The post I don't want to write

I really wanted to write a catch-up post covering the happenings of the last few months. Let's face it, me and summer means I don't really write on the blog. But, honestly, my heart is heavy. I'm weary and there are a lot of things going on that seem to work on my spiritual self. And, although I don't want to write about how I'm feeling, I'm going to.

I have had people I know and love die lately. In June, one of my dearest friends from high school lost his sweet baby boy. The story is tragic and it is actually on-going and it is all over the media. There's no hiding from what happened. Cooper was 22 months. I flew to Alabama for the funeral. an 18-hour trip. I even brought my pump with me so my milk supply wouldn't go down. I missed my babies and my husband. It was good to see old friends, but it was such a sad reason to be there. I actually bore my testimony in front of a couple hundred people. I was really impressed to share it on the family and how important that role is in life. I think that's really what Heavenly Father wanted me to say. I believe that is the main reason why I went down there.

Grandma Bohman (Daniel's grandma) just passed away last week. It has been anticipated and she has been waiting to be reunited with her husband for so long (20 years). It was still sad to see her go and how her children and grandchildren feel. They have so many memories of her. I hope they write them down. That is the key to remembering. If not for our sakes, for our posterity's.

My friend, Suzanne, who I met last year after moving to Maryland and being brand-new, alone, and so overwhelmed to the area; she was new too, but she took me in and helped Lily and me feel comfortable. Suzanne is awesome. She is a mother of four beautiful children and has a terrific husband. She fought cancer 4 years ago and won. It came back last year. She is losing this battle. It has moved to her liver and the new treatment has failed and she doesn't have that much longer to live (minutes, days...). Daniel and I went to see her today. It was hard. Honestly, I tried to prepare myself. It has been over 2 months since i've seen her because of summer break and both of us traveling. I just found out last week that she took a turn and started to go downhill. I wasn't expecting that. We had been texting and she said she was week and nauseous, but not dying. I didn't know how I would react when I saw her today, but all I could do when I walked in that room was hold and caress her hand. Her spirit is strong and she is fighting to stay. Her body may be depleting, but she is still Suzanne and she is lovely, and loved and will do great things, whether it be in this life or the next. She said I was beautiful and that she loved me. I told her I love her too. I hope she stays with us longer, but I know that whatever happens, she will be taken care of. She will be surrounded by loved ones. Families are forever. I know this because of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of Him, Jesus Christ, death has no sting and the grave has no victory. That is a beautiful perspective and it gives me hope.

Still no pics...I'm lazy

May has been a great month; food with friends, articulate children, growing babies and having your husband gone for four days (that one is not-so-great). I have to admit, I was nervous about him being gone and me being alone with the girls, but I think there was some Divine intervention involved and they were both so sweet the entire time and we had lots of fun together. I think the key was, we had something planned to do every day. It was also nice that other people fed us too. :)

If I've said it a lot, I still can't emphasize it enough....Lily has got some awesome skills of persuasion. Her new thing, "So Mommy..." and then she'll proceed to talk to me about how she has a grand idea about something. We usually are doing something or I'm getting ready, or we are sitting down to eat. She will say, "So Mommy, we go downstairs, watch a novie...I want TinkerBell and then we eat chocolate clips. Does that sound good?" I really have a hard time disagreeing with something that obviously important, so I usually say, "Ok, Lily." She catches on pretty quick and we have to watch what we say around her lately. She's gotten into the habit of repeating what we say or what we've said earlier in the day. She also starts to say, "Guys! Guys! Don't fight, Ok!" I tell her, "Lily, we aren't fighting (we normally aren't :), we're just talking." "Oh, Ok." And that's that. haha, she does that A LOT.

She loves meeting new people. We went to Target the other day. That's right, I took both girls out and Lena even got to sit in the seat! It was magical. Lily actually sat in the buggy (couldn't find a two-seater), but she did pretty good in it. A little girl approached them as I was looking at some clothes and I turned around to hear Lily say, "Hi. My name is Lily. This is Lena. That's Mommy." The little girl, who was probably a year or so older said, "Hi," in a shy tone and Lily then started to just talk. I love watching her personality show. Lately, she has been thanking me a lot, especially if it's something I really want. "Thank you so much mommy for my bowl of cereal." "Thank you so much for my chair." (she is quite often standing on a chair in the kitchen helping me make cookies--I'm pretty sure she knows all the ingredients now.)

Lillian and Lena love to be around each other. I get a little emotional when I watch them interact together. Lena will watch Lily's every move and be in awe of her. Lily will make her sister laugh and she loves playing pat-a-cake with her. They are already great friends and that makes me so happy.

Lena is great at giving me kisses. I love that snuggly baby girl. She makes a lot of funny noises with her mouth, and her facial features are classic. Such a chill little girl. (She'll be 8 mos soon)

This evening Daniel and Lily had a father-daugther campout. Lily was so excited for this. The tent was all set up and she couldn't stay out of it. She loved zipping it up and down...over and over again. Daniel made a little fire in the pit in our awesome backyard, they roasted marshmallows "mars-lellows", and Daniel and I had campfire banana boats. When they went to bed, I mopped the floors in the house (hadn't been done in a long, long time) and now it's off to bed. What a great day. 

April is Spring...not Winter, Spring!

Yes, it's been about a month since the last post, but I do have to say that the weather here has been kinda throwing me off. One day it's nice, sunny, and hot; the next day it's windy, cold, and...snowing? OH man, did we have some crazy late spring snow storms come through. I never thought I would say it, but I was sick of snow. I'm sure my Alaskan family can say, "You ain't see nothing," but there's something about 78 degrees one day, and 35 degrees with snow the next.

Besides the insane weather patterns, April has been a pretty decent month. I have really enjoyed watching the trees bloom (finally). There are some beautiful trees around here. I was brave and took the girls to the zoo via the metro. I had a friend join us, thank goodness, but I am happy that I finally took both of them on the metro by myself. We bought a double stroller (life-saver), and I also took them to see the cherry blossoms in DC, also via metro. That was kinda crazy since there was an elevator broken at the Smithsonian station and I had to lift the stroller over my head as we went up the escalator. Talk about upper body strength. We were there most of the day, along with thousands of other people. Lily only ran away from me twice, which wasn't so bad...uh hum. One time was almost in the river just so she could see some ducks. I honestly thought I was going to beat her from me being so angry, but luckily my dear friend was there to save the day and I watched her kid while she was on Lily duty for a bit. I'm still having issues with that girl obeying me when we are out in public. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but it's mostly when she's extremely tired or hungry. We'll work through this...deep breaths.

Speaking of which. We have started to teach Lily about expressing her feelings (strong feelings) with words rather than crying or screaming. We've been trying to do this for a while but she is now catching on to the idea. Now, when she gets a strong emotion she tells us and usually makes a grunting noise. "URRRRGGGGHHHH!!!" "Mommy, I'm mad at you." "Ok, Lily, why are you mad at me." "You are talking to me, and I'm mad." Daniel says I do the "URRRGGGHHH!" thing too when I get mad. ;)
It's working, and she is very communicative with it. Daniel is so patient with her. He will ask her what caused her to be mad and keep asking until she says, "Nothing else, Daddy." "Are you ok now?" "Yeah, I'm ok." Then we hug and sing "Kum ba yah." haha

Ok, this is too funny. For Easter, my mom sent Lily and Lena a huge box of treats. Lily still hasn't seen everything in that box; I'm saving it for next year. Any way, she sent her a bazillion boxes of Peeps, and one in paticular was a peep-on-a-stick. Lily was overjoyed and wanted to eat them (there were 5) then and there. I told her she could have one a day. I thought that was reasonable, but she kept asking. I said, "After you go to bed tonight and wake up, you can have another one." After more times of asking, Daniel said, "Lily, remember what Mommy said?" "After you go to bed and then wake up, you can have another."
Light bulb! "Ok, Daddy!" "Mommy, I want to go to bed, I'm tired." (It was 1:00pm--a typical nap time when she actually takes a nap.) She went right to bed...and went right to sleep. The first thing she said when she woke up, "I'm awake, now! It's Peep time!" Good one, Lily, good one. We gave her the Peep.

On to some Lena goodness:
Lena is growing up way too fast. She is sitting up by herself. She does fine, but sometimes she intentionally will fall backwards. Kinda funny/strange, since a couple of times she has done it, she has hit her head on our not so soft hardwood. I thought she would learn after once, but then it happened twice. Now, she is guarded with about 10 pillows or stuffed animals. She is a little social butterfly like her sister. She loves people and she will people watch when we go anywhere. I remember Lily being just like this, and nursing had to happen in complete silence and darkness. Well, even with that, Lena will latch off midstream and look around the dark room cause she sees her daddy stirring. That girl. Oh, she will always, I mean always get distracted when Daniel is in the room. It doesn't matter if he is walking sitting or what, she will stop nursing and just watch him.

She is also eating solids now. She loves sweet potato, and doesn't like banana, avocado, oatmeal, and pear. So basically, I'm feeding her sweet potato. She was really into eating the first couple of weeks, but then she threw up one day, and after that she wont eat a lot. She still nurses fine, but doesn't really want to eat as much. She is good on weight, so I'm not concerned. Lily didn't really get interested in food until she was about 9 months old.

Lena doesn't have any teeth yet, but she grabs everything and gums on everything. She really doesn't care what it is, she just wants it in her mouth. She also loves to play peek-a-boo.

I was just thinking about how much time we get to spend with Daniel. It really is a blessing in our life right now to spend time with him even though he is in Med School. Lillian loves to be with him and they both love to be out in the garden. She will be out there with him looking at flowers and talking about how the strawberry and blueberry bushes will grow. She will be digging in the dirt right along with her dad. I love watching them play.

I'm not really into the doing-some-activity-a day-along-with-a-letter yet. I tried for a while, but it got hard....ok, I got lazy is more like it. I decided I wanted to start with small steps. I like listening to NPR's Science Friday program, so I got my inspiration there. Now we have Science Fridays! It's really helpful since the latter part of the week is when my patience is starting to run thin. It's pretty cool, actually and I even look forward to Science Fridays. So far, we have made volcanoes, blew bubbles, talked about shape/color/size of objects, and used telescopes (toilet paper rolls) to study biology (the back yard). I kinda patterned it after FHE (family home evening): we have a lesson where I'll show her a video of the topic at hand; an activity where we actually go and do something; and a treat...ok, that's not really food, but we usually draw what we've done, or make it with playdough.

Life is pretty good, and I'm happy with how things are going lately. I feel like I got the two-kid thing down finally. Daniel is doing well in Med School and we even got to go on a little vacation to Virginia BEACH!! I haven't been to a warm beach in so long! It was so fun. The first time for the girls and Lily loved every moment of it. She especially loved playing in the sand and the surf. Oh, my water baby. She is my little Marine Biologist. :) Lena didn't like being out in the sun, but she is getting used to it. :)

"Oh, sorry mommy, sorry..."

Yep, those are the words I hear quite often from Lillian nowadays. She is super polite and very convincing when she wants things her way. Oh, that little politician. Normally it'll be when she wants a cookie for breakfast or cereal for dinner. I'll tell her, "No, hunny, we don't eat cookies all the time for breakfast." That's when she'll say, "Oh, sorry mommy, sorry." Sometimes I laugh cause it's just too cute. By that point I'll strike up some kind of compromise with her and I know she is secretly getting her way. It's even cuter when she does it and laughs like she is making a joke. Oh, how I love her. Her other favorite thing is to tell me that she only needs one or just five more minutes. Does she even understand that concept? I'll be exercising downstairs (yes, I do that now), and she'll come in and say, "Mommy, I need some chocolate clips." I'll say, "You mean, chocolate chips, and No, you don't need them." "Just one, Mommy, just one." Ummmm what? Where did she pick that up? "Lily it's time to go...." "Ok, Mommy, just five more minutes (holds up hand). Five more minutes, Ok." Yep, she'll do well in debate.

Lena has developed a new way of telling us she is awake. Here it is: It's 4am and I hear something banging. "Daniel, I hear this banging sound and I don't know what it is." "It's Lena, she's been doing it for twenty minutes." When she wakes up in her bassinet, she will lift her legs as high as they can go and then slam them down as equally hard on the mattress. I don't see how that doesn't hurt her little ankles but she evidently finds it amusing and will often giggle while doing it. Unless she's super hungry or not feeling well, that's how she let's us know she's awake. You can hear it on our main floor...no need for a monitor. I think of Jurassic Park...maybe I should put a glass of water by my bed. Oh, wait...I currently hear the banging. Geezh

Lena also finds her sister the most amusing thing in the world. She will often scan every room we go in till she sees her sister. And when she does, there is this huge smile on her face. Lily can really make her laugh. Lily has this way of climbing on our couches and making them into obstacle courses. She likes to bounce and will say, "One, two, three, go!" every time she does it. Lena loves it. I can put those two together in a room and Lena is quite content. As soon as she's alone though, that's a different story. Lena also likes the Johnny Jump/Up that we have modified into a swing. Just anchor it in the ceiling and presto, I jump-up/swing. She loves it. She has mastered sitting up yet, but she loves to rollover both ways. She is also very grabby and like to give open-mouthed kisses.

We just finished Spring break two weeks ago. Sad that it went by so fast, but it was also great to stick around the house and get some spring cleaning in and having fun. The weather was pretty nice so we played outside, tried to go to DC two times and failed, at yummy pork butt that Daniel smoked, it was all-in-all great. Next break is summer break...in July.



I still can't seem to get my pics from my phone to my computer. It is distressing, I know, not to see these little beauts. Sorry. Hopefully, I'll fix it soon.

Recent happenings

With this winter, we've had a lot of sickness going through the house. I've been confused as to whether it's the season, or the 2nd child syndrome (Lily being around a lot of other kids), or the house (I have had some severe allergies lately). Lena has been sick 4 times! This past time she even had a fever and vomiting. It was so disstressing to see her like that. Lily didn't get her first cold till she was 6 months, and she didn't get a fever until she was 10 months, so I am new to this whole tiny baby being sick business. I was a wreck as well as Lena. But she was was a great sport and was pretty happy through it all. When she finally got over it, it was like the sun was shinning all over the place. She was the happiest baby and has been so talkative ever since. She lights up a room with her beautiful smile and personality.

Lily is growing up so quickly. She wants to be with the older kids and do what they do. She has taken off with talking and "reassuring" everyone that her way is best. I love my strong-willed child. There have been days where it has been hard, but at the end of the day, she brings me so much joy. My life wouldn't be complete without my lovely Lily. She still gives the best hugs. :)

Med school continues to press forward and Daniel is working hard and learning a lot. He does so much to provide for us and he has been taking the time to stay home when needed. He is blessed to continue to perform well in school and for that we are all very grateful. We get to have Daddy home a little more and that makes everyone happy.

I am not the baking type, but since we got a blendtec for Christmas, I thought I would try out some recipes and attempt my hand at the art of baking. I have made yeast rolls, a yellow cake, cream cheese icing, tres leches, sugar cookies, soup, naan, and hummus. All in the Blendtec, it was delicious! Actually, I didn't make the tres leches in the Blendtec, but it was so yummy and very successful. I must say, I need a little work on not making my cakes spongey, but that didn't matter with the tres leches. The cookies were for Valentine's Day. Lily loved helping me make them and decorate them later. She gets so happy when she finds the stray sprinkle on the floor so she can put them on her cookies.The naan and hummus were for a playdate, and they were fantastic. I love this new hummus recipe. So YUMMY.

We have had snow days galore and plenty of fun. I also started hosting a bookclub and working out. I feel the burn...after 2 1/2 years!

My birthday was fantastic! Daniel surprised me with a dinner cruise on the Potomac River! We saw the Washington Monument and dance on the top deck. It was superb. I love being 29. :)

The next day, Lily and Lena decided to team up on us. We woke up to Lily having smeared and slathered poop all over herself, the floor, and wall...again! (fourth time). As we rushed to get her showered and scrubbed thoroughly, we got in the car to rush to church and Lena projectile vomited all over herself, the carseat, and seat. We had to laugh...it was ridiculous, and I had to stay home from church.

But, March has begun and we are cruising along. Daniel will have a spring break after finals next week. We have made it our goal to deep clean and tour D.C.

Pictures will come soon...I have a poopy diaper I must clean. 

2014 begins!

I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. People used to always tell me this would happen (life is so fleeting they'd say), well, now I believe it!

Lena will be 4 months soon and it's hard to believe that my cuddly little newborn is turning into a cuddly and squishy little infant with personality to boot. She is something else. Boy, do I love her. She and Lily are starting to play. Well, it's more like Lily is playing with Lena while she is laying down on the sheep skin on in her bouncer. Lily will say things like, "It's ok, Lena, I'm here," if Lena is crying. Or, Lily will get right up in her face and start to baby-talk with her and that makes Lena laugh. She will also attempt to give Lena a play bottle, which Lena will actually suck on. Then she gets upset and Lily will tell me that Lena wants Mommy's milk. :) These girls are going to be best friends. I'm so happy to be their mom!

Speaking of sisters, Lily and I went on our first Mommy-daughter date since Lena was born. I took Lily to the movie theater, for the first time, to see Frozen. It was a magical experience. I knew this would be an event to remember with her. She was so excited to go. I'm sure she had no idea what a theater would be but I was prepping her for the movie the night before, telling her that she and I would go see a movie with a reindeer and a snowman and lots of singing. She would ask, "Daddy come?" "No, Daddy is staying at home." "Lena come?" "Nope, Lena is staying at home with Daddy. It's just you and me, babe." She would get all  excited, and when the next day came, and when we got in the car she was saying, "It's just you and me, babe." Cute kid. We listened to "reindeer music" on the way (MOTAB-Handel's Messiah--I have no idea how she got "reindeer music" out of that). She was jumping up and down when we got there and she was actually pretty obedient. She stayed right beside me when I was ordering the food and getting the tickets (Lily was free, Yippie!) She was gazing through the glass at the selection of candies and sweets. We got to our seat (we were lucky to find decent seats since it was packed). She didn't weigh enough to keep the seat down, so I had to prop my leg on the seat. She insisted on keeping her jacket on, and so she had my purse on one side of her (for more weight) and the popcorn on the other side. She decided to go with the slouch position and keep one hand in the popcorn bucket at all times with the other on her drink. She and I went through half of the popcorn. It was a lot considering I ordered a medium and their sizes are ginormous.

She and I loved the movie, but I think both of us loved the experience we got to share. She was in her element. Who knows, maybe she will go into film one day.

Lily turned two and Christmas too!

I was going to try to make two separate posts about these two events, but Lily ran off with 6 of my laptop keyboard keys....it took me days to figure out that they were in the TRASH (I had already put that trash outside too)! Silly girl....I still haven't found the "n" key. :( Over five years of owning this computer and it gets messed with by my two year-old toddler. Which brings me to the reason for this post: Lily is 2! More like a 2 year-old body with a 15 year-old attitude. She is something else...but let's get to her big day:

It so happened that Lily's birthday (the 19th) was the day before Daniel's big final! We planned on celebrating her birthday on Friday after Daniel was done with school and free for two weeks! We were so excited to have Daddy all to ourselves. :) I still wanted to have a good special day on her birthday, so she woke up saying, "happy birthday," whenever someone would call and I fixed her cinnamon roll pancakes. Awesome, by the way, and easy to make. She then opened presents and we just had a great day hanging out.

 We had her favorite food, spaghetti, and she helped me make her chocolate cake with chocolate icing. She really loves licking the bowl (my uncle used to give me a coffee mug with cake batter in it and we would drink it together....those were the days). She got some awesome presents from Mimi and Grandpa Craig. I think she really enjoyed her day.

Then, Daniel's big final came the next day and he passed with an excellent grade! Our treat for Daniel and Lily was to eat at Chick-fil-A (ok, that one was for me), and a trip to see the zoo lights with some friends. It was really cool. It almost didn't happen though cause every parking lot we went to filled up only as soon as we got in. Finally, Daniel got fed up with it and created his own parking spot with our incredibly awesome Fit...oh yeah, it wouldn't have worked if we didn't have good ole' Eclectic. It was a fun and Lily really enjoyed meeting the Panda Claus.

Before we knew it, Christmas came around. We went to a dinner on Christmas eve at a friend's house. It was wonderful. My favorite part was gathering around the tree and reading Luke 2 and singing Christmas hymns. It was magical.

Christmas day came and Lily really got into it. She was so excited to open all the presents...ALL of them...still working on learning about possession. She was a sweet sister though and opened Lena's presents for her and even gave Lena some of her own to hold. We were blessed to get a Blendtec from our awesome sister and bro; this will help with our New Year diet. ;) We went to a wonderful dinner at another friend's house. It was so great. There were a lot of people, but boy did we love their family that came from New York. They are Latina and they sure can make the party lively. They were so fun to be around. The kids also put on a little skit while we read Luke 2. Lily was the lamb...she did not play her part well cause she kept trying to steal baby Jesus...Good memories. We had a very Merry Christmas.

I was really concerned about trying to implement Christ in Christmas this year and for Lily not to get too wrapped up (or us for that matter) in the materialism that Christmas brings with it. I believe what really helped me to focus on Christ this Christmas was the singing and reading of the nativity with friends, it brought so much warmth to my heart. Lily was even singing along. I want to do that with family and friends every year. I have also decided to make a fun, interactive nativity for Lily and Lena next year...I've got to learn how to crochet though...