Penny at Two Months

Penny turned two months on Thanksgiving day this year. She is still such a sweet girl. She sleeps a 6-7 hour stretch at night consistently. She started smiling right after 5 week (Nov. 2) and has been doing it a lot and very responsively the past two weeks or so. Sometimes when she smiles, she makes the cutest little coo noise and it completely melts me. We are so glad to have her in our family!

Penny Three Months

Little Penny is three months old! She is still a delightful little girl! Month three was filled with lots of smiles, her first laughs (at her dad, of course), and really cute noises. Penny generally goes to bed around 10:30 and wakes up between  7 and 8. She loves to put her fist in her mouth these days. She is generally still pretty calm, but does seem to have her fussy days. She is the sweetest little spirit and it was so fun to have another little one this Christmas.

Big sis wanted in on the photo shoot

smiles for Mimi

"look mom, she's a queen"

Long lashes on this girl

Lyla at Three

Our little girl is three! Lyla is such a blessing to our family! She is spunky and full of personality and excitement for life. Lately, she has been saying "I love you Mommy" and "I love you Daddy" out of the blue and quite frequently throughout the day. It is the sweetest. She also told Todd the other day, "Daddy, you're my best friend". Truer words have never been said. She is a sweet big sister to Penny, and frequently lays next to her and tells her in a sweet little voice, "you're my biiiig sister". We're working on explaining that Penny is actually the little sis, but it's still super sweet.

She also loves to tell people about Penny. She will point to Penny and say "that's my thithter (sister). Her name's Penny".

When Penny was born, she immediately started sleeping in till 8/8:30 instead of her usual 7/7:30, which as been really nice, except that her naps have been hit and miss, and I fear that she is fazing out of them.

She had her three year well check recently and was in the 82% for height and in the 60% for weight.

A few of Lyla's cuties from the past few months:

We went on the train with my mom when she was visiting and Lyla said "Grandma's gonna buy us our chickens (tickets)"

She calls dandelions her "enchanted garden" and loves to pick them and blow them

I asked her, "What color is our house?" and she said "Blonde!" Actually a pretty good answer because it is yellowish/tan

She calls the headrest on her carseat her carseat's ears.

She was singing one day "Twinkle, twinkle like a little star...lead me guide me walk beside me"

"I do my loculars (binoculars)...come 'splore with me!"

Back in May, she fell and hit her tooth and it was bleeding a lot in her mouth. she had her hands over her mouth and when she finally looked at them later they were all bloody. I was worried about her seeing all the blood, but she looked down and said "Uh oh, have strawberries on it".

We sure love our firstborn!

Lyla's Third Birthday

We kept Lyla's birthday pretty low key again this year. I think next year we will officially start having birthday parties, but we skipped that this year.

We kicked off birthday week with a visit to the Pediatrician on the 28th. This is a big deal because Lyla loved going to my doctor's appointments with me while I was pregnant with Penny, and got to go to one of Penny's visits as well, so it was a big deal that it was finally her turn to get a check up! She loved the whole thing, and was enthusiastic about getting a shot. It was just a flu shot, but I decided to go ahead and get it because she loves to pretend to get shots, and I thought we might as well make the experience authentic. I think it hurt more than it does when we play pretend, but she was a good sport about it, and we went and got a donut after the appointment to offset her pain.

 On Lyla's birthday, I went to the grocery store before Lyla woke up and picked up some balloons. Then, when Lyla woke up, we went in and sang happy birthday to her. She was grinning and when we were done, she asked "Is it my birthday?". When we told her "yes", she was so excited because she has been asking us for a long time if it was her birthday yet. Then we led her out into the family room and showed her the balloons and she was super excited about them and that the birthday banner was up. She played with the balloons for a while and then we had Ears for breakfast, which are her favorite. After that, we gave her a small gift of a wooden wand that you decorate yourself, and she had a great time painting and decorating that.

After her nap (which she decided to skip that day....) we picked up Daddy and headed up to Kangaroo Zoo with Mya, Owen, Mimi, and Aunt Liz. It may not have been the adult's favorite place, but the kids had a great time! After that we headed up to Mimi and Papa's house for Pizza and cake and ice cream. Lyla requested a pink cake and was excited that it was finally time to blow out the candles. She was spoiled (and overwhelmed) with lots of presents, including a doctor's set, which she loved playing with that night and has enjoyed ever since. Todd, Penny, and I have enjoyed getting lots of check ups since her birthday! Overall, it was a really fun day and I think Lyla had a great time. She seems to understand pretty well that she is now three.

Lyla and her balloons

Opening her first birthday present

Getting measured at the doctor--she was in the 82% for height this year and 60% for weight

Waiting for the doctor to show up

Lyla and Doctor Schmidt

Lyla and Owen before Kangaroo Zoo

The birthday girl

Lyla and Papa before presents

We saved one of her presents for the next morning--this is right after she opened her robe

Penny at One Month

Penny is one month! She is the sweetest little thing. She is a great eater and sleeper. She usually goes to bed around midnight, wakes up once to eat, then goes back down till somewhere between 7 and 9. She cries very infrequently, can be a little fussy, but never for very long periods of time, and looks like she might be close to smiling. Every once in a while she makes some really loud moaning/purring noises that are really funny. The biggest complaint about this little one is that she spits up all the time! Lyla pretty much didn't spit up...like I didn't even carry a burp cloth around with me, so that's taken a little getting used to. We are so glad to have Penny as part of our Family!

First Half of 2015

Here are some of the going ons of the first half of 2015...

Ready for Church on Easter Sunday

Lyla waiting for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt to begin.

They had a huge turnout this year!

Getting ready for the egg hunt at Debbie's house

Lyla with some of her cousins

This year Lyla definitely understood the egg hunt thing a lot better than last year. As her mom, I also learned that you are supposed to have a basket of sorts to collect the eggs in, so we both came a long way since last year!

Lyla at Bear Lake in June for my family reunion

Lyla and Dad

Lyla got her first taste of Aggie ice cream--and she even chose Blue Mint!

Todd's Birthday

It was such a joy to welcome baby Emily here safely on Todd's birthday. She has been such a healing influence for our entire family.

Lyla and Mya on the giant slip n slide at the Barfuss Family Reunion

She was pretty stoked about it

Lyla and her dad are always cute together

Lyla getting pushed by Uncle J on the Forth of July

Our fam on the Fourth

Grandpa and Lyla

Lyla doing Daddy's hair

Lyla meeting baby Emily and getting some good big sister practice in