Lilly is 6 months (almost 7)

Oh how fast time flies.  I can't believe that my little one is 6 months old.  I keep watching her grow and just can't believe it goes so fast.  I want to slow down time and cherish every moment.  This month we took her to take some pictures at Sears.  We had a hard time getting her to smile.  It so unusual because she is such a smiley happy baby.  The lady at Sears was awesome.  She took an hour with us and even let me take a few minutes to feed her to see if it would help cheer her up.  These are my two favorites.  I just cant get enough of that smile.

 At six months old she can sit up by herself.  I even caught her pulling herself to a stand on one of her Grammy's coffee tables.  I am not ready for her to be walking around.  She can't quite crawl yet but she is getting there.  She is up on her knees and rocking but hasn't gotten the forward motion yet.  That doesn't mean this little girl isn't moving though.  She rolls her self all over the floor.  I now have to make sure to pick up the boys little toys more often.  I found her with some pirate gold in her mouth the other day and it scared me to death.

I am not the only one who loves this little lady.  I'm pretty sure that she is her daddy's little princess.  Her brothers are pretty big fans too.  James is especially attached to her.  He is always wanting to hug her and tickle her and make her laugh.  They love to sit and read books with her and let her play with their light sabers.  She is a lucky lady.

I can see differences between the boys and her already.  One of those is her ability to babble.  I think this little girl was born with the gift of gab.  She loves to sit and talk or yell or laugh.  Even though I am sad that she is changing so much it is so exciting to see her grow and learn new things.  I was so stressed with James and the twins I find it hard to remember all the details of this time with them.  I am trying to remember to savor all the moments.  I am sure in no time she will be crawling and walking,  that's my determined little girl.

Mother's Day Weekend

   What a great weekend.  We went to San Diego this weekend to celebrate my Father-in-laws birthday and  Morther's Day.  We got to start our weekend trip off by visiting our friends in Oceanside.  We missed seeing Patti since she had to work but it was nice to see Lanny and the kids.  We live only 100 miles apart but sometimes we go months without seeing them.  It seems so silly but we only just figured out that we can stop for dinner on our way to San Diego.  We got to San Diego around 7:00.  I knew the boys weren't going to go to bed at 8 like normal but  wasn't really ready to the chaos that would continue until 11 at night. I felt bad but Ray had to fight that battle, as I was trying to get Lilly to settle down as well.  So it was a bit of a late night for us.

    The next day we headed out for Sea World.  The boys have been wanting to see Shamu so that was first on our list. We had such a good day. It was a coincidence that some good friends of ours were meeting up with other people at Sea World as well.  It worked out that we got to watch the Shamu show together, which was great fun.  Our boys were a little tired but they still seemed to enjoy the show.  Ater Shamu got out we got to meet up with my cousin and her family.  Its days like this that I really appreciate the people we have in our lives.  I have good friends and family who care about my kids and get excited about seeing them.  And of course my boys love their cousins.  Nick sticks to Bailey like glue and Joe and James are buddies with Gavin.  My camera died so I don't have many pictures but I have a few of the day and I am going to steal some of my cousins, she takes great pictures so that's not so bad.

Nick and his Bailey, they love their cousins

Lilly Slept through all of Shamu

Waiting for Shamu with Grandpa

Gavin and his little buddies walking through wild arctic

   After Sea World we went home to have a dinner party for Ray's Dad.  The boys loved helping with the cake, as always.  My parents came over and we had a nice dinner.  Since there were two sets of grandparents and a set of great grandparents our children were absolutely spoiled.  I don't even know how much junk they had.  Chocolate galore, multiple pieces of cake with ice cream, then topped it off with root beer floats.  On my!!!! Well it was a celebration so it's OK.   Again we had another difficult bed time but that's nothing we're not used to.

Putting Candles on Grandpa's cake

Cheers!!!!! Lets wash all that chocolate and cake down with a root beer float

      Sunday was Mother's day.  We used to go out to brunch but with this many young kids its less stressful for me to just say at home.  Then I don't have to worry about their behavior in public.  So the men made breakfast.  Of course Ray got  frustrated with me when he asked me exact recipes and I can't recall the quantities that I use because I just wing it.  I know its frustrating but that's how I cook, and he is a recipe kind of guy.  They found a similar recipe and made a nice egg dish that turned out great.  We got to spend the day with both sets of our parents and Rays Grandparents. The boys brought out presents for everyone.  They got me a loving family necklace with a momma and four little kids.  I also got a mug with all their names on it and a plaque to go in the kids bathroom.  It has little cartoon figures of the kids splashing in the tub.  I love it.  

     I can't say how truly blessed we are to have such a great family unit.  We have great friends who we love to spend time with.  I love my cousin and her family.  We don't get to hang out often but its great when we do and I know she loves and cares about my kids.  We have both sets of our parents who are actively involved in my kids lives and I know the kids will appreciate that when they get older.   Rays grandparents were here to share the weekend with us.  Not many kids get to sword fight with their great grandpa but mine do.  And that was just who we saw this weekend.  In a week and a half we are headed out to Utah to see more of Rays family.  Its great.

    I should not forget to mention that I am the mother to four beautiful children.  They drive me crazy and are  going to make my hair turn grey but they are my life.  I am not the same person I was before I was their mom and I love it.  I am blessed with a fabulous husband and a great family.  I hope everyone else had a great weekend too.

My little ones.

The ladies on Mother's day.

James sword fighting with his great Grandpa

 
 

My favorite pictures

   I get my kids pictures taken a lot. I just had photos of Lilly taken at six months (when I get them back I will post some).  I dont ever want to look back and say, I wish I had captured that moment.  It got me thinking about one of my favorite series of pictures I have had  taken were the ones documenting who my children are named after.

 James Paul Willard.  

When choosing names for our children we wanted them to mean something to us and to honor our families.  When we found out we would be adopting a little boy we were pretty set on his name.  My sister had already honored my family with her children so we wanted to make sure we did the same for Rays Family.  James is Rays Grandfather(on his mothers side0, and Paul is his dads name.  It is also Rays middle name.  We were asked my James' birth mother to use Willard as a name to honor and important member of her family.  Although Willard is not my favorite name in the world we kept it as a second middle name.   When we went to take the series of pictures I wanted the boys to have a toy that would represent the person they were named after.  Rays grandpa loves golf so we got James a little golf set that he could be posed with.  My boys are  blessed to have some of their great grandparents around.  I love the picture of the two of them, it warms my heart.

James Paul with his Great Grandpa James.   

   Nicholas Taylor and Joseph Bryce.
 At sixteen weeks pregnant, just four months after naming James we found out that we would be naming two more boys in our family.  After trying to figure out if we should give them similar names, or names that started with the same letter, or some sort of theme, we went with naming them after people in our family again.  We  decided their first names would be family names but we would pick middle names that we just liked the sound of.  Joseph is named after my grandfather.  I loved and admired him and when I see Joe I think about my grandfather and how we would have been so happy to see me as a mom.  My grandfather was a WWII vet and a purple heart.  I picked one of my moms favorite pictures of her father in Germany.  We also had his purple heart and his dog tags.  I found and old bomber jacket for Joe to wear since my grandfather was in the army air corps.  After coming out of the military he worked for JPL on many of the Apollo missions so Joe got a toy space shuttle.

My little Joe with his a picture and memorabilia from his great grandfather

 Nicholas is named after Rays cousin.  They were very close as children.  Unfortunately he passed away when he was in his early 20's.  Ray wanted to honor him by naming our son after him.  Rays Great Aunt had given us a leather jacket that used to belong to Ray's cousin,  So we used that in the picture.  He also wore the style of hat that Nick is wearing.  They had huskies growing up so we found a cute puppy toy for Nick to hold.  The picture that Ray picked is a childhood picture that everyone in his family had up on their wall.

Nick with memorabilia from Rays cousin Nicholas

 Lilliana Michelle.  

Two year later we found out we would be blessed with a beautiful baby girl.  When we were adopting James we had a girl named picked out.  I wanted a little girl named Lilly.  Originally we were going to use Grace (my grandmothers middle name) but both my sister and cousin and used it as a middle name.  I felt like if a family member was honored then we didn't need to do it again so we were on the hunt for a new name.  I started thinking we might not use Lilly, afterall the boys first names were the ones that were honoring a family memeber.  But I could not get over not having my little Lilly that I have wanted since we were considering having children.  So we decided on Lilly. Then for her middle name.  My sweet Lilly takes her middle name from my sister.  I am so glad we could honor her in this way.  I am very close with my sister and naming my daughter after her made me feel so good, I knew it was the perfect name.  My sister loves Christmas so we thought it was fitting to put them both in Christmas hats.  Lilly has a cute Christmas tree toy.  The silly hats is a perfect representation of my sisters fun spirit.  Lilly is also wearing one of the dresses my sister use to wear when she was a little baby.  My mom had kept in in our doll clothes but it was just right for her size.

      

    These pictures have a permanent place on my wall.  I love that each of my kids has a special name that we picked from people we love and cherish.  I like to look at these pictures and remember all the people in our lives and how the actual person or the memory of a person can help shape my kids lives.  I think they are a great reminder of the importance of family.