Lankford Love

ONE. Lilleigh got a wagon for Christmas from her Grammy. Obviously a wagon would be kinda annoying to transport from Houston to Dallas, so Grammy had it shipped to us. And she even came up to set it up!  Riding inside was fun. ...Don't mind the photo quality. Bad lighting, iPhone photo, flash, etc. TWO. Lilleigh the artist. This is why we'll never have cable. I'm convinced that Amanda (my artist friend) and Tess (who's just creative in her own way) are uniquely gifted because the lack of cable in their homes forced them to entertain themselves and use the gifts God gave them! :) Oh and did I mention that Amanda has two sisters who are also super artistic? Totally convinced that we need craft projects galore at our house over the next 18 years! Daddy and Lilleigh's project. I'm pretty sure it's a gift for me. :) THREE. Costco is just more fun with friends. How awesome that their carts fit TWO babies! Maddie and Lilleigh ...Maddie's mom, K...

Over the past few weeks, even months, Brendon and I have been thinking a lot about the subject of Christmas. Of course, we always knew Christmas should be about Jesus. And now that we have Lilleigh we really want to downplay the Americanization of Christmas and place Jesus center stage, where He belongs. After all, the holiday is His. I don't really think our desire for this is different from that of other believing parents. (And by "believing," I'm not referring to Santa!) But I know that despite similar desires, what we do with the holiday may look different. In this post, I'm sharing with you some of our thoughts and the parts of Christmas we're wrestling with. This is in not a judgment on you, so please don't take it that way. This is our Christmas dilemma... Gifts . I'm not sure what to do here. America prioritizes gift giving. And while I looove gifts (They're my love language!), I want to be careful about what we teach our children. W...

I wanted to take a post to write about GriefShare now that I've finished it the first time. {Though I say first time, it'll probably be my last too, as getting out just before Lilleigh's bedtime is taxing on us, but they invite everyone to come back for as many sessions as necessary.} In case you haven't gotten it by now -- GriefShare is AMAZING. Our last meeting was Tuesday night, so I've taken the last few days to process my experience in the program. Basically, like anything else, you get as much out of GriefShare as you put in it. I did the homework religiously. {I didn't do the journaling at the end though because I didn't see that section until the second to last week - oops. I'll go back to that!} I attended every group meeting possible, and I tried my very hardest to be on time for the video in the beginning. {Hard thing to do around bedtime!} If you've ever been through GriefShare, you know the videos are cheesy. They were filmed in the...

We've been Christmas partying it up! Okay not really. But we have been to a couple. Last Saturday morning we went to a Christmas brunch for young families at church. There was, of course, food, hence the "brunch." Then we sang songs with the kids. So sweet and fun! Brief interruption: Apparently I never mentioned that we found a new church home. Several of you have reminded me. Sorry about that. We are now at Watermark. I'll hopefully share more about that later. You can always remind me. Back to this post... Daddy daughter photo op! Left to right: Mike and Maddie, Matt and McKinley, Brendon and Lilleigh Lilleigh with her friends Maddie and McKinley Notice how they are all in matching Christmas tree shirts! Katy and I made them! Then yesterday Katy hosted a fun mommy-baby party. We saw Santa and got photo, ate yummy food, crafted some cute little reindeer, swapped cookies, and played! It was a fun {and chaotic!} time had by all! Sadly, Santa did no...

It's been one of those days. Crying. Non-stop. Or so it seems. This afternoon Lilleigh didn't want to nap. So she cried, as usual, when I put her down. It's not that it wasn't tired. She was. In fact she was a bit late for nap (which has never been an issue). I think she sometimes gets worked up because she knows fun toys are in the living room, and she's missing out. Typical. Anyway, it began with that. Then she slept for maybe 15 minutes and woke up crying again. I let her play for a bit, but she was clingy, whiney, and rubbing her eyes. I tried to lay her down again. Still no rest. And so our afternoon went. And then tonight... again, not so smooth. Typically she gets a bath and changed into her PJs. Then I nurse her for 20 minutes, followed by story time. Song. Prayer. Bed. But like I said, tonight wasn't as smooth. And it hasn't been for the last few nights. She hasn't nursed longer than 10 minutes. Tonight she nursed 10, which was a victory. Past...

Now that Lilleigh is on the movie, silence is not a good thing. This afternoon Lilleigh was playing in the living room while I was fixing lunch in the kitchen. Then I realized I didn't hear anything... So I peeked into the living room to make sure she hadn't crawled off to some other part of the house. This is what I saw. Do you see Lilleigh? I had to do a double take at first. She's nestled between Sammy and the couch, cuddling with sweet Sammy dog!  What a sweet baby girl for wanting to cuddle with her puppy! And what a sweet dog for letting Lilleigh cuddle and crawl all over her - even when Momma isn't watching!

Oh my goodness, I think I fall more in love with this little pumpkin every day! Is she not just the cutest thing you've ever seen? Many of my friends see new babies and swoon, remembering the days their babes were that little. I can't relate. Really. Of course, when Lilleigh was a new baby, I adored her. But I've really enjoyed her more and more each day. New baby snuggles are great, but nothing beats the mimicking of Mommy's faces, the crawling after Sammy, and laughter. So here are some photos of Lilleigh at 10 months. I know these aren't awesome. My apologies. I think I'm over this monthly sticker thing, but I have to finish out the year... And not to mention that getting this child to sit still or pose is near impossible! She learned to wave. I tried to get an action shot. Crawling after the lens cap. Sweet thang! Trying to put on her headband! Making Momma proud! Lilleigh at 10 months... CRAWLING! And PULLING UP! Yikes! Time to find a new ho...

Our play group has started to meet in the mat room at Watermark twice a month. The mat room is essentially a big room with a large gymnastics mat floor and tons of fun mat wedges, tubes, blocks etc. So fun for mobile babies and toddlers! And now that Lilleigh is army scooting and crawling, she can enjoy it! Yes, CRAWLING, like all fours! That started TODAY, just in time for her 10 month birthday! Here are some photos from today of Lilleigh and our neighbor Jensen.   That's Sylvia (Jensen's mommy and our awesome next door neighbor!) in the photo. She'd kill me if she knew I posted that photo :) but I think it gives you a good idea of what the mat room is!

My friend Destiny, whom I've recently come to know, shared her story at GriefShare the other night. It wasn't the first time I'd heard her story. But that didn't keep the tears from coming. Destiny lost her brother Derek seven years ago. Coming from a rough upbringing, she describes him as her life witness. I love this label. Though I thankfully had a wonderful upbringing, I relate to this term. The phrase I've so often used is "my other half." I realize this usually describes a spouse, but growing up I think it describes siblings close in age. Austen was there for most everything important in my life, and I, in his. Sometimes when I'm frustrated or laughing at the situation I find myself in, I just want to call him because I know he's the only one that would truly get it. Though I have lots of younger siblings, the age gap is so great that sometimes it seems like we were raised in two totally different families, and to an extent, we have. The be...

She loves that red salt and pepper shaker ornament. And she really loves the Christmas tree! See how I made this dress here .

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did. It was busy, as always! And as always, I forgot to take pics. Oops! Here is this awesome photo of my siblings and me that I found while visiting though. Three wild Indians and a turkey! Circa 2002? Just before we left though, SMom and I took Morgan and Lilleigh to see Santa. We got to Mem City Mall at 8:55 AM, just 5 minutes before Santa opened for photos. We were the first - and only - people there! At first Santa's helpers were having some camera issues, so we had lots of time with Santa. Lil checked him out from afar, and he played peek-a-boo with her. Morgan got to sit on his lap and look at his reindeer book with him. I got tons of photos of Morgan on my iPhone, but by the time it was Lil's turn, they made me put my phone up. Darn! Despite the way it looks, she actually did like Santa ... she loved the feel of his red velvet coat. And all was well... until Mom walked away... then it was NOT okay. And of cour...

I love your comments! And I love getting emails with your comments too! To make it easier, I changed up the comment form to "Disqus" (Thanks to my friend, Katie ) to make it easier to comment. Now it's super easy to comment even if you don't have an account with Blogger! Anyone can comment! Go ahead, try to comment on this post.

There's some motivation to crawl! For the record, those are salt and pepper shakers that look like ornaments. Brendon's aunt gave them to us a few years ago. They are not breakable.

This photos just give you a glimpse as to how active Lilleigh is! Lilleigh at nine months... LOVES solids and eating them all by herself. She even refuses to let Momma feed her, though she did let me give her pureed strawberries earlier. Those are just tasty though! And on the solid front, she's pretty much eaten everything not processed so far - so egg yolk, grains, veggies, fruits, and meat. We'll probably still continue to avoid processed foods as much as possible, but then again Mom and Dad would like to do that too. Peek-a-boo is her favorite game!  ALMOST crawling. (Remember that army crawl happened after her 9-month-birthday.) Wearing size 9 and 12 month clothing... the 12 month clothing is really just for her big bottom cloth diapers. :) Still some sleep disruptions , though it is getting much better. Last night she woke up at 3 and refused to go back to sleep until I fed her at 3:30, but over the weekend, she slept straight through the night both nights. (...

For the last two months I've been thinking "Lilleigh is going to crawl any day!" But little did I know that the progression of crawling is a long one.... First there's sitting up and leaning over on the arms. Then there's the little bounce on the arms as they try to balance. Meanwhile there's also the rolling from back to front and spending more time on the tummy and eventually pushing up from their tummy with their arms. Eventually they push their way backwards (knees down). And then they move by reaching their arms to the side... causing them to move in circles. And the knees may start coming up some. And then FINALLY the army crawl. Later the normal crawl. Quite the ordeal! Lilleigh's first army crawl... We don't have hardwoods. We were visiting a friend. So it may be a few days more before we see this sort of progress at home on our carpet. As you can imagine, crawling on carpet is a bit more difficult. PS 9 month photos are coming... they...

Well it was a wonderful birthday! Brendon was working on the Right Now conference all week, but Friday was the last day. So all of the Right Now conference staffers had a big breakfast. Lil and I went as his guests. :) Then my sweet daddi o came up and took us to The Cheesecake Factory Friday night and then also to Square Burger in downtown McKinney on Saturday. {Have I mentioned that I looove downtown McKinney? I'll have to save that for another post.} And of course, Lilleigh was a sweet little angel for both of our outings. Her good behavior tells me she likes eating out in restaurants. :) Then the next night my sweet friend Randi and her hubby and baby hosted us for another birthday dinner. Stellar best friend, right? And beforehand, we took family photos of them. That was actually part of McKinley's first birthday gift - first year photos - and we just now got around to it. It was just so hot in August... I think the photos turned out pretty great! And as you can...