It's happening. Almost six months, thousands of dollars, and two noisy roosters later, the hens are laying eggs.

Well, one of them is, anyway. Snowflake presented us with a single little pink egg yesterday. Matt heard the chicken cackling up a storm, went out to check the coop, and found it buried in the sawdust. He came rushing in to show me and promptly dropped it. It cracked, so he cooked it up right away as a pre-dinner snack.

About 3,000 more of these and we might be getting close to "worth it."

OK, look. This summer has been crap. It started out pretty fabulous: 80 degrees on Memorial weekend in Alaska? Unheard of. I was all "Yaaaaay! This is going to be the best summer EVAR!" But I was wrong. Rain, rain, and more rain.

And when you suffer through nine months of winter for the sole purpose of experiencing some of the very best and most beautiful summer weather in the world, as I do, and then that weather never comes? Insanity ensues.

First, you try to stay positive. "A little rain will just make everything greener and more fabulous and happy happy happy!" Then you think you'll just try to enjoy these couple weeks of wet weather, because any day now it's going to be scorching. Helps keep the wildfires at bay. But pretty soon after that, when the rain has stretched on through July and you know damn well that any real "summer" weather in August is unlikely... Then you start getting a little desperate. Panicky, even.

So a few weeks ago, when it was a little drizzly and Matt was off being an Alaska man in the woods somewhere, Lillia and I sat around reading stories. Then we ate. Then we watched a Strawberry Shortcake movie. Then we ate some more. Read more stories. By the time she went down for her nap - and left me all alone with my boredom - I was on the verge of institutionalization.

So when she woke up, I gave her a snack, put on her coat and shoes, and we drove over to the little local annual festival down the street. She rode a pony named Fireball. She went on a carousel. She went on the big slide. Three times. She won a little stuffed penguin at a fishing game booth and named it Gloria. She ate cotton candy. Then she started throwing fits so I knew it was time to go home.

But. Weeks later, she is still telling people about the "Fegetable" and Fireball and the big slide. And the fact that the sun wasn't shining doesn't seem to have made one bit of difference to her. The festival helped calm me down for a while, made me feel like we had some fun this summer.

But that was weeks ago. And it's STILL RAINING.

In order to escape the monotony this time, we are taking it to a new level. We leave for Idaho next Tuesday morning. It may not be a tropical vacation, but it's sunny and hot. And that is fan-freaking-tastic.

Last Saturday was hot and sunny, so Lillia and I had our lunch outside. Then we had popsicles and ran around the yard. Matt and I did yard work and then at dinner time, I grilled up some chicken and, once again, we ate outside.

It's a good thing we spent all that time outside on Saturday, because it has barely stopped raining since. Ninety-degree Idaho, here we come!

Lillia loves bubbles. Washing her hands tends to be a five-minute ordeal because she insists on playing with the bubbles that remain in the sink once we've turned the water off. EVERY TIME.

That love has become Shakespearean, apparently, as evidenced by a scene that played out in her bubble bath a few nights ago:

   Lillia: Mommy, where did all the bubbles go?

   Mommy: They are going away honey. They don't stay forever.

  Lillia, scooping up a handful of the few bubbles left in the tub and holding them in her outstretched hand: Goodbye, bubbles!

Then she kissed them gently and hugged them against her chest, eyes closed.

And...scene!

I'm pretty sure this kid is going to make me millions.

Lillia, after another round of nebulizer treatments: I love this daddy! My daddy is the best! Oh, there's Maccy dog! I love him!

Matt: Man, I want some nebulizer. That stuff's like baby ecstasy.

Yay! My first video post. Unfortunately, I still can't figure out how to load a Flickr video on here, so you get a link to YouTube instead...

I recently had a near-panic attack when I realized that we had a year's worth of Lillia footage on our recorder that hadn't been saved anywhere else. Matt loaded it all up on our computer and, last night, I decided to watch some of it.

I started sobbing when I saw this one. My baby, less than one year ago and so, so much more of a baby than she is now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKqsE3xt8hw

Lillia loves music. When she was a baby, I would sing "Ooh Child" to her and she would smile no matter what.

Despite my lack of talent in the area, I sing to her each night when I put her to bed. This past Christmas, I introduced her to some holiday favorites and it is only in the past few weeks that she has stopped requesting those songs as I put her in her crib.

I haven't bought much new music in a few years because I knew that eventually I'd catch up with the times and get an MP3 player. Matt got me an iTouch as a gift and I've slowly loaded it up with some newer stuff, as well as oldies/goodies.

Lillia has become pretty familiar with several of the songs on my playlist, and when I pick her up from daycare, she usually requests the following in this order:

1. Realize - Colbie Caillat

2. I'm Yours - Jason Mraz

3. Lucky - Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat

4. It's the End of the World as We Know It - R.E.M. (to which she insists that we both "rock out," a.k.a. headbang)

5. Gravity - John Mayer ("This is good music, mommy.")

6. What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

7. With a Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker

8. Several renditions of Hallelujah or, as Lillia refers to them, "Hallelillia."

I knew she liked music, and not unlike myself, hates to be in the car unless there's something playing. But I didn't know how closely she was paying attention to the words until we were sitting down for dinner last week and she broke into song:

     She tied you to a kitchen chair

     She broke your throne and she cut your hair

     And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

     Hallelujah, hallelujah

     Hallelujah, hallelu u u uuu jah

Every word. She sang every word of the verse, including the chorus. And no matter how hard I try, she WILL NOT do it again so that I can record it and put it on YouTube.

I've witnessed a lot of births, but none were as fun as this one.

Seriously. Fun. 

Between pushes, my sister-in-law, her doctor, her nurses, her baby daddy, her mom, her grandma, and I talked about sneaking out as teenagers, cracked jokes about LeBron James, and rooted for the final push to come at the minute we had each predicted. After almost an hour of painless pushing, this sweet little thing popped out.

Kierra Lynn: 6 lbs., 9 oz; 19.75 inches long; born at 7:55 p.m. Thursday, July 8, 2010

Hooray for epidurals!

It doesn't really get dark here in July, so fireworks aren't very exciting. The weather was - how shall we say? - less than scorching, so a BBQ wasn't an attractive option. We didn't have a plan for our Independence Day this year. We didn't need one.

We got up, paced the house for a few hours, panicked about "wasting our holiday weekend." Then we decided to go for a drive to eat at this southern barbecue place I'd heard about.

Traffic was light. Food was good. Lillia pooped her pants at the restaurant.

We took pictures of eachother in the clover by the highway.

Then we headed home.

Matt and Lillia napped on the way back. At the house, we wandered into the backyard. Matt built a fire in the pit, so I broke out the S'mores stuff.

We lit off a fountain firework leftover from last year and Lillia waved some sparklers around. Then she went to bed and Matt and I curled up on the couch to watch a movie.

Best country in the world.

I planted these Lilies outside of Lillia's window earlier this summer. All I can say is, it looks like SOMEONE is happy about all the rain we're getting...

One morning a few weeks ago, I woke to Matt getting up early - really early. Apparently the beagle was whining to go outside before our alarms went off. I heard the sliding glass door open, and then I heard what sounded like a death cry. Over and over again.

In case you haven't heard, this particular beagle eats everything. Including fishhooks and screws. So when I heard that hellacious noise, I thought he was shitting something horrible. "Wow," I thought. "He's dying for sure this time."

I stared at the ceiling until Matt came back and climbed into bed. "What was wrong with him?" I asked.

"I guess he had to pee," Matt said.

"Well what the hell was that sound?"

"That was Pecker." One of the roosters. Apparently roosters go through a "voice change" as adolescents just like boys do. And a pubescent rooster crow is like something out of a slasher film. And loud. I'm surprised the neighbors weren't all screaming at us out their bedroom windows.

So the next day, Matt found Pecker a new home (one that may have featured some seasoning and a side of potatoes - one can never tell). And all was well.

Until 5 O'clock this morning. Our remaining rooster, a big white guy named Cockasian, has found his cock-a-doodle-doo. And, much like when 13-year-old female humans hit puberty, we will all suffer.

Any takers?

This is how Lillia spent the majority of the weekend:

Totally pitiful. And sad. And it made me want to squeeze her constantly. In fact, the only time I put her down was to take this picture. The rest of the weekend? In my lap.

She got a bit of a cold last week, and she was hooked up to the Nebulizer by Friday evening. And then again at 5 a.m. the next morning. And again three hours after that. And so on and so forth. Long story short, I stayed home from work today to help her get over the last bit of her illness.

This is the first time a cold has made her react with what is essentially an asthma attack since before we moved in to our new house - about seven months. I was hoping she had grown out of it, but apparently not.

However, this lovely woman I know heard about Lillia's allergies and asthma and offered up some information about what she did when she had her own attack of horrible food and outdoor allergies. She claims to be completely healed.

Um, yes please!

At this point, I will try anything. The novelty of the Nebulizer mask is starting to wear off, and for such a tiny little thing, Lillia is pretty strong...

I'll let you know how it goes.

There's nothing sexier than a man with a well-manicured lawn. Hold your cat-calls, ladies; he's all mine! (So is that sweet house in the distance...)

It rained all day Saturday. Like, constantly. By Sunday morning, it had stopped raining, but the clouds hung around for a while, keeping the temperature low and the yard from drying. Until 3 o'clock. Which just happened to be the exact time that our Father's Day BBQ began.

The clouds began letting light through, and by 4 our backyard was beautiful. Clear skies and 75 degrees = Matt's Father's Day present.

And now we've had two successful family barbecues in our new backyard, aka The Best Place on Earth. I think that's practice enough, don't you? Time for a shindig! Details to come...

By: Lillia

Once aponsa time, there was a girl name called Mommy, and she was beautiful.

The End.

Mommy, now can you ponsa me? (Translation: She wanted me to tell a similar story about her.)