Wow, has it really been a year????

Such a beautiful baby girl...we have been blessed!

Is there anything better than the laughter of a child?!?

She can be serious too!

Pool Time

Sunbathing with Baby Layne.

I'm not sure that she really liked being in the big pool, but she was content for a while anyway. The floating raft helped, but only for a little bit.

Summer's Finally Here!

Now that I'm home all day, I have lots of time to take pictures and edit like I love to do. She is changing so much every day, and I will have the pictures to prove it. Her newest thing is to dance every time any kind of music comes on. It is so cute, and indescribable, you just have to see it. She can pull up and stand up to anything, and has let go a couple times and stood on her own. She really doesn't try to walk around things yet though. It is hard enough to chase her while she's crawling, so I'm in no hurry for her to walk.
She loved the flowers on the front porch, and it made for a cute picture too.

Friday, June 19, she went for her first swim in the baby pool that mammaw Kelsey bought her. She loved it, and I figured she would because she enjoys her baths so much. Everyone watched as she splashed around. Kaleb even got down in the water with her. It was so cute when she was using his shirt to wipe the water off her face. Daddy looks like a thug in Kaleb's cubs hat, and LuLu could hardly wait until everyone turned their backs so that she could chew the toys that Lilya was playing with...she eventually got two out of the four and destroyed them.

I am also enjoying getting to feed her more now that I am home all day. She makes some of the silliest faces as you can see here. She's still loving all of the orange foods, but there isn't much else in stage 2. She still doesn't have any teeth, but she can eat about anything...just gums it! She loves grahm crackers and banana flavored puffs. Really she would eat about anything you give her. She's a lot like her mommy!

Summer is almost here!

She is so used to me taking her picture. This is pretty much the smile I get when I get out the camera. She is growing so fast. I know I say that every time, but recently she has gone through some big changes. It took her about 2 or 3 weeks of moving very robotic and only crawling a couple hand lengths at a time, but now she is getting it down pretty good. Two nights ago, she crawled from the t.v. room to the front room, and Tony said, "Oh no, here we go." He was right, I've been chasing her every since. She is the love of our lives though, and I'm sure I will spend most of my time the next 18 years chasing after her!

Finally meeting Grandma Mary Lou. We are so glad that Grandma got to come and visit. It was almost an instant bond between the two of them. It's amazing how babies know family.

Lilya's crib. She's been sleeping all night in here for about the last 4 months. She's so good. Sometimes I can even put her to be awake, and she goes right to sleep!

Her cousins love her so much! For the longest time, Judy's only words were "yiya" that meant Lilya in baby talk!

Mother's Day

There was a time in my life when I thought that this day was not a day meant for me. Sure, I was a step mom, but Tony and I had tried for years to have a baby on our own but were never successful. I was always thinking of reasons of why God didn't want me to be a parent...from being to wild in my younger days, the little fights that Tony and I would have, to the fact that I had an accident once that took away someone elses child. That was the big one that weighed on my mind. Then, it happened one day, with the help of medicine of course. God had decided that I was fit to be a parent. I will never forget telling Tony that we were having quadruplets (he was out of town when I had my first ultrasound) to break the blow that is was actually twins. The look on his face was priceless. We made it through the first 18 weeks and found out that we were having a boy and a girl. Tony said he could see the fear in my eyes when she said that baby A was a boy...I had wanted a girl so bad. We were thrilled that we were going to have one of each. On Sept. 3rd I watched as my sister gave birth to my beautiful niece. I couldn't believe that soon I would be experiencing the same. It was sooner than expected. That night, my water broke. I was only 20 weeks pregnant. there was no way to save the babies, I gave birth to both of them on Sept. 4, our little boy, Gavin, was stillborn, but I held little Greta, and could see her heart beating in her chest. There was nothing they could do for her, and she passed away just minutes after being born. Once again, my mind turned to the accident that I had so many years ago. I know that God is not a punishing God, and although those were my first thoughts, lots of praying helped me realize that it was all just a part of His plan for me. I have gone from last year being one of the worst Mother's Days of my life to this year, one of the best. As I watch my beautiful baby girl try to crawl around on the floor, I say, "Thank you God for letting me experience the most wonderful thing in the world, motherhood." I have been blessed! Happy Mother's Day!

Spring Time/ Cousins

Lilya loves babies, so she was thrilled to take this picture with her baby cousin, Layne.
Look how grown up she looks. We will be fighting off the boys before long.

She was screaming, my mom would act scared. She thought it was hillarious, so she kept doing it.

This is the first time I sat her in the grass...she wasn't too sure about it.

At least with a hat or a bow, you can tell she's a girl!

Growing Up!

Lilya is such a happy baby. She still has her orange nose, but is trying other baby foods. She is growing so fast. At her last doctor appointment, she weighed 17 lbs. and was 27 1/4 inches long. She is in the 90th percentile for length and 75th for weight. As you can tell from the pictures below, she is trying all kinds of new things. She can roll over easily now to get to things she wants. She says "momomomom", and it makes my heart melt.
Trying out the sippy cup. She can almost get it. She likes all kinds of "big girl" things. She wishes she had teeth so that she could eat regular food, but she still is yet to cut her first tooth.

She loves to see her own reflection. She gets very excited, screams, laughs, and hits the mirror. I have been giving her baths in the bathroom sink, and she loves it. She plays with rubber duckies and cups, and loves to splash water all over the place.

She is very mad in this picture. She wants to crawl really bad, but she doesn't quite have the coordination yet. She gets up on her hands and knees, rocks back and forth, and usually just moves backwards. It won't be long, and I'll be chasing her all over the house!