(I know it's late, but better late than never.)

I love these two people more than anything in the universe, they are my everything. Mike is my best friend and my sweetheart, he is so kind and caring and helps me out with everything. (he does the dishes, can fix anything, and is so creative) I am his biggest fan, he is the love of my life. Mike always knows how to make me laugh. Lilly is my little sunshine, she is so funny and I love watching her grow and learn. It melts my heart every morning when I get her out of bed and she proclaims with joy that Mommy's here and gives me a great big morning hug.
Lilly and I have recently starting baking. I decided that I enjoying baking and Lilly loves to help. A few weeks ago we made raisin bread and it turned out beautifully, we have also made peanut butter kisses cookies and for Valentines we made pink rice crispy treats with sprinkles.

Our big news is we are finally APPROVED to adopt again through LDS Family Services!
Q: What exactly does this mean?
A: It means we can now be shown to potential birth parents across the US and are legally able to adopt if we are chosen to parent.
We are still waiting to get our profile page up on itsaboutlove.org, but our caseworker told us it will most likely be active in a week. Once that is active I will post it so you can check it out. We are so excited to have the approval process done and are looking forward to adding to our little family.

Funny things Lilly has said and done lately:
1. I had a bunch of candy dumped out on the floor and was trying to hurry and put into bags for Valentines day before Lilly saw and she walked in the room saw the candy and said "How beautiful!"
2. I went in her room to tell her to go to sleep for her afternoon nap and she was walking around the room with her snow boots on, princess crown and was carrying a giant bubble wand and said "look mommy, I'm a firefighter"
3. Her new saying taken from an Angelina Ballerina book is "Excellent Darlings"
4. She also thinks that Wowsers is the funniest word ever and when we say it she will bust up laughing.
5. Lilly loves playing with her farm and her favorite animal is the pig, the other day she was caring it around so gently telling it that "it's ok piggy, it's ok" while giving it kisses and hugs.
6. Mike and Lilly were at the store and she was saying hi to everyone one lady she said "Hi, I miss you" the lady was a little shocked, but told Lilly she missed her too :)
7. Lilly was trying to get me to put her down when we were at the computer store and she yelled at the stop of her lungs "I'm soooo poopy, I wanna get down" "Change my bum!" I ended up putting her down :) (and she really wasn't poopy)

Wow that was a lot, I have more too, but I will save those for next time.

What do you think of our new look for the website?! Isn't it great, Mike is so creative he added a lot of really cool features and also added content for people to get to know us a little better.

Lilly's birthday party was a blast and thank you all for coming and participating in the princess party festivities :) I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. I really enjoy being a Mom and planning birthday parties for my little girl. For Lilly's actual birthday Mike and I took her to story time at the library were everyone sang happy birthday to her and the other kids with birthdays that week. We also took her to Wendy's for her favorite food a cheese burger. I think she had a fun birthday.

Lilly had her two year check up this month and gained the pound back that she lost in December when we were all sick. So now she weighs 22lbs 7oz and is 34 inches tall. The dr. mentioned that Lilly has a small frame and will probably always be petite.

Lilly's hair is so pretty, I love it. But most girls with straight hair want curly hair. Her hair is getting really long too. When it's wet it goes to her mid-back, and when it's dry, well, it's curly!

Here's Lilly's hair wet and straight.... Look how long it is!!!















Here's Lilly's hair curly! Wow, her hair is so awesome!

I started working out this past week and boy am I sore! I joined a team at my work for their annual "Biggest Looser" contest and that gave me the extra push to get in shape. Luckily my work has a nice employee gym and best of all it is FREE! So I have been running/mostly walking on the treadmill for about 30 minutes and then working on other things like trying to figure out the massive weight bench thingy for another 30 minutes. I do all of this about an hour before I start my shift while Mike is home and Lilly is napping. It is 'working out' great for me, I plan on being one hot mama by summer. Especially since we would like to get a bigger swimming pool than the tiny kiddy pool we had last summer.

We are pretty sure that ALL of our paperwork is now submitted to LDSFS!!! Yay! I spoke with our caseworker on Monday and she said that she would review everything and get back to me next week to let us know if everything is ok. I have my fingers crossed that this time around we will be set to get approved. Once we are approved to adopt we begin the waiting, searching, expecting phase of adoption. I picture it as the assent on the roller coaster of adoption, hopefully it will be a short ride as most everyone knows that I really don't like roller coasters. Mike can defiantly agree with that, especially since he has ridden one with me while I was screaming, crying, and basically freaking out. Yup, I like to stick the bumper cars and batting cages.
A few weeks ago we purchased a 'big girl' bed for Lilly. She LOVES it! I don't think I had ever seen her so excited, she was literally bouncing off the walls. She helped Mike put it together and while she was helping she kept jumping on the pieces of the bed pretending that she was jumping on her bed. Lilly has transitioned really well to her bed and likes the independence it gives her. She loves reading her books in bed and usually falls asleep after she looks at a few books.


















Lilly Loves to fall asleep while reading. She is such a book worm, just like her Mom & Dad.

A Few Funny Things Lilly has said Lately:
1. Calling chocolate chips, "chocolate chipmunks"
2. Saying, "this summer I am getting a fishing pole"
3. telling Bryn (our dog) to "come back, I want to show you something" after yelling at her to move.
4. Grabbing me by the hand saying "Come on Mommy, I want to show you my big girl bed"




This picture is just funny! I remember when Bryn was a lot bigger than Lilly, now Lilly is taller!