3rd, 4th & 5th of July!

5th of July, we walked to the local parade and stayed for about an hour. :) It was pretty fun and Lilly loved having her cousin Jacob come with.

The 4th of July we had a really fun BBQ at our house! We had traditional BBQ food, along with 3 different deserts and the kids played in the pool, jumped on the trampoline, we played badminton, did fireworks and made smores. My nephew Jacob spent the night and played video games with Mike and Lilly late into the night too. I love having family over and when they come we really try hard to show them a good time.
Whenever we have a party we like to do a pinata, Lilly picked this blue monster out and I thought it would add a little something special with the American flag, since it was the 4th of July :)Lilly got these 3D glasses at a parade on the 3rd of July and she wore them for about 2 hours Sunday morning. Mike rigged them with an elastic so they would stay on and she has a blast seeing every one's 'force fields' with the glasses.The 3rd of July we went to my parents and watched their local parade. This was Emma's first parade and she enjoyed it, although it was during her nap time so she ended up falling asleep the last 15 minutes of the parade.

We had a great holiday weekend and it was fun to get to spend time together as a family. We seem to be really busy this summer and I enjoy the moments we can play together.

sisters

I really am getting into photography and enjoying it so much! I love taking pictures and it's so cool to improve my technique. Thankfully I have two beautiful daughters to practice on :)

We took a quick trip to the local orchard and I snapped a couple of photos of my girls.
We saw a baby deer in the orchard and Lilly was dying to pet it :) I wouldn't let her, though. Thankfully it bounced away so I didn't have to rescue Lilly from a wild deer :) :)

New tooth!

You can see Emma's new tooth! She's getting another one right next to it too :)

Emma is 7-months old!

I can't believe that Emma is 7-months old! This year has been flying by so quickly. Emma is now 15lbs, and 27 inches long! She is around the 10th percentile for weight for the average 7-month old, but she is in the almost 80th percentile for height! Pretty good for a preemie :) She now weighs half as much as little Lilly :) I think Lilly's little sister will probably tower over her in a few years :)

Emma is now laughing a lot more and we started her on solid food. Her favorite so far is carrots. She still isn't sitting up on her own, but loves to stand (with help) and loves to hear her voice. She is constantly squealing at the top of her lungs followed by a raspberry. She is also grabbing at things a lot more and getting better at going from one hand to another. Emma is so much fun and I love seeing her personality develop.

Happy Father's Day!

Mike is strong in will and in strength. He can carry both girls up a mountain and still have energy to make me smile :) He could probably carry me too, but I wouldn't want to give him a hernia :) Mike has a strong sense of purpose and he's not happy just sitting around. He is always fixing things, or doing something productive. He keeps me motivated.

I love that Mike teaches the girls about everything from science, cooking, art, camping to teaching them to have a sense of humor and confidence. Even though I work on Sundays Mike will take the girls to church by himself. I am so thankful that he does this, it is teaching them to go and to feel the spirit, that Dad goes to church and loves the gospel.
I have to say that Lilly and Emma are very lucky to have such a hands on fun Daddy. I am grateful for Mike, he is a wonderful, loving husband who is constantly making me and the girls laugh. He is creative and smart and it really plays he huge role in how we parent our girls. I love you Mike! Thanks for being a full-time Dad, husband, handyman, student and working so hard for your girls. We love you more than Ice-cream, more than Chinese food and to the moon and back!

Idaho!

We decided to take a road trip to Idaho this past weekend to spend some time with Mike's brother and his family. We love spending time with them, their kids are close in age to ours and they just bought a gorgeous home out in the country so there is plenty of room for our family and our dog to play. :) Emma and Sophie are about a year apart and I know they will be great friends in a few years :)

We got to fly kites in the backyard and it was perfect weather for kite flying. Mike and I bought Steve and Christine a new basket ball as a house warming gift :) and we played some b-ball after the kids went to bed. Lilly thought it was pretty cool that she got to stay up a little later than the other kids because she was the oldest (by 2 months). (Emma was crying it out and Lilly couldn't fall asleep through it) :) So now when you ask her what parents do when the kids go to bed she will tell you play basketball.

Mike brought our Wii, so in our down time during the crazy weather we (mostly Mike & Steve) got to play some video games while the kids played. Christine made some AWESOME cookies and I am sure I gained weight over the weekend with all the yummy food they fed us.
We also got to take Emma on her first hike :) She LOVED it and Lilly and Belle had a blast looking out for rattlesnakes and hanging out with each other.

It was such a fun weekend, I am sad to see it over. Luckily Idaho really isn't that far away so hopefully we can make another trip this summer.

Our Family is Eternal!

Friday was a pretty amazing day for our little family. We were able to have Emma sealed to us for all time. I feel so blessed be a mother and so lucky to have such beautiful girls to call me Mommy :)

Emma was PERFECT during the ceremony, she smiled and made lots of happy noises. I feel like she knew what was taking place and her sweet little spirit shinned. I am thrilled beyond words with how lucky I feel to have my family. It's been quite the emotional journey for Mike and I to build our family and it was all totally worth it. The name Emma means whole or complete and right now our family really feels complete because of little Emma Rose. She is amazing and she is such a special part of our family. I have struggled for many years with a hole in my heart and now it is full of joy.

Emma"s Gotcha Day!

Today was a really neat day for our little family. We got to finalize our adoption of Emma. Utah court was A LOT different that when we finalized Lilly's adoption in Washington. Today our caseworker, Mike and I had to testify in front of a judge. It was kind of intimidating and kind of fun all at the same time. The judge was really cool and let our attorney ask Lilly a few questions too :) She of course was so happy to be able to speak in court on behalf of her big sisterhood becoming legal :) I asked Lilly what her favorite part of today was and she said, "being able to talk to so many people, and the soft swively chairs." :) Our attorney mentioned that she would make a great lawyer someday :)

I was so glad that my parents got to attend our hearing today. It was really comforting knowing that they where there for us. We had a fun celebration lunch at Red Robin after the hearing too with them. In the adoption world a lot of families refer to finalization day as Gotcha Day, it basically means we got you now and it's legal in ALL aspects. Before today we only had physical custody, we did not have full legal custody, our agency did. So now Emma is ours and we are soooooooo excited to have her sealed to our family throughout the eternities on Friday.

Busy good

With the semester coming to an end (yay!) Life still hasn't slowed down :) Mike earned a 4.0 this last semester and did some really cool unique pieces. They are living in the garage at the moment, I want to find a nice place in our home to display at least one of them, they are too cool to be just stored.

We received some wonderful news... we have a court date to meet with a Judge to finalized our adoption of Emma! So mid-May she will be legally ours, although Emma has already won our hearts completely. She has a sweet content spirit, I can hardly wait to have her sealed to our family forever.

Mike and I have been trying to plan Emma's sealing and blessing and boy oh boy it's crazy trying to figure out a good time with our schedule. We want to do it soon, though so that makes everything even crazier. We decided to not have Emma blessed at church, so we are trying to figure out how we are going to fit +20 family/friends into our itsy bitsy house. We thought about doing it at a church near the temple, but decided not to. We want to be able to BBQ and relax and enjoy Emma's special day at home. She completes our home and our family it makes sense to us to have Mike give her a name and a blessing in our home. I've been trying to declutter so this gives me even more motivation...

Lilly and Emma (and Mike) made a fort in the family room last night :) Lilly ate her breakfast in it this morning. I love seeing my girls do fun things like this together. This is one of the moments my heart longed for and now I have it, for this I am grateful.

Emma really is part of our little family, we love her and I feel a tug on my heart every time I can get a smile from my mellow gentle baby.

Emma is 5-months!

I can't believe how swiftly these past 5 months have gone. Emma has been such a joy to our family and we are so grateful for her and her birthmother. Emma is a really sweet baby, she only ever crys when she's hungry and that's it. She's so content with everything. She still hasn't rolled over but in time it will happen. She did manage to roll over on the couch the other day with the help of the slant :) her favorite person is Lilly and usually only has smiles and giggles for her. I don't mind I love seeing my girls have such a great sisterly love already.

Emma loves to sit up and we just brought out the little bebe pod for her practice sitting in. She loves it and I do too. We are all totally in love with little Emma Rose!

Busy week!

I always want to take a picture of the girls before church on Sundays, they both always look so cute all dressed up. That hardly happens since we have 9:00 AM church. Anyways I took a quick picture this afternoon after church today.

Emma is growing like crazy! I can't believe she was only 4lbs when we brought her home, Mike weighed himself and then himself holding Emma yesterday and he thinks she weighs about 15lbs!!!!! She's been wanting to always sit up and if you put her into a lying position she thinks its time to eat and will cry and cry until you feed her or sit her back up :)Lilly was out of school this past week for Spring break unfortunately she had a horrible ear infection, her ear drum actually ruptured! Luckily we got her into the dr. and she seems to be feeling a lot better now. She is not a complainer and even though her ear probably hurt like crazy she just kept on going and telling me she was fine while holding her little ear... luckily she tells us in other ways like holding her ear, or being VERY moody and emotional.
Even though Lilly was sick this past week we did find time to work on a few crafts. We made a Spring forest out of toilet paper tubes, I finally finished my Family rules canvas and we also did a little water color painting. Mike has been in the studio the past couple of days and making great progress on his final projects for his classes. This next week is finals for Mike so I will probably not be seeing him very much, Saturday is his last final for the semmester and then for Spring and summer he is just taking a couple of online courses, and maybe one studio yay for having my husband for the summer! Mike will be able to work full-time this summer too, so we can build up our savings again, or buy a few things that we've been wanting :)
We moved Lilly into a twin size bed this past week too. I still haven't taken a good picture of her new big girl bed yet.... maybe soon. Anyways, she LOVES hanging out underneath it. It is suppose to have a trendle under it, but it's under my bed instead. There wasn't enough room in the girls room to fit it.

Eventually we will be able to move out of our tiny house, but for now we are trying to be creative with the little space we have. I think Bryn (our dog) has a new hide out :)

My Tiny Dancer

Lilly is taking a 4 week ballet class and she loves it! Unfortunately, it's in the evening so I don't get to take her, but Mike and Emma take her. They had a make-up class on Friday and I got to see my tiny dancer in action. :) It was so fun and I think Lilly's the prettiest ballerina in her class. I know it's just a short 4 week class, but I could not resist getting her the leotard and ballet skirt. I think most of the other Moms felt the same way.

Lilly is always at the front of the class, mainly so she can look at herself in the mirror :)
The last class is next week, I'm sad that it's ending. I am seriously thinking about signing her up for ballet lessons this summer. This has been a good trial run to see if dance is something Lilly would enjoy. I am also looking forward to this stage of Lilly's life.

The bunny won :)

I finally have resorted to the baby head tourniquets (as Mike calls them). Little Emma still has very sparse hair, but I really want to dress her from head to toe. I really need to make it to the Quilted Bear and buy a few more girly headbands.

This was Emma's first Easter, so of course I dressed her up :) I think this picture is so cute, Emma was soooooo tired and I wanted to snap a few photo's before heading off to work. :) Lilly flat out refused to get all dressed up, especially since we weren't going to visit anyone. So I just had Emma to play doll with :)

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Happy Easter!

The artists at work :) Just dunking the eggs in the color wasn't enough for these two creative souls, so we busted out the paintbrushes and that seemed to do the trick.

Lilly Easter morning before we made our traditional Easter breakfast, creamed eggs on toast. This year I made it with whole wheat flour and it tasted almost the same, healthy...

Lilly was so much fun this year! We hid Easter eggs around the house and the baskets, Lilly had a total blast finding everything and was sooooooooo excited that the bunny brought her an etch-a-sketch.Emma loves her basket too! She got a book, and a couple of new rattles.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, ours was a lot of fun. I am so grateful for the Saviors atonement so that I can be forgiven for my faults and mistakes. I do feel Heavenly Fathers love every day and it gives me strength, courage and hope. I am thankful for the restoration of the gospel so my family can be together forever!