The Hals Family World Adventures: Lily @ ONE YEAR!!!!!

Lily @ 1 year

Enjoying a family snow day!

She loves helping mommy take the puppies for a walk in our woods!

Enjoying time with Papa

She loves loves loves grapes

Not a fan of socks. Ever.

Can you tell she opens her mouth excitedly....all the time?

our girls!

I say it over and over...but Lily really is just the sweetest baby. She is snuggly and loves to give you a hug and put her head on your shoulder, she loves to burrow her face into her blankets and stuffed animals, she loves to hug and kiss toy baby dolls and rocks the one Hannah received for her birthday that cries. Lily Kate has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to wrinkle her nose and flash her amazing dimple as she cackles. She’s insanely observant. She loves to be chased around the house while one of her parents helps her run away. She loves to try to climb up the slides on her playground and goes down the slides, feet first, belly down. She is super fast on the stairs and can climb the full flight of basement stairs in less than a minute - so if you turn your attention she is gone! She can also safely turn herself around and start going down stairs as well, although that makes her mommy far more nervous. When we read one of my all time favorite children’s books Dear Zoo, she tries to make an elephant noise and camel noise already.

Lily has a steady eye on whatever goodies Hannah has and is an amazing opportunist.

Hannah put her water cup down and Lily plunged in for the spoils

Very pleased with herself...

And aww man, Lily is a wonderfully chill baby. Not a push over - she is already starting to stand her ground with Hannah. But, she’s more laid back, more chill, and more naturally content and it’s awesome.

Lily is a better sleeper than Hannah ever was and has made this year easier than it could have been - but she still isn't a great sleeper. She is capable of sleeping through the night and has been for a while, but it goes in cycles and she will sleep well for several days or maybe even a week or two, but then we hit teething patches, growth spurts, gross motor changes, have a cold, etc that will mess things up. Lily's greatest strength in the sleep department is that unlike Hannah, we never really had a phase in which it was insanely difficult to get her to fall asleep and be able to put her in her crib (Hannah used to go ballistic when I would try to put her down), and Lily just outright doesn't sleep well in our bed - she tosses and turns and cries until I bring her back to her crib and she has her own space. At school, they say she is a "self-sleeper" and actually puts herself down for most naps (they pat her back and say good night, and she just goes to sleep). At home, it's more involved than that because I nurse her to sleep, but compared to Hannah, she is very, very easy in this category. When Lily wakes in the night it is for a specific reason. I may have to figure out what the reason is, but, once I have, she will go back to sleep. We've been very lucky this time around, but are still looking forward to her sleeping through the night more consistently. She may go back to sleep after I nurse her...but getting up at 3 am is still getting up at 3 am. And the lack of quality sleep has definitely worn her parents down - I am such deep levels of tired, it will take months of decent sleep to bring me back to that land of the living.

Her favorite mommy interactions have included “motor boat motor boat go so slow, medium, fast, etc,” singing the itsy bitsy spider, and high fiving.

She was really excited!

I think she likes it!

Opening presents

Cruising around on her first birthday

Lily has eight teeth, four on top and four on bottom.

Lily is not a picky eater, has a good, solid appetite, but does certainly seems to have some favorites (like coconut curry and rice, anything cheese, chobani yogurt tubes, grapes grapes grapes and strawberries, pizza (she destroys it), etc).

Birthday ice cream - vanilla custard at Rita's was a bit hit!

Hannah loves Lily fiercely and exuberantly. Watching these two interact, the pure joy they bring to each other, and the intense care and concern Hannah has for her sister is just beautiful. No one can make Lily laugh the way Hannah can.

these two!

Lily,

You have been such a magical blessing to our family. There were ways in which transitioning to becoming parents had driven a wedge between your dad and me, but as we have grown into being a family of four, you joining our family has pulled us all back together, closer than ever. Your sweetness, snuggles, and beautiful sense of humor bring sunshine to our home every day. We can’t imagine our family without you. Your twinkling blue eyes - whether full of laughter, mischievousness, or love and exuberance, take our breath away.

Thank you for completing our family and bringing us such joy this year! We are already so proud of you and have loved getting to know you and learn who you are.

So much love and laughter and snuggles,

-Mom

And Daniel - my hubs of ten years, my teammate, my best friend, the Daddy to our sweet girls and puppies…

Thank you for continually knowing who I am and who we are even when I am too tired to fully remember. Holy cow, I am so proud of us! Fifteen months ago, we were putting an offer in on a house and trying to figure out if we could handle moving, unpacking, and then raising two babies while both working full time and continuing to grow in our professions, while I commute daily, but we have persisted, one day at a time. Thank you for being such an incredibly rock and teammate. Our children are officially 3 and 1 and we are very happy graduates of the “two kids two and under” club. Team Hals did it!

These pups have been wonderfully sweet and patient!

A more realistic look at life... still nursing, all piled on the couch

Lily was excited - her first birthday party!

She enjoyed this musical card almost more than her presents!

Lily somehow managed to get to celebrate her birthday three different times! We had a birthday party for her the weekend before her birthday - which for me was a really special experience. We were so overwhelmed around the time of Hannah's first birthday, I couldn't even imagine trying to pull a party off...but always regretted it. (However, to my credit, I should mention, we took an international trip to Argentina and Brazil for 10 days only eleven days after her first birthday...). I'm going to say we prioritized our energy.

One of the things that was so special to me about Lily's first birthday party was more the affirmation of how far I have journeyed and grown as a mom and how much I have adjusted to all of the changes in my life over the past 3-4 years. First of all, while we don't have a mega-group that we hang out with every weekend, like we did with the Florida Family, we do have quite a few friends that we see consistently enough to be able to pick up where we left off now. We aren't just always starting over with "getting to know" people anymore - and the party was a beautiful reminder of that. Second of all, I have learned enough about children, families, and kids activities to be be able to actually plan birthday activities that would keep kids engaged and go smoothly - something that I really would have found overwhelming and out of my depth four years ago. Third, I have majorly metered my expectations and understanding of how to host an event. ...I used to be able to swing by the store on the way home from work and whip up dinner for 15-20 people from my kitchen and hang out until 1 am in my living room, get up the next day and finish cleaning up, etc. The day of a big party, I could shop and prep everything in one Saturday. ...Now...that just isn't going to happen. To be able to actually enjoy an event we host, I have to do everything ahead....like way, way ahead. Like...I have a shopping list a full week in advance and then work on pulling the pieces together each night the whole week before the party. There's no other way to manage it with two small children who need so much of my time and attention. But...the fact that we are finally at a point where we have lived somewhere long enough to have a friend base again, that I have steadily found my mom confidence, and that I have figured out the new balance required to host (something I used to love) and can manage to pull things off without feeling way too stressed, it was just so exciting! During Lily's party I got to hang out with our friends, enjoy my children, and it was a very special moment for me.

On Lily's actual birthday, we went for ice cream after school and opened a few gifts that night. The following weekend with some of our friends we had one last birthday cake for her and enjoyed a few more gifts that they had brought. And, we toasted to surviving our first year!