The Hals Family World Adventures

Our sweet Lily Kate spent the month growing from a 3 month old to a 4 month old as she steadily worked on rolling over and mastered this key skill. Through the month she has started to grab toys more and is more observant and aware of the world around her. She slept well from 2-3 mos, but the exact day she hit three months we dove into an enthusiastic growth spurt and she hasn't slept well since as she was trying to roll over in her sleep or after she had learned to roll over, she would turn over in her sleep and then wake up screaming because she didn't know how to roll back. *sigh* To Lily's credit, she learned to roll from back to front first - which is a far more difficult skill than front to back (babies usually throw the weight of their head around). She very quickly adapted a trick of pulling her knee towards her chest and then twisting her body and boom, tummy time. She loves tummy time more and more now that she can actively choose it and I think she really likes seeing the world from the "right side up" view she gets when she is on her belly looking out.

Lily is a little chatterbox who loves to softly coo and babble. She throws in shrieks for good measure on occasion, but they are usually happy or excited shrieks. And she frequently opens her mouth as if she is talking. She smiles when she sees Hannah and gets very excited when we pick Hannah up from her classroom down the hall at daycare.

Lily also loves it when I hold her up and sing her songs, while helping her dance. She has the biggest, goofy, open mouth grins. So much so that I strained a tendon in my thumb doing so and had to completely rework how I was holding her and get a brace for a week! It has thankfully resolved on it's own, but is the issue affectionately referred to as "mommy thumb" - I was a textbook case of it and have majorly adjusted how I hold and pick up both girls!

She has an obsession with ruffles and stuffing them in her mouth.

The puppies are falling hard for Lily - they continually try to snuggle up to her and are her "watch dogs"

Lily has more and more of a sense of humor - and the number one person who can make her laugh more frequently and harder than any of us is Hannah!

Hannah is still our force of nature child - it is so much more apparent now that we have a more laid back child as well. Hannah is still so quick and ready to laugh and her sense of humor is becoming more sophisticated. She has an infatuation with popsicles this month and with telling you things are "yummy tummy!" We have all failed in love with the Outshine Fruit & Veggie popsicles that are really delicious and manage to contain pumpkin juice, cauliflower juice, sweet potato juice, etc.

Each morning when her dad wakes her up, he says "wakey, wake!" and she now repeats that frequently too. Hannah has been very interested in small puzzles lately, provided she has lots of help from me. I continually try to verbally explain my logic of why a piece would or wouldn't fit together/where to put it but really wasn't sure if it was making an impact at all, until one day Hannah was like "grass, so this goes on the bottom, and this one has legs," etc. Her speech is steadily getting clearer and she is stringing more words together than before. She has frequently been asking "What's that? Who's that? or What are you doing?" At bedtime she intently studies my facial features and will continually practice the names of smaller things, like eyelashes, temple, eyebrow, etc. She still can't pronounce "R's" and it melts my heart when she says "mommy! Lily "kai-ying" (crying)"

This month also included some fun events as well! My parents came to visit for a weekend and we spent the weekend hanging out, catching up, and enjoying the pool at their hotel. We also threw a Sip 'n See to introduce Lily to our friends, really enjoyed the county 4H fair, and managed to squeeze in another relaxing day down at the river.

One of my favorite former students meeting our sweet Lily at her Sip and See!

Proud Mom of these two sweet girls!

Lily loves other babies!

The sign our friends helped us hang for the party!

Work has been busy for both of us - I'm in "crunch time" interim between summer school and the beginning of the new school year "launch." Daniel's programs are steadily progressing. And the whole family is preparing to head down for Emily's wedding in just another week!

Our sweet family of four @ 4 months! :)

Our Liberty Belle @ 3 months!

As Lily turns three months she is talking more and more. She tends to coo at me in a voice that is her very gentle and sweet "ahhh" sound that she makes just after she sneezes. She always seems so excited and animated as she tries to talk with me - her eyes widen and her arms flap with excitement. She has let out a desperate/excited squeal twice when I was changing Hannah's diaper nearby - attempting to gain both of our attentions and she has been delighted both times when it worked! Lily would squeal, Hannah and I would look at each other with raised eyebrows and then look to Lily and start giggling.

blue steel baby

When Hannah takes a bath in her tub, I've perched Lily on the edge and she has happily kicked her feet and watched Hannah with rapt attention. Hannah hams it up a bit when she knows Lily is watching and offers plenty of smiles for her little sister too.

Running errands with me to help me make sure I'm ready to go back to work while Lily snoozes

This month Lily showed us that she likes to sleep! And slept through the night many a time! It was ahhhhhhhh-mazing! Hannah didn't consistently sleep through the night until she was 13 months old. We had some good nights when she was 8-9 months old, but that was it. It just never ever happened otherwise. So imagine my delight when Lily started sleeping! With Hannah, people at work who also had little tiny ones would talk about their kids sleeping...and I thought they were just teasing me...or exaggerating...or that the universe was punking me. Now I realize it actually IS possible! A growth spurt and regression headed our way as soon as Lily hit three months - but I am hoping that if she was able to pull off sleeping at 2 months it will happen again around here before she's a year old! We'll see!

She also will actually fuss when she wants you to put her down so she can sleep. (What!?! Hannah ONLY slept while I was moving!) Daycare has also noted "fell asleep by self" several times the first week. I was concerned, wondering if they weren't giving her enough attention until the weekend when Hannah, Lily and I were in Hannah's room... I was folding laundry, Hannah was playing with toys, and Lily was happily watching us and kicking on a blanket - until all of a sudden she started dozing off without warning. Wow kiddo! I guess she does "fall asleep by self".

July 7th, 2016 Daniel finally conceded and said "Lily really does have fiery red hair" - I made note of it. So when you hear him calling her blondie in denial...know he has officially admitted that she is a red head.

Hannah antics at bedtime

Hannah helping cook dinner for the week

Hannah's been awesome this month too and is just such a sweet and delightful age. She's incredibly helpful and one of her preschool teachers continually tells me that Hannah is her special little helper. This month we took her to see her first movie. Given that her first real favorite movie was Finding Nemo, it seemed only fitting that we see Finding Dory. My students actually expressed jealousy in the fact that she "never knew" the painful wait time between the two movies. Haha. She loved it and watched at least the first half with her mouth slightly open in awe and a smile across her face. Lily was awesome throughout (she had a blowout and was hungry, but I was able to handle each without causing a scene and was super grateful I hadn't tried to take Hannah and Lily to the movies by myself).

Riding Rody performing Let it Go. It was amazing.

"Penguin Egg" (her matryoshka toy) is hugging the penguin in one of her books. Awww.

It's been a month of obsessions and repetition for Hannah. Top favorites this month include the matryoshka penguin we got her after she was so in love with the wooden egg at her Great Grandmother's house. Hannah calls it "pay-gan egg" and the littlest penguin is called "TINY!" Other movie obsessions have been Frozen and the Little Mermaid.

First trip to the dentist! Hannah totally rocked it and the dentist said not only were her teeth healthy, but he was super impressed and said she was better behaved than most five year olds! Gooooo Hannah! :)

The girls have been adorable together and Hannah still adores Lily!

Sister snuggles. Omg.

This month I received a morning text from Daniel that read:

"Hannah gave Lily a kiss and I said it makes Lily happy...Hannah said "makes HANNAH happy!""

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Daniel!

Towards the beginning of this month I plunged back into work. I returned two weeks earlier than the standard 12 weeks so that I could take a position teaching summer school, which is a five week session, 3.5 hour classes, Monday - Thursday. My first day back I had to support teachers who wanted to use our learning management system for summer school, prep for my class, teach a 3.5 hour course, and figure out how to fit in a quick lunch and three pumping sessions. It was a crazy first day back, a super busy week, and a harried five week stretch. The best part? I really loved my students this summer and had a great group - which is hugely important when we spend 3.5 hours together a day!

Gearing up to go back to work. Coffee and enough bottles to be able to have a less stressful rotation going.

We survived! A very happy reunion after my first day back at work!

My evenings and Daniel's mornings - the girls bags are ready to roll for another day!

Lily's been adjusting pretty well and the comments coming in from daycare about her mannerisms and sleeping patterns, easy going nature, etc are just that much more affirmation of how different a baby Lily is than Hannah. The brutal part about going back to work is losing so much sleep. Lily hasn't quite reached a consistent evening routine yet - and goes to bed for the night anywhere between 9:30 and 11:30...which is very difficult when I have to be up at 4:45 am. It was a huge hit for me to lose the sleep time I had been getting from 5-7:30 and its compounding effects are quickly being felt. She's sleeping from 12-5 for now, which is great, but I'm sure it's not for good!

Daniel and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this month as well and it was a really special moment for us. We might not have done anything crazy "exciting" (it was the Friday of my first week back at work), but we spent the days leading up to it reminiscing and reflecting on our marriage and our adventures and realized we were really happy with where we are, what we have done, and our shared visions for the future. It was beautiful. Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary.

Our friends also took these heart-warmingly goofy pictures for us:

And Daniel and I managed to meet for a happy hour drink and toast before picking our girls up from preschool/daycare. That was good enough for us and our drinks were swanky and delicious!

The weekend of the Fourth we spent some time hanging out with friends and enjoying the pace of the weekend that we can enjoy when it is three days long instead of the harried two. The Fourth of July was a bit disappointing - lots of rain here, but the following weekend we attended a summer festival at the local neighborhood (it was 2 miles away!) and concluded with a great fireworks show. She had a very classic day - bounce house, snow cones, fireworks, etc. It was really awesome to watch Hannah truly enjoy fireworks.