Catching Up!

I have been sooo out of it the last few weeks! And for that I am truely sorry!
It has been harder than I thought it would be to balance photography, Lily and the rest of my life! Thomas is taking online classes to finish his degree and is busy with school work almost as soon as he walks in the door from real work! The week that I started falling behind I had three photoshoots to edit before I could leave for our two week vacation in Jacksonville! I was swamped! I had every intent to keep up with Lily's blog but it was just too much for me! I finished the last shoot 20 minutes before we got on the road! I guess I'm taking this all with the "live and learn" kind of attitude! The older Lily gets, the greater her demands are on me and on my free time! I am trying so hard to learn to balance out my life right now and I appologize that you all are paying the price in some ways! I hate keeping Lily's pictures from you all but I hope that seeing the slew of them that I am going to be posting over the next few days will help you to forgive me!!

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Ok! ...Now for all of the Lily updates that I have missed! I'm not even going to try and remember what weeks any of this all happened in, so I'm just going to lump it all into one post! So sorry about that!
Lily hasn't started crawling yet and she doesn't have any new teeth! ...Nothing very exciting! But we have really enjoyed the last 3 weeks we've had together!
Thomas has been spending as much time as he can with Lily since he will be deploying soon! They are so great to see together! She loves him so much! She loves his attention too! She is starting to show a ton of peronality... both good and bad sides of it! She sits in my lap and just stares at him. If he's out of her direct eyeline, she'll bend around my arms or lean forward to peek around the lamp so that she can just stare at him! She is very patient! She sits there with a tiny smile on her lips until he feels her looking at him and looks over... then the most beautiful grin rushes across her face and she buries her face in my chest! I am soooo content in that moment!
She reached out to him for the first time a few weeks back! I was sitting with her on the couch and Thomas walked around the corner and she lifted her hands to him, squeeling! I about had a heart attack and curled her close to my chest! I couldn't believe that she had reached out to HIM and not to me for her first time! I was super jealous! But he loved it and scooped her out of my arms with a huge, proud grin on his face!
She is really starting to enjoy spending some alone time with herself! She loves jumping in her jumper-roo or walking allll over the house in her walker! She can sit and play with her toys forever before she starts getting antsy! And last week she started to actually watch cartoons! She walks right up to the TV -in her walker-and just watches everything across the screen! Now I really have to pay attention to what is on and to how long she sits infront of it lol! But it's so amazing to see!
We spent the last two weeks in Jacksonville for Thomas' block leave! We spent our first three nights at his dad and step-mom's house! It was the first time we'd staied with them in a year or so, so it was a nice change! They took a few days off from work and we went bowling and watched a ton of movies! Lily did great and I know everyone enjoyed being able to be together! We had lots of good talks and lots of laughs!
Thomas' mom came for a visit! We spent the day eating and shopping and taking pictures and enjoying each others company! She spoiled Lily with all the new dresses she bought her!
--Ugh, clothes... that's definately something we are not hurting for! [Thankfully]
Lily has soooo many clothes for the next 6 months! But I can never say no to hand-me-downs, just incase there is an adorable new outfit in there!--
The rest of our time was spent with my parents and Hunter! Haley came for the weekend and it was sooo great to be able to spend time with her! I really do miss her so much! We just chatted all weekend and started dreaming about our professional colaboration someday down the road! [Haley is a graphic design major at ECU and with me hoping to not fall flat on my face in the photography world... our partnership is inevitable!]
Thomas and I were able to go to the movies alone one night! I can't remember what we saw but it was just nice to be able to get out of the house together! Ecspecially after the pumping ordeal I had to deal with all day! It seems that I'm not "pumpable"! Not that it matters! ...Once I finally managed to get a few ounces, Lily wouldn't take a bottle lol!!!
We decided to stay in and rent a PPV movie the next night! We rented TWILIGHT! And it all went down hill form there! The movie was a 24 hour rental so my mom wanted to watch it the next night... well we started it and she was too tired to watch and went to bed! So I just watched it again since there was nothing on T.V.! The next day she started telling me how great the books were so Thomas ran out and bought the first one for me! I stayed up alllll night reading it! I loved it! I HAD to have the second book! I put Lily to bed and stayed up allll night again reading the second book and bought the third that morning! Haley was in town so it took me longer to read it but as soon as I was done Thomas was off to buy me the fourth! Oh, and we watched the movie AGAIN since Haley and Hunter had never seen it! It was all a little silly! I just couldn't put the books down! I finally finished the last one tonight and have to say that I am both happy and sad about it! I'm happy since I can finally have my life back lol! I've never really been that wrapped up in anything like that! And it's hard enough to keep up with every day life without wondering about vampires and warewolves in the back of my mind all day! But it is always a little sad when the story is over! Atleast I can look forward to the rest of the movies!
Now I promise to spend the rest of the week in the 'real world' updating the past few weeks of Lily Pictures!!!