Mornings

Lyla and I have been sick, so after a rough start to the night, I brought Lyla downstairs so that Daniel could get some sleep. We spent the rest of the night on the couch trying to sleep. This morning, this is what I to wake up to.

I just LOVE this girl!!

2 Months

Our little girl has turned 2 months old. I cried yesterday thinking about it. She is just growing so fast, and she has brought us so much joy. 

- Daniel and I have learned how to make time for ourselves. We forgot how to communicate in the beginning because we were so focused on Lyla, but now we are back on track.

- I still haven't gotten used to people wanting to hold her. My heart just aches when other people hold her, so I tend to not share. 

- She has gotten so good at night time sleeping. Not sleeping through the night of course, but she sleeps for 3 hours at a time which I'm happy with. I enjoy our 'middle of the night' time together, so I'm not bothered that she doesn't sleep through the night yet. 

- She loves bath time. She just kicks and kicks and has fun. Thankfully we have a heater in the bathroom because if it's not on, she screams when she is taken out of the bath. She hates being cold. 

- She has started to smile. It melts my heart. I love seeing her smile in the morning when she wakes up. She gets really excited before her feeding, and then smacks her lips together when she is done. 

 After her bath.

 Ready to go outside. It's been cold lately.

 She fell asleep on Daniel's chest, and when he put her down, she stayed in her position.

 Nap time.

 All smiles!

 Getting sooo big!

 Ready for church with Dad. (During sacrament meeting she had a blow-out and ruined her cute outfit)

In her 'Coming Home' outfit. Finally starting to fit. 

From the beginning

I often think about the struggles Daniel and I went through before Lyla came. The hope, fear, sadness, confusion, anger and anxiousness we felt for so many years has been replaced with joy and happiness. 

It was Jan 2nd, 2012. I went to the hospital really early before work for some tests. Tests to determine if I was pregnant. I had called my Dr and asked that they contact Daniel with the blood results. I knew if the results were bad, I was going to fall apart, and I didn't want to do that at work. This was our 4th attempt at IVF, and it's hard to get excited when you are used to failed results. I went through the day with a knot in my stomach. I knew better then to get excited. The more hopeful you feel, the harder it is when it fails. 

When the day was over, I got in my car and broke down into tears. I cried (actually it was more like balling) and prayed all the way home. I prayed not for a positive result, but for the strength to go on if it was a negative. The last failed attempt, I had completely lost myself, and I didn't want to feel that again. I needed the Lords to help me through this this time. I pulled into our parking lot and sat in the car for 20 mins, too afraid to go inside. I just sat there crying and praying. When I finally went inside, Daniel was sitting on the couch  and without hesitation he broke into a huge smile and said "You're pregnant!" I dropped everything in my hands and ran over to him and jumped into his lap. I kept saying "Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh..." over and over as we hugged, laughed and cried together. 

In the back of my mind, I was afraid to get too excited. It seemed too good to be true, and I was sure something was going to go wrong. I took pregnancy tests weekly just to make sure that it was real. I think I ended up taking close to a dozen tests. I was so sure something was going to go wrong. I was 14 weeks pregnant before we told family, and 17 weeks before we started to tell friends. When you are used to hearing 'No', it's hard to believe when it's finally a big fat YES!! 

Before I was pregnant, I was always bothered by people who would complain about their pregnancy on Facebook or church. Complaining about being tired or nauseous, heartburn etc... I would always say to myself, 'If you don't like being pregnant, I'll gladly trade places with you.' I'm pretty sure the Lord heard every time I said that. I could hear Him laughing and saying, "You asked for it", because when I was pregnant I got every single possible symptom times 10, including being hospitalized 4 times for kidney stones. But I never complained, because my throwing up was just a reminder that I was pregnant. And even though I was sick, I loved being pregnant and feeling my little girl move around. I would never trade those months. 

My brother Chris and his family (Alyssa and Hudson) came to visit.

Even though it took 7 years for Lyla to join our family, it feels like she has always been with us. The joy of having her in our lives takes away all the pain that we felt before. As hard as it was, I wouldn't take away those years. I feel like I am stronger for it, and Daniel and I have been able to grow and strengthen our marriage and work out all the kinks before starting a family. I am so grateful for our little girl and the strength she had to make it, when other attempts didn't. 

Expectations

As part of my preschool education degree, I took a couple of parenting classes. This not only helped us learn how to deal with children, but to also deal with parents. One of the concepts we learned was teaching your child expectations. This is something I have thought about often over the years. Basically, when taking your children out to the store, church, restaurant, park, someones home, any where that's not home, you sit them down and tell them your expectations for their behavior while out. Saying what is appropriate and what is not, and then letting them know the consequences for misbehaving. This helps the child know exactly how to behave and avoiding getting yelled at for behavior they didn't know was inappropriate.

I don't have children old enough to try this on, but I did try it on my Sunbeams. We had class first followed by sharing time. At the end of every class (because children have short memories) I would  go over the proper way to behave during sharing time. Of course they were only 3, so my expectations weren't ridiculous (sit on your chair, don't talk to the kids behind you, keep your hands to yourself), but I noticed a huge improvement in only a few weeks. They were great kids.

I thought about this concept last night when Daniel and I went to Subway for dinner. There was a child running round, grabbing chips off the shelf, cups off the counter and the poor mother seemed annoyed and embarrassed. Now I know kids aren't perfect, and I have no idea what that mothers day has been like, but is it possible that the behavior could have been different had the child understood how to behave before going into Subway? I don't know. Now that I have Lyla, I find myself constantly thinking about things like this. What I would do in that situation. I guess only time will tell.

Moving to Yakima

A couple weeks ago we made the move from Utah to Washington. It's been one of the more difficult moves we've made and has taken a while to settle in. Mostly because we have a new baby now, and everything takes twice as long to do. It's been a big adjustment having lived in Memphis and Salt Lake before, which are bigger cities, moving to a smaller farming town. It's a little more limited here.

Two weeks before we moved here, we contacted the Bishop of our new ward to ask for help with unloading our moving truck. This was something we had never done before. We gave him a time and date and hoped for the best.
10 minutes after arriving, I was getting our suitcases out of the car for the night (we weren't unloading the truck until the next day), when someone approached me and asked if I was Belinda. She lives in the same town-home complex and was just checking her mail when she saw me. I replied that I was. She said that she recognized me from Facebook. Considering I had no idea who she was, I was a little creeped out. She explained that she was in the RS Presidency and that the Bishop had told them we were coming, and she looked my name up on Facebook so she could recognize me when I came. Still a little weird, but it was a nice welcome to the area.  The next morning, a bunch of guys showed up and unloaded our truck in less then an hour. That afternoon the Compassionate Service Leader from our new ward stopped by to drop off a dinner, fresh home-made bread, home-made jam and vegetables from someones garden. It was wonderful because that was one less thing I had to think about.
The ward had made us feel so welcome, and we hadn't even been to church yet. It was a good feeling!