Sometimes I wonder

What is she thinking? Honestly does Lilia not know that when you come check on a baby and see this you have a heart attack? Or in the case of Brad, you panic for a second, realize the baby is breathing then leave the room laughing hysterically to go get your wife so you can both giggle at your silly baby. All I can say is I promise I didn't put her to bed like that. Brad and I have decided that her sleep habits are definitely something she didn't inherit from the Pettys. I love to be smothered in blankets and Brad needs "cold air" to breathe and one foot sticking out from under the covers. Either way, I hope she stops this new little trick of hers.

March Madness

March really has been madness, so fun-filled that I hardly know how to start. On March 15th one of my dear best friends, Elise, got married and I was able to fly out for a quick trip to Utah to be part of it. Many tears of joy were shed for how wonderful it was to be a part of that day. Here are some pictures of the reception with old roommate buddies. I realized when I got home that I didn't get any pictures with Elise and I...which is craziness, but I know her photographer got some good ones so I will post some eventually.

From L to R - Danielle, Rem, Tamara (holding little Tyson), Me, Melissa (holding Lilia) and her new hubby Jake.

close up of Melissa and Jake

Lilia playing with Papa Petty

Lilia with Nana Petty

Lilia's new trick...standing on her own!! I really think she will walk before she crawls...crazy girl.

This past week our friends Keely and Brandon Glenn came to visit us. Keely and I danced together at BYU and Brandon and Brad have become buddies as a result. Now...our babies have become buddies as well! This is Lilia and Lincoln. They are only three weeks apart and they had a blast playing together. This morning Lilia wanted my undivided attention whilst I was trying to clean up the dishes and I was really missing the fact Lincoln wasn't there so they could play together. I talked to Keely later this afternoon and she said the same thing.

Lincoln got a little excited to try out Lilia's lap....as you can see she loved it.

We love it when people come into town and stay with us because it gives us a good reason to go downtown. It is always dangerous to get two dancers together...we can't help but make a scene, especially in front of the nation's capitol.Our capitol tour! Lilia really like chewing on the neck strap. I felt kinda bad for the next person to get our ear phones because it was definitely soaking when I gave it back to them.

A "monkey ancestor" offering Lilia a chunk of meat in the Natural History Museum

More dance craziness! Oh and look at that tree, it was so beautiful. I love the spring and fall here in VA because the trees are huge and they last even longer than they did in Utah. Dream come true. Now if they just had some huge mountains I'd be set.

Lilia in her little polar bear outfit chillin' on the lawn

Daddy's girl...need I say more?

Baby Lincoln dancing in front of his namesake (that is the Lincoln monument behind us). Lilia is somewhere behind that windbreaker.

National Art Gallery...this is the only picture I have with all four of us. I love that painting behind us by Chuck Close. It was painted using his fingerprints - love the creativity.

Artist Interrupted

You may have noticed my fancy little dancer button on the side of our blog (compliments of my talented friend Elizabeth). Yes, I am a crazy dancer...and musician, and you would think that having miss Lilia would have wrung out every last bit of creative energy. While it almost has...luckily there is still a drop left. I have some crazy friends who have a drop of energy themselves and together we have compiled our craziness into awesomeness. I am pleased to introduce our next little project.

Artist Interrupted - A Women's Art Collective

please feel free to visit the new DC blog and take a look at our national website. I am planning to attend the conference in ohio and perform a dance duet which my friend Keely and I are choreographing long distance over skype (we'll see how this goes), as well as (crossing my fingers) a violin solo.

I think it has really lifted my "Holly" spirits to be involved in this. I can't wait to see where it goes.

Creativity can be very useful

Lilia had a mystery fever that didn't go away for over a week. She didn't have any other symptoms so finally the doctor decided it could be a urinary tract infection. He decided this at 3pm on a Saturday which meant....oh hold on, Lilia is awake. Okay I'm back and it is now 6 hrs. later in the day...I don't know why but somehow life goes by very fast when you have an attention span of a 7 month-old. Anyway, my doctor told me I needed to get a urine sample but since it was Saturday they couldn't give me the baggy thing from their office to collect the urine and he doesn't like to do a catheter unless he has to. He told me if I can tell when she is going to go to try to catch it in a cup. I said "okay," but in my mind I thought "are you kidding me?"

The next day, Sunday I thought all morning about how I was going to do this because let's face it. She can't even stand on her own, how was I going to hold her up and hold a cup for an hour under her little who-who until she went pee? I decided to wash a casserole dish and sanitize it as best I could, I did the same with her little bum and I sat her in the dish on the floor and played toys with her (and said a little prayer) until she went! Now I know all of you medical people are saying in your head "now that's not a clean sample"...and yes, I agree. But according to the tests it was still more useful to have a sketchy sample than none at all.

Luckily she started medication on Monday and her fever of 8 days went away on Wednesday. We did however do a follow-up urine sample today, which was interesting...at one point she spit up in the dish so I had to start all over with the sanitizing. Oh I love being a mom.

This one is all blurry because my camera is a piece. But it caught the "motion" of the moment which I thought you would enjoy. And yes, that is her mouth open as wide as it will go.


On a happier note here are some great pictures my friend Tabitha took of Lilia. She is very talented as you can see!















Also, I thought I would do a little shout out for Bradley James and all of his hard work studying. He was feeling bad that Lilia was the only one I blogged about so I thought this would cheer him up :)
This is a picture of Brad with our cousin Zach (he is married to my cousin Emily) in front of the capitol building. He is applying for med school and we are all crossing our fingers that they end up as our neighbors.

half a year...we are really getting somewhere!

We are going to play a little game of catch up. Here are a few of Lilia's monthly pictures from the last two months that I have been meaning to post. Her personality has really started to blossom. She is very social, meaning she loves people who smile at her and give her compliments. She is a great sitter-upper and her favorite things to do besides sitting are bouncing in her door jumper and shoving anything she can get into her mouth. enjoy!

p.s. My sister Wendy took the 6 month pictures at the end...I think they turned out adorable!

Just for fun

Brad and I decided to take advantage of the leisurely Thanksgiving weekend and put up all of our Christmas decorations. Lilia decided she didn't want to be left out so I strapped her onto Brad and we had a party!

P.s. look at that awesome drool in the first picture


Here are our latest family pictures taken by Brad's sister Leslie. She did an amazing job and I have always loved fall pictures so happy day!
Lilia thinks she is hilarious
Here is a video of a few of her tricks :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13SNkEXvN64

Blessing Day!

Last weekend we had a wonderful time with family. Brad's Dad and my parents were able to fly out for Lilia's blessing. It was a fun packed weekend since my niece Naomi was baptized on Saturday. It was a wonderful experience after seeing so many of my nieces and nephews be blessed to have that experience myself...pretty surreal actually. Also, I will have you know that my mom made her dress and it is amazing. Seriously, not only is it beautiful in design but the quality of her work is flawless. I took some more pictures on Monday trying my best to pull the bib of and snap before she projectile vomited all over it. Unfortunately she did get a few dribbles on it but nothing oxyclean won't fix.




Brad's brother Jason and his wife Megan were a sweet surprise, they will be here in DC for a little bit between moves. It was awesome to have one more brother in the circle and so fun to see them and their cute kiddos.




My sister Jen and her husband Chris and their kids. Naomi the one in white was the one who was just baptized. I was so glad they could make it as well, they had to rush off to have naomi presented as a the newest member in their ward!






I took this pic at the end after I took her dress off, you can tell by her face that she doesn't like tummy time. We are working on it :)