Lily is 9 months!

Lily had her 9-month check-up earlier this month, and she is now 15.13 lbs (12%) and 26.25 inches (7%).  Since her formula intake has always been pretty low, she has actually dropped percents in weight and only gained less than a pound in three months.  She loves real food, but I cannot get her to take more than 18 oz of formula a day.  Our doctor isn't too concerned since she is still very healthy and growing, albeit slowly.

Lily is a crawling machine these days! She has graduated from the army crawl to the all fours crawl.  She can also put herself into a sitting position, and does it all the time now.  She broke her two bottom teeth on 12/12/12, and has been having horrible teething pains ever since.  Just this past week, Lily pulled herself up to standing for the first time.  She has been obsessed with trying to stand ever since and I love watching her determination and concentration.  She is bored with her toys now and only has eyes for James and his "big" toys, much to James's chagrin.  Luckily, it is giving him a crash course in sharing.

Lily is such a joy in our family and has developed the cutest little "cheese" face where she shows all of her gums.  I have yet to capture it on camera! Until then, this adorable little pic will do.  :)

Christmas Time!

I realize that it is 2 weeks into the new year, and I am just NOW getting around to writing about our family Christmas events! I don't know how time gets away from me so quickly, but I had a spare moment this afternoon and figured I'd better get this blog up to date before another month went by.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, we had some visits from the DeBeikes family! We had Sean, Angela, Nathan, and Austin stay in UT for a few days.  We also had Shannon and Brooke here because they were both working at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City.  James was in heaven being around all of his aunts and uncles, and I loved having extra people around to hold Lily! We loved playing in the snow, eating lunch at Stein Eriksen (even though our car broke down for a couple of hours in the snow), and visiting the new City Creek Mall.

Chris and I decided to stay here for Christmas this year, and we had such a wonderful day!! James loved getting ready for Christmas by painting some salt dough ornaments.  We started the night before with opening the presents from Shannon, and we scored with clothes for Lily and James and Chris, and a new griddle for me! That night James left cookies and milk for Santa, and he was so adorable talking about Santa Claus and his reindeer.  James is at the age, finally, where he understands who Santa Claus is and was excited about the presents.  Christmas morning came, and James was so ecstatic when we saw the cookies that Santa had eaten, and the presents he left under the tree! James was great at taking turns opening the presents, and Lily just loved trying to shove the ribbons in her mouth.  We totally scored with gifts this year, and are so thankful for the love and support we feel from our families in Oregon and California!

After Christmas, we had some visits from Chris, Mal, and their kids Ella, Eli, and Rhys.  We had just learned that Mal is expecting again, so we were super excited to see them! We visited the Dinosaur Museum in Thanksgiving Point, ate lunch at Zupas, saw The Hobbit, and hung around our house playing in the snow, learning how to play Ratuki, and eating pizza! We sure wished they lived closer so that we can see them more often!

We had a wonderful Christmas season, and having kids at this time of year makes the holidays come alive.  Just this morning, Chris was mentioning how he doesn't think he can wait 11 more months for Christmas again.