Independence

Lelia is becoming so much more independent! It is very encouraging to watch her play on her play mat by herself for 20+ minutes grabbing things and pulling on her hanging toys. It is truly amazing to watch all of the growth and development that begins and increases with each passing day. I have to admit the independence she is displaying is a little scary at the same time. She has hit her head 2 times this week sitting up on her own. What I am realizing is that with more indepence comes more opportunity for pain...now only physical pain but coming soon will be the realization that discipline will be a regular part of her life as well as emotional pain coming soon after in relationships with others: consequences are a fact of life that we all deal with, some better than others, some harder than others.

As time goes by Tom and I have to increasingly "back-off" to let her learn things the most effective way possible, on her own. We will continually try to protect our precious daughter through teaching and guidance but when all is said and done, most of the things she will learn will be through trial and error and a large part of that is failure. Just like Lelia, we will be learning how to make our mistakes as parents. My prayer is that we will learn and grow with each test we are faced with. The stakes keep getting higher in life for everyone but now our failures are affecting another life who is innocent of our mistakes.

This experience makes me realize just how much we need God in our lives for guidance and grace when we mess up. Thankfully He loves us, all of us, with an unconditional passion that Tom and I feel like we understand better now that we have a child but realize we will never fully understand until we are with him because he loves perfectly. Increasing independence is a reality for all of us...may we all aproach the trials of life with humility (realizing we don't know everything and when we mess up, taking responsibility for them no matter what the cost) and with our best try to please the One who deserves everything from us because he gave us everything in his perfect son Jesus.

I pray that I will get right the trials and tests I am faced with...especially with regard to loving others. I fail daily at realtionships and hope that appologizing and asking for forgiveness is healing to those whom I have hurt. The closer I get to God the futher away I realize I am to making the mark that he demonstrated to us when he walked in the flesh. I just want to fight hard to continue to grow and rely more on the only One who can change me from the inside out. I am so grateful that my identity isn't wrapped up in how well I do life but the fact that I love and accept Jesus as being my Savior...I would be completely unable to be good enough to please Him by myself.

Playin' with the Upton Boys

We had playtime and lunch with the Upton boys, Jackson and Jeremiah. They are very cute and very cool little boys...future boyfriends maybe? :)

Laughing

Sick, Happy and Smokin'

Well, our little girl officially has her first illness. She contracted RSV which is a respiratory virus and has really taken over our lives this last week. As you can see at the height of her illness she was still smiling! The second picture is the nebulizer treatment that we are giving her every 4 hours. She just puts her lips around the little mouth piece while she is watching her Veggie Tales cartoon and smokes away :) She is going to be just fine...thankfully she is getting better!

She Rolled!

Lelia just rolled over for the first time tonight! Tom and I were in the middle of watching Alex Trebeck on Jeopardy. I put her down on her tummy in front of me and she very quickly and smoothly rolled over. Tom and I were so shocked that the screams from us scared her to death and almost made her cry. It is so fun to watch all of the discoveries going on in our little girl's life! Love to all, Brooke.

Lelia's 4 Month Appointment

We just had Lelia's 4 month appointment with her pediatrician yesterday. It went pretty well besides some minor side effects of the immunizations she recieved. At her 2 month appointment she was in the 99th percentile in height and the 95th in weight. This time she was off the charts in both areas...we like to call her our little bruiser :) She is 17.4 lbs. and 27 inches!! Other than that everything is looking great. She loves standing up these days and moving her feet and legs like she is walking. She is almost sitting up unassisted and looks like she may begin to roll over soon. We are still enjoying her so much! Love, the Clarkes.

Our Trip to Arizona

Our first family trip on a plane went way better than either of us expected. Lelia did great on the plane. I added the other picture to show how much stuff Dad was carrying. You would not believe (unless you already have children) how much stuff one little person requires! People told us that before Lelia arrived but I truly had NO IDEA!!

The real reason for our trip to Arizona was to witness and be a part of Beth and Chris' wedding.

I wish I had been able to get some better pictures of Beth and Chris' wedding. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to use the camera until the end of the wedding all of my pictures of Bob and Marianne were blurry. Anyway, the wedding was just beautiful...Beth looked amazing! Chris' face was priceless when he saw her for the first time.

Our time with Jill in Tuscon was fabulous. After lots of wedding events we took the day to relax with Jill in her appartment (with the necessary trip to In and Out Burger). She has a beautiful appartment in the foothills of Tuscon with an incredible view...wish I had taken a picture of it!

Our trip to the Grand Canyon. For those of you who have been there you know that words can't describe it. For those of you who haven't....GO!

Sedona was such a beutiful place to visit! We stayed there for 3 days after Beth and Chris's wedding at a great retreat center owned by the school where Beth teaches (Brophy Prep). We took a trolly tour of the city / the red rock that was amazing. The pictures above are just a sample of the sights that we saw. They were beyond incredible. Above, also, you can see that Lauren (Kevin's girlfriend) and I found some cowboys drinking at a bar and thought it was a great picture opportunity...they didn't seem to mind either. I would love to go back to Sedona and the Clarke family is talking about a reunion there in '09.