She's Here!

Yes, SHE's here! It's a girl! Jane Lillie, born December 17 at 7:34 pm.  She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and is 20 inches long.  She is extremely content!  She knew exactly what to give her mommy for Christmas!  

Jane was born very healthy and is growing quickly.  She's just about gained back all the weight she lost in the hospital and she's only four days old.  Her pediatrician was impressed at her check up today.  Her delivery was so much shorter too-another Christmas present to her mom!  

Her brothers have been in love with her from the beginning!  Dallin kept asking when she was coming and they were both so excited when she came.  Stephen John kept asking my mom to see her picture.  When they got to the hospital, they had to hold her and check her all out.  I think one of the sweetest things I've seen in life is watching my children meet each other.  Dallin meeting Stephen John and then both of them meeting Jane.  They just beamed the whole time.  When the pediatrician came for her hospital check, the boys gave him the stink eye the whole time!  They weren't sure about a stranger looking at their sister.  Protective brothers already! I'll have to post pictures of the boys visiting later.  

Jane's middle name is after my great-grandmother Lillie.  Both Dan and I come from such rich heritages that we wanted to pass that on to our children.  I have always loved learning about my great-grandmother and wanted to use her name.  After her husband passed away relatively young, she raised all of her children by herself.  She finished their homestead commitment in Idaho, was always serving her family, wrote poetry and commentaries on life, did extensive temple work, and was adored by her family to just name a few things.  She helped to raise my dad after his mother passed away until my grandpa married the grandmother I know.  I also love her spunkiness.   

Oh, look at me! It's great to be three!

In August (yes, let's just pretend this just happened!), Dallin turned three!  It was so fun celebrating his birthday because he was so excited.  Birthdays at three are quiet magical!  Dallin just beamed all day long.  

Dan and I kept thinking of all that happened to Dallin those first days of his life and the following year.  We are so proud of all that he has overcome and how he has done it with a smile on his face the whole time.  He truly was blessed with a special disposition to handle all the initial physical challenges in his life.  He is doing great though! Probably one more hand sugary in the future, and for the scoliosis, we'll just have to wait and see.  

He requested a baseball cake.
For months, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
was his favorite bedtime song.  

I took the boys to the indoor trampoline park to do something fun on Dallin's birthday.  They both love jumping and climbing so it was heaven for them.  They jumped around like crazy men for the whole two hours!  

Cake time!  

Here are some things that Dallin is up to now:

-talks, talks, talks!  You better watch what you say cause he'll repeat it! He has some very imaginative stories too!  

-loves Thomas the train!

-loves anything sports related!  This kid will hit off an overhand throw as long as you get it in the strike zone.  I only pitch to him now if I have some kind of barricade between me and him because he'll drill it right back at you!  

-loves running, jumping, and riding his bike.

-still loves to eat olives, tomatoes, smoothies, and Indian food.  

-he loves nursery at church!  When it was Stephen John's first week, he wasn't too sure about going in until Dallin came over and put his arm around him and said, "It's okay Stevie!" Then he gave Stephen John a ball and told the teachers that he likes balls.  (He's also a good big brother--most of the time).  

Since its been so long since I posted, here are some other things we've been up too.  

We went to the Ozarks for a little family vacation.  This is the fist vacation we've taken that hasn't involved extended family.  Although we love seeing extended family, it was fun to just be the four of us and relax and enjoy the outdoors a bit.  

SJ and I played on the shore and waded in the water.
He was more than thrilled because he got to dig
and throw rocks all he wanted.

Eating a donut in the car!
What a treat!

            

Dallin went fishing with Dad which he hasn't stopped talking about.
The water was really high so no one was catching anything.
Luckily, Dan caught one fish and Dallin was there,
so he (Dallin) was satisfied.  Dan…not as much.  

The "cabin" we stayed in.
We had the middle room.  

Dawt Mill is where we stayed.  It is in the heritage region of the Ozarks.  After driving around there, I can definitely still see remnants of the Ozark stereotypes.  

Smores

More fishing.  The people there were really nice.  They go fishing every night it seems just for fun.  They'll talk to you like you both have all the time in the world.  

Throwing rocks.  Maybe that's part of why Dan couldn't catch anything?  They were in heaven though.  

 Dan's birthday was also in August.  

Impromptu wrapping paper when we ran out

He deviated from German Chocolate to Cheesecake this year 

We've also done a lot of playing.  A.K.A. mom is too tired from being pregnant so she sits in a lawn chair and watches us.  

They've since given up their bottles!  Yeah!  

Discovering teeter-totters at the park.  

We met some friends at the science museum in OKC before they left for their assignment in Germany.  

Yes, SJ is drinking the water.  You have to watch that kid or he will drink water from anywhere!  Even puddles on the ground.  Never mind he just drank from the water bottle I brought for him.  He is going to have an amazing immune system.  

BBQ festival in our town.  First stop was the pig races.  Half hour of sitting for two 30 second races.  That's called learning patience boys!  

State Fair

Dallin rode his first roller coaster and loved it!  I couldn't believe he wanted to go on it, and then that he was fine not going with me. Good thing because I would have had to pretend to just be fat and not pregnant!  

Stephen John loved the piglets!  

Bowling.  The boys used their passes from the library summer reading program.  Dallin was disappointed that he could hold the ball like the professionals do.  Luckily the dragon looked cool so he was fine using that most of the time.  I think the ball only got stuck once too!  

Family time at the Great Plains Nature Center.  The three mile walk is the closest thing we have to hiking in Wichita.  

More fun at the park.  

Going to the fire station.  

And we're back…with good news!

We've got good news all around here at our house!  One of these will explain my long absence from writing.  

#1 The most exciting news is….we're adding to the family!  
Baby #3 is due in December.  We wanted it to be a surprise, but the ultrasound tech didn't warn us when not to look.  So, we're about 75% sure its a girl.  I really felt like we were having a girl before that, so I'm not surprised.  Or maybe I will be if we actually have a boy!  

Dallin says we are having a girl too.  He is very excited for the baby.  He even has a baby in his tummy too.  I'm glad somebody is having sympathy pains with me!  J/K.  He was very excited to hear the baby's heart beat at the doctor's appointment.  At the ultrasound, he watched the baby on the screen and was fascinated with it's movements.  He likes to look at the pictures they gave us.  We are all very excited, its just more fun to write about a two year old's excitement.  

This exciting news is why I haven't posted in so long.  I was sooooo exhausted that we were just in survival mode for several months.  Then I felt like I was playing catch up with everything I'd neglected.  I feel like I'm about caught up and have a little bit of breathing room now.  I only promised though to post more often then I did on Facebook, so in that sense, I'm doing great!  

#2  We made it through another deployment!  Dan left at the beginning of April and got back at the end of June.  I was able to take the boys out west to spend time with family.  We saw all of my family and most of Dan's!  It was so wonderful to see everyone.  And everyone was so helpful!  Especially my youngest brother.  He was a great uncle to the boys and helped me with them when I was feeling really sick and tired.  

While he was deployed, Dan also pinned on Major!  Way to go!

April-saying goodbye. Not really smiling inside though.  

June-watching for dad

There he is! Dallin broke away from me and ran to Dan as soon as he was at the bottom of the stairs.  

Smiling inside and out!

#3  Dan started his new job this week!  He isn't one to toot his own horn, so I'm doing it for him.  I'm so proud of him!  Before Dan left for his deployment, he was hired by Textron Aviation as a demo pilot.  It was exactly the job he wanted!  He will be flying both the Sovereign and King Air for them.  He'll still be working for the Reserve wing too, but in more of a traditional capacity.  Way to rock it babe!

Thanks for not giving up on me posting.  I'll see if I can catch up on more of our goings on soon.  

Happy Easter! Round Two.

Happy Easter!

I wrote a whole post about Easter only to lose it when my internet browser hiccuped and I lost the whole thing.  Let's see if I can remember what I wrote.  

Easter was really nice this year.  I think partly because Dan was leaving soon for his deployment so we were really relishing our time together.  It was also the first Easter that Dallin was aware of what was going on.  He actually seemed to get what Easter is all about in his own two year old way.  Atonement and resurrection are kind of big concepts for him, but he would talk about how Jesus died and now he lives.  Kids are amazing!  

I took the boys to an Easter picnic that my friends and I had at a park.  The boys had a lot of fun hunting for the eggs.  Luckily, some of the more zealous hunters returned the extra eggs they quickly procured for the more easy going ones.  Dallin was in no hurry and enjoyed strolling from egg to egg.  Stephen John wanted to stop and open each egg after he found it.  He may only be one, but he knows what is what and when that what means candy inside.  

Stephen John

Dallin

My friend Cyndle helped Stephen John look for eggs.  Thanks Cyndle!  

Apparently this is my Easter picnic outfit.  When I looked at the pictures from last year's picnic, I was wearing the same thing.  

I love the look on SJ's face here!  

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs with our friends the Whites (Cyndle and Quinten).  Dallin LOVED it!  At first he would use the wire dipper.  When that became too cumbersome, he went to a more efficient method--hand dipping.  Dipping from one color to another in rapid succession actual made some pretty color combinations.  Stephen John was content to just play with the kitchen tongs that are usually kept out of his reach.  

Easter morning the Easter bunny left baskets for the boys and hid the real eggs they dyed.  There were pictures of Jesus with a little boy in each basket.  Dallin loved his picture of Jesus and was very excited to put it in his room.  The child in each picture kind of reminded me of each of the boys.  

After they found their Easter baskets, Dallin was excited to look for the eggs.  Stephen John was excited to open the plastic eggs in his basket and eat the chocolate.  Finding real eggs wasn't an enticing enough prospect to stop eating chocolate.  

The boys finding their Easter baskets

Dallin with his picture of Jesus

Yes, that is chocolate drool

I hope you all had a nice Easter.  My church produced this beautiful Easter video, Because HE Lives.  No matter which Christian church you attend, this is a great reminder of how much our Savior loves us.  Happy Easter!