Happy 6 Month Anniversary Lilah!!!

This weekend, on December 1st, we have had Lilah in our arms for 6 months! She has now been with us longer than she was without us! What a wonderful milestone to reach!

On Friday night we headed down to see the lighting of Ivar's Clam Lights in Renton. Just this past week has been the first really cold weather us Hawaiians have experienced. And having to put so many clothes on a baby is new to me. Lilah doesn't even have any gloves yet, so i put my gloves on her. It was around 35 degrees while we enjoyed the lights and boat parade. But I must say, it wasn't quite as happening as the Hawaii Kai Boat Parade, no volcanoes or hula dancers on top of the boats. But all the pretty lights with cool weather and our coats made it easy to get into the season.
Good news, the house is ours! We finished signing everything this past saturday, with it all officially completed this coming monday. We're really excited, March can't get here soon enough. Saturday was Lilah's first snowfall and we thought it made the new house look great. We get to pick all the colors and stuff for the inside which I find exciting and over whelming all at the same time. We are meeting with our project manager this coming tuesday to get started on all the plans and we can barely wait. For those of you who know us well, know Bill and I always agree on big stuff like, should we marry, where to live, adopting kids, etc but little stuff like paint color and furniture selection...... we'll be duking it out for days! So come visit us and see what compromise looks like.
This is a pond right next to our house. Its in a cookie cutter neighborhood, but I think we have the best lot because all our windows look out to this very nice pond. It even has its own ducks, maybe we can even get Lilah her own duck, and don't worry, we'll have a fence around the house to prevent any accidents.
Here's a photo to show the house next to the pond so you can could a good feel for the place.
So Saturday was our 6 month anniversary with Lilah, it was also her first snowfall, and her first time meeting a celebrity..... and who did she meet you might ask?..... PAULA DEEN. Lilah and I went to Costco and there she was signing books, we had no idea she was going to be there, so what were two country girls like us to do... we got in line and got a book signed. Paula was very nice and of course said how cute Lilah was. We met her husband Michael too. For those of you who don't know, i'm originally from Brunswick GA, just 45 min south of Savannah, Paula's home town. And every dish of hers i've ever made has turned out great, unlike some other food network stars. And when we came out of Costco all excited after we met Paula, we got to enjoy a very big snowfall, Lilah's first snowfall. What a big day!

We leave this week for GA for two weeks, so we'll catch up again after we return.

More pictures of Rainier

Bill hopes to climb Rainier sometime in the next few years. I'm not so hip on the idea, people do die from doing this. Jeff (bill's brother in law) said he wasn't up to it, he's more of a biking man, so any of you fellas want to go with him? This is Lilah's first time sitting in the snow, you can see she loved it as much as she loved the beach for the first time. I think she's crying because she's saying, "I'm still a Hawaiian baby, what are ya'll doing to me?"
What beautiful scenery. It was a great drive all through the park, or at least that parts that were open. We do need to buy some tire chains and we were minutes from running out of gas, but we still had a great day.
Here's a great little stream we saw in the Paradise area of the Rainier park. It was really breathtaking.
And this is a beautiful large female Elk (we think) we saw just standing on the side of the road, it was really amazing!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!!

Papa arrived the Monday before Thanksgiving to stay for a week and enjoy the holidays with us. We had a lot of fun and ran Papa all over town. I told him to dress warm, but I don't think he was quite ready for the 30 something temps, we had some really chilly days while he was here. But the nice thing was it only rained 2 of the 7 days he was here. Look at me, what a Seattlelite already thinking 30 degree weather with 5 days of sun is pretty good. Here we took Papa to the Salmon Hatchery in Issaquah. Its quite fun to read and learn all about the salmon and how they return to where they were born to spawn. This hatchery is helping the Salmon population replenish here in the NW, this past year that had the best numbers they've had in a log time for new Chinook salmon.

Lilah has now gotten so heavy (18.1lbs) I can't carry her in the bjorn or sling without my shoulders or back hurting. So I started using this Ergo carrier Bill's co-workers gave us and I've got to say its great. I can wear her for hours and do pretty well. Its got a lot of straps, clips, etc that I found odd at first, but i've gotten used to it and love it. You should have seen me taking Papa around, I had Lilah in the Ergo, pushing Papa in the wheelchair up a hill, and not to mention i'm 7 months pregnant, i was pretty proud of myself!

Here's my little Turkey all ready for her first Thanksgiving. We started the day with a big family breakfast and a turkey craft with apples and marshmellows for the kids. Then the boys watched football while I baked a cake and Opa cooked the turkey. We headed over to Aunt Liz's that night for the big Moore family Thanksgiving dinner. It was great to be with family this Thanksgiving, though we did say how much we missed the Hall's and Uncle Abel for our usual Hawaii family dinner.
As you can see we had all the grown ups wear pilgrim hats and feathers for the kids. We took this shot at the end of dinner, so some people had lost their head gear. Everyone was feeling pretty full and ready for a nap at this point, or at least the grownups were.
Everybody keeps asking for a belly shot, well here you go. It depends on the clothing i'm wearing on how much belly you can see. But the baby is kicking a lot at night. Had a check up this week and we're still on track for a Feb 24th delivery and the baby currently weights 2.5 lbs which is right on target. We're not finding out the sex ahead of time to many folk's dismay, but i just want to remember this baby is a blessing and to just be thankful for a healthy child, i can worry about pink or blue later. Currently I'm just really nervous about splitting my time with my dear sweet Lilah.
We drove Papa up to Mt. Rainier over the weekend. We were all impressed with the beauty of the park around the mountain. It was just gorgeous. We sat Lilah down in the snow and she loved it as much as she loved her first trip to the beach. We can't wait to go sledding and snow shoeing up here, but i think i'll pass on the skiing, I can never understand how to stop.

Lilah On The Go!!

Last tuesday we bought Lilah this little airplane from Target to help her start walking as Bill's sister Liz suggested. The minute we gave it to her she was off and running. She likes to sit on it and us push her around, but if you want to see her grin from ear to ear then let her stand behind it and push it. And as soon as she runs into a piece of furniture and can't go anymore she'll turn and look at you and squeal until you remedy the problem. We couldn't believe just how well she was doing with her airplane.
Lilah's grandpa, who we call Opa, celebrated his 72nd birthday this past saturday and we celebrated with a surprise Navy Soup Party. Soup party you may ask..... well, Bill's Dad loves soup so our menu consisted of 3 soups for our supper and since he is a retired Navy Commander all of our decorations were Navy themed. Liz and I did quite well with our decorating we submarines and anchors all over the place. This is a picture of Lilah with her cousin Lauren and her Oma and Opa just as the celebration was beginning. Lilah & Lauren shortened their naps so they could be right in the kitchen preparing with us!
She really loves this little airplane. And thanks to the airplane and all the walking practice she had, she took her first steps this past Sunday. So we gave her the toy on tuesday night and by sunday morning she was taking steps on her own. My baby is so advanced!!!! That's what I tell Bill all the time and he just rolls his eyes at me, but I think steps before her 10 month is pretty advanced..... (you can't tell i'm her mother can you?)
One of Lilah's favorite things to do while we get ready in the morning is to play with my makeup bag. She's been doing this for quite a while, but she's getting too smart. Now she can take the tops off of all the lipsticks, chapsticks, and lip liners, so I have to watch her close and she likes to suck on the blush brush, but other than that, this keeps her occupied for a few minutes while I finish blow drying. Don't you love her little leggings? I ordered these online. They have really helped us make some of her Hawaiian baby outfits wearable in the Seattle weather.
And here's my little cupcake holding onto my pants leg. See how we're both wearing brown corduroys pants. I always think its super cheesy when Mom's and babies dress just alike. But i've found in the mornings when I dress us, I'll find myself in a purple mood, or pink mood and don't even realize it till we're out of the house that we look just alike.

Well, that's just a few clips of what's going on around here. We just got the internet going on our laptop here at Oma & Opa's yesterday, so i should be able to do much better with blogging, anything is better than once a month, right? Papa arrives from Georgia tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, so we're excited about that!

CUTEST LOBSTER IN SEATTLE

Lilah was a Lobster for Halloween and I being her mother thinks she looked absolutely adorable. We got rave reviews everywhere we went.


We stopped by Daddy's office during the day so the staff could ooh and ahh over our precious little shellfish. This is one shellfish that Uncle Abel can be exposed to wtihout his epi pen.

We spent Halloween with the Evans clan, combing the streets for candy. We had a great time. The weather was chilly but dry and the girls had a great time. We were accompanied by a pea pod, a ghost, and a lion, who often got scared by some of the rather creative lawn decorations we saw. We even collected candy for the babies telling the neighbors it was for the pregnant lady. And I must say, Liz really helped me score as many Baby Ruths as possible. I'd be embarrassed to tell you just how many bite size baby ruth's i've eaten during the pregnancy.


We really hit the neighborhood hard and had a fantastic time.

We even got 2 red lobster bibs for Mom & Dad to be in theme with Lilah, an idea we stole from our friend Yolanda.

To those of you who have been wondering where I've been with the updates, my apologies. We are still living with Bill's parents due to us being nowhere close to selling the townhouse in hawaii. Dad has a Mac computer which is not user friendly to me and i've been having major computer issues. Our own laptop we brought from home isn't working. So,today Liz has kindly let me take over her computer for a few hours to post and download all my photos. Ahh it feels good to be in the land of windows again. For those of you who don't know me personally and know I have severe allergies to dogs is why i hadn't gone to Liz's earlier. But today, I felt I needed to get back to posting and get my photos organized. I'm a camera junky and must download often. So, i'm all claritin and albuterol upped and here I am. I'll try to go back and update over what's been going on in the last month. Overall things are good. Seattle has a beautiful fall which I didn't expect. It rained a lot the first two weeks, but has been nice these last two weeks. We're enjoying it, just hoping the townhouse will sell so we can officially start to feel settled in.

We're going to miss you Hawaii!!!

Well, for those of you who don't know, we the Moore family are relocating to Seattle, in fact we are already here, we arrived this past sunday morning. This was a difficult decision for us, but one we feel is best for our family. Bill's parents & sister and her family all live in the area and we'd like for Lilah to grow up with family around along with lots of other reasons like cost of living, closer to my family with flight time cut from 12 hours to 5 hours, better public schools, and the list goes on. This is a picture we took at our dear friend Carol's wedding just a few days before we left paradise.
The packing and boxing has been rather busy and I must say its quite difficult to get an entire home packed in 1 week with an 8 month old to entertain.
Here's my cutie pie in the suitcase, all ready for her new adventure to seattle.
Uncle Abel really saved the day. He came over every single day last week and either entertained Lilah or packed fevorishly or both at once. We wouldn't have made it without him, we're really going to miss him. He even came over to help when he'd been up all night working at the hospital. He is single ladies and very good with babies. He even got a grumpy Lilah to sleep a few times, keep that in mind when looking for Mr. Forever!
And look who can pull herself up now. She is crawling very well, though its a funky crawl, she still gets where she's going. And she loves to pull up. Take one last look at these naked diaper photos, won't be too many of these in Seattle. So far its been 49-52 degrees and raining everyday, but at least Lilah is cute in her new warm clothes!

Lilah is Going to be a Big Sister!!

That's right, you read the headline correctly, Lilah is going to be a Big Sister. We're pregnant, currently 16 weeks, the new addition to the family is due February 24th, 2008! Lilah and her new sibling will be 13 months apart. At first I thought, "Oh, I can do this, Lilah will be walking a little, it'll work out." Then I went to two different 1 year old birthday parties and realized 1 is a little younger than I thought. I think I was imagining more around 18 months..... then the panic started to sink in. But, we're excited! I've just decided the next few years will be rather hectic, but eventually it'll be great because the kids will be so close in age.
We announced our big new to Oma & Opa in Seattle this past weekend. We were holding out to tell them in person together, so now that they know we can tell everybody! I had Lilah a t-shirt made that read "I"M THE BIG SISTER" on the front with a monkey. On the back it says, "February 2008" with 2 monkeys. Lilah put on the t-shirt late in the afternoon and wore it around ALL evening, waiting on Oma and Opa to notice. But they never did.
Finally we had to get Norah, Lilah's oldest cousin who is 4, to say "Oma & Opa please read Lilah's t-shirt." They were almost speechless and very surprised, but Oma said she guessed it when we arrived at the airport by the way I looked the night before. Opa kept saying "5 under 5," that's the number of grand kids all under 5. Sounds like a band doesn't it? Here's a picture of Opa playing with Lilah and still not reading the t-shirt. He said if it had been morning instead of night it wouldn't have slipped by him.
We're not going to find out the sex of the baby, at least that's what I'm saying right now. I always said for my first baby i'd be surprised. So Lilah being my first, not only did I know, I chose, so I think I can show some restraint, but we'll see, i may be unable to resist.
Lilah had a great weekend in Seattle with her cousins. She is really crazy about Norah the oldest who makes her laugh a lot. And it was fun to see her and Lauren playing together, so cute because they are the same size doing lots of the same things. And no matter how you try, you can never get all the kids to look at the camera at once.

Wanted to give folks a few pointers now that we're pregnant. Please try to resist the temptation to say, "See I told you that you would get pregnant as soon as you adopted." Please remember we've been trying to have a family over 2.5 years and this was a result of my surgery for endometriosis, not a result of less stress now that we have Lilah. Now if you want to say this was part of God's plan, i'll go along with that. Bill & I always said we wanted to adopt, except we had planned to adopt the 3rd baby. With us being in our 30's we needed to get started on the bio kids first. But when #1 was slow in coming, Bill said let's move the adopted baby from #3 to #1, and we did. I believe with all my heart that Lilah was meant to be our daughter. So the good Lord may have delayed things, moved back things, etc, just so we'd be in the right place at the right time for Lilah or she would have ended up with a different family and she was truly meant to be ours. Bill says Lilah has brought us good luck.

Also, please don't say things like, "Now you'll have a baby of your own." Lilah is our own baby, I take care of her and love her everyday, she is mine forever. Please also don't say things like this is a baby of your blood, ...... Lilah was not born from me, but she is a result of a lot of hard work, dedication, and love on mine and Bill's part for all the things that had to happen for this little angel to be in our life. It is a miracle to me how it all happened, all the things that had to be in place so she'd be ours, it truly shows that there are some things in life that are truly meant to be, and Lilah was meant to be our baby.

So if anyone ever asks, I"ll tell them they are both my children, one is hand picked and the other home grown. I just feel so blessed to have the experience of being a mother through adoption and biological. I just wish everyone in the world could know how good if feels to adopt a baby, to know your family was so destined to be that even a big ocean couldn't keep you from each other.

LIKE MOONLIGHT THROUGH THE PINES!!!!

This is Lilah getting her hair washed in the sink at Papa's house. The special thing about this is I got my hair washed in this sink many times as a child. And it was just so special to take Lilah here and wash her hair too. Probably sounds silly, but was so special to me. My Mom passed away when I was 15, and then my Nanny & Papa finished raising me in this house. My Nanny passed away last April and I have wished a million times she could have met Lilah and hugged her. And to be in this house with all of Nanny's things really made me feel Nanny was here, and she got to see Lilah after all. And I can't wait to show Lilah this picture and tell her all about it.

This picture is special too, because throughout my life our family has had many pictures in front of this sign. I've got pictures all at different ages in front of the sign. The sign has even changed, but its the same spot. Nanny & Papa took their 50th wedding picture right here, so this is another hall of fame picture to tell Lilah about one day!
Lilah got to meet her new friends Reese, Reagan, & Griffin along with Aunty Gayle & Pam at Mom's favorite local BBQ place, Mack's. Here's Reese posing while Lilah ogles the fries.
Lilah insisted we buy Papa a bunny while we were home in Georgia. Papa named the bunny Beanie, and Papa had his hands full with these two in his lap. We had a great trip home and we can't wait to see everyone again at the holidays!

ON THAT MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA

If you're starting to understand, Lilah really made the rounds this trip, meeting everyone. This is Lilah meeting Uncle Wendell and Aunt Grace, who is very special and makes delicious chocolate and cheese toast, .... its a Bailey family tradition.
This is the Harvey Clan, Seliest is Aunt Grace's daughter, and Lilah was delighted to meet Pat and Will too.
Lilah trying to show her cousin Cheryl Ann how to use the gift she bought for her in VN.
Uncle Wayne was crazy about Lilah, and he is so tall, that they looked very cute together since she is so small.
Lilah got to meet Papa Jerry too, and he took her out for a nice dinner and her first bite of grits!

GEORGIA ON MY MIND

After Seattle, Lilah and I headed to Georgia to meet Mommy's side of the tree. This is Papa, and the whole trip was a big surprise for him! He just finished radiation for cancer and for his celebration of treatment over, Lilah and I surprised him with a week long visit. But actually, he's the one that surprised us, the day before we arrived we found out he had gone out of town to visit some family, so it took a large family effort to get him back home without spoiling the surprise that we were on our way, but it all worked out and Lilah and Papa had a great visit! This picture is taken when Papa had just found out we had arrived and that everyone was in on it except him.
This is Aunt Cindy feeling Lilah some pears while she sports her ever so stylish GA bib from Aunty LA, who is a big Gator fan, thank you Aunty LA for your sacrifice, and thank you Aunt Cindy for all the food, rides to the airport, and stashing us till Papa found out we arrived.
Lilah enjoyed meeting Aunt Kathryn & Uncle Lance, and hopes they'll come visit us very soon. Lilah loves to watch people brush their teeth, I think she may want to be a dentist just like Uncle Lance!
Lilah had a great visit with Papa Jack and Grandmama Genevieve. There was lots of tickling and fun to be had at their house along with watching all the ducks, cats, and pet Hamster.
The funny thing you should know about this picture is Lilah really wanted Papa checkbook, but he wouldn't give it too her, so about 45 seconds after I took this shot, she had a really HUGE puke right into his pocket. How classic is that! I told Papa, that's my girl, if you won't give her your money, she'll puke in your pocket!