Lily's Blessing

On Sunday Lily was blessed by Shane. She looked so pretty and Shane gave a beautiful and inspirational blessing. He blessed her with a life full of service and talents. It was so nice. Afterward, Shane bore a very heartfelt testimony. I'm so grateful for such a righteous and well meaning husband.
Both my parents and Shane's parents were able to witness this event. After church mom and dad made us all a delicious dinner of lemon chicken, potatoes, and artichokes, as well as asparagus. It was a great day and I'm grateful to all who participated in it.

Apple "Picking"

Last Friday afternoon we headed over to Demerritt Orchard, about a 5 minute drive away, to finally get some apple picking in! Much to our dismay, when we got there, we saw a sign that said they were open, but the PYO apples (pick your own) were done for the season! So we had Oliver "pick" a bag of apples from the country store. They were cortlands, DELISH! There was a minimum amount for a credit card purchase, so of COURSE we had to buy some freshly made cider donuts aswell! Yum Yum Yum!
Instead of picking apples we went out on the grounds and fed some goats, said hi to some chickens, played on the wooden train and bus, and just enjoyed the cool fall weather. It was a great afternoon!

SUPER Birthday!

A couple of weeks ago our friends, the Camerons, invited us over for murder mystery dinner with a super hero theme for Mike's birthday! It was lots of fun figuring out our costumes. Not surprisingly Shane got quite excited about dressing up as a superhero. His character's name was Vampo-Man and he drew his powers from the dark side. I was Stingmata and my character drew on powers from poison. Our friends the Siebachs and the Olsens came along aswell. All the men got VERY into their costumes, as you will see from the pictures! Some enjoyed the spandex undies aspect more than others and we'll leave it at that... Ariane did a great job at planning a really fun night with friends! It was definitely a memorable birthday!

Chubby-kins!

I took Lily to get weighed yesterday on her 1 month birthday! She was 10 lbs 5 ozs. Thirteen days ago she was 9 pounds even. That means she is gaining at a rate of 1.6ozs per day. At this rate she will weigh 36.5 pounds next year! That is 5 pounds more than Oliver weighs now! Luckily, we know she'll slow down eventually...but we certainly don't have to worry about having a scrawny baby! Hooray for chubby babies!

Grandparents

Friday night Oliver spent the night at my parents house so that Shane and I could go to a dinner party. On Saturday they took him to the grocery and then to the Sandwich Fair. I had my SIL's baby shower to go to, so Shane and I didn't get to go this year. They seemed to have a great time, though!
For a while now, Oliver has had his own words for my parents. My mom is GaGa and dad is PopPop. Whenever I say we're going to GaGa's he goes through the whole list...GaGa? Jakey? MyMy? POP POP!? (Jakey is their dog, and Milo is their cat) He is just so stinkin' cute! This weekend when we were at Shane's parents' Oliver came up with a word for Shane's mom; MiMi! Its so nice that he has a word for her now so that he doesn't just have to grunt at her, he can actually call her by name! Grampy isn't so lucky. His name often changes, but the general theme is "Buck-a-goo-bah-gah" It's just not a convenient name!
We're very blessed to have grandparents nearby that Oliver (and in time Lily) can have such a great relationship with.

Milestone

Oliver hit a milestone yesterday...he finally started saying yes!! Up until now he just kind of grunted and you knew that meant yes. Yesterday, though, I asked him a question and he responded with "Yeah." I was quite surprised! I love when learns new words and figures things out, but I also get a little bit sad because he is that much less of a baby!
For the past week he has also been putting himself down for his nap, which is SO helpful when I have a little one to tend to! /last night he also went to sleep without me holding his hand (I still had to be in the room), so that is also exciting.
Lily had her 2 week appointment last week and was already 9lbs! What a porker pie! We love our chunky babies, though. We never have to worry about them being fed enough! She is growing so fast I just can't believe it! She continues to sleep well at night. She sleeps from 7 to 12, 1-4, and 5-8. The co-sleeper is great and I'm so glad we bought it. I can have her right next to me without worrying about rolling on her, pillows and blankets suffocating, and thus I can sleep much deeper. She is definitely still in the little lump phase, but she's so sweet to look at.
I'm surprised at how smooth of a transition it has been to having 2 children. Oliver loves Lily so much and loves helping me out and giving her lots of kisses. The toughest thing right now is that Shane is back at school, so I don't have him at home Wednesday and Thursday nights. We just have to tell ourselves that in less than a year he will be done with school, he'll have an actual job (instead of an intern) and we'll be making more money. Just. 10. more. months.
So all in all, life is good right now and we are so blessed. I try to do what I can to live up to these blessings and try to show my gratitude often. Life is good!

Oliver's sleepover

Oliver had his first sleepover at Grammy and Grampy Sargent's house this weekend. I think the pictures speak for themselves for how much fun he had! We're so glad he had a great time and grateful for such awesome grandparents!

And some new Lily pics!