Lilah 3 months

Here she is! There's not much more to report from her last update. We had Lilah weighed when she was about 12 weeks and she was keeping steady on the 50th percentile for weight, 90th percentile for height, which is wonderful for me! She is still feeding 7 or 8 times a day, usually including a middle of the night feed. I'm a bit more relaxed with Lilah than I was with Eliana, but I thought that Lilah would be sleeping through the night by now.... turns out she is just a super hungry girl :)

The below photo of Lilah is pretty typical of her. She loves to grab hold of her clothes and put her hands in her mouth. She is a lovely baby. She still doesn't like going down for naps, which is opposite of what Eliana was at this age. Two sisters, and I can already tell they are so different!

If I had to guess, I would say that little Lilah is going to be our little feisty one :)

Eliana @ 22 months

Eliana is a little character these days. How she melts our hearts! (Do I say that for all of her updates?) Language seems to be falling in place for her these days. Each day she is saying new words or coming out with her own sentences. She mostly says 2-3 word sentences and sometimes 4. It started out with her copying or remembering things we say but now she is expressing her own observations like "nice day!" Nate said that after checking the mail on campus with Eliana the other day, he put her back in the pram/stroller and she said "go home to mama".

She loves pretend play a lot and I think if we had dress ups that would be one of her favorite activities. She loves to put on necklaces and walk around in my shoes and carry handbags around (whose daughter is she?!) and pretend to put on lip balm. She is getting imaginative too. Today she pretended that a pretzel she'd taken a bite of was a horse and jumped him around saying "Horse! boing, boing, boing, Neigh!"

Her hair has lightened up a lot and has a bit of curl in the ends. She pretty much feeds herself everything and can use a spoon and fork. Her favourite foods are weet-bix, porridge, rice with anything, pasta with anything, fruit and crackers. She doesn't really like sweet drinks. We tried to give her lots of sweet drinks (for the first time) while potty training her but she really just wanted water all of the time. She LOVES climbing up and down the stairs outside of our apartment. She is starting to express more independence. When we offer her help with something she will quickly say no. But when she does want help she has learnt to ask for it with "help please" or "read please".

Eliana is sweet and gentle towards Lilah and will cuddle her or pat her or rock her when she cries. She still loves wrestling both Nate and I. Nate has taught her some colours. She's pretty spot on with pink (since most of her clothes are that colour!) and mostly knows orange, blue and purple. Eliana's getting there with counting. She doesn't usually spontaneously count but likes to count along with us. Is that enough random facts for now? Man, I could go on. This is SUCH a fun age! Of course, she has her daily fits of anger or frustration when she doesn't get her own way or doesn't want to obey, and she tests us all the time (she is getting very sneaky and crafty too) but we are so thankful that God has entrusted her little life into our care. May He guide us in our efforts to guide her little heart towards Him!

For the Grandmas

Here are some clips so you can get a glimpse of our little girls growing :) We love and miss you all!

Lilah talking @ 11 weeks:

Eliana in Mama's shoes @ 22 months:

Eliana is officially potty trained!

Lilah cooing and laughing

Lilah coos a little bit each day, especially at her toys when she's in her baby gym. I tried to capture it and, of course, Lilah only performed for the camera a little :)

And wouldn't you know it, right after I turned the camera off daddy took Lilah to change her and she starts giggling at him! I only managed to get the tail end of some gorgeous giggles on tape. So below is part of Lilah's first laugh. She's 10 weeks old. Enjoy!

Lilah joins the crew

It's time for Eliana to share her blog with Lilah. Lilah turned 8 weeks old on Saturday and is growing well. She was 10lb 15oz as of yesterday (5oth percentile).

She was a great little traveller from Aus to the USA, sleeping and feeding most of the way. We dragged her all over the place while in Australia, so after a rocky night our first night back to the USA, she has settled beautifully.

Lilah has the nickname "Lilah lungs" for reasons such as you can guess!! Some people are surprised that a little baby can make such a noise :)

Eliana pays minimal attention to Lilah, but when she does, she is very sweet to her. She points to her and says her name a lot and likes to tell us when Lilah is sleeping. We are very thankful for Eliana's 'so far so good' adjustment to our new addition!

19 - 21 months

What a little delight Eliana is growing into! Since I don't know where to start with her, I'm just going to blurt out random facts about her. She has adjusted very well to having Lilah around, thanks to living with Grandma and Grandpa and having Daddy around 24/7. She is very nurturing and loves to pat Lilah or rub her back like we do. She also loves to name Lilah's body parts. It's very cute, but we have to be on the lookout as poking eye's seems to be Eliana's favourite part of body naming!

We recently went on a trip to Sydney and Eliana was a champion traveller! She is turning into a bit of a talker and a social butterfly. She was quick to make friends on the buses into the city and lit up the tired city people's faces.

Eliana has started copying everything we do. She will repeat new words often and imitate our intonation as we speak. She also copies our actions and the way we move. It makes us laugh everyday.

She cuddles just about anything with eyes - even faces we make out of play-dough. She also loves to pretend to talk on the phone and will turn just about anything, from a playing card to a block of cheese to a glasses case into a phone. She paces up and down "talking" and laughs to whoever she is talking to. We're not to sure where Eliana picked this up as Nate and I aren't big phone talkers.

Another favourite thing for her these days is watching Bob the Builder with Grandpa. They also love to watch a DVD of children singing and Eliana knows all the actions to the songs.

She is developing her own little personality, and every day it seems that we discover something new! What a blessing it is to have this little girl (and now Lilah too) placed in our care. We pray that we will guide them well with godly wisdom as they grow.