I have begun my first ever scrapbook! So excited, but it does reek of amateur. Its for Lilly's first year, with some ultrasounds and pregnancy pics too. I'm just kind of going through a creative buzz stage, with that and writing my stories again. (go to http://kjhstories.blogspot.com/ to see me typing one out) I think with Lilly being a lot more settled and consistent with her daily patterns I am finding myself with some extra free time. Some days, like last Thursday I go cleaning crazy and scrub down every inch of the bathroom followed by all the hand washing of baby food stuff then 2 loads of dishwasher dishes then 3 loads of laundry. Those days are kind of fun, I feel productive and even somewhat appreciated when Landon comes home and seems very impressed, until by the end of the night the whole place has been trashed again.... men... seriously... so my creative faze is very fulfilling, he can't come home and completely reverse my efforts there! :-D

I went to a job fair today, got interviewed, we'll see how that goes I guess. Not sure how I feel about working again right now, I want to work and to be able to free up our income and build food storage, pay off debts quicker etc, but leaving Lilly is really hard.
Landon starts school next week. YAY!
Upcoming events:
Jen's baby shower on Saturday.
Rylan will be home mid Sept.
Lindsey will be delivering their second in mid Sept.
Jen will be having her baby mid-late Sept.
Nov is the 4 birthdays - me then my Dad then Landon's Dad then Lilly.
10th Nov my parents and sister will be here until just after thanksgiving.

So Hope died 2 weeks ago :-( she broke into the shed while we were out and got stuck. She had a heat stroke and was unconscious when we got home and found her, so we rushed her inside and tried to cool her down but we were too late and she had a heart attack on the dining room floor and passed away. It was so sad! Poor Addy is missing her so much now, it's quite heart breaking. We miss Hope, she was a great dog.

this is a post I neglected to publish on 7/6/11

Latest and greatest? Lilly is now crawling. Its so cute because she isn't very proficient yet and she looks like one of those lizards rocking back and forward and very stiff, but she is quick enough to make me constantly have to chase her or be surprised to find her trying to climb my leg. She also has two teeth on the bottom which she won't let any one see. If you pull her lip down her tongue comes out.

Catching up? Well early last month we went to North Carolina which was were Landon served his mission. His work paid for the trip because he was talking to the Cherokee's to see if he could maybe pick up a contract with them. So we were out on the Res most of the week which was beautiful. It's so green and lush. We got to see a historical play too about the Cherokee. It was fascinating. It also kindled Landon's native heart into interest in his own tribal history and culture.

Camp Countdown!

I know I'm not going to camp this year, but because the theme is about finding good in the world, and our ward's assignment is Australia I needed to go down to the stake countdown on Wednesday night and set up a display for all the girls to see. I also baked ANZAC biscuits (cookies) for people to try which seemed fitting considering ANZAC day is Monday. *Note to self: remember to hang flag* That kept me quite busy on Wednesday, as well as updating Lilly's information with DES (finally, I'm only 5 months late) and buying coconut for the biscuits.
Monday was even busier, WIC, then fry's for groceries, the bank, post office to mail some tax information to Australia, gym, taking away recycling, paying water bill, getting Lilly's reflux medicine refilled, getting gas and also teething hit. Plus for almost a week now I have been getting this pain behind my eyes on and off and feeling nauseous along with it.
I have begun to let Hope and Addy back inside now that it's getting warm again. I got the hint when Hope almost broke the door down the other day because she was so uncomfortable, then again when I heard her banging on the fence that she broke through last year and we had to go searching for them both on a Sunday morning before church.
Today I am putting together my lesson for Young Women's on Sunday. Its not from the manual so its all up to me. So I want to do something really creative for Easter. I have an idea of what I want to do, but I'll see how it goes I guess. It makes it harder when they have all just gone and seen the pageant at the temple.

Jess was her for 2 weeks during March it was so nice to have her here! Especially when Landon went to his conference, I was very glad not to be left alone. So we mostly did a lot of shopping, well, she shopped, I occasionally bought something. We also went to the Renaissance Festival. I had gone the year before so I tried to just let her take the lead. We went to the jousting and Lilly didn't like the noise so I ended up standing with the stroller at the entrance and trying to soothe her every time the crowd cheered. Jess seemed to enjoy it, jousting is pretty awesome. She also saw belly dancers which caught her attention, as well as the elephants. The cutest thing was when Lilly was so tired she just passed out in her carrier, she I rushed to sit down and put her in the stroller. She's never done that before, she usually whines to let me know she is tired. I guess she was so excited by all the sights she didn't realise she was tired.
Jess also helped with our Young Women's camp kick off as our ward has been assigned Australia as the country they are to study for camp. We set up a bunch of stuff and talked for a bit about Australia and then gave them pen pals from the Y/W in our ward in Aus. Most seemed excited, I really hope all the girls take advantage of the opportunity they have been given.
When Jess left we both ended up crying at the airport. Sad day... sometimes it really sucks living on the other side of the world to my family.

Now some photos. Jess bought a new camera while she was here and took some really good shots.

The outfit was bought entirely by Jess, Sunglasses and everything. The onsie says "My Aunt is the best"

Pretty in Pink

A Daddy daughter moment....

Sleeping on Mummy's lap is always the best.

Lilly is growing ever more determined to use her body. Every day I can see the concentration on her face as she tries to slowly reach out and grab something and even tries to stand up and walk. She even thinks when I have her in her chest carrier that when I'm walking and she wiggles her legs she is the one accomplishing something, and gets very upset if I stop moving because its no longer working even if she kicks harder.
Her reflux is getting better, even though yesterday she practically made a tsunami all over her crib and I had to change everything, the sheet, her clothes etc.
Her favourite thing to chew on is her hands, even when I give her other things she pushes them side and sticks her hand back in. She also is starting to think that she could try to get milk from anywhere on my body and has attached onto my arms and shoulders a few times then cried out because nothing happened. It tickles like crazy for me.
Last night Landon and I had a date and left her with Kenny, which he was quite nervous about... and the little punk (Lilly) cried most of the time.
Our date was nice, it feels good to be together without interruptions. We went to dinner and because it took 40mins to get our meal to us we got free food! Hurray! So lunch and a dessert is sitting in our fridge today.
Then we went and saw Rango which was hilarious. Johnny Depp is such a champ. The plot was a little predicable but it was so funny so that didn't matter.
This morning Landon went to a service project and left here at 5am. They were shovelling sand out of a canal on the church farm. With that and 5 hours sleep, and he got a nail in his tyre so he had to go to the dealer (it was under warranty so it was free!) to get it replaced, he just came home and crashed on the bed.