaddler, which is wonderful. We have been going to the park a lot now that Lily is walking, which we really enjoy. It is good for her to be outside and exploring and I quite enjoy it myself :). Lily is just a joy to have around and I love her to bits! Oh- she has started to dance! When she plays her music she’ll move her head from side to side ( like she’s saying NO). It’s so cute! And just the other day she added in bending her legs at the same time :). So much fun!

First Birthday

I can’t believe Lillian is 1 year old! We celebrated her birthday yesterday. We had her friend Atlas over and she got to devour a little cake. She was mostly interested in the frosting, though. This last month has brought lots of changes. Her personality is so much more of an actual person’s. She is SO inquisitive. She is able to figure lots of things out and that is really exciting. The great part of her being so inquisitive is that she needs to pull EVERYTHING out of its place…fortunately I get to clean it up :). She has figured out that if you push buttons, exciting things will happen. She’ll set up all of her noise making toys together and push all of their buttons and have them all going at the same time. She’ll turn the T.V. off when we’re watching it. She is absolutely obsessed with the computer! Lily wants nothing more than to touch any part of the computer and play with the keyboard. She’ll find her dad’s laptop and just happily press the keys. Not exactly what we want her to play with, but it’s cute to watch her imitate us. One funny thing she is doing at the moment is when I change her diaper, she’ll try to reach down and grab and fling her dirty diaper away from us! I have to be quick to remove it or else I’ll have some major cleaning up to do :). She’s no longer interested in eating baby food- she wants our stuff. It still needs to be cut up, but that’s what she wants! I try to keep it as healthy and unprocessed as possible- mainly fruits and vegies and meat. She’ll eat anything but mangoes, ketchup, and beef. Luckily she’s not too picky! The big news is that Lillian started walking! It was this past Wednesday the 23rd. She’s been standing for a while and all of a sudden she decided she was going to walk everywhere. It is exciting to watch. I can’t believe how grown she’s getting! This stage is definitely hard at places like Church.  We end up spending 3rd hour in the cultural hall with all of the other 1 year olds who wouldn’t sit still and be quiet but who are also too young for nursery. It’s not been so bad though. Tomorrow we’re going in for her 1 year check up. I think she’ll be about 20 lbs, but I’ll let you know. I can’t believe I have a toddler!

    

11 Months

I wrote in my journal:

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve given an update. Christmas was so much fun! Lily definitely had fun opening gifts. The only problem was that she was so distracted by the first piece of paper she ripped off that she forgot about the actual present :). It was nice to spend Christmas as a family and not have to stress about traveling anywhere. Lily is now around 18 lbs. I can’t believe she’s already 11 months old! She still isn’t walking yet. She is very sturdy with her standing, so I think it will be a quick transition when she finally has some interest in walking. She said her first word last week (we think), which was “daddy.” She seems to imitate what we say and the vocal inflections.  She doesn’t say “there she is” clearly after we play peek-a-boo, but it sounds the same and she uses the same amount of syllables…so we take it as imitating us:). Her personality is coming definitely coming out. She is tenacious and willful and mischievous and charming and happy and inquisitive and adventurous. She knows what she wants and how to get it! Her latest trick is to open the diaper pail and take out all of the dirty diapers- yuck! She has started to test out cause and effect and to try different things. She puts her pluggy in our mouth, puts things in cups, and opens and closes things. I think she’s trying to figure out what goes together and how things work. She has 4 full teeth with 2 breaking through at the moment. She is becoming more like a little person and less like a baby every day. So much fun! She is lots of work but also the most wonderful part of life right now!

10 months old

I wrote in my journal:

Lily is almost 10 months old now- I can’t believe it! I predict that she will be walking within one month. Back at about 8 months she started to stand, and now she is standing all of the time. She just recently learned that she can let go and still continue to stand. Although that usually requires something in her hand to distract her from falling :). She currently has 3 teeth with 3 on the way- which means the poor thing is pretty grumpy at the moment. She usually sleeps all night, but the teething pain has been waking us all up a lot. She is constantly getting into everything, especially once she figured out how to open the cupboards and drawers. She loves to pull down the things that I pull away. I am trying to get used to the mess she causes, but it’s hard. I guess you could say that having a child has improved my cleanliness- so thanks, Lily! She is so much fun to have around. It is hard trying to get things accomplished some times, but so worth it! For example, she makes working out almost impossible- turning off the t.v./work out dvd, crawling over me when I’m trying to do crunches, crawling under me when I’m moving my feet a lot- all the fun stuff. Her sweet smile melts away any frustration, though. No amount of weight loss could replace having her in our lives. In 2 weeks it’ll be Christmas and we’re looking forward to sharing that with her, even if she has no clue what’s going on!

Halloween fun

Thanksgiving with Aunt Jen

fun with cousins

7 1/2 months

I wrote in my journal:

Lily is  7 1/2 months old now. The time is going by so quickly! She is just the brightest part of our lives, for sure. She had a rough day today, unfortunately :(. She couldn’t keep anything down. In these 7 months I’ve never seen so much spit up out of her. She was nice enough to puke all over Clark during church :). By the evening she was able to keep down an ounce or two of water with just a little bit of formula mixed in. Luckily. We’ll see how she does tomorrow. She got 5 vaccines 2 days ago, so we think it might be a reaction to that.

There have been a lot of changes in the past few weeks. First of all, I just stopped nursing. The inconsistency of my work schedule made it too hard and I slowly ran out of milk. So lily is about 1/3 solid food and 2/3 formula. She is eating solids like a pro! She is climbing all over us to try and get our food and she seems to like almost all of her fruits and veggies. She especially loves little pieces of bread. Last week she hit two major milestones! She can officially crawl now! She is still faster at scooting on her stomach, but when she’s in no big hurry she’ll do it. She can also now pull herself up to a standing position. We are both just so amazed. It is crazy to watch her go from a little lump who just slept and ate to moving and standing. She definitely falls over but is learning how to sit down instead of falling straight back. She is very talkative, not with words, but just loves to make sounds. Half of the time I think she is singing (or trying to). She just gets so amused with her own voice. She also LOVES her dad :). He can get her to laugh like no body’s business. She gets so excited when she sees him and he does the same :). Lily is still a very happy and mellow baby. It has been so much fun and a lot easier than I expected. We got so lucky to get such a sweet spirit to take care of.

She and I went to San Diego 2 weeks ago for my step brother Charlie’s wedding and she got to meet her cousins. She did so well on the plane, once again, and just rolled along happily with all we did that weekend. Luckily she takes to her aunt Jeni very well. It is so cute seeing the two of them together :). Lily is currently 28 inches long and weighs 15 lbs and 1.3 oz.

6 months old

I wrote in my journal:

So I’m sorry for the big jump in time. This is how all of my journals end up, but I’ll do my best to fill you in on the last 5 months.

Lily is just amazing! she has been such a blast to have as our daughter. She has always been so happy and smiley. When she was 2 months old we took a super quick road trip out to Idaho for Beka and Dusty’s wedding. We left on Thursday night, drove through the night, had 2 action packed days and drove home all day on Sunday. Lily slept all the way there, which was awesome, but screamed through the entire reception. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had gotten any sleep the night before :). Everyone just loved her and it was nice to be able to show her off to everyone out there. The drive back home was pretty hard. She wanted to stay awake and be out of her car seat but obviously she couldn’t- and she couldn’t stay awake because being in her car seat puts her to sleep. So she cried. Luckily on this trip was where she finally started to take her pacifier. Since doing that, we have not had a problem with her crying uncontrollably anymore. Around 3 months she started to get a lot more animated and smiling and cooing all of the time.

Sleeping in the car,                                     With Uncle Jared

Outside the temple,                                First time meeting cousin Amber

 

I went back to work part time when she was 4 months old. It was very hard to leave her. We had help from friends in the ward babysitting. For the first 6 weeks she would be with someone for 2-3 hours between when I left and when Clark got home from work. She was such a trooper! She had no problems :). She is generally happy as long as someone is paying attention to her…such a little princess ;). After 3 or 4 weeks she was completely fine taking her bottle. The second Saturday I was working (9 hours) she went on a hunger strike with Clark  and at 4:00 pm he finally brought her in to work and I was able to nurse her. She didn’t seem too upset, she just only wanted me :). Right around this time we wanted to put her in her own room. I didn’t want to keep her in our room forever, so the advice I went with was to teach her good sleep habits and swaddle her and get her used to the crib. She took right to it and since then she either only wakes up around 4 am or sleeps from 8:30 pm ‘till 8 or 9 am. It has been amazing to sleep again! I absolutely love Lily, but going back to work has made me appreciate my time with her so much more. It is very easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of work it is to be a mom, and it is nice to get a break and go to work, but it is a necessary break. There are many days off where I never even come close to leaving the house or even putting on makeup or doing my hair. Those are the days that I let myself get crazy. So work allows me to be around grown ups and take care of myself. If I didn’t have to work, I would find a way around it, but I have to take the hand I am given, right?

 

 

When Lily was 5 1/2 months old we took a trip to Hawaii!  It was so amazing! Lily was such an angel. She had no big problems on the plane, which we were so grateful for. She was a little freaked out by the ocean. We had never taken her swimming before, so she just needed to get used to it. I could tell she wasn’t so happy, but she seemed to be ok as long as I was holding her tight. The water was nice and warm compared to the beach at home, but probably still too cold for her. She seemed to like it more in the area with the wave barrier- where it was calmer. Luckily she was at an age where she was happy to be carried around all of the time. She went all over with us without complaining too much. Going out to dinner was the only hard thing about the trip. We had her on a very tight/great bedtime schedule before we went on the trip. There was a 3 hour time difference, so it would be way past her bedtime when we would go out to eat. Of course it was super noisy anywhere we went, so she was NOT happy! Each of us had to take turns eating and holding her and then we would pay as soon as possible so we could go home. Kind of a bummer, but I would be cranky too if it was me :). In keeping with the time difference, she would wake up at 5:00 am every morning… Luckily when we got home she was still on CA time, so everything went back to normal, thank goodness! She was such a trooper! By the end of the week she was definitely getting tired of her car seat and her little hat. It would have been nice to have some help, but I don’t regret taking her at all. I’m sure that when she’s older she’ll be mad we didn’t wait to take her later :). While we were there she was just barely learning to scoot around. BEcause of this, she fell off the bed for the first time :(.

 

 

At 6 months of age she started scooting around with some speed. It is amazing how fast she changes! In the last 2 weeks she is almost crawling! She works so hard to get up on her hands and knees. The same with sitting up. 2 weeks ago she was sitting up with support, but at the doctor she just sat up for the first time by herself! Now she can sit for as long as she wants with no hands! I amazed how fast she is progressing. At her 6 month check up she was 14 lbs 7 oz and 26 inches long. Her height is normal but she is only in the 25th percentile for weight. It’s nothing to worry about- I kind of appreciate it! She has been talking a lot it’s bababa, mamama, or dadada all day long! It wasn’t (I think) her actual first word, but last week when I came into her room in the morning, she looked at me and simply said “mama.” It just melted my heart! It is also awesome that she reaches for me when she wants me :). It is so fun to watch her with other babies- I just enjoy her so much!