The Hills: Already 9 Months Old...

Hello Everyone...

Well, I don't really know where to start, so I guess I'll just start rambling (like usual, lol). I will tell you all about the past couple months and post some pictures and videos of everything at the end.

At the beginning of May we made a trip down to Birmingham to visit Will's family and celebrate Papaw's 85th birthday! We had a really good time visiting with everyone and at the end of the trip we went to our friends' Scott and Brooke's daughter's first birthday party. It is hard to believe that we will be planning Lorali's first birthday party in just a few months!!!

My first Mother's Day was not exactly what I had planned. The Friday before I got a phone call that my grandpa Barney was going to the emergency room because he was having severe abdominal pain. As it turns out he was suffering from gall stones and acute pancreatitis and needed to have surgery ASAP. So, Lorali and I loaded up Saturday morning and headed north to Ohio. Once we got to the hospital they told us that they had to wait until my grandpa's liver enzymes went back down to normal and make sure the pancreatitis went away. So, the waiting began. We waited and waited, and finally he had his surgery Tuesday morning. So, I was able to spend my first Mother's day with my daughter, mom, grandma, and great-grandma but not with my husband. Oh well, it could have been worse... I'm just thankful that everything worked out with my grandpa and he is recovering and doing really well.

Some friends of ours had a cookout for Memorial Day. We all hung out, ate dinner, and then had a huge bonfire. We had a good time, until Lorali got her first boo-boo. We were giving her a bath in our friends' tub (which is deeper than ours). She went to pull herself up and her hand slipped. She fell in the tub and hit her eye on one of the jets. It was just a very minor cut, but it was the first time we had seen blood come from our daughter, so it was a little scary. Within a few minutes she was fully recovered and acting like her happy silly self.

I went home again the first weekend in June for my little sister's first dance recital. She was the cutest little dancing poodle I've ever seen!!! My best friend from high school (Susan) and I finally got to see each other! She just finished her doctorate (in neuroscience, she's pretty smart) at the University of Cincinnati and is getting ready to move to Seattle with her boyfriend and beautiful dog so we figured we'd better get together before she moves across the country! It was great to catch up with her, even if it was in the middle of a garage sale! :)

The next weekend we packed up and went to Nashville. I had a one day conference to go to so we thought what better reason to go visit our friends Jason and Cortney and their little girl, Paige. We hadn't seen the Rockhills since Paige was a whole 3 days old so it was about time we got together! It was so sweet seeing Lorali and Paige play together. Paige wasn't feeling real great the first night, but by Saturday she was better and the girls had a blast. It was really cute to watch Paige interact with Lorali because she's never really been around another baby. Whereas Lorali is around Molly all day so she was all about playing with Paige! Lorali was a little too much for Paige to handle at first, but she adjusted and they had a great time playing in the bathtub. It was great seeing Cortney and Jason too. We always have so much fun when we all get together.

This past weekend was Father's Day. And I must say, we had a wonderful weekend! Will's mom came up to visit and was such a huge help with Lorali. Cathy came up Saturday and stayed until Monday morning. We went to church Sunday morning and Cathy watched Lorali and Molly so Will, myself, Rebecca, and Ryan could play golf. After golf we came back to the house and grilled steaks and hung out. Then, once again, the bathtub and Lorali had a disagreement. Lorali pulled up on the side of the tub and her hand slipped. This time the blood was a little more serious, but she is okay!!! She had a cut on the crease of her eyelid right under her brow bone. The bleeding stopped within a couple minutes and the sides of the wound aligned themselves so luckily she didn't need any special treatment. I called our pediatrician just to make sure I didn't need to do anything else, and he said she would be fine. But, how awesome is it that our pediatrician answered his personal cell phone at 9:00pm on Father's Day! By Tuesday we couldn't even tell she had injured her eye two days before, so that is a relief.

I finished up my summer school classes this week, so I now have about 8 weeks to get everything ready for fall semester. I am starting my doctorate in September so that will be exciting, and scary, and hopefully not too much to take on. Will is thinking about going to back school to get his teaching certificate. There is a post-baccaleaureate program at LMU that meets two Saturdays a month for a year and then he would need to do his student teaching. It would be really nice if we could both have summers and winter breaks off!!! He enjoys his job at Enterprise, but the schedule change would be nice!

Some more updates on Lorali - she is full on crawling all over the place! She can get from one room to the next in a matter of seconds so we have to be sure to keep a close eye on her! A few weeks ago she decided she no longer wants us feeding her baby food. She will eat any solid foods we put in front of her (she loves cheerios, puffs, veggies, etc) but does not really like anything from a spoon. I let her try to feed herself one day and she did manage to get a couple spoonfuls in her mouth but for the most part just made a mess. It was really fun to watch her try to figure it out though! Every now and then she will eat baby food or oatmeal, but for the most part she just wants to feed herself. She pulls up on everything and wants to stand as much as possible. It won't be long and she will be taking her first steps! She has started dancing whenever she hears music. It is amazing how they just innately respond to certain stimuli!!! One of our favorite things she does is as soon as she hears the bath water running to drops whatever she is doing, crawls all the way into the bathroom, stands up at the edge of the tub, and just looks back over her shoulder like "Hello! I'm here! Bathe me!". Bath time is still her favorite time of day! She mimics almost anything Will says or does, it is so cute. She will do the hand-over-the-mouth noise thing (not sure what it's called), she blows raspberries all the time. Oh, and we went to a couple weeks of swim classes! She absolutely loved the water, but only lasted about 30-45 minutes before she would get cold. We also took her to the lake one day on our friends JooHee and Patrick's boat. She loved riding on the boat, but the lake water was still a little cold for her.

Well, I think that about covers the past two months... at least a rough overview of everything we've been up to. Next weekend is the fourth of July and we will be going up to Ohio. My family has a huge reunion every year on this weekend. It should be a fun quick trip up north. I take Lorali to the doctor next Thursday for her 9-month well baby check up. I will try to update this soon after to give you all the details of her visit.

Hope this finds everyone well... keep in touch and come visit whenever you'd like!!!

Love,

Will, Ahleasha, and Lorali

Papaw's Birthday Party