Our Little Toddler

This girl. Oh. My. She might have made a late entrance into the world, but she certainly hasn't been delayed about anything since. In her efforts to keep up with big brother and sister, she has done everything earlier than they did. No wonder time seems to have sped up since her birth. Slow down, Lillian. Slow down. You aren't even a year old yet!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the two best daddies I know...theirs and mine.

Y'all are awesome and so very loved! I'd be wordier and sappier and all that jazz, but I've just spent a whole very wonderful day with y'all. I know you already know everything I could say. Thanks for loving us.

P.S. Levi is home. Hence the blog silence. We've just been enjoying our time together.

Sugar And Spice...Heavy On The Spice

Levi has been away spending time with his dad and grandparents, so it's been a whole lot of just us girls these days. I miss my boy, but it's been fun hanging out with my girls. Lillian still spends loads of time in a carrier and she naps for a while each day, so that means lots of time with this little girl...

I love the way she walks. You can see her determination and spirit in her stride.

And the way she conquers her fears is pretty incredible.

But, the thing that makes me smile the biggest is her sense of style. She is definitely Sophia to the bone.*

She decided she didn't really want her picture taken, so she hid...

 She tells me daily that she is a "pwincess" and that she loves pink the best. She adds an extra -es to plural words like "bootses" and "fwoweres". She runs away in stores, parking lots, etc. which is so maddening, but she sings "You not catch me! I de gingabwed man!" as she runs. That almost makes up for it. She claims all wildflowers as her very own, and she calls one particular patch of them "my garden." It's best to avoid stepping in it. She doesn't like to snuggle much. But, at night when we read books she rests her head on my shoulder and I turn into a bucket of mush. She tells me she's big like the "boyses" referring to Levi and his friends. She is quite possibly the sweetest big sister on the face of this planet. She takes after her brother who is the sweetest of big brothers. Lillian might just be the luckiest baby sister on earth. These are some of the things I want to remember, but I know that in a year or two they will all be so much bigger. I'll be flipping through this blog and exclaiming, "I can't believe I'd forgotten that!" But, I will. Time is tricky.

*We used to say about my sister that she was "Annie to the bone".

Lillian's Baptism

If I had actually blogged over the past 5 months the posts would have had titles like "Moving Is For The Birds", "We Are Sick", "We Are Sick Again", "Well, Whatayaknow, We Are Sick Yet Again", and "Hey, Look What I Knitted While We Were Sick!". Maybe it's not so bad that I lost my blogging mojo. However, there is one really lovely thing that happened somewhere in between getting settled in and the bouts of illness. On March 24th Lillian got baptized!

Oh, Happy Day!!

Okay, well, she didn't think it was such a happy occasion.

Poor baby.

After we finished torturing baptizing her, we went back to my parents' house for a little celebration.

And, somewhere in there we attempted to get some family photos. Ha! My kids had other ideas.

 Sophia's glare is a particularly nice touch in this one...

 It was a bit like herding cats, but we did eventually manage a few cute ones.

 Thankfully babies are pretty easy targets for the camera.

All in all it was a beautiful and fun day. I mean, really, how can you complain about any day that ends with a chubby, naked baby?!

For those who are interested: Lillian wore the baptism dress that my mom made for Sophia. I knitted her blanket. It's a free pattern called the Elven Pixie Blanket. I've only knitted a few blankets, but this is definitely my favorite of those patterns.

Hi.

Oh, hello, blog. It's been awhile . . . nearly 5 months to be exact. We did indeed manage to get moved and settled in, but we didn't have internet service for a few months. And then life started getting very very full . . . a good sort of full. When we did finally get back online I kind of felt done with the whole blogging thing, but yesterday Lillian took her first steps. That evening Stephan and I came here and looked up Levi's and Sophia's first steps, and then we just started browsing a bit. We both got dreadfully sentimental and started reminiscing about our sweet babies and how fast life is flying by . . . how fast they are growing up. And, suddenly I missed blogging again. I missed having a (searchable) place to write down the crazy things the kids say and do. I missed writing about our days . . . big ones and small ones. I missed documenting my knitting too. Apparently, I don't photograph anything I make if I'm not blogging. There's a backlog. I might spare you, though, and just start from this point forward. 

I'd bet too that there are some grandparents living in far flung places who have been ready to kick me for the past 5 months, so onto the important stuff . . . the kids.

They've been growing and playing and exploring and learning and did I say growing already?

Lillian is trying to walk, and Sophia's imagination is on fire, and Levi is sucking up every bit of knowledge he finds like it's water in the middle of a desert.

 

 

They are each as different as night and day, but still they adore one another . . . most days, at least. ;)

There is never a dull moment, and there is certainly never a quiet one. But that's okay because before I know it (if I'm very very blessed) I'll be knitting sweaters for grandbabies. That makes me a little happy and sad all at once.  Can you tell my baby's 1st birthday is coming up? I ALWAYS get so sappy and sentimental when that first year mark approaches. Wasn't there a time when years stretched on like whole lifetimes? And now blink, blink, blink, gone.