BFFs

There is a little girl in our ward, Katriana, who was born three months before Lily.  They are quickly becoming BFFs and are super cute together.  I can't wait to watch them grow up with each other! 

Lily (3 weeks) & Katriana (four months)-8-29-2012

Sharing is caring! 12-19-2012

BFFs! 12-22-2012

The Lily Chronicles

Lily--Five months

We've hit the 5 month mark (a couple weeks ago--oops), and Lily is growing like a weed.  She is developing her skills and learning new things every day.  My cousin Meghan is studying nursing at CSU East Bay and has pediatrics this quarter.  She used Lily for a test she had to conduct, and we found out that Lily is, developmentally (social, gross-motor, fine-motor, language), at the 6-1/2 month mark and considered advanced.  I can't help but be proud.  As for her new accomplishments, Lily is:

*sitting without support and keeping her balance
*lifting herself on hands and knees and rocking back and forth (probably crawling very soon, Heaven help us)
*scooting wherever she needs to go (within a limited distance)
*sticking her tongue out like a lizard, without the speed of said lizard.  Just the in-and-out action
*flipping front to back (FINALLY!--she's still better at back to front, though)
*eating "solid food," such as rice cereal, oatmeal, and actually baby food
*having conversations with herself and jabbers to us, responding when we speak to her
*reaches for what she wants and to be picked up
*holding her bottle on her own (HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!)
*recognizes the animals in the house and reaches out to pet Maggie and Sirius (the cat)
*standing for longer periods of time with support, and prefers standing to sitting
*playing in the tub
*beginning her teething process (super fun! [there should be a font entitled "sarcastic"--how do we not have that option?])
*actively chewing on her foot and loves pulling her left sock off.  Not the right one; just the left.

I've still got it

When I was little, I pronounced "crayon" as "crown."  This frustrated my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gilooley (and my Dad, let's be honest), to no end.  She had a first grader stand with me and try to teach me how to pronounce it correctly (just FYI, it didn't work; it took me a while to get the pronunciation down).  In conversation with Kevin the other night, I slipped back about 25 years and fell into my old pronunciation habit.  I had to seriously work on pronouncing the word "crayon."  For some reason, "crown" just kept coming out.  It's nice to know that I haven't forgotten my childhood roots.

Talking

This might be interesting to only a few of you, so I understand completely if you choose not to watch it.  It's Lily (obviously) talking to herself and learning her voice.  It's kind of cute.  But really, no pressure to watch.  :-)

Start 'em young

Lily is so eager to be a grown up and drink like the big people in her world.  She reaches for glasses, cans, bottles...everything we drink from, she wants to give it a shot.  We are slowly but surely turning her into a lush.  And it's so funny we keep encouraging it.

Happy New Year!

One bottle is just as good as another, right?

There must be an easier way to lift this thing.

Oh, here we go.

Don't worry, I got this.

Molly Mormon

I've done it.  I've become that Mormon lady who buys the buckets and then puts Costco-sized dry goods in them.  Currently, I have four 5-gallon buckets sitting in the garage; two have flour, one has sugar, and the other has brown sugar.  We're getting a fifth 5-gallon bucket for rice.  And these buckets don't just sit there.  Oh, no.  They are opened and used, refilling the flour, sugar, brown sugar and (soon) rice containers sitting in the kitchen cupboards.  I have hit the point where we go through these products faster than we used to.  Some having to do with the holidays and how much baking was being done for gifts and such, but mostly the flour because I found a super quick and easy bread recipe that goes great with a lot of our dinners.  So that is where most of the flour goes.  I have become the stereotype, and while I'm not really loving it, my practical side just will not let me routinely have these items on the grocery list when I can buy them once every few months or so.  But still!  I'm a stereotype.  Gah!

Bring him home

There is a countdown of 27 days until my youngest brother reports to boot camp for the Army at Ft. Benning, GA.  It's been on my mind a great deal lately.  I worry about him; he's the baby of the family and has always had the sweetest heart.  I don't want him to lose that.  I worry about him being deployed overseas and getting hurt.  I worry about the worst happening and having to plan a funeral.  I worry about him.  And mixed up in all that is how incredibly proud I am that he is pursuing his goals and dreams, and happiness at how excited he is to be taking this step in his life.  But I can't help but worry.  And as I worry, this is the song that keeps playing in mind--"Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables.  I cling to the knowledge that, while recognizing Heavenly Father's will be done, I can continuously keep Ben in my prayers to help keep me from worrying too much, and that I can only ask Heavenly Father to keep him safe and bring him home to his family in California time and again.  There is an uncle the Davis cousins never got to know because a war took him too soon.  I don't want that for Lily.  She deserves to know how incredible her Uncle Ben is.

Ben and Lily, November 2011