Growth

This past month has been a big adjustment for our family.  In a good way.  Here's why:

BEN - adores his new job.  Loves bringing home the bacon.  Enjoys getting out of the house.  And maybe most importantly, adores it when Lily screams, "DADDY!!!!!" and runs up to him with a big hug when he gets home.  I think that one of the best parts about having Ben work is the fact that we're not standing still.  We're moving toward our future (in our case that means saving up for a house) and that is such a relief!

LILY - is improving quite a bit with her speech even though she hasn't quite started therapy yet.  She's been saying all sorts of fun things like when we were bathing her and she yelled, "Oh no!  It's raining!"  Although, now I've come to realize that sometimes her talking abilities aren't so awesome for me... like when she ran into Gospel Doctrine with her nursery leader because she needed a new diaper and yelled (at the top of her lungs), "HI MOMMY!  (pointing to her diaper) POOPY!!!!!"  People on the other side of the chapel were joking about it with me later.  Glad to know everyone knows the status of Lily's diapers... Her developmental therapy has been going well, also.  We've been working on fine and gross motor skills as well as colors and numbers.  I feel like an idiot because her therapist said that she should know how to count to 10!!!  And before, I was proud that she could count to 3!  I'm glad I have someone keeping me on the ball!

Skyler - is ridiculously smart.  Or at least I think so.  At his 1 year check up a month ago they were worried about him because he only said Dada and uh-uh.  Here are the words he's picked up since then: mama, bark bark, that, uh-oh, down, all done, and touch.  He's getting more confident in his walking but I won't say that he's officially walking yet.  But I'm thinking he's super close.  But I'm not too worried because Lily was this age when she started walking (she started when I was in the hospital giving birth to Skyler.... figures....)

Me - more health problems but nothing serious.  Luckily we have a friend who's a doctor and he was able to help me out since our health insurance doesn't kick in for another couple of months.  Other than that I've been trying to set goals to make myself a better person and it has been an amazing experience.  What a relief it is to be a member of the church.

Now excuse me whilst I go make more flashcards for this little cutie...

Sweet Blogging Deal

OK before I write my regular Lily/Skyler post I want to tell y'all about this awesome deal.  Personally, my blog is my only journal.  I can't keep up with hard copies.  The whole time I've blogged I've been swearing to myself that I would make a hard copy of my blog.  If you would like to get yours printed (for ooberly cheap I should add) go to blurb.com.  If you use the coupon code BLOG2010 you'll get $39.95 off your order!!!!  My book came in cheaper than that (and it was 160 pages) and so I'm getting it for free.  I just had to pay $6.99 in shipping.  That's amazing.  The code expires August 31st so hurry!!!

Let me also say that putting this book together took me around 3 hours and was one of the most tedious things I've ever done.  But it's well worth it if you have time and want to save moolah.

Smashed Bananas in Medicine Droppers Anyone?????

Nothing better than making Lily and Skyler wear some of Ben's old t-shirts to eat popsicles.

What is the first thing Lily wants when she wakes up in the morning? To put on her shoes, of course. And that's only because we have to take them off when she's sleeping. She always hops out of bed sometime after we put her in it just to put her shoes on. The girl loves shoes. I love shoes. I see a very expensive future ahead of us.

At least it's healthy, right?

Just some of the things that have been happening:

• Skyler has his second sinus infection (which means that we've had the same amount in both of our lives... sad). I absolutely hate teething because of this. But something fabulous happened when we were at the doctor. He told me that he has absolutely no problem giving 2+ year-olds cold medicine. WOOHOO! I finally got the green light for Lily! That's absolutely fabulous because this summer the kids have pretty much been sick every other week. RIDICULOUS.
• Lily now likes to pretend to be asleep when she knows she's about to get in trouble. She'll quickly lie down, close her eyes, and yell "nigh night!" It's one of those things where you have to try your hardest not to laugh and to be a responsible parent.
• Skyler's taking a few steps at a time, but for the most part he's really fighting learning to walk.
• One day when Lily was in major trouble I was telling her she needed to go to Time Out and she was just screaming her little head off and physically trying to avoid it. When I finally closed the bathroom door I heard her very excitedly say, "Helloooooo bunnies!" Oh how I love her imagination.

Random Stories

This is typical of basically any night: my mom has a bag of marshmallows and feeds her 3 cheeping birds.

Lily commonly points at us and yells our names (because I'm sure she must think that we forget them on a regular basis without her reminders...) She has a tricky time saying "Skyler" so this is what she said at the table last night (pointing at each of us): "Nanny! Papa! Daddy! Mama! THAT!!!!!!" Skyler, it must be nice to be so loved by your sister.

So I already have shared Skyler's "circles" with you when he gets superduper excited about something and just starts spinning. Well a couple of weeks ago Skyler and Lily were swimming (meaning Skyler was sitting in the pool drinking water and Lily was feeding the plants with the water because Lil doesn't like to get wet) and Lily got tired of her cup and threw it back in the pool. This, of course, meant that Skyler grabbed it ASAP and started doing circles. When Lily noticed that he had her cup she started to get upset and tried to get her cup back by running the perimeter of the pool while Skyler's spinning. She couldn't keep up with him and it was HILARIOUS.

Now onto more serious stuff....

Lily has officially started her developmental therapy which has gone well. She also saw an audiologist this morning to learn that her hearing isn't quite average but close. They don't suspect this will be a problem, though. But we did learn from some ear pressure tests that her right ear has terrible pressure and so she'll probably have chronic ear infections for life. :( On the other hand, she's been OK'd to start speech therapy! YAY! And her speech has already started improving. Just a month ago she couldn't even put two words together on her own and now she's doing 3! We're very excited about it!

Ben started his new job on Monday and I have to say that this transition has been pretty awesome. I always imagined that I would struggle getting back into being a mom all day without Ben there to back me up if I needed something. But I forgot how much fun it is to do this full-time. I think our lives are pretty awesome right now. Oh and I totally wanted to get a pic of Ben on his first day (kind of like the first day of school thing) but I was too tired to get out of bed to do it but I did manage to write a note on his napkin for lunch. I was just smiling/laughing to myself over that one until he told me that he ended up tossing it because his manager took him out to lunch. :)

Dear Vaseline, I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. The scum between my toes. Love, Heather

I thought that these two pictures looked like credible mugshots (notice the vaseline if you look closely):

Dear Vaseline,

thank you for magically getting into my children's hands even though I keep you in a child-proofed cabinet. Thank you for looking so "fun" to two toddlers and making them want to roll you all over their skin, hair, and carpet. Thank you for being so waterproof that you are impossible to wash off. Thank you for being clear so that we don't know where you are and now that it's apparently spread all over the kitchen floor we get a nice adrenaline rush when we all of a sudden get to play "slip-and-slide." Thank you for making my camera all weird when Lily got a hold of it after I thought this was something that I should record for the future's sake.

Hate,

Heather

P.S. However (For real this time), thank you for making my kids nice and moisturized for tomorrow. Oh, and also for being the only thing that helps Skyler's diaper rash.

Gramps' Visit

Gramps came to visit us for a week. We got to do a bunch of fun stuff like going out to eat, go to the lake, and then to Busch Gardens.

Miss Lillers loves Gramps

Little Handsome has no fear of water. He was just crawling right into it face first.

The menfolk.

Taking the babies to Busch Gardens for the first time. We have to pass it on to the next generation or I will have failed as a mother.

Lily dancing with a bunch of strangers in front of a bunch of strangers = Lily's dream come true.

Glad to be in A/C.

Enjoying a show at Seseme Land

Enjoying some rides with Lil. Unfortunately you have to be able to walk to go on most of the kid rides so Skyler wasn't able to go on much.

Clydesdale

Waving to the eagles

Lady feeding a squirrel funnel cake

Papa and Lily in France by the Smokehouse

These movies are basically for my sister, Becca, who was so sad not to be able to go and and will, therefore, watch them 50 times each to have them tattooed to her brain. :)

At Long Last!!!!!!!

Today is the day that we've been waiting for. :D Ben had a call for a job interview last week. We were so excited about this one because it's been rare that Ben gets an interview for something in Business. And not only is this in business it's in his specialty of Supply Chain!!! This is the job Ben has been waiting for!!!! We will be staying in Raleigh since CarQuest's corporate offices are here. We are so thankful!

I can't believe it's been 19 months since we started this process. I have told myself many times that it's a good thing that you can't see the future because I would have been shocked that we would have had to wait this long. I won't lie and say that this process has been easy breezy but we have definitely had our share of blessings. I'm thankful for my parents who have let us live with them for 8+ months already (CRAZY?!?! I can't believe it's been that long!), I'm thankful for the gospel and that every Sunday I came away from church with hope, and I'm so thankful for the Spirit. Many times we were given assurances from the spirit and from blessings that things would work out but after time passed I would have my "Laman/Lemuel" experiences and start to doubt. I can't tell you how many times Ben and I went to bed saying that we thought we were at the end of our rope. And apparently we weren't. I know that we've all had to grow through this experience. The Lord really does wait for the 4th watch sometimes and looking back on this experience and seeing the change that I've made in myself, I'm truly grateful. I just don't want to do it again. :)

Today's an awesome day.