Lily's Games

Here are some pictures of the games Lily plays:
Thanks for sending my old crayon dress mom. It's still so cute.
Ballet and Picnics. 100% her own ideas.

2 Months Old

I love seeing Niki's personality beginning to come out. Emotional and expressive. I think she even likes the mauling physical attention from her big sister. Each time she is attacked instead of crying, she just looks around as if to say "Where did Lily go? We were having fun playing together." Well, whatever.

2Months Old = Shots - May 26
Is Niki really that old already? I took both the girls to the doctor for their check up (Lily's 2 in 2 weeks). Lily finally was excited and happy to go to the doctor. As upset and scared as Lily has been over the last 6 months, Niki takes the cake for displeasure during her visit. She was not happy being naked and prodded and boy did she let us know it! It took me 10 mins afterwards just to calm her down enough to be able to calm her down further by nursing her. Then we got to get her shots. I thought the first round was loud. She immediately ramped up to screaming as soon as I set her down and she had to drink one vaccine. Then with each actual shot she full out wailed. That girl has a set of lungs like no one there could believe. I just had to laugh. All the while Lily was just checking out the room and washing her hands and saying "Niki crying. She getting a shot" like it was nothing. After it was over Niki muttered a few sighing sobs to me as if to express what she had just been through and fell asleep exhausted.
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Toys and Cooing - May 17
Niki likes looking at and reaching for her toys. Sometimes she just stares and stares with "Brinley" big eyes and other times she goes to town on the fist swinging. It's so fun to watch her. She is starting to smile and coos as if she is talking to you when you look at her. What a cute baby!

Signing "Burp" - May 15
That's right. Niki's learned another sign. Last evening I thought she was crying because she was hungry. When I picked her up, she started signing "burp" so I burped her instead. Sure enough she was right. It mostly came out the other end, but to her credit, it probably feels about the same inside.

Seeing and Signing "Eat" - May 4
Niki is becoming active and recognizing faces. She's just starting to show some expression too. After teaching Lily to sign, I figured I might as well get started with Niki so she'll get it months from now. I can't believe it, but she's already got the sign for "eat" down. At least she understands it anyways. She still has a hard time controlling her arms so she can't always sign it, but she tries to and stops crying when I say eat in return. I'm often amazed by the intelligence of my children that exists but just can't be expressed!

Nate and Ellen Visit Us

The girls had so much fun with the attention from Aunt "En" and "that guy" (as called by Lily). Ellen stayed with us an additional 4 days while Nate and Tyler were away for work. It was so nice to spend so much time together.




The Museum and Tyler's work:


Bowling:


Austin:


The school by our house:

Lily's Moments

Seems like Niki gets all the posts about firsts, but here's a few of Lily's latest moments.


PS-Tyler hates it when I do multiple posts per day because he forgets to keep scrolling down and look for more that he has missed. So don't forget to look below for more new posts.

Blessing Day and Sharps Visit

Grandma Nancy and Gpa Bruce came to visit last weekend. Nancy took lots of Pictures of course. I'm so glad she did! We spent a fun day in Austin and the rest of the time just hanging out together.

Sunday was an eventful day for us.
Tyler was called to be the Elder's Quorum President.
After sacrament meeting, Tyler gave Niki her baby blessing. It was very nice and filled with joy from having her in our family. We hope she will enjoy the blessings of the gospel throughout her life.
After church for Mother's Day we had a great Sunday dinner fixed by Tyler and Bruce. Tyler and Lily made me a wonderful card and gave me supplies for a project (a AF camo purse).
It was a great day!


Ft Hood 1st Cavalry Museum
Like kids in a candy store...


Austin and the park


Blessing on Mother's Day

Mile, Dreams, and Signing

Here's a post that I normally don't do. No pictures and mostly about ME!

Bitter-Sweet Dreams:
This morning I dreamed that Jenni and I dropped Lily and Abby off at Andrea's House. Then we met Leah at the pool (I'm not sure why Gina couldn't come) and swam laps. After some stretches and water aerobics, we had 5 mins left before we were done - then I woke up and cried. I miss you guys!!!

Mile:
Today I ran an entire mile for the first time. Yea me! I stopped half way for some water and I went alone without pushing the girls, but I did it!

Signing "Burp":
That's right. Niki's learned another sign. Last evening I thought she was crying because she was hungry. When I picked her up, she started signing "burp" so I burped her instead. Sure enough she was right. It mostly came out the other end, but to her credit, it probably feels about the same inside.

Temple Trip

We made it to the temple this month!

We went with some friends in our ward to the San Antonio Temple. Between driving and switching off couples for back-to-back sessions, it took the entire day. But we had fun with the kids and enjoying the spirit.

One Block Down...

Yesterday I Ran around our entire block and I only stopped once to fix Niki's blanket. Look out mile here I come! The girls love to go for walks in the new jogging stroller.

Lily got so excited when I told her I was getting ready to go running. "and mine going?" she enthusiastically asked. "and baby Niki?" "I go get her" And off she went. Tyler later informed her that Lily came rushing in to him and tried to take Niki from him and was quite upset when he wouldn't let her but soon cheered up when I came in the room to get them both.

I'm really grateful for the spring weather that keeps me motivated to get outside. The exercise does wonders for my emotions with an added bonus of physical toning. Yea!



Oh, and of course, here are more pictures of the girls.

Lily Princess and Counting

We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Lily discovered they had crowns and has been wearing it all week since. Here she is pretending to be a buffalo I guess.

Lily frequently counts to 11 or so all by herself (thanks Elmo's world). I tried to get a movie of it, but she never performs on command as well as just on her own.

Stuck Twice

I came in to Niki squwaking in her crib and found she had wiggled over to her mirror to play. Much to my surprise I also found her hand was stuck in the ring. I had to take a picture it was so funny:

Shortly after I left her to play I returned to find her stuck AGAIN! Who said these toys are baby proof?!?

Fit and Physical

ONE MONTH OLD

Niki is such an active baby...
She's very well behaved (just like her big-sister) but she also seems to be physically aware of herself. She's already rolling onto her side and batting at toys. She's constantly 'grunting' with effort to try to move herself into position and only squawks for help after trying first to get there on her own. A big plus with all this self-awareness, is that she stops eating when she needs to burp, resulting in very few spit ups or stomach aches. Perhaps if Lily had figured this stuff out, we would have had cleaner clothes and carpet.
I love you Niki!

Dining Out

Tyler and I got all dressed up and went to the squadron Dining Out. I think we look pretty good for having a 3-week old newborn! It was nice to have a night together without the girls. The dinner and festivities were nice too, especially since we actually know most of the people who were there.

Back Blog of Hawaii...

I finally went through the pictures from our Kauai trip with the Sharps that we took last September. Here's the link to where it is posted.
http://tylerandjannafamily.blogspot.com/2009/09/kauai-with-sharps.html

I do Ballet

Well, I don't, but that is what Lily told me.

Lily came into the living room and started dancing around. "I do Ballet" she said, "Like Brightyn". Then she ran to her playroom to get her "dancing skirt" and proceeded to do ballet for a good 15 mins by spinning in circles and running around. Aunt Brightyn, this ones for you (I even got a stinker face picture):

Kid Fair

April is the Month of the Military Child.
They had a Festival on post that was 100% free! We only went for an hour, but Lily sure made a haul. A balloon, book, bubbles, sucker, and bounce houses. Add in playing at a sand table and a fish pond and you've got one happy girl!

For those of you who wonder what "doggy tails" is, that is what Lily calls her dog backpack harness with a long tail that I can hold on to to keep her from wandering off. She loves it.