After Christmas in Washington-Camille's house

On the 28th Robby's dad drove us over to the Seattle Temple, where we met Steve, who picked us up and took us home. John and Coya and Janica and Kacey got in the same day, so as soon as we were all there we had Christmas again. Here's Steve and Lance playing. Kind of. Mom and Dad got the boys Colts uniforms. They were SO excited. From Ryan, "Wow, the Colts are my second favorite team!" It was pretty funny. They were outside playing football with Grandpa any time he would go out and play. Which I think was every day. We had beautiful weather while we were home. Cold, and it snowed the first morning we were there, but no rain, so we got to play outside.

Mom made all the granddaughters quilts. This one is Lily's. I love it!

And this one is mine. Its on my bed now.

Here's Mom with the granddaughters who were there. We sure missed Kylee and McKinnley!

Lily and Akaila are 3 1/2 months apart, and were great buddies. They just followed each other around everywhere, slept in the same room, went bowling together. It was really fun to watch them. I'm always amazed that considering their moms are twins, they look NOTHING alike.

Lily loved playing in the snow. We were quite impressed-at home she's always saying she's cold, but she stayed outside until we made her go in. She kept on these gloves much better than the other ones.

I didn't get a good picture, but Braxton and Ryan would jump up and down while Lance sat in this bouncer and laughed and laughed. It was quite funny. Braxton was Lance's pal, he always wanted to know where Lance was and played with him. He'll be a great big brother to his brother who's on the way!

Grandma and Grandpa gave Lily these sunglasses and lipstick. She was quite funny with the sunglasses in the bouncer.

Sunset from the back porch.

Lily was looking at pictures on Facebook with Aunt Sarah. Lily loves to sing, "Happy birthday, Aunt Sarah." She turned 20 the day before we got there.

Braxton was so happy and easy going the whole trip. It was great. He loved his Uncle Kacey.

We went 5 pin (Canadian) bowling up in Canada. The ball is like a shotput ball. Lily and Akaila shared a turn and loved pushing the ball down the lane.

Mt. Baker from Semiahmoo. This was the first place that we took Emily when she came off oxygen. She came off oxygen while we were home at Robby's house over Christmas, when she was 5 months old. Semiahmoo was the first place we went without taking the oxygen with us. I love this view. Semiahmoo is also where we got engaged and where our wedding reception was.

We tried to get a picture of Mom with the girls at the beach, but it didn't work too well.

Brax and his pal, Lance.

Dad spent lots of time reading to the different grandkids. Akaila had a much better attention span than Lily did, though.

John with Mady. She didn't feel well for a lot of the trip but she was happy here.

We had such a great time. I didn't get any pictures of it, because I'm dumb, but Mom redid her kitchen this summer and it looks so good! It was really fun to cook and visit in. She has beautiful wood floors and granite countertops, two ovens, and a big island, so way more cooking space. She also made a fun little reading nook. I think there was always someone sitting in it reading. We loved being home in Washington-I'm definitly a Northwest girl at heart, like Janica said. Hopefully sometime in the next several years we'll be closer to family! Until then, I will enjoy the warm weather in Texas! (At least in the winter-don't love the summers)

Christmas in Washington-at Robby's

We flew in on Christmas Eve to Spokane and then drove 2 hours to Robby's house in Quincy, getting there at 11:00 PM (1:00 am our time). Lily was in her carseat on the plane, and slept a bit on the 2nd flight from Denver to Spokane, but then was wide awake the 2 hour car ride home. I was so tired and had to entertain her and keep her from hitting her brother; it was the hardest part of the trip for me! They slept in Christmas morning, so that was good.
Here's Lily playing on the lawn mower. She thought it was great fun, and would not keep her gloves on. One of the things we really wanted to do was to get a picture of the 4 generations of Hammond men. Robby's the only boy in his family. Grandpa Hammond drove up from the Tri-Cities. It's always fun to visit and catch up with him.

Lance getting to know his Great Grandpa.

Robby's sister Beckie has a boy, Thomas, who turns one the beginning of February. She helped us play with Lance. It was a lot of fun to have the two boy cousins together.

Lance has Thomas' pacifier in his mouth in this picture.

Robby's mom with the two boys.

We went over to Robby's cousin's house in Moses Lake. Lance became great friends with Neil.

On Christmas day we went out to Emily's gravesite. Robby's parents had already cleaned it off and put the Christmas tree there. It was only our second time seeing the gravesite. I was having a hard time figuring out how to explain it to Lily. Because Emily's body is there, but we don't really feel like Emily is there. Her spirit at least. Which is all hard to explain to a two year old. Finally Robby said it's a place we go to to remember Emily. Which I thought was a good explanation. While we were there we rolled around in the snow like how Emily used to roll. The day before, at our house in Texas, we'd watched videos of Emily from past Christmas's.

Lily looks just like Emily to me in this picture. When I first saw it for a split second I thought it was Emily rolling around!

Lily letting snowballs fly. We attempted sledding, but she fell of the sled and got a face full of snow, so it didn't go so well. There's a video on facebook of it if you're curious!

Sorry, this picture is out of order. This is at the airport on Christms Eve. She had to carry Elmo with her.

Christmas Eve

The 23rd we had Christmas Eve. Here Lily is giving gold to Baby Jesus. The missionaries sang for us.

Lily opening her new Elmo pajamas.

Lance's present from Santa Claus on Christmas morning (the 24th). He quite likes it!

Lily's big presents from Santa included a Tickle Me Elmo that only cost Santa $6! She loves it and had to take it with us to Washington.

Her other Santa present was this grocery cart, that she's been having great fun with.

Lance had an accident, so here's my chubby naked baby Christmas morning.

We flew out to Washington on the afternoon of the 24th. It made for a crazy day, and I've been cleaning up from it ever since we got home, but it was really fun.

'Tis the Season

I've had a lot of thoughts this Christmas season. While it can be a bit stressful, I have to say that I'm really enjoying myself. Last Christmas was hard, because it was our first Christmas without Emily. The year before that was awful-it was when Emily was in the hospital right before Christmas. The actual Christmas was wonderful; we were so glad we were able to go home. But leading up to it was beyond stressful. So I'm enjoying the non-stress, relativily speaking, of the season.
It's kind of crazy-this is our 7th Christmas of having children, but the first Christmas of having one who really understands and participates in what's going on. And I love it! I loved it with Emily. We would sing songs, I would read her a Christmas book every night, etc. Our favorite was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir together. The Christmas First Presidency Devotional just makes me miss Emily so much.
But Lily has a different level of interaction. It's just so fun to try to teach her about Santa Claus, and baby Jesus, and Jingle Bells, and the Christmas stories. Each night she wants me to sing to her "Baby Jesus." (Away in a Manger) I've tried telling her the Christmas story, so now she wants to hear about Baby Jesus on a trip! So I'll tell her Mary and Joseph had to go on a trip far away and there were no houses for them to stay in. Sometimes she'll add "To the beach!" (Since we went on a trip to the beach) and I have to tell her "No, not to the beach!"
We've had fun painting some presents, and she loves seeing Christmas trees. She loves the book Christmas Orange, about the little girl in the orphanage who doesn't get an orange for Christmas, so the other kids share. It's just really fun that she understands so much of it. Lance rolls all over the place. He's trying to eat the tree.

Lance is a pretty big fella. When I carry him in the baby bjornn in the grocery store I get comments that he's about as big as me. After seeing this picture I can see what they're talking about!

Lance loves his bouncer, and Lily tries to sit on it. They're pretty funny. She loves to make him laugh. And when he wakes up she'll say, "Hi buddy; Hi happy. " Or "Hi handsome." It's so fun to hear her say it like we do.

Last Friday we took the kids up to the temple to see it at night. It was only Lily's 2nd time to the temple, and she loved it. She especially loved putting her hands in the top of this fountain! She tends to think lots of buildings and castles are temples, so I try to tell her that it needs an Angel Moroni on it to be a temple. I know that there are a few that don't have Angel Moroni's, but I figure we can learn that later!

On Saturday we ran in the 4th annual City Manager's 5K run. Robby pushes the kids every year in the stroller while I run it, and this year I won! I was pretty excited-it's only the 2nd race I've ever won-I never did in high school. My time was 21:09, around a 6:48 mile pace. I think pushing the kids in the stroller several times a week really helped me be in shape-its so much easier to run not pushing them! Lily was really cute; the rest of the weekend she kept saying "Mommy won a race-Yeah!" and then would clap. They had waited for me at a part on the race and cheered me on. Afterwards we went to the zoo, and on the choo-choo train, which Lily was even MORE excited about.

For Christmas we bought Lily a swingset, which Robby put together over the weekend. Lily loves it-this was after church on Sunday. The dress was one of Emily's though it hardly fit around Emily's little pot belly!

Isn't he handsome? I'm so baised.

We're at the Beach-The Ocean! I want to Watch the Game!

That's what Lily kept saying this weekend-"I'm at the beach-the ocean. We're on our trip. I want to watch the game." We went to a BYU basketball tournament down at South Padre Island for Thanksgiving. We really had a great time. We did Thanksgiving Wednesday and then packed up our leftovers Thursday morning and drove 5 hours down to South Padre. Our condo was really nice and was right on the beach-we had beautiful views and you could hear the ocean. Lily had been talking about going on our trip to the beach all week, and was so excited to get there and play on the beach. They both did good in the car and were happy the whole trip. For the most part. And they both slept through the night each night. Much more successful than camping! Lily seeing the ocean for the first time.

It was warm but pretty windy on Thursday when we got there.

Lily loved playing with her dad in the waves.

Lance's reaction to the water. I know-he's so excited! Lily was afraid of it when we went to Hawaii when she was about Lance's age. He just didn't care.

On Friday we went to this little conservation dolphin place that had fish exhibits. Lily LOVED seeing all the fishies!

This cuboard at the condo kept Lily very entertained.

At the BYU basketball game. We were on the 4th row, and were on TV! Lance was on the most-he was short enough sitting on Robby's lap to get in a few shots. The kids did NOT like the cheering. I had to move up with them through quite a bit of it. And then it went into double overtime! It was killing me! But it was a fun game, and we won, so that was the most important thing.

Lance at the beach on Saturday. He's so fun!

Lily and Robby on Saturday. She's wearing my shirt because it was kind of breezy outside.

We went to a restaurant to watch the BYU-Utah football game. Lily is mimicking Robby. I took her down to the beach during half time and most of the 3rd quarter, but they both did really good sitting there for so long.

Lance at his 2nd BYU game. We won by one point-it was a great game. And so fun to see them so close.
This morning before we left. We sure had a good time. And of course the best weather was the day we left.

Bonding with Emily

Lily had quite the bonding day with Emily today. She's wearing Emily's outfit that we took family pictures in when Lily was a baby, and that Emily wore on her first day to Pre-K. Then when her friend came over she wanted to play with Emily's wheelchair, so they took turns giving each other rides. Then tonight she's wearing Emily's princess pajamas and is sleeping in Emily's bed. She's never slept in there before, but wanted to tonight, so we're letting her. We'll see how it goes! It's been 2 years since Emily got sick in November, so kind of tough. It's not as hard as last year, though, so that's good. Just tender memories.

This was the other night. We were trying to get pictures of the 2 of them. Not super successful.

Lance looks like me, to me, in my baby pictures. My kids never look like me!

Last week when we were at the zoo, I think.

Lily has quite the little personality. She can now recongize the letters L and P, that we've done in "school." She can even find them on the keyboard and other places. But then she thinks that every thing else starts with P or L. We're talking about fire this week and when I ask her what fire starts with she says "P!" She is getting better about saying prayers, and when we pray for family she always wants to pray for Aunt Kapy. (Aunt Kathie). It's pretty cute. For naps and bedtime we have to read The Napping House, Choo-Choo (The Little Engine that Could) and scipers (The scriptures). And then sing I Love to See the Temple and I am a Child of God.

Lance slept through the night last night! 9 hours in his crib! He's gone 7 before, which I count as sleeping through the night-he'll wake up around 5:00 and eat and go back to bed. But last night he went from 10:30-7:30! He goes down between 8:00-8:30 every night and then I usually will feed him again before I go to bed. 2 weeks ago I let him cry it out when I put him to bed. He needed to learn to sleep in his own crib-before that he was only sleeping in his carseat. He cried for 2 hours the first night, but the next night went right down, and now takes naps and sleeps at night in his crib just fine. Yeah! And then I also let him cry it out last week when he woke up at 3:00 AM. He was doing it every night, and I wouldn't even feed him, I'd just put him in his swing. So I made him cry it out without putting him in his swing. He cried 50 minutes the first night, 30 the 2nd, but since then has done pretty well. Now watch, tonight he'll be up at 3:00. Oh well! I think that's about it. Hopefully the sleeping continues-I felt like a new woman today!