Here's Lily's current favorite song. We give her two thumbs up for putting her heart into it and memorizing all the words.

Now this next one here is downright embarrassing coming from the mother's standpoint.  Lily looks like a child right out of a Wal-mart shopping cart (and really I say that with all the tender feelings of one who frequents Wal-mart often. It's just the way it is.) - stained popsicle lips, underwear only at 4:00 in the afternoon, and black feet from running bare foot all day.







These pictures can only prove one thing...summer is here and decent bedtime happens about as much as we see temperatures below 100.

Yesterday I thought about the Duggars.  And the birthdays...and the wrapping paper...and the vast quantity of birthday cake that must be consumed by that family.  They might actually get tired of a good chocolate cake. How sad. Then I stopped feeling slightly birthdayed out and began enjoying our busy season - 4 birthdays between March 8 and May 1.  A little perspective always helps.

Yesterday we celebrated a freshly turned 3 year-old Lily, but since Ty's day slipped through the blogging cracks 5 weeks ago, it only seems right to start there.

Ty's eight now! He wanted a day on the baseball field with his buddies for his birthday. Hmm - imagine that.  It sounded perfect to me. Perfectly easy. An hour on the field (which was Reas' job) followed by presents and cake. He had a ball.

Then, of course a few weeks later, on Easter weekend, Ty had his baptism. Back in February of 2011, Ty comitted to finish reading The Book of Mormon before his baptism date. He did awesome. Very diligent.  Even when he was pooped out from a long day, he still read, sometimes as much as 5 chapters a day. He finished 2 weeks before his baptism. Way to go, kid! He really is a great boy.






We were so happy to have some family come in to town to support him.



That same weekend, we celebrated Reas' birthday.  But since he's pretty old now, we kept it low key, so as to not throw out his back or anything.  He said all he wanted was to watch the Dodger game together and eat nachos supreme on his birthday. I know. So romantically sweet.  Speaking of sweet- his cake sunk in the middle for some reason. So me, being the clever girl that I am, thought I'd double the frosting recipe which would fill in the cake canyon and no one would ever have to know that I'm not perfect. I made cooked frosting, which is basically fudge poured over your cake.  Doubled, that turned out to be more frosting than cake. That cake might just go down in history as the chocolate death cake. I'll just say, only a few of us were actually able to finish our piece - me being one of them.  Yeah, I know how to pack it in, baby. It's a great recipe. If you want to try it out, just know a single recipe is quite sufficient for a 9x13 pan.




And now on to Lily. I've said it before - 3 year-olds are the best!  Simplicity is appreciated, and they're excited about anything! By sheer coincidence, Reas' company alway gives a random day off in the spring. This year it was on Lily's birthday. It made her day extra special having him around when all the other kids were at school. We went to Denny's to get her free birthday breakfast. We're cool like that. While there, we discussed whether or not we'd have the guts to walk into Denny's with our 5 kids during the "kids eat free" hours.  Nope. We agreed we just couldn't do it.

After Denny's, we hopped on over to Dollar Tree where Lily picked out her own princess balloon because after all, that was one of the two things she asked for.  The other being chocolate cupcakes. See what I mean?  3 is all about the simple pleasures.







 Currently, Lily loves letters. Obsessed actually.  Conversations in the car, revolve 100% around which letters she sees on signs.  A perfect Lily gift would have to involve letters. Maggie and I settled on ABC bean bags using old jeans and fabric scraps.  They're a hit...with everyone!  She's was pretty excited about her money and gift cards from grandparents too. Here we come, Target.



One more birthday to go and then we've got a little break until Jack's birthday.  Isn't that ridiculously crazy? I'm almost crying thinking about his birthday coming up in a few months.

All of our kids except Maggie have been cursed with trouble saying their R's.We're working on it.  In the meantime I get to enjoy some good entertainment. Like this conversation between Claire and Lily.  Lily hams it up good and if you listen closely you even get a "on the roof again" from her!

Recently it seems like all we do is laugh at Lily.  She's not trying to be funny, which makes her all the more hilarious.  Her language is a little difficult to interpret. We regularly turn to the other kids for translation.

oh. and here she  is with one of her favorite snacks - a "damquacker."  Yes, she swears occasionally, but only about ducks.

and just be so dang cute that I forget there could possibly be an ounce of
rotten-ness in her. Not to mention all the mad cooking and baking skills that she's acquiring while being in the presence of her kitchen saavy genius mother.

Starting from the time she could sit up on her own she loved it up here. And if you'll remember, she was very immobile for quite some time, so I never had to worry about her falling.
She'd just sit...and sit, but most importantly, she wasn't crying.

These girls have been busy for over an hour now!  Never underestimate the value of water, a baster, a strainer, and a squirty ketchup thingy.

You would've thought I was giving them a big fudge brownie when I handed over the baster.  I think we need two of them...and turkey has nothing to do with it.




Whatever you do, don't forget the aprons.  Somehow it's the aprons that transform the whole process from a silly game into an extremely dangerous scientific experiment. Really. Try it!

    

To say we're excited about her progress would be an understatement.  She's gone from a sitting only 13 month old to a speed crawling, trying to walk 16 month old.

Go Lily!  We can't wait to see what you learn next!

...but I call it outwitting my child.

Today Lily has been so sad.  Everything we do to try to make her happy just seems to make it worse.  I know she's teething.  She has a cold.  She probably just feels rotten and it's so sad. The poor thing is exhausted, but whenever I put her down to try to get her to sleep she just cries...that sad, sad someone please come save me cry.  I know the difference between the save me cry and the I'm just being a stinker cry.  This was definitely the save me cry and I can't ignore that one.  SO.  You know what I did?  I made muffins which she loves, put her in the highchair, and kept those muffins coming until she konked out in the chair.  It only took two (rather large ones)- so that's not so bad, right?  And besides that, they were zucchini muffins.  Vegetables! SO healthy (only 3 cups of sugar). Who am I convincing?  No one. But she's asleep.  She was so happy in her little muffin paradise picking off every last crumb off of the paper. 

Now she's sound asleep covered in muffin crumbles and I think I've decided to let her nap it out right there.  I'm not risking waking this baby for nothin'.

Right now my eardrums feel as though they might quite literally burst.  My family is being regularly exposed to sound and pitch decibels that would make any doctor shudder, and any member of this family would be quite happy to leave the house for any reason at all if it means we can get away from the noise. Lily has become a screamer.  She has an ear piercing, heart stopping, headache inducing, full on scream.  I'm talking like a horror movie scream.  If she doesn't like something - she screams.  She wants something - she screams.   She wants me to look at her - she screams.   She wants Maggie to take her outside - she screams.  I could go on and on, except my brain is too tired to think about all those horrible moments.  I didn't realize that having to listen to that noise all day would be physcally exhausting and emotionally draining.  I've talked to people, I've googled "how to shush my screaming rotten child" (ok, not exactly in those words), and nothing has worked.  We try whispering to model good behavior. I try to ignore her when I can, but really how do you ignore that?!  She's screaming for a reason.  She's trying to communicate her needs, so I need to respond in some way.  Which is usually by doing what she wants, while quietly telling her that she doesn't need to scream at the top of her lungs to get my attention.  Yeah, that's not working either.

Last Sunday at church Reas and I took turns staying out in the halls with her during all of church.  There was no sense in even trying.  A few days ago, at the grocery store, one of the cashiers actually said to me, "If you bring her through my line, I'll just scream right back at her."  I'm feeling like an A+ mom right now.

It's kind of funny, sad, ironic, all of the above, how not all that long ago I was thinking about how I was so happy that I've never had a screamer. And what dreadful thing is it that those poor parents are doing to cause their babies to think they need to scream about everything.  Um...yeah.  Tough blow, oh pefect mommy.

It's time for a Lily update.  When we saw the neurologist a couple of weeks ago he mostly just asked a lot of questions about her.  He didn't say a whole lot because nothing is conclusive without tests and results obviously.  He ordered a whole bunch of blood work to be done.  They'll be testing for all sorts of crazy and rare muscle disorders.  I don't think it's anything that serious and I don't think the doctor does either, but he's ruling out all possibilities. Her hormone levels will also be evaluated, which is what I personally feel is the issue.  I found this article yesterday that just seems to fit her.

Basically, it says when there is an imbalance in the pituitary gland then not enough somatatrophin (growth hormone) is produced often resulting in stunted growth.  The article lists common symptoms in infants and children, most of which Lily shows.

1. Increased amount of fat around the waist.       Check.  I've always noticed that Lily's belly seemed especially large compared to her bum and legs, so it was interesting to see it listed as a symptom.

2. The child might look younger than other children of his/her age.   Check.  Everyone is always surprised to hear she's as old as she is.   

3.  Delayed tooth development in infancy.       Check.   She's just now barely starting to get her first tooth at 13 months.

4. Delayed onset of puberty.    um...yet to be determined.

5. Slow growth velocity at each stage of age and puberty.   Check.

Looks pretty obvious to me, so it will be interesting to see how the tests come back.  Not only does she show the symptoms, but my super smart herbally minded, vitamin loving mom told us some things we could be giving Lily that will increase hormone production.  Since giving her Vitamin E and cod liver oil (yum)  she has rolled over occasionally, her legs seem to slowly be getting stronger, and she has her first budding tooth.  We're hopeful that our little flower will just keep on growing.


Yesterday Lily and I took the joyous journey to the lab. The sweet little thing was in such a happy mood as we were waiting for her name to be called.   She was flirting with all the nice old people and chatting away.  Everyone ooohed and ahhhed over her. She loved it, and I hated that I was about to ruin all that happiness.  Soon the nurse called us back.  I thought I was going to pass out...seriously.  I was shaky, sweaty, and all that good stuff.  It was torture - and I wasn't even the patient. It was all I could do to hold back my tears as I had to hold down my squirming and crying baby.  There were 8 different tubes they had to fill. Eight!  It seemed like so much blood - too much to be doing all at once...horrible time for a mommy.  She cried pretty good, but could at least be distracted a little.  It took about 5 minutes to fill all the tubes, but it seemed like FOREVER.  I'm pretty sure the ordeal was far worse for me than her, but I would've given anything to take her place.  I am so so SO glad that is over and if there ever has to be a next time, dad is coming for sure.  Lily was pretty much spoiled rotten after all of that.  Graham crackers for dinner?  No prob.