Goodbye Grandma

Eileen Leonila Trujillo Lively & Charlie Matthew Lively

Matt's grandma passed away this past week. Although I have only known her for a little over 2 years, I really liked her a lot. She was an amazing example of what a good grandma is. Ever since I joined the family, she treated me like her own granddaughter. I really enjoyed spending time at her home. It just felt so warm and cozy there. She was an amazing cook and seamstress. I was always so impressed by her projects. She was very generous, and made me feel very loved.

My favorite memory of her was when we got snowed in at her house on Christmas Day. We had spent the afternoon and evening there and as we were getting ready to head home, there was a huge blizzard. You couldn't even see 3 feet in front of you. The roads were closed and so we all camped out at Grandma's house. She even slept in the living room with the rest of us.

She was a wonderful lady and she will be very missed. I am glad that I was able to know her even if it was just for a short time. I wish that I would have gotten to know Matt's grandpa too. He passed away right around the time that we got married, so I only got to meet him a couple of times. But I'm glad that they were good grandparents to Matt, and that I can hopefully learn more about them so I can pass on that knowledge to Emily so she can know of her wonderful heritage. Goodbye Grandma. We love you and will see you again.

Welcome Baby Rivers

Welcome to our newest nephew. Rivers McKean Shepherd was born on Sunday, Oct. 24 to Scott and Mystie. He is a cutie!

Just some randoms

Em likes to put anything in her mouth. Most of the time it's her fist or parts of her hand or her blanket or burp rag. But sometimes if she is holding on to part of your hand, she'll put that in her mouth. Here she is sucking her daddy's thumb.

And here is Matt's reaction to it! Ha!

And here she is all ready for church.

That's all.

3 Months

Our little Emily is 3 months old today. I can't believe it...she's a whole quarter of a year. At 3 months Emily...

-weighs about 12.4 pounds
-graduated to Size 1 diapers
-has outgrown most of her newborn clothes (sad!)and is now wearing the 0-3 mo. ones
-has graduated to Stage 2 swaddling
-smiles when you get her up from her naps
-hates to take her naps
-sleeps from about 7 p.m. to 7-8 a.m., with getting up once in the night to eat
-is starting to try to laugh, but it sorta sounds like a cough
-can roll over from her tummy to her back
-has big smiles for her mom when she gets home from work
-cannot keep her shoes on
-loves to stand on your lap
-spits up a lot
-loves to get her diaper changed
-does not like football games
-hates her bouncy seat
-loves her zoo animal mobile
-hates to be in her carseat unless the car is moving
-tries to sit up and it looks like she is doing crunches
-is very loved
-is still SO unpredictable!

But we still love her and she is the sweetest little baby we could ever hope for (when she isn't crying!).

Daddy's girl

I love watching Matt be a daddy. He is so cute with Emily.




It just makes me happy to see him so proud of her and to hear him talk to her and play with her and watch him show her off to everyone and tell her he loves her and how he hates it when she's unhappy and how he says she's cuter than all the other babies and how he always thinks she's too hot or too cold and how he thinks she always wants to look at stuff. It's just cute. That's all.

Cough or Laugh?

We can't tell if Emily is coughing or laughing, but she does this when she's happy. Whatever it is though, I think it's stinkin' cute that she copies me when I do it.

Our lil cutie

Just thought I'd post some pics of Em. She is such a cutie and I am lucky to be her mom.



I LOVE her big blue eyes!

She is doing better now than she was the first few days that I went back to work. Those first few days were really rough, but by the end of the first week she was doing ok. She does pretty well with her babysitters now during the day, and she always has big smiles for me when I get home.

I, on the other hand, am a different story. It is SO HARD!!! I am really struggling with this whole thing and am sometimes a complete wreck. But I am trying to focus on the positives (especially after Pres. Monson's Conference talk about gratitude).

So I am grateful for my students, who are wonderful and trying to do good things. I am grateful for my sister and my neighbor who take such good care of Emily for me. My neighbor has a 2-year-old boy who is in love with Emily. It's so cute! He is always giving her hugs and kisses and trying to help his mom take care of her. I'm grateful to watch Matt be a daddy. This morning he came in and said, "Can I just go peek at her before I leave...I haven't seen her yet today, and she's so cute." And he always walks around so proudly with her. I am grateful for my skills and talents that I can use to (hopefully) bless the lives of others. I am grateful for Tamara, Angela, and Sarah W., who know and understand what it's like to be a working mom and have given me SO much support and encouragement in the past week as I have struggled. Especially since there really is no one else who knows what it's like and can support me. I'm grateful that Matt does the dishes and cleans up dinner so I don't have to worry about that. I'm grateful that I only live 10 minutes away from work. I'm grateful that my students love Emily. And I'm grateful for my sweet little Emily, who greets me with her smiles. Hopefully someday soon I can be home more with her.