So Big!

Ever since Lily was a baby, she has never wanted her arms raised above her head for some reason. We have tried to play "So Big" with her since she was little, but she didn't like it. She finally started doing this on her own the other day.

Merry Days

Last year for Christmas, Lily was only two months old, so we really didn't decorate or have presents under the tree or anything like that. This year, we hung stockings, got a small counter top tree, and loved showing Lily the beautiful lights outside.

We got her a really cute reindeer stocking that sings Sleigh Ride when you hold its hand.

As you can see, Lily loved giving the reindeer kisses.


I was so excited for Lily to wear her little Santa dress on Christmas day. She even let me put a bow in her hair . . .



. . . at least for a minute!

Lily has been learning to walk around with shoes the last week, so she was fascinated by going up and down the stairs with her new shoes.



Of course, we all know that one of Lily's favorite thing to do is eat. She loved the Christmas oranges and ate about three that day.

Lily is so excited that Grandpa Thomas gave her an orange.

She is a very generous girl and loves to share her food.


And she didn't mind eating some chocolate too. I figured I'd let her indulge since she had eaten a lot of fruit already.

Lily looked like Little Red Riding Hood in her cute little cape.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Clark for my new winter coat!

One and Only

We had a blast when Cody, Meredith, and Emerson came to Utah for a visit. Emmy is Lily's one and only cousin and she just couldn't get enough of her.

Lily's face when we told her we were going to see her cousin that day.

Playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Casey whipped out the guitar and serenaded us while Emmy and Lily took turns "helping" pluck the strings.

The gang at Tucano's.

It's so fun when the Boston Harwards get to come out here. It's great making memories with them and getting to know them better. All I can say is I wish we lived closer to these guys!

Feast

I know all of you readers are dying to have us update our blog. Sorry about the delay. We have been caught up in life too much to share all the fun we've been having.

Let's start with Thanksgiving . . .
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Scott and Sherry had us over for our new favorite dish . . . fajitas! They are quickly becoming a tradition that we are happy to welcome. We also went to my parents' house for a more traditional Thanksgiving lunch. I thought that Lily would love the mashed potatoes or the stuffing, but actually her favorite were the pickles! Go figure.

Food Glorious Food

I guess I should preface this little video before you watch it. I thought I was taking a picture of our little bug, but it was on the video setting instead. So, Tobby and I are both saying, "Take it!" to the camera, not to our sweet girl. I know it's short, but I think her face speaks for itself.



Since Lily's birthday, she has experienced a lot of changes in her eating habits. Her doctor recommended that she be entirely on solid foods, but we had only been feeding her baby food up until that point. She had lost weight since her visit the month before and so I hoped that this would help her get the calories she needed for her active lifestyle. She has quickly picked her favorite foods and found the ones that she hates. Her favorites are pizza, cheese, yogurt, goldfish crackers, cheerios, and pudding (as shown in the above video). She HATES fruits, so I have had to hide them in her yogurt and oatmeal and wherever else I can. She has quite an active gag reflex! Whenever she gets a chunk of something in her mouth she doesn't like, she gags until it falls out of her mouth or she can grab it out. The first week, she threw-up about twice a day because of this, but luckily she doesn't make herself throw-up anymore.

Her doctor also suggested that I stop breastfeeding her now and start her on whole milk. She has had a really hard time with this. She will not try the milk no matter what I have tried. Tonight, she finally tried some when I put a lot of chocolate sauce into it and I still had to coax her a lot. I would have never thought that this process would be so difficult, but it is getting a lot better. The proof is in the pudding!

Emergency

As some of you might have already heard, we had quite an adventure the other night after the battery to our garage door opener went missing. I was driving home with Lily from a visit to her grandparents house and since I couldn't drive and grab the toy she had dropped I decided to give her the opener thinking she could never open the back. Well . . . she did. She started bawling in the backseat and I looked back to find she had dropped the opener and that the cover was off and the battery missing. When I got home I frantically started searching the car, but to no avail. I enlisted Tobby in the search, but he couldn't find it either. This led us to one conclusion . . .Lily had swallowed the battery. I called her doctor's office and they told us to go to the ER and get an x-ray. If she had swallowed it, then they would have to do a scope to remove it. So we rushed down to the ER and after a 2 hour wait, we finally got the word back that there was no battery to be found inside Lily. I was so relieved. I felt like such a bad mom! I'm so grateful that my little muncher did not munch the battery, which is yet to be found. Lily was a trooper through the whole thing. I would have gotten fun pictures at the hospital, but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. I have definitely learned not to let her play with anything that has batteries in it! I should have known since she is quite skilled with her little fingers.

What a fun Halloween we had!

Our family got together to go see Casey's show: Thriller, up at Kingsbury Hall. We started the night off right by taking some fun pictures, but then somehow, our camera's digital display got ruined, so our pictures got less frequent and less professional (not that they were that good before).


The costumes and makeup for Thriller were really great. The dancers really got into character and crawled around the seats to scare the patrons.

Here's a picture of the ghoul that freaked me out!

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of Casey, but he did a great job in his interpretations of Jason, Frankenstein, and a Scarecrow in Children of the Corn.

Here's our pride and joy in her COW costume. Can you believe what a few dollars can get you at Kid to Kid... Awesome.

Here's Lily's impression of a cow... Lazily grazing.

Lily had a lot of fun doing a bit of trick or treating. She actually has eaten some of the candy, however this year her mom and dad have been enjoying the spoils a bit more. It's been a few years since we got to enjoy candy. Here she is visiting Aunt Jodie and Grandma Harward at work.



She also did some trick-or-treating at Grandpa Harward's work. Each department in his building decorated in a different theme. It was so cute. Lily loved the Haunted Zoo and Monsters Inc. the most.