Merry Christmas (since we didn't send out cards..... here you go)

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Lily's Birthday Dress!

Natalie gave this to Lily last year when she was making Syndey's first birthday dress! We didn't brave her wearing it with her cake (especially since it would have just been for me and Josh) however - we did let her wear it to church today?! What a cutie :) Thanks Nat!!

Lily wants to eat some Daddy!

So this is something Lily has started doing lately. It comes without warning - whenever you're eating something and she can see you eating or smell it (ie GUM is a big one...) and she decides she wants some! It's usually quite the surprise but we tried to catch it on video (sorry I did it sideways...) So this one took a little prompting because the camera caught her eye. ANYWAY - we are usually laughing so hard as we try and dodge her. It's pretty gross - but hilarious ALL the same.
Our little bird...

Birthday videos

Happy Birthday Lily!!!!

A few of our favorites... from 12/15/2008 almost exactly from her birth time! It was -10 on the day she was born and it's only 2 degrees today... so we consider that close enough!! Lily had a "normal" day going to daycare as mom and dad worked - but she came home to balloons, gifts (which most of you supplied) and cake! Enjoy!!









Her first birthday celebration with Grandma and Poppy Elston over Thanksgiving vacation (thanks for coming!!!! and cooking!!!)


And a mother/son Thanksgiving dance for good measure :)

Lily is coming up on the 1 year mark!!

(thanks to the Blackwell's for this outfit!)


That's right - she's 11 months and counting :) What do we have planned? Nothing... lol - seriously, what are you suppose to do for a 1 year old without family close by? We'll bake her a cake for sure and celebrate - but we have nothing planned. We'll wait and expect Grandmas and Grandpas to throw her lavish birthday parties with petting zoos, private ponies and blow-up jump-around bouncey things!





Lily was dedicated at church this day! She was adorable. We really enjoy our church here (despite the long efforts to find it) and have fit into a wonderful Bible study and group that we love!!! We chose and really believe in infant dedication -- that we as parents are dedicated to bringing her up in a Christian home (read deep into that and all that this entails) and admit that we cannot do it alone. We need and ask for our church family (friends and family too... but we're just too far away to have people here for this) to take part in this adventure and HUGE responsibility as well! Lily was pretty good up on stage but it was bottle time... She waved to the crowd a few times and rammed her finger up her nose. It's like she just realized "Hey - this fits here" so the repeatedly puts her finger up her nose and then pulls it out... what can you do?

The Boy Scouts say...

The most dangerous knife is a dull one. I bed to differ - I much prefer my dull knives pre-marriage to the fancy ones we have now! LOL - I need to rephrase that - the dull KNIFE I had prior to marriage. When I met Josh I learned you were supposed to sharpen knives! Know I know - with sharp knives.. you can't cut an object while it's in your hand!! Lesson learned.
Thursday night - I was simply slicing an English muffin with our big ole bread knife. Well - I opened up more than the bread! I saw the cut - knew it was deep and knew it needed stitches... but both Josh and I dreaded that with Lily at 8pm at night and an ER that was already backed up (we called...) So I went against all nursing knowledge and stayed home! I did inspect the wound (on the floor mind you - it made me woozy of all things?) and I saw no tendon or muscle damage - no bone -- just lots of fatty tissue and a gaping wound!
I went in Friday - and they were stuck with what to do... the proper way to treat a cut is having is stitched within 12 hours and I was there like 14 hours later. So they finally decided to stitch it loosely with just a few stitches... leaving it open so that if there was an infection - it would ooze out instead of go deeper. Fine. Lucky me - I got to be the guinea pig if you will for a learning airman on stitches too! I figured - after I was numb... might as well let someone learn! My cut was just over an inch long and about 1cm deep. Good one. They had to cut off some of the fatty, jagged edges so it would stitch well. Then he tried... removed the stitches and tried again. LOL (but not really laughing) I was a good patient though. They finally stopped with just 3 loose stitches intead of the 6 the dr asked for. HA - it looked fine to me.
So now my task has been taking care of Lily and such while keeping it dry and watching for infection. No signs of infection at this point! I cleaned it up as best as I could for a picture for you guys! It looks marvelous now compared to before - I'll spare you the lovely gaping hole with lots of tissue hanging out :)

The deepest parts were in the fatpad - which is good~ kept me from cutting anything important!

Happy Birthday Analiese!!!

Lily wants to wish you a VERY happy 2nd birthday!! Uncle J-Osh and aunt Kristi do as well!!!

Happy Halloweeeeeeen!

So we're bad parents... we didn't have Lily a costume. Nope - not at all. We did have her a little Halloween shirt (in the pumpkin pictures...) and we figured that was enough. WRONG -- we were told by many a people that we were just flat out wrong to assume such a thing! Soooo - to the rescue came Grandma Pernell and one of Josh's workmates! Lily ended up being Miss Halloween instead! She wore her shirt all day (complete with a wash and dry during naptime due to messy lunch...) She paraded around Mommy's work as the Itsy Bitsy Spider thanks to Grandma (she especially loved chewing on the legs!) We went to a little Halloween party with some other parents and kids -- she came in as a reindeer, enjoyed playing on the floor in her Halloween clothes (Dad dressed up as a graduate and mom was a nurse), changed part-way through to be the Itsy Bitsy Spider,
and ended up in her Halloween pjs before we left! Now THAT is the spirit, right? So don't worry folks - we won't mess up next year!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Lily and I had a nice time in Florida and NC! It sure was a hassle to travel though... Lily managed to get sick before we left - remained sick the entire trip (including her first ear infection) and is STILL fighting off this cold (as are mom and dad) NO fun!
We got to meet up with several other Christian Mommies that I "meet" on babycenter.com! They link you up by your due date -- so we all formed our little group and chatted throughout pregnancy! Imagine getting together 10, 10 month olds at once. LOL Due to naps, different schedules and some of us on borrowed time zones... I'm not sure we ever got them all together?! We did have a wonderful time with them all.

Lily still wasn't a big fan of the beach - but she totally enjoyed the pool!


After our fun in the sun - we hit up gooood ole NC for some TLC (and help!) Lily was kinda cranky... but she still showed off for Grandma and Grandpa - learning how to crawl and pull up on things (and mastered her whine to get what she wants!)
She got to hang out with Melissa and her mom (thanks so much for coming!!!) Enjoy her first piece of celery AND she met her first bald(ing?) head (Uncle Poopsie was sick and unable to provide this service)
She gave out lovely open mouth kisses and rubbed noses

and she found herself in the Great Pumpkin Patch (Charlie Brown)

She had lots of fun with Grandma and Papa -- and she was on a nap strike for much of the time as well! Guess that's what grandparents are for huh? Spoiling you and therefore RUINING you for when you go back home to mom and dad. THANKS... sortta. She also got to see MiMi. We were unable to go meet new baby cousin Sawyer due to Lily's fever and cold :( And Uncle Richard and Aunt Reber I MEAN Reba were kind, as always, to make the effort and come visit us! I believe Grandma has pictures of those that I don't!! (Scott and Nina were going to meet up with us until Uncle Poopsie got a barf-bug... we appreciate them NOT sharing that with us before our long plane ride home!)
We safely (after a looooooooooooooong day) returned home to Daddy and a very cold Anchorage with snow on the ground! It's a lovely 20 degrees today and nippy to say the least! Just a few days ago...
and TODAY

Wow this is harder to keep up with than it use to be...

Richard and Reba - I got the book! That was SO sweet... you will get a formal thank you card - but I just remembered and I wanted to write it down now! It came when mom was here :) Those are some of the only pictures of Lily we have printed!!

Let's see.. a quick update - Lily's getting all sorts of teeth. She's got her 2 on the bottom, her two fangs on the top and the top middle two are coming in. She's also getting ready to cut two more on the bottom. She's not "crawling" Let's just say she takes her time and does things when SHE's ready. She's already stubborn :) She is really close - she gets up on all fours, she rocks back and forth and she army crawls! She says Mama and Daddy or DaDa now. She's constantly gurgling her spit or milk or anything in the back of her throat and giggling. She naps with her blankets - anything soft and cuddly... and as SOON as she touches it - no matter where she is, she puts her thumb in her mouth :) She loves to eat - especially anything she can feed herself. She usually her left hand mostly... And we just went to the Dr yesterday. She's got pink eye :*( That's what we get for going to church daycare!

I started work and it's been nothing short of Alaska-tastic as we now refer to it. We've had a bazillion things go wrong and come up with childcare and such. We really do things here by going 1 step forward and 7 back. We're still on the hunt for the perfect childcare... or I'll just quit? I'm only working 2 days a week - but the income is a nice bonus that allows us some more "fun" shall we say... and it's kinda nice to get out (even though it breaks my heart...)

Josh is still waiting to hear on his residency. WE're trying not to be hopeful because it's really not at all probable that he would get it this year -- he's applying a year early... and you know how quick the military moves - can you imagine them doing something early? But... all things considered, we still really hope we get it. We're tired of Alaska to say the least. It's just too far away - that's all!

Enjoy the pictures - including some from Josh's pie in the fact that he was awarded at work! Lily is currently crawling (imagine low crawling... army style) all over the place as I type! LOL