We Are A Happy Family

Here is a picture of my whole family! Eric made a special day trip up to Priest Lake specifically for this picture. Thanks hon, for sacrificing that studying time. This is a picture I stole from my sister's blog because I didn't take a single picture. We arrived on Monday and by that night, I was sick with a flu that I hope to never experience again. I had barely stopped barfing before Lillie started up in the middle of the night. I am just so glad that we were in a cabin and not camping in a tent. Still, it was a horrible night and I didn't feel completely well again until we got home on Friday. And I don't think Lillie had recovered either because she made me hold her the whole time. That was my least favorite trip to PL, which stinks because I hadn't been in 3 years and had been really looking forward to it... oh well. This post sounds every negative, but I will say that it was fun to be with my siblings and their families and to see extended family too. And of course it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet!

My Wonderful Nieces and Nephews

 

 

 

 

I can't even begin to explain how fun it was for Lillie and me to be back home, surrounded by family. Lillie had such a fun time playing with her cousins, it was really hard for me to take her away from them. But she still remembers everyone, when I quiz her with pictures. And says Macey all the time. I guess she just likes saying the name, since she wasn't all that sweet to Macey when we were there. I loved seeing how interested she was with Baby Maddie and we've got great stories to tell about Lil and Grady running away and eating dog food, etc, etc. We miss you all.

My Jurassic Life

Every time that Lillie is emptying the contents of her tray off the side of her high chair, she gets this look on her face, like, I dare you to pull me down even though I've barely eaten anything and I'm skin 'n bones, cuz I don't think you'll do it. Or when I threaten time-out after she has pulled the dvds off the shelf and she puts her hand on another dvd and looks at me to say, I dare you to put in time-out cuz I'll throw a big fit and I doubt I'll learn anything from it.

Every time this happens (which has become quite often) I think about that part in Jurassic Park where the velociraptors are testing for weaknesses in the park's fence, you know, right before all heck breaks loose on the island. And I think, I've totally got an 18 month old that can spit poison into my eyes and rip me to shreds, HELP!

Random Thoughts

So exactly one week ago, I was sitting with friends, and they were discussing how to make time-outs effective. I had to admit that it had honestly been a couple months since Lillie had had a time-out. She's been great lately, so fun and goofy, playful and loving.

But since that conversation, Lillie has had more than her share of time-outs. She has hit DESTRUCTO mode! Just right now, Eric brought me my broken glasses, part of the aftermath of Hurricane Lillie (Great I don't have the money to replace those, plus my prescription is expired, so tack on another $75 to the cost of the glasses). She runs through the house pulling down as many books (tearing out handfuls of pages), then moves to the dvds and pulls them all off the rack, then heads to my purse, emptying it's contents and opens my wallet and pulls out everything inside it, etc, etc. It goes on and on, she just goes from room to room ripping everything to shreds. She doesn't play with her toys anymore, because she's so busy ruining everything else. I spend all my time cleaning up her messes! AAAAAHHHHHH!

Eric has been studying like crazy for his part 1 dental boards. Which means I never see him. I spend a lot of the day and night alone or trying to survive the terror named Lillie (refer to the paragraph above).

But, we are heading up to WA to visit my family while Eric finishes up studying and takes his exam and then we'll drive to Yellowstone and have a little vacation before returning here. So there are fun times ahead, I haven't been home in 7 mos. I have never been more excited to go... except that we are driving! 20+ hours of straight driving. This is going to be interesting.

So You Think You Can Be on TV

Carrie's proud 2nd time on the national TV scene. We're pretty much celebrities now.

Barnyard pals

this video is from about a month ago, i've just been slow to get it on the blog. lillie loves these little animal figurines, she can now say all of their names and the sounds they make.

SYTYCD

Look for me tonight on the show, kind of a Where's Waldo challenge. And no, I'm not one of the dancers, because I know that's what you were thinking... (said heavy with sarcasm)

18 Month Stats

Tomorrow Lillie turns 18 mos but today was her appointment. Her stats are:
Height: 33 in, 90%tile
Weight: 22 lbs, 25%tile
Head: not sure the number, 70%tile

One of My Least Favorite Things

I hate cockroaches! Why won't they just leave us alone?!? Today we had the exterminator come for the second time. It's such a big ordeal because I have to empty out all of my cupboards in the kitchen and bathrooms and last time I have to empty out all closets and move everything away from the walls too. I'm not a dirty person, I really do try, especially with keeping the kitchen clean. Why me?!? I hope they realize that they are not welcome and find another home to terrorize!

if one is good, more is better

 

 

 

I have been trying to grow Lillie's bangs out for some time now and so every morning I have to stick some sort of hair accessory into her hair to keep them out of her eyes. A couple days ago, she picked out one to put in but then kept handing me more and more bows until we had pretty much all of her hair ware on her head. She thought she was so beautiful that day... I wonder what she'll think of the photos in ten years or so.

4th of July Parade

This year we wanted to have a low stress holiday and so we didn't do anything super extraordinary that day. But that doesn't mean that we didn't have fun. On Friday night we visited Eric's Aunt and Uncle and had a great time talking, bbqing and swimming in their pool. Saturday morning, we went to our local parade. It made me kinda homesick because it was very much like my hometown parade with scouts, little league, etc. Then we took Lil home for a nap, she slept over three hours, so we decided to ditch our plans of going to the beach. Instead we had a nice bbq at home and then watched the local fireworks atop our minivan eating popcorn, while Lillie slept (our baby monitor still got rececption in our parking lot). So it wasn't crazy exciting, but we really enjoyed spending time together!

 

 

 

N-U-R-S-E-R-Y

So Eric and I were called to be the new nursery leaders in our ward. I'm really trying to be excited about this... so far I've at least accepted it. I kept hoping there'd be a last minute change, but nope, it's us. Last Sunday was our first week. It was blazing hot outside and in our classrooms. I was so sweaty after chasing little ones around and dishing out snacks and drinks like nobody's business. We've got some difficult children, a few heavy cryers and a couple of AGGRESSIVE kids. So it should be interesting. I hope I will eventually come to enjoy it.

If you have any advice or tips, I'm all ears.

Friday Fun

What do you do when your Friday afternoon is dragging on? We go to the park.

 

 

 

Lillie was all about collecting leaves and smelling flowers on this park trip. Which there are a lot of both and so it made for a lengthy (boring for me) trip to the park. But the best part was that it burned time so that Daddy came home soon after we arrived there and would be home for the next 2 days!

Wedding Skirts

Charee said that she wanted a better view of the skirts that I made for Lil and Ella to wear at the weddding. So here ya go.

Family at Wedding

 

Here's a picture of Eric's family taken after Eric's sister, Krista, got married last Saturday. It was a quick trip for us, but was a lot of fun. We loved spending time with everyone!

Lazy Sunday

So a couple weeks ago, we went with our friends to Balboa Park. The girls are big fans of ducks and playgrounds, so we knew it would be a hit.

 

 

 

 

We didn't notice the sign until after we had emptied our bag of bread crumbs, oops!

Lil' talker/dancer

Lillie Gates??

Our little girl has seen too much of her mom blogging I think.

Memorial Day Weekend

Eric's Mom came to visit en route from Seoul, South Korea to Utah, for a couple of days.  It was really fun to have her around.  We had a delicious bbq at Delahunty's, went to the zoo, and Universal Studios.  It was our first time at Universal Studios and was a lot of fun.  Lillie quickly made best friends with Grandma and chose her over us, but who could blame her.  

This is one of the sets used for Nacho Libre.  We had to get a picture of it for Eric's Dad.




Lillie is soaked because we went to this waterworld show, which was really cool, but you get wet and Lillie did NOT like that.



I know that the pictures are not in chronological order, oh well.

Fab Vocab

BORING POST, SKIP IT. I'm writing this for documentation sake.
At 16 mos, Lillie is learning new words everyday. Here is a list of some of the things she can say:
Anna (NaNa)
Apple
All Done
Amen
Ball
Banana (NaNa)
Bubble
Book
Bird (Boouh)
Baby
Dog
Daddy

Eye
Fish (Ish)
Food
Flower
Go
Hallie (Aya)

Hi

Hello

Juice
Mama
Monkey
Milk
More
Moo (Cow)
No

Nose (same as no)
Ow
Oh No
Please (Pweez)
Peekaboo
Raisin (Ray)
Thank You
Turtle (Tootuh)
Tiger (Tigo)
Two
Uh Oh

Where'd it go?