Much Needed Inspiration

So I just got done watching the Saturday sessions of General Conference and, as always, I feel so uplifted and motivated. And, as always, the talks were wonderful and directed right at me. I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like I have to have that constant reminder to stay on track, and conference does it for me every time. Having just started my family recently (at least the "children" part of it), I absolutely loved the talk about teaching our children in the home and preparing them for the trials of this crazy world. Sometimes when I think about it too much, it really terrifies me to think that I have to send my sweet little girl out into it someday. I was thankful for the reminder that, if I do everything I can in my home to teach her righteous principles and help her build a strong relationship with our Savior, that she will always know where to turn when obstacles come her way and when she's tempted to do something that will not bring her true happiness. Without that thought, I would probably shelter her and never let her go anywhere...the peace of this gospel allows us to really live...and I love it!

7 Months

Actually, it's closer to 7-1/2 by now...

Tylie has started army crawling/scooting this week. It's a lot of fun to watch her concentrate so hard and show so much determination when she sees something she wants. I hope we can encourage her to have that attitude in everything she does. She is eating many different solid foods, and I enjoy seeing which ones she likes and doesn't like. She loves standing up, and will grab on to anything to pull herself up...although she's not quite able to yet. She is constantly playing with her tongue, and can practically fold it in half...so funny! She still smiles all the time, and is the light of my life!

New Things in our Lives

New Hang-Out Spot...

(the zoo)

New Funny Face...New Flavor of Cereal...

Six months

Tylie turned 6 months old last week. I can't believe how fast time goes by, and how much babies can learn in such a short amount of time. She is not crawling or scooting yet, has no teeth, and has yet to say "mamamama." However, she stands very well by herself, says "dadada" among many other words, and makes some of the funniest sounds as she discovers how to. She's also recently started playing with her tongue a lot more in funny ways.
She loves to play peek-a-boo, and is getting pretty good at it. She'll lay on her back, grab a burp cloth, and put it over her face. Then, when I say "Where's Tylie?" she'll reach up, grab the burp cloth, and pull it off her face and grin from ear to ear. It is so cute! She makes friends everywhere she goes, and is always the life of the party. We love you Tylie!

Moving and Groving

Tylie has shown no interest in crawling yet...she rarely pulls up onto her knees (except to sleep)
and seems content to roll anywhere she needs to go. However, this week I have started to wonder if it's because she's just going to skip the crawling thing and go right into walking. She seems to enjoy it more.

(sorry it's sideways....I don't know how to rotate it!)

Lots of Catching Up to Do

I realize I've been pretty slack about keeping up with my blog. There just never seem to be enough hours in the day, and before I know it I've lost weeks. Tylie is growing up so fast, and I'm not doing her any justice by keeping her sweetness to myself. Therefore, here are a few of my favorite and most recent pictures of her.

Five months old already! (Of course, this was almost a month ago, I just never got around to posting it...and the lighting didn't really work great...I need a studio!)

Bundled up for a walk on our unbelievable snow day. She loved looking around at the beautiful scenery.

Sitting up all by herself in the tub (sink) the other night. I swear she just wakes up some days and decides she wants to do new things, and then she does them!

This is when I propped her in front of the sliding glass door during a snow storm so she could watch the flakes fall. She enjoyed it quite a bit.

This was her first feeding from a spoon. It was a few weeks ago, and it was so much fun! She's been watching us eat for a while, so we decided to let her have a go at it. She loved it! She kept grabbing my hand and pulling it toward her mouth, and then she would open up wide and chomp down repeatedly. It was really funny, and so grown up!

A Christmas Day Miracle!!! (only a few months late)

When they predicted it, we scoffed. When they cancelled school an hour early, we laughed out loud. And then it came...and came....and came....

Tylie and I went for a walk in the morning to enjoy the sight, and we're lucky we did. It wasn't more than a couple hours later that it was almost completely gone! Brent and I never thought that Tylie's first snow would be here in sunny South Carolina!