March 2014

The first month of Spring! We had a few warm days where we got to go on walks to the park. Lily loves the swings and slides and is able to play a lot more independently there which is great for me. I can sit on the bench and watch her play for the most part. She is a daredevil and will climb up and slide down anything now! Its crazy how big and brave she is getting!She is turning into a kid! Where did my baby girl go?

We had my 20 week ultrasound this month. We already knew the gender (GIRL!) but were excited to see her again. She is a feisty, squirmy little thing. I feel her moving inside me all the time! This girl might have even more energy than Lily does! It was hard to get a good profile picture of her. She looked perfectly healthy and was measuring right on date for everything except for her legs. They are super long. We have a super model/barbie baby on our hands! Lily's legs are kind of long too. I'm not sure where they get that from, but its cute! The doctor did see something that concerned him. The placenta was low lying in my uterus, or I have what is called placenta praevia. It can be dangerous later on. I could bleed to death or need a hysterectemy! But he said as my uterus gets bigger it will hopefully push away from my cervix and not be so close or dangerous. They are doing another ultrasound the first week of May to see if things are looking better! So fingers and legs crossed!

Lily loves her baby sister. She loves to kiss my tummy. We have been reading books from the library about having a baby sister and being a big sister so I hope she will be prepared. She loves her baby dolls and when I take her to Zumba with me at the church her favorite thing to do is sit by the 3 babies in carseats and rock them and give them their binkies and just stare at them. Hopefully she won't be too jealous when baby sister comes! I'm not allowed to hold anything besides her right now or we all get in trouble.

Lily likes to sit on the potty a lot. She actually peed in it a couple times too! She likes to have her privacy when she pees. She grabs the shower curtain and wraps it around her right before she goes. The rest of the time she just sits there and pretends. One time she started dancing back and forth on the potty singing, "Sittin' on the potty! Sittin' on the potty!" and the little potty seat flipped up and she knocked the side of her head on the tub :( She had a bad bruise on her ear for a couple weeks. Luckily it didn't deter her from sitting on the potty. Now she just knows to be more careful and not dance on it. I still haven't found the motivation to actually potty train her, but at least she is getting comfortable with it.

Church Time:

Michael went up to Midway for his 4th Associates meeting for school. My parents kept Lily overnight and I got to join him up there Thursday night. We ate dinner at the Homestead but spent the night across the street at the Zermatt. It was fun! The other educators in the group are really nice and funny. We get to go to Park City for "free.99" one more time in May! It's nice to have a mini get-away.

My brother Ryan and his wife Jayme and their 5 boys came up for a visit from Arizona. "Uncle Ryan" put in a new faucet in our sink! Now Lily likes to go over to the cupboard under the sink and open it and peek in and go, "Uncle Ryan?" She liked watching him work. We had a lot of fun while they were here. A few epic games of Hand and Foot were played and lots of hanging out.

My sister-in-law Nicole took this at my parent's house

Michael taught Lily a new thing where he will say, "Guess What?" and she will answer, "Love You" and then he adds, "So much!" It's darling!

We all got sick this month wtih a nasty cold. First Michael, then me, then Lily had ooze coming out of her ears. I guess its not uncommon for kids to get ear infections after they have tubes in. You just have to put drops in. When I was finally feeling better we went to Walmart and bought mother-daughter matching shoes to celebrate getting out of the house! :)

For St. Patrick's Day Michael's mom bought her a really cute shirt and some leg warmers. She also still had her 2 shirts from last year that she still fit into, so she was a cute little Irish girl a lot of March :)

Lily also had a playdate with her friend Makadie this month. Her mom, my friend Shani had a baby soon after! They are all doing great!

At the Holy Cow Boutique I bought Lily a cute little apron. We put on our pink aprons and cook together. She is a cute little helper.

March 29th we got to go up to our nephew Jackson's baptism. I made oreo balls since they are white on the outside in honor of his cleanliness :). It was fun to see Mike and Nicole's new house up in Clinton. We are sad they moved farther away, but happy that they got the job opportunity and the chance to move into a nicer and larger home. We still get to see them often, so that is good :)

February 2014

The month of love! February is a fun month for us. Its Lilys, Michael's and my birthday plus Valentine's Day. So it can get pricey, but it helps the last winter month go by fast :)

Lily made Valentine's this year for her grandparents and aunts and uncles. I would trace her hand and cut it out and fold the fingers down to make the "I Love You" sign and she would put stickers on it and color it. Plus they got a cute picture of her my sister-in-law Nicole took at her 2 year session. We gave Lily an Elmo Valentine's book and she got a whole bunch of stuff from Grandma Malouf. Every holiday is celebrated in style when Renee is around :) We stayed home on Valentine's day and blew some bubbles and hung out together. I made a fabulous dinner of scrambled eggs and french toast sticks ha ha. I spoiled Michael on Valentine's day by giving him a PS4. He sold his PS3 months ago plus his PS4 before using it, getting a couple hundred extra dollars so really he had already paid for it :). Lily thinks it is scary for some reason. I also gave him a tie that has pictures of Lily and him all over it. He has yet to wear it :( (Guilt Trip) :) and a canvas picture from Costco of our family (okay that was really a gift to myself ha ha). Michael gave me some gorgeous flowers and chocolates and a sweet card. The next night we really celebrated Valentine's Day by going to La Jolla Grove in Provo. It was super yummy!

Lily and I visited Michael at school the day before Valentine's Day since it Michael had Parent-Teacher-Conferences and wouldn't see her all day. She wore her cute Valentine shirt that said "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". Aren't they adorable together?

"Noses"

The next exciting event was MY birthday! I am weird and like having birthdays! I love getting presents and being spoiled and hanging out with people I love! I don't care that I'm older. I don't feel old! Besides, Michael will ALWAYS be older than me. Especially since we are dying at the same time Notebook style. This time Michael spoiled me! He got me a new Smart Phone. This is big news. I've never had one! I still haven't used it because I'm scared of it. We put a screen protector on it yesterday and so once the 24 hours are up and we can put the case on maybe I will feel confident to use it. Now I just have to make sure I don't lose it. I have a serious problem with that and pregnancy brain doesn't help me at all. He also got me a brand spankin' new crock pot and signed me up for Birchbox where I get cool samples of girly things in the mail each month. Then to top it off we went to dinner at my favorite place. What a great night!

Another great thing that happened on my birthday was we found out the gender of our baby! I almost got into a car accident where I had to slam on my brakes really hard and the seatbelt kind of dug into my belly. So my doctor's office said to come on in for and ultrasound just in case. Michael was at school and had an important meeting so couldn't go with me. My mom and dad were finally back from Arizona so I was grateful to have my mom come to help me wrangle Lily and be my moral support. Luckily everything looked fine, the baby wasn't hurt and we also found out its a girl! Michael and my friend Amber were the only people who guessed girl. Everyone else thought it would be a boy! We are excited for Lily to have a baby sister. Sisters make the best friends :) We told Renee that day too. She and Craig got these cute suckers at See's Candies that said "Its a girl!" When we all got together the following Sunday I had my niece Kate go around and take a poll of who thought the baby would be a boy or a girl. Nobody knew we had found out yet. Almost everyone thought boy. When everyone had made their guess Lily and I went out to the car and got some balloons that said "Its a Girl!". We came in and showed everyone and Renee passed out the suckers! Everyone was surprised and excited!

The next day I got pedicures with my sisters, mom and my neice and we ate lunch together. That is always fun! I share a birthday with my older sister, Judy. We are exactly 19 years apart! I told my sisters the day after I found out about us having a girl since we were all getting together and I can't keep a secret for long :)

Then it was Michael's birthday. Michael does NOT like his birthdays. He doesn't like the attention or to be reminded he is older. Even though he still could pass for a teenager he is bugged by his age! I made him a Rice Krispies Treat cake and put candles that said 31 in them and Lily and I sang to him anyway! I used frosted Rice Krispies and let me tell you, they make them super yummy! For Michael's birthday we went out to Benihanas. They give you $30 to spend during your birthday month so our meal was like $10 even though we got filet and shrimp and all the goodies. It was delicious! I didn't give Michael anything too exciting. A preorder for a PS4 game and 2 BYU shirts. Wahoo!

Malouf family February Birthdays: Reynie, Me, Michael, and Lily

Lily and I also went to the Zoo! It was free! We went with my long time friend Shani and her adorable daughter Makadie, my sister-in-law Nicole and her 2 youngest kids: Elsie and Nicholas, and my niece Holly and her son was there too but it was so busy we didn't see them much. The weather was GORGEOUS! Here I am in February with a t-shirt and flip-flops on and putting sunscreen on Lily in Utah! The animals were all really active too. I do like it better with less people, but it was still fun.

Baby Elephant Zuri nursing!

Lily and Makadie checking out the leapord

Lily is finally in a forward facing carseat! She loves it! Thanks Amber for putting it in for me! She is always saying "Wee" especially when we go down hill or take a sharper curve. She loves pointing out all the things she can see and counting things outside the window. She counted perfectly up to 15 yesterday!

Lily is getting interested in the potty. She likes to sit on it and pretend to go. Even when all her clothes are on.

Lily hung out with her cousin Bentz a couple times this month too. They are so cute together:

Some other cute pictures:

Cupcakes!

"Surprise!"

Our little princess had croup this month :(

Lily likes to "sleep" on the stairs while she watches cartoons.

More about Lily: She is getting way too big! The last couple of weeks she has been getting some teeth. She keeps saying, "I Sick" and touching her mouth. Poor girl. She is always making us laugh and smile. She doesn't just walk, she bounces everywhere. She is excited for her baby sister. She will randomly kiss my belly and say "baby sister". When we say prayers she will say "Thank you for Baby Sister". She loves praying. As soon as we get done she says, "Again!" Her and Michael have a million little games they play together, especially at bedtime. Her favorites are "Where did Dog go?" when Michael steals the dog and comes back in with the dog on his head and Daddy putting a blanket over his head is her other fav. She is always saying, "C'mon mom" and dragging me around the house and wanting me to sit in certain spots.  She loves to color, take care of her baby dolls, and still takes her ugly dog everywhere. Dog is featured in pretty much every picture we have of her. I took her to the dentist with me last week since they said it would help her get used to it. She did not like them looking in my mouth. She laid on my stomach and was getting so worried for me. She let the dentist take a quick peek at her mouth and all looked good so far. She is very athletic. She kicks balls like a mini-soccer pro, is super flexible and strong, and jumps and climbs on anything. Its nice because I can take her to the park and I can sit on the bench while she climbs up the stairs and goes down the slide about a zillion times in a row. She is getting very independent which is good with baby sister coming in a few months. She has been calling Michael's parents "Grandma and Bapa Bruce" for awhile because they have a kitty named Bruce. My parents' yard has been taken over by some bunnies. So now they are officially, "Mama and Grandpa Bunny".  We love our Lily Pad!