Goodbye 2011!

Merry First Christmas to Lily! What a blessed year it has been. A year of good health for all of us and an amazing addition to our family.

Here I go again...

... letting months go by without blogging. New Year's Resolution... blog at least once a month. Once a week would be even better but I KNOW that won't happen.

Our little Lily Grace is 3 months old and she is such a blessing in our family. She is such an incredibly good baby. She has been a wonderful sleeper since she came home from the hospital, for which I am incredibly thankful. This was so foreign to me that I was quite sure there was something wrong with her when she would sleep 5 hours straight through the night the first few nights home. Thankfully, nothing was wrong, she is just a sleeper! She is also quite the eater! At 3 months old she weighs 13 lbs. She smiles at us ALL the time and loves watching her big sister more than anything. Elyse continues to be just a wonderful big sis. I couldn't say enough about how well she has done with having a new sister. 4 is definitely a good age to have a sibling!
She is just so sweet to her.

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Welcome Lily Adams!

Lillian Grace Adams (aka Lily) arrived safely on September 16! This was 3 days before my scheduled c-section. My water broke in the middle of the night, just like it did with Elyse. Thank goodness for my good friend Emmi, who lives down the street. She came over at 2 a.m. to stay with Elyse. My mom met her at our house and helped get Elyse up and down to Emmis house to sleep the rest of the night. So thankful for my dear friend Emmi! My favorite words... when Mom went to wake Elyse in the middle of the night she said, "Mommy and Daddy have gone to the hospital to get Lily out." Elyse said "Oh goodie, I'm getting a sister today!"

So off we went at 2 a.m. to St. Joe where they confirmed that my water had broken and then scheduled my c-section for 6:30 a.m. Dr. Campbell, my OB whom I just adore, was scheduled to go out of town the following day so I was extremely thankful that he was there that Friday morning to deliver.

Lily was born at 6:52 a.m., weighing 7 lbs and measuring 19 1/2 inches long. We are so thankful that everything went smooth and she was able to come to our room after getting cleaned up. :-) Mom picked up Elyse and brought her to meet her new "sissy," as Elyse likes to call her, around noon that day. I'm not sure if I've ever experienced a sweeter moment than when Elyse first met Lily and I know I won't ever forget it. She walked into the hospital room and came straight to me saying "Mommy!" I said, "turn around, there's your baby sister." She turned and with the sweetest look on her face said, "Oh it's my baby sister!" She immediately bent down and kissed her face and of course, wanted to hold her. I couldn't hold back my tears. I felt so thankful at that time that God had blessed us with these two little girls and blessed each of them with the gift of a sister. Growing up with Amanda, I know that having a sister is one of the best gifts God can give. I can't wait to see these girls grow up together!

Happy Birthday Elysia Hope!

Our baby girl turned 4 years old! Where does time go? She has grown from a pre-mature, colicky baby into the most fun-loving preschooler. I was trying to think of one word to describe Elyse at age 4 and I think it would have to be "imaginative." As I posted before, her imagination never stops. I want so bad not to squash this but to encourage it for years to come. I love that she can have fun playing with something as simple as a doll because the doll is "sick and needs to go to the doctor." Even without a doll, "pretend" is her favorite word.
One of my favorites is... "Mommy, you be the little girl at Disney World and tell your mommy you hope to meet a princess." In this case, I of course say "Mommy, I sure hope to meet a princess here at Disney World." And at that point, Elyse comes prancing gracefully around the corner dressed in one of her many costumes and proceeds to "meet" me in her best princess voice and impersonation. This one probably happens on a daily basis.

Another favorite is Elyse dressing up as Rapunzel, having Daddy pretend to be Flynn Rider, and me be the mean mother. (This is not my favorite, but I can't go against her fun imagination!) And so we enter her imaginative world and play out many scenes from Tangled!

This is definitely a fun age that I want to treasure! Of course there are times when the 4 year old talks back or pulls out the "I'm the boss" or "you guys woke me up too early and now I'm mad!" But I guess this comes with her increasing vocabulary and increased understanding of her world around her.

Now we have to wonder how much our world will change in a couple of weeks when Miss Lily makes her arrival. I'm 36 weeks and wishing I would pop any day! Elyse is excited (or at least she thinks she is) and talks to Lily everyday telling her things like "I won't let you ever get hurt" or "I'm your big sister and I will show you how to do everything."

Life is about to get even more interesting... :)

Back to school...

What a fantastic summer it has been... I'm just not sure where it has gone. 6 more weeks until our baby Lily gets here and my big girl Elyse is getting ready to turn 4 this weekend!! Really, 4 years old! Where has time gone?! It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant with her and started this blog so everyone could keep up with how her little heart was doing. And now 4!!!

Today was our first day back to school, although Elyse will not start preschool until after Labor Day. We are still trying to enjoy nights at the pool as well as weekend since swimming is her absolute most favorite thing in the world to do. She is quite the fish! And her imagination is just running wild these days! I will be honest, some days I think it would be nice for her to sit down and watch a cartoon so I could watch dishes. :) But instead, she is constantly putting on a Disney parade (costumes and all) or doing a "Disney on Ice" show, skating around the living room. She just has the biggest imagination and everything is always a "show,"... she sure makes life fun!

As for Lily, all is well with her heart to this point, praise God! Cannot wait to hold that sweet baby girl!!

Lillian Grace Adams...

... will be here before we know it! I am almost 30 weeks along and things couldn't be going any better. We thank God everyday for this "boring" pregnancy, which Dr. Campbell likes to call it. Lily is growing quickly, weighing in at over 3 lbs and her heart continues to look as normal as can be. My c-section has been scheduled for September 19, but I'm thinking, or feeling that I won't last that long. We will see. :) Here is a sweet little picture of Lily from my last appointment...


And here is the sweetest big sister ever... sound asleep pretending to be "mommy" with a baby in her tummy.

Summer vacation!

We have just returned from another wonderful summer vacation at Litchfield Beach, SC. It is such an awesome place to go... close to Myrtle Beach but quaint and quiet. The car rides were a little tougher than last year, as Elyse didn't want to have anything to do with watching tv. I thought bringing a case of DVDs would do the trick, but she wanted to "play" the whole way instead, making it a little more of a challenge.
On an exciting note, Elyse totally took off in her swimming while we were there! She swam by herself, not wanting any help and totally scaring me!!! She is such a big girl. :-)The excitement of learning to swim kinda took away from the beach experience as she wanted to spend most of her time at the pool. Her favorite thing to do was to "take a bedtime swim" and swim with the lights on in the pool at night.

She loved having Blake and Alex there to play with all day, every day and Nana and Pops were a big help, as always! She played her first game of miniature golf and got a hole in one on her first hole! Daddy was very proud. :)

It was a perfect vacation and I survived the heat and long car rides!

Back to blogging...

It has been 10 months since I have blogged! Life got so crazy that I finally "gave up" and decided I didn't have time to do it. Now that it is summer and I have more time, I am determined to start again and keep it up! I love the books I can make from blogs so that is a big motivation for me!

I couldn't possibly try to include everything that has gone on inthe last 10 months so I will just list highlights...
August 2010- Elyse turned 3!! Where has time gone?? Our little baby is SUCH a big girl now! She had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese!

We bought a new house and not only love it but the neighborhood too!

Elyse began preschool 2 mornings a week at Lexington avenue Baptist Church. She loved it because he got to go with cousin Blake and then stay with Nana those afternoons!

In October, we visited Disney World and the highlight this time was seeing all of the princesses. Elyse LOVES the Disney princesses more than anything!

In January Elyse began dance class. She loved it because she got to do it with her good friend Madeline. She is quite the dancer and enjoyed performing for us at home all the time!!

In February, we got exciting news... That we are expecting...

In April, we found out that Elyse will have a little sister in September! She was thrilled- wouldn't give a baby brother a thought do it's a good thing it's a girl! As Blake said "we already have a brother (referring to Alex) Elyse, so we need a sister." ... Too cute!

We have just finished school recently and we have begun a daily routine of going to the pool. It is so b
Nice to have Ryan home too so we can all spend time together. Elyse I so into swimming and is taking lessons from a lifeguard at out pool. She is putting her face down and kicking so well! Her favorite thing to do is jump off the diving board- which only happens when daddy can be there to catch her! I am 27 weeks pregnant now and we thank God everyday that his baby is healthy and free of heart complications. God has been so good...

That is the last 10 months in a nutshell and now I vow to do better at blogging. :-)

In