Emily and Lily share...

I thought I'd put some pictures of some activities that Lily has done recently for the first time that Emily also did, so that they could share. I know many of you didn't get to see Emily as a baby, so I thought it might be fun to do. Hopefully I'll be able to continue to add pictures of Emily as I add Lily's pictures. Lily had an ice cream cone for the first time last week. She got mad if we took it away.

Emily trying ice cream. She was about 10 months old in this picture.

Emily's almost 2 1/2 in this picture. I think! We're at the San Antonio zoo.

This was last month at the San Antonio Zoo, in front of the elephants. Lily's 6 months.

This was when Lily was 6 months old and we went to Corpus Christi.

This was when Emily was 11 months old and we had just moved to Texas. She and Lily both have hernias in the picture. Emily's was fixed when she was 2. Hopefully Lily's won't need to be fixed!

We're doing well here. Robby came home the other day and said that tickets were really cheap right now to Hawaii, and that we should go. He didn't have to tell me twice! So, after much debating, planning and researching, we are going to Hawaii next month! We'll be gone for 6 days. Neither of us have been, so we're very excited. We're spending 3 nights in Waikiki and 3 nights in Laie, on the North Shore of Oahu (by BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center). We're taking Lily with us. So any advice on hidden Hawaii secrets?

Lily is very funny. The other night while I was at Young Women's ( I work with the 12-13 year old girls now at church) Lily learned how to "talk." She now will say babadadagaga...She will say DaDa if Robby says it first, which of course is fun for him. We haven't heard MaMa yet. Today at church he was whispering it (dada) and she whispered it back. She just smiles and smiles. People keep warning us that not all babies are like this, so we figure we'll just enjoy it while we can! She's also learned to sit by herself, even though she still will fall backwards occasionally. Having a child do all these things is quite amazing for Robby and I.

I'm still getting nothing done around the house. It's really true that children need a schedule! I feel like I'm 5 years old without one. There's plenty of stuff I could be doing, but I think that because none of it seems "worthwhile" (who wants to clean their house, really?) I just don't get anything done besides the basics that I got done when Emily was here. Hopefully I'll get it together soon!

Lily Loves Attention

Lily takes after her daddy and her Grandma Hammond, but in this picture she looks like Janica and I. At least, there's a picture I have of me when I was a baby that looks like this. We're all doing pretty well. Lily loves attention, and now that Emily's gone, she does not like to be left alone in a room. It doesn't matter who is with her, as long as someone is smiling at her, she's happy. Robby's been really busy at work, and I'm training for a marathon, so that's helping us to be busy. I ran 14 1/2 miles yesterday! At the end of May we're going to Newport, OR, out on the Oregon coast, so that I can run the marathon with Janica. I've never done one before, so I'm pretty nervous, but it will be fun to do something together, especially since we've both been runners since high school, and the Oregon coast is where Robby and I went on our honeymoon. Here's some more fun pictures of our girl. We freely admit that we're biased parents.

We took Lily to have her 6 months pictures taken. I really liked this one of she and I.

I don't know why this is sideways, but anyway, our ward gave us this bench to help us remember Emily. It's "Emily's Bench". People knocked and ran and left it on our front porch, with a card that members of the ward had signed. We've been very grateful for the support we've received.

Lily tried ice cream for the first time this week. It was a strawberry milkshake. She likes her milk warm, but she was a huge fan of the ice cream. Good girl!

She's mad because I took it away, and it wasn't coming fast enough.

Now she's happy, because she just had a bite.

It was windy and rainy on the beach. It made me miss Washington!

We went to Corpus Christi, TX and toured the USS Lexington. We also took Lily to the beach for the first time.

Lily loves being in her bouncer.

Lily continues to be a very funny, cute little girl. She makes us laugh on a continual basis, which is what we need right now! Mommy likes hats, apparently. They also make me laugh.