Dear Lilly,

Wow. I can hardly believe it's been two years since you rocked into our lives and changed our family forever. It's been a wild ride the whole two years, but I wouldn't change a thing. The morning I saw that pink line appear on the home pregnancy test, I knew life was going to change drastically. I kept thinking, "Oh God...THREE kids!? Are you sure? Can I really handle this?" Your Dad didn't even really believe me when I took him out to dinner that night and slid a note written on the restaurant napkin that said "I'm pregnant." We were both shocked to say the least. :)

And then nine months and fifty pounds of baby blubber later I had had enough and schedule a date for you to come into the world. I know...I'm the epitome of patience. Your birth was the fastest of all three...a record 3.5 hours! I can still remember how heavy and warm you were when they laid you on my chest. Wow...what an amazing feeling! In 3.5 hours I had gone from a wife and mother of two kids to a woman who had just been handed a third child, a second daughter and had no idea what chaos and absolute joy she was about to bring to me and our family.

This past year has been quite interesting, Lilly. We have watched you go from a baby who was unsteady on her feet, waving her arms around like a monkey to keep her balance to a more sure and steadier walker who fell and hit her head a lot and then ZOOM...I think that was Lilly who just flew by me at mach speed! You are by far, my most daring and acrobatic child. You run without a care, you stay right behind Abby and/or Zach in almost everything they do. In fact, this Summer was the first year in Zach's whole life that he'd even get into the pool waist deep and this, your first year of being in the big pool, YOU jumped feet first into the five foot deep end! Does that tell me anything about your bravery? Yes. Yes, it does! You taught yourself how to swing on the swing set this year, just by watching your older siblings get up and go. I've never had to show you or help you get on a swing and you even push and pump yourself. You gave up the highchair this year too. You wanted to be a "big girl" and sit in the regular seats like your sister and brother, so we let you try. However, we had to make a compromise and give you a booster set so that A) you could reach your food and B) you could still be strapped into the seat. Otherwise you jumped up and down at your own will and disrupted dinner too much. Just in the past few months you started sleeping all through the night too! Hooray! I thought the night would never be here after all three of you kids, but it is and I'm SUCH a happier mom for it. Your vocabulary has taken off too. You never seem to want to talk when other people are around so that we can show you off, but dang girl, we are impressed! You can easily tell us what you need/want, what you do NOT want (this is the big word right now, you'll hear this word a lot too as you get older, it's NO!), who took what from you and how you want them to be punished severely for the infraction. Hee hee. Well, okay, you can sort of tell us that. It comes out like this..."Mooooooom, Zachy took dat. He spanken! *wagging finger at Zach* NO! NO! Zachy!" It's too cute really.

*deep sigh*

So Lilly, I just wanted to take a minute out of the crazy life to say how much I love you, how much we ALL love you. God really knew what He was doing when he nestled you down in my womb without my consent and I praise Him for what you've brought to our family as well as what you will bring to Him. I'm sure He looks in on you and marvels at the qualities of Him that He sees in you.

I know you don't really get the concept of a birthday yet, but I hope that today you feel extra special with all the extra hugs, kisses and love you receive from Daddy, Abby, Zach, Grammas and Grampas and all the people who think you are something special...especially your Mommy.

The Scoop

So...yes, it's been over two months since I've posted here. Hold the rotten tomatoes, I have a good excuse! Okay...maybe I don't have a good excuse, but I have an excuse. I'll just say it. I've been cheating. I have a mistress and her name is Facebook. I don't know what the male form of a mistress is, so it stays feminine and you'll just have to understand me. Anyway, I can't get enough of it! Mobwars, Games, Chatting, Updating everyone on every stupid or significant thought I have, what I'm eating, what I'm feeling, what I'm doing...it's SOOO self indulgent. And how fun is it to peek in on all my friends and family to see what THEY are thinking, feeling and doing!? It's like the newest way to keep in touch without actually taking time out of my life for a real, live conversation. It figures the Information Super Highway would find a way to make interpersonal relationships impersonal, right? And yet I'm hooked.

That's not to say that my personal relationships have gone down the toilet while I spend hours massaging my computer. No, no, no. In fact, my life hasn't felt this on track in a long while. My friend Karynda and I started attending a bible study every week, um, last November? When I started meeting with these women I had become a woman that I didn't really recognize anymore. Oh, I was about the same on the outside, but inside I had shriveled and sunk down into myself. I'm sure I blogged about it awhile ago, but it was so apparent to me one Sunday when I sat in church seething while looking at all these young, adorable couples around me. I knew something was really wrong. Thankfully, when I turned my heart back toward the Holy Spirit and asked him to begin the transformation, there was no hesitation. It only took about a month of meeting with these older, godly women who truly loved and prayed for me as a sister and my heart had fully softened again. I was no longer seething and miserable inside, confused and in turmoil about how to go about life with my crazy kids and unorganized life. I was starting to reach up out of the fog and the air was clearer up there. *deep breath* It's refreshing and purifying actually. So "big props" to my main man Jesus and his Holy Spirit who is dwelling and changing and growing and all that good stuff inside of me.

So what's been happening in the Baker household the past few months? Summer's been in full swing here. We were at the pool and playing outside and eating ice cream. We were garage saling, walking around barefoot, having sleepovers and having a TON of lemonade stands at the end of our driveway. We've been vacationing, family reunion-ing, playdating and enjoying our friends. We were working and playing tennis and making financial goals and PAYING OFF OUR VAN, which feels awesome. We were considering moving out of our house and seriously looking into buying a new one, but the two homes we were seriously interested in fell through. We took that as a sign and backed off, deciding to instead take a chunk out of our savings to pay the van off and then make extra payments to the house.

At this point in the Summer we are all exhausted by each other's presence. So much so that I find myself scavaging for any quiet alone time I can. If I get up before the kids do in the morning I feel assaulted if they intrude into my time by waking up early. How dare they, right? The kids are sick of playing with each other and just plain picking on one another. You know that ol' {pointing a finger at the other just an inch away from the face} and saying "I'm not touching you, you doodyhead." Ack! Stop it! "Mom, he's not touching me and being SO annoying." If you not touch your sister again you are going to your room! Get down off the counter! Stop jumping on the couch! SHUT...THE...DOOR!!! Seriously people, I know this is stuff that the everyday mom deals with and it's no more difficult for me than any of them, but oh my gosh, school needs to start as soon as possible. I'm going to have a "Back to School" party for myself on the 24th. Not sure what all that entails, but it's gonna happen. Maybe it'll be a pedicure and coffee, maybe it'll be a Glamour magazine and bag of Hershey Kisses on the couch with no one wallowing all over me. Whatever it is, it's gonna rock to have the kids in school on a regular basis and I want to celebrate a good Summer, which means I didn't kill any of them and they didn't declare mutiny, gag and duct tape us down in the basement.

That's the long and short of the past two months or so. I'm sure that any of you who know us well enough are also following us on Facebook, but I'll try to get the juicy bits of our lives back into this blog. That's something that Facebook can't capture - the in's and out's of the really interesting parts of our life...and there are many!

Be well, Friends!