I Just Wanted To Say...

That I LOVE being a mother! I have never experienced anything so fulfilling. There are things I used to do, sans children, that I miss sometimes. But I can easily do without those things because I get to be a mother to my sweet angels. I truly think my girls are angels. Their little souls just shine so brightly in their faces every day, like little rays of heaven on this earth. It makes it very easy to forget the frustrations that also come from being a parent :) I'm sure every mom feels this way, but I feel so blessed every day to have the privilege of being mommy to these angels from heaven entrusted to my care. Anyway, I just wanted to say.

Statistics

Yesterday we had Soleil's two-month checkup. Everything went well; she is nice and healthy. She has been dealing with some constipation issues lately, and her doc gave me some good tips to help deal with that without having to use laxatives or suppositories. Other than that she is doing great! She had her first round of immunizations too. Man I really don't like having to watch my little ones get poked. It is just so hard knowing that they have no faculties for dealing with it, and they do not understand at all why they are suddenly in such pain. Fortunately, they forget pretty soon :) Her legs did start to ache at the injection sites a few hours later so we've been giving her some pain meds, but she has been handling everything just fine. And now for the fun part:
Weight and Height Stats!!

Soleil weighs 12 lbs 6 oz and is 24 inches long. That puts her in the 90th percentile for weight, and the 95th for height!! Man, I knew she was bigger than Noelle was for sure, but I didn't know she was that big :) At this same age Noelle was about the 6th percentile for weight and the 24th for height. We are loving our chunky little girl though. As a breastfeeding mother, it was always very stressful to me that Noelle was so small. I was so worried that I wasn't feeding her enough, or that I wasn't making enough milk for her. So I am loving being able to just relax and enjoy Leilei's sweet personality instead of stressing all the time about nutrition. We love her so much! She is just the perfect little addition to our happy family :)

Two Months!

Today is my sweet little Leilei's 2-month birthday! :) In some ways it seems like it's been much longer than that, but in other ways it doesn't feel possible that my tiny little baby (who is not so tiny anymore) is already two months old! Soleil is such a happy addition to our family! She is still so smiley, it melts me every day. She is so fun to play with, and Noelle loves talking to her and coming up with ways to entertain her. Noelle also loves listing everyone in our family, and every time she gets to Soleil she nearly yells LADYBUG!
We are having so much fun as Leilei becomes more and more awake and alert. She is doing really well with holding her head up and figuring out that her hands belong to her :) She loves to look all around, and I absolutely love her little baby coos and the cute sounds she makes. Her hair just keeps getting longer, and is clearly growing in blonde :) On her eyes we are still undecided. I think they may go hazel, how pretty would that be! She has such a lovely tan complexion that I thought would fade, but it keeps hanging around. Of course, we think that we have made one of the loveliest beings on the planet lol.
I'm finally feeling human again and am loving that she is getting into a better sleep schedule. Erik is still having to work a lot, so us 3 girls just spend our days having as much fun as we can find!

More Summer Fun!

Can I just say that we are absolutely loving being close to family and friends? It is so very wonderful. I feel like we haven't been doing a whole lot this summer, but looking back at pictures I realize how untrue that is, and how blessed we are to have so many wonderful people to spend time with! We have been swimming lots and lots with family and friends, we have been to the zoo and to a parade. We have had barbeques and celebrated the 4th of July. We have done lots!

At the American Fork Steel Days parade. Noelle always has so much fun playing with her cousin Anya, even if the sun is beating down!

All ready for 4th of July fireworks! This year was fun finally getting to be with family! We had a BBQ with my family, then lit off fireworks in the streets with a bunch of neighbors. On our drive home, it was so beautiful to see all the fireworks in the air, and from the freeway we could see several cities doing their shows. Sandy city was doing theirs right by our house, so we pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and watched their show too! It was really good. I had been kinda bummed that we didn't get to see a big fireworks show this year, since Noelle loved them so much last year, so it was the absolute perfect way to end our evening :)

Cute patriotic little girlies

All the Gau cousins having a good time :) So fun to have these little girls!

At the Hogle Zoo with friend Felicity. These girls always have such a good time together! Again, we are so blessed to have so many friends and family to spend time with!

Riding the carousel with Tia Krysta :)

Lots of swimming! I have been really bad at getting pics of all of the people we have gone swimming with, but here are just a couple.

A Jam-Packed Week

The week after Leilei's blessing was so much fun! Erik's sister and her family were in town most of the week, and we made the most of it! Then the next weekend is when my grandparents came to visit. The pics aren't in order, but here's what we did:
We went to Lagoon! It was SO SO SO much fun. Erik and I both agreed that it was one of the most perfect days we have ever had. Noelle loved all the rides, which was surprising, we thought she would hate them. She also loved running through the fountain :) And Soleil was just perfectly good all day, no fussing at all. I only ended up going on 4 "adult" rides, but I've never had so much fun at an amusement park just watching my dear little Noelle have such a wonderful day!
We played in the sun! Noelle had such a blast having all of her Thurman cousins together, and finally being old enough to really run around with them :)
We went to a museum! It was just a little museum that showed the history of the South Jordan area, but it was lots of fun for the kids, they had all kinds of displays that kids could play with.
We went to Wheeler Farm! Another day that Noelle just loved running around with her cousins and seeing all the animals.
We celebrated Father's Day and my Grandma Gau's birthday! What a perfect way to end a great week!

Getting ready to blow out the candles ha ha :)

Grandpa loves fresh peach pie, so of course that's what he got for Father's Day!

Erik and I decided to take my grandparents out to Rodizio Grill as a way to say thank you for all the things they have done for us. It was yummy and we had a great time!

I LOVE this picture. Brigham is the oldest of the Thurman cousins, and Noelle just adores him. She loves to do whatever he does, and every time they visit she asks about him for the whole next week. and he is so patient and good with her, letting her tag along and helping her out. Here they are at Wheeler farm, waiting for the tractor to go by so they can go look at some chickens :)

At the fun museum

Playing in the sun!

More fun at Wheeler farm! From this picture you would think that they had cages to put your kids in!

LAGOON!!!

Leilei's Blessing

Since we were still so new to our ward (we actually hadn't even been there yet when we wanted to bless Soleil) we just decided to have a private family blessing at my mom's house. She was blessed on the 12th of June. It was very nice, and Erik gave her a very sweet blessing. And fortunately he gave her the name that we both picked out for her instead of coming up with something else ha ha. She wore the same dress that Noelle did, and had the same flower bow in her hair. I think prob all of our girls will wear the same thing :) But I also had her wear the cutest little shoes that her Aunt Jenny made for her. They were so adorable!

One Month!

Well we managed to survive the first month! ;) As our own little reward, we were visited by all of our family members that live far away from us! It was so wonderful to introduce Soleil to her cousins, and her Aunt Jenny and Uncle Tyler. We also got to meet the newest member of the Thurman family, little Lucy Hill who was born just after Soleil. I'm so excited for these little girls to grow up together!
We also got to see my Grandma and Grandpa Gau, who came up to visit for Father's Day. It was so good to see them! We have missed them dearly. We used to live so close to them and always got to see them at least once a month. In the months before we moved it was almost every other week, so we really missed spending time with them.
Soleil didn't have a 1-month check-up, but at 3 weeks she weighed 10 lbs 1 oz, so I figure she was prob around 11 lbs at her one month mark. She is growing so quickly! Noelle was always such a serious child, so I was very surprised when Soleil started social smiling right around 4 weeks old, and she hasn't stopped since! She is such a very smiley baby, and we just love it to pieces :D

Our smiley little girl!

With Great-Grandpa Gau, lol love that face!

Snuggling Great-Grandma Gau

The three Thurman babies born this year: Soleil in the middle, Isaac Prescott on her right- born in the end of January, and Lucy Hill on her left- born at the end of May

Going out to eat. I haven't been cooking a whole lot lately, but it is definitely getting better!

We love our little Ladybug!