Lila is 1!!!

Our little sweetheart is ONE! I can't believe Lila has been in our family for a whole year! She's just been pure magic for us. I can honestly say I've really savored every day of her little life and my heart just swells with joy that she's here!

We didn't do anything grand for her special day, but we opened presents with her that morning. She was a little overwhelmed by all the hoopla and her brothers were pretty anxious to get her to open faster (and did most of the opening themselves). Hudson got her sippy cups and they were a huge hit! She also got some little tub toys and some cute outfits.

After naptime Papa Ray and Grandma came over and gave her a present- a baby doll and a cute book. She was very sweet with the baby doll, which is so funny to me after having three boys. We've never had baby dolls around! I think she will love playing with it.

Then we had our pizza and movie night- I made the boys watch Frozen 2. They are normally so against princess movies, but since it was their sister's birthday they gave in. Get ready boys, I think there's more of that coming! Then Nana and Papa and Heidi came over with their presents and to have cake with us. This was the most beautiful cake, made by my friend Lindsay. It tasted amazing! It was a strawberries and cream cake and there are even freeze-dried strawberries in the frosting which made it extra delicious. The birthday girl very daintily enjoyed her piece (unlike her brothers on their first birthdays who practically inhaled their cake). 

Nana and Papa brought this cozy coupe for her and boy was it a hit! We were all laughing so hard because Lila clearly knew it was hers and wanted to play with it, and so did Davis. He kept pulling her out and getting in himself- and would knock her down when she'd try to reclaim her present! A few days later they are still kind of a fighting over it (although Davis is getting a little better about sharing).

A few things about our ONE YEAR OLD:

• She's a great eater! Her favorite food is cuties. She's pretty good about eating what we eat at meals.
• Loves to empty boxes, cupboards, drawers. She's very intent, like it's her job.
• Prefers mommy, loves her daddy, and is pretty reluctant to go to other people. She does have a special liking for Nana, but everyone else is pretty honored if she lets them hold her. She does smile at everyone though!
• Can go down the stair backwards now!
• Stands on her own for a few seconds sometimes, no steps yet!
• Has 9 teeth and has been the best teether- hardly any grumpiness at all and still sleeps all night even while cutting a tooth generally!
• 1 year old means 366 days of bows. I have put a bow on her every single day of her life. I just love the bows! I'm not sure when I'll stop- she does pull them off. I just put them back on 87 times a day.
• At her 1 year appointment she was 19 pounds 7 oz (40th percentile) and 29.5 inches (60th percentile). So proud of her after spending so much time below the 5th percentile!

I put this little headband on her that she wore on her original birthday and immediately it gave me all the feels. It went too fast! I would love to relive that day (and all my baby's births) over and over again. She's been such a gift!

 Happy Birthday to my little sweetheart!

Hudson's Baptism

On February 6, Hudson got baptized! He was really excited for this day and it was a beautiful one! Due to Covid we didn't know how it would all work out, but thankfully we were able to have most of our family there (in masks, of course). Both sets of grandparents came, along with Will, Nate, Halie, and Katie and his cousins Nora, Anna, Rosie, Jeremiah, Jaylah and Jordyn. We were able to Facetime Nathan and Heidi in, which was also so nice! 

I let Hudson choose the whole program. He asked Nana to play the piano and chose "When I am Baptized" and "I love to see the Temple" as his songs. He asked Papa Ray and Davis to say the prayers. He asked me and Papa to give the talks. And he had Chase and Papa Ray be his witnesses. 

He looked so sweet in the font with Ben and the spirit was really strong. Ben also gave him a very sweet blessing when he confirmed him. Poor Davis tried so hard to be baptized too, including trying to climb over the glass partition right into the font, rushing to the door exclaiming "MY TURN!" as soon as Hudson was baptized, and also trying to join the circle of men during the confirmation. He really didn't understand why Hudson got to do all the stuff and he didn't as well.

We just brought donuts and chocolate milk to the church and served it right there afterwards, which made the day so much less stressful. Then Hudson and Ben went out to a special lunch just the two of them. 

I'm so proud of this boy! He really is the best big brother. He has a very tender heart and does try hard to do the right things. He's just the sweetest kid in the world and my heart was so full watching him take this step to follow Christ. 

11 months of Lila

 

11 months with our sweet baby girl! In the last month she's really found her voice! She says "dada" all the time- and actually when she sees her daddy, so we are officially calling it her first word! She also says "yaya" all the time, which sounds like Lila, but I'm not sure she knows that. She also vocalizes her demands while waving her little hand around to really make the point. I think she's got some sass!

She is into everything. Her latest obsessions are opening drawers and emptying them of their contents. And then usually pinching her fingers in the drawer and then crying. And emptying cupboards. She does this like it's her job, she concentrates so hard!

Her favorite food has been clementines. If she even sees anyone eating one she bounces and grunts and leans towards them to really let them know she wants some! She also loves blueberries and grapes! She's quite the fruit lover.

Definitely a mommy's girl, but also loves attention from her dad. In fact, if Ben walks into the room and doesn't immediately come pick her up, she gets offended. After mom and dad, her other favorite person is Nana. And she's pretty much lukewarm on all other adults.

She has 8 teeth! Teething is no big deal to her! Sometimes she needs a little Motrin, but otherwise seems pretty chill about it. She sleeps a solid 12 hours every night with two naps during the day. It's nice having her on such a predictable nap schedule, it makes planning around her naps so much easier!

She has really started to pull the bows out of her hair. And so I just put them back on like 45 times a day. 

This little girl has really been a bit of magic! We all just love her. She's been the perfect baby!

Our January Birthday Boys!

January is such a dreary month, unless you have fun birthdays to celebrate! I was always be thankful that January brought me these two amazing boys! We celebrated both their birthdays with the Smith family on January 3rd. My friend Lindsay made this amazing cake for them- it tasted just as good as it looks!

Then on January 4th, Chase turned 10! I can't believe he's ten. That went by so fast. He was actually thrilled that he got to go to school on his birthday this year.  

At 10 years old Chase:

• Is the most driven kid you'll ever meet. He's quite the perfectionist, something we are working on. But it does motivate him to work so hard in school, piano, basketball, etc.
• Never complains about practicing the piano and does a solid 30 minutes every day. And it shows. He's gotten so dang good!
• Is loving playing basketball with his friends. Games can be intense for him emotionally, but he's learning a lot from it. He's great at rebounds and assists, and can usually get a basket or two scored each game.
• Wants to help and wants others to feel loved. He gives me at least 12 hugs every day. 
• Says he wants to be a software engineer when he grows up

The night before his birthday I set up this little display for him for the morning! Some of my favorite pictures of him, a few wrapped gifts (he already got his big present, a bike, for his half birthday in July) and I wrote little notes on paper stars all about how much I love him. He's since taped those little stars above his bed in his room to look at while he goes to sleep.

He is also thrilled that he shares a birthday with Utah! Utah celebrated 125 years of statehood the same day. 4th graders study Utah, so this year it was especially fun for him. They made this relief map back in December at school and he was so proud of it!

Normally we do birthday parties for even birthdays. This year COVID made that harder. His best buddy Luca has a birthday two weeks before his, so we decided to do a very chill combined birthday celebration at a local park. This ended up being the weekend after Chase's birthday when we had a pretty clear/warmish Saturday. We just brought pizza and cupcakes and let the kids play at the park. It was simple and chill and so fun! 

Davis has really struggled with all the birthdays this month and that apparently none of the birthdays are his! A friend captured this picture of Chase and Luca blocking their candles from the breeze, but that stinker Davis above them still trying to blow them out! After we sang he retrieved Chase's burnt out candle and insist I relight it and that everyone sing "Happy birthday dear Davis!" Oh what a little stinker he is! 

On January 24th it was Hudson's 8th birthday! We love this sweet little 8 year old so much! I tried to get a cute picture of him for his birthday and asked him to go put on a cuter shirt. He told me he had a better idea. This is what he came back with. I had to admit it was perfect. There is nothing he loves more than Nerf gear and next-level comfort. 

He got this minky from Nana and Papa for his birthday and has been wrapped up in it whenever he's home and sleeps with it every night. Nana got it for him because he kept trying to steal hers.

I put together a little display for Hudson as well. He's pretty easy to please, he just wanted split waffles for breakfast and to have dinner at Nana and Papa's. His birthday fell on a snowy Sunday, so he got to play out in the snow with his brothers for awhile.

At 8 years old Hudson:

• He really grasped reading and does so well! But still doesn't like to read for fun at all and only does the bare minimum required for homework.
• Committed to getting all his math facts passed off early so he could start on multiplication and division- he did it!
• Still loves to pretend and has the best imagination ever. He can play legos for hours with no one interrupting him. 
• Loves all things Minecraft, Star Wars, Nerf and Avengers.
• Is the sweetest with Lila- he is so nurturing and is so great at finding little games to make her laugh. 

Closing out 2020

 Wow- what a year! I don't think anyone expected 2020 to go the way it did, and yet, it did. A global pandemic, school cancelled and home schooling, stores out of basic necessities, a very ugly presidential election, everyone wearing masks. Not at all the year we had pictured a year ago. And yet, here at home, one of the sweetest years we've had. Hard, but sweet. The top highlights of our year:

With no question- the highlight of the entire year was adding Miss Lila Carly Hugo to our family on February 19, 2020. She's the sweetest girl in the world and we can't imagine life without her now.

2. We spent the summer at the pool! This was from the 4th of July. In a summer where so many options were closed, it was amazing to have the pool close by! All three boys are total fish, and Lila learned to tolerate it.

3. Our camping trip in July. Camping with a new baby and three other kids is no joke, but it was absolutely beautiful and absolutely worth it (and also absolutely exhausting).

4. The boys got to start back to school in person in the fall! At first it was only two days a week, after one month it progressed to 4 days a week (which is the plan through the end of the year). After our experience in the spring, we won't take school for granted!

5. Our family trip to Bryce Canyon in September. This is such a beautiful spot and we loved exploring it and getting away as a family!

So many beautiful memories in 2020, along with some  hard ones. This was a year of a lot of family time. The chaos in the world mandated that we spend more time at home with each other and I will always be thankful for that time. I saw my big boys grow in their relationship with each other, and grow in their relationship with Davis. Everyone got more time with baby Lila. Ben got to work from home for a big part of the year. While the world was falling apart, our family was growing closer and stronger.

I also witnessed so much GOOD in people. Unprecedented times made a lot of people focus on their blessings and focus on others who needed help. We watched our community rally after a crazy windstorm. We watched them rally around people in heartbreaking circumstances. Our little family was the recipient of so much love and thoughtfulness. I'll never forget in the first weeks of the pandemic when groceries and other goods were hard to come by, and I had a brand new baby at home and didn't want to go out to stores. Not a single day passed without a neighbor texting me to see if I needed anything, reminding me that they could easily run to the store for me. People came together to help one another in a beautiful way.

Our theme scripture this year was "Search diligently, Pray always, and Be Believing and all things shall work together for your good. D&C 90:24" This described our year in the nutshell- we did a lot of searching. Both emotional and mental searching and spiritually. We read the whole Book of Mormon as a family. We studied the words of God! We prayed a lot. And we believed things would work out. They did. Maybe not everything the way we'd hoped, but it has worked out and we've become better through it.

We rang in the New Year at home. Ben made us a delicious Korean dinner, which the boys loved. We made homemade ice cream and watched an Avengers movie. We celebrated East coast new years and put the boys to bed at 10:00. It was quiet and simple, but still sweet in it's own way. While most people were saying "Good riddance 2020!" I was feeling grateful for the gifts it brought me- a new baby, a closer family, better perspective, added strength that comes from trials, and a hope for a brighter future!

Lila Fashion Show

 As much as I truly loved dressing my baby boys, having a baby girl took it to a new level! Picking out her outfits has been a highlight of my day every single day since she was born. I thought it would be fun to do a round-up of all my favorite outfits (it was hard to narrow down- but these are my very favorites!).

This little lemon outfit was the first thing I bought when we found out we were having a girl! She wore it home from the hospital and I just loved it so much! This is also the outfit that she got her nickname "Lemon-pie" from. It was newborn sized and she wore it a lot for the first 6 weeks or so until she sadly grew out of it.

Besides the above outfit, I didn't buy anything else in newborn size. Luckily, Katie did! So Lila wore lots of hand-me-downs from her cousins for the first month of her life. This little denim romper was so darling and was an absolute favorite! 

My mom gave me this little tutu outfit at my baby shower, and it might be my favorite outfit she EVER wore. It's the most "Courtney" thing I've ever seen! Plus the fabric was so soft. She looked so darling in it.

I loved this little pink outfit too- also a gift from Nana. My mom actually bought this (along with the flower print one below) back when I was just barely pregnant with Lila- we hadn't even confirmed she was a girl via ultrasound yet! Nana was too excited and bought these darling little outfits and gave them to me and I looked at them hanging in my closet for months and months. I was so sick and when I'd look at these tiny outfits I would just get so excited for my baby girl to come! I know they are just clothes- but they gave me something to look forward to during the yuckiness of the pregnancy. Also- she has ballet shoe socks on and they were my favorite until sadly one got lost in the wash.

Heidi bought this little outfit for Nora six years earlier and it looked so cute on Lila! It started getting hot and Lila was still so tiny- and all her baby gifts in 0-3 were understandably winter clothes (February baby). It was so nice to have Nora's hand-me-downs to help us get through June! It's hard to see in the photo, but there are cherries printed on this chambray fabric- I love a good cherry print!

Oh the bunny outfit! This was a gift from my Aunt Georgia and cousin Erin. She wore it for her first Easter (fitting). The print was so sweet, the light pink color was perfect. The first time she wore it, I told Ben "This is what my baby girl dreams are made of."

Lila had these darling sleeping gowns (also a gift from Nana- there is a theme- Nana bought her lots of cute stuff)- but this one was my favorite! The words say "hello gorgeous!"

Kate bought her this darling little number. Pretty much everything else she wore during this time was pink, so it was nice to break it up a little with orange.

This outfit was so cute- it was a hand-me-down from Eliza Shaw. It only fit for a few weeks of summer, but it was darling while it lasted!

This outfit was a gift from my cousin Kelly. It was an absolutely favorite. It was so soft and the perfect blush color. I loved the ruffles and the way it fit her. She wore it all the time during the spring. Also, this bow is still one of my favorite bows. I love the liberty of London print and the way it compliments her mostly pink wardrobe.

This cute dress was a gift from Heidi and it looked beautiful on her! It also had a little navy cardigan but for some reason I don't have many pictures with the cardigan on. I had planned on her wearing this to church...and then church didn't happen for so long. But she wore it to home church a bunch and looked cute nonetheless.

I love this mint whale outfit for a couple of reasons:

1. I bought this for Nora six years ago! So sweet to put my daughter in it (and so nice of Katie to save it for me).

2. I love Lila in mint green! Although she mostly wears pink stuff, Ben and I both agree that she looks gorgeous in mint green and blues!

Oh the pink dress had a red version in the larger size! This was one of Hudson's favorites that he'd always pick when it was his turn to choose. I loved the poppy print too!

I loved this mint green outfit! It fit her right in the middle of the summer, so she didn't wear it a lot. But it was perfect for the cooler days and when we were camping. 

Again, I love her in mint green. This dress was the absolute cutest! It was a gift from Laura Scott- Heidi's best friend in Boston! Shortly after Lila was born the cutest package came in the mail, such an unexpected surprise! I put her in this almost every Sunday for awhile there. 

This onesie was also a gift from Nana- it came in the most darling 5 pack and she wore them all a lot, but this one was my very favorite. I just loved the print!

This darling swim suit was also in that package from Laura. It was so cute I just almost couldn't stand it! (It was even cuter in the back- those ruffles crossed in her back!)

This pale pink romper was also a gift from Kate and looked so darling on her! I definitely have a thing for blush pink and sweet little floral prints!

I just loved this whole ensemble- from the bow socks (also a Nana gift), the cute little jeggings (hand-me-downs), sweet pale pink stripes and that heart headband- dressing and accessorizing her was just such a blast! I loved picking out a bow every day to match her outfit. As I'm typing this she's 10 months old- she's worn a bow every single day of her life. It's just too fun!

This might be tied for my favorite outfit ever. Nana bought her this and I planned our whole family pictures around it because I knew I wanted her to wear this. Everything about it was darling- the colors and print and ruffles! 

The print on these jammies were so cute! These were a gift from our friend Merlyn.

These pants really had me- you can't even see the ruffle bum, but believe me it was adorable. They also just had a nice fit to them that worked on Lila's tiny build. They fit right around Halloween time and were so perfect for fall!

This dress was so special to me! It was mine when I was a baby and my mom saved it. It was hand made by her cousin and even though it's 32 years old held up incredibly well. The delicate smocking was just so cute! (In the next few years she'll have lots of things to wear that my mom made- most of them with darling smocking- but my mom wasn't doing as much of that back when I was a newborn).

I love this outfit- partially because I bought it for Davis! It looked so cute on him with his darling red hair- he wore it for his first Christmas. When I was getting rid of the little boy clothes I just couldn't part with this one, and then realized that it couldn't totally work for a baby girl! Lila looked darling in it as well (although I had forgotten that the buttons on this are a real pain!).

I called this her "Audrey Heburn look".  Heidi got her these darling tutu onesies (there was a pink one too, also adorable) and I just loved pairing it with her grey tights and red shoes (which were Nora's). As I look back I guess I have a thing for tutu's! Maybe 10 years of ballet lessons did that to me!

So that's a wrap on Lila's 2020 fashion. Really, every outfit was my favorite and it was hard for me to narrow it down to these. She has been one well dressed baby! As we began 2021 I pulled out her size 12 month clothes, so get ready for more adorable outfits!