I'm a Good Cook Huh?

Time to brag really quick on how my culinary skills have expanded since graduating school. I was really great at making dinner for the 5 weeks of summer after we got married... then school started and I slacked off a little bit.... and then I was pregnant AND going to school and I slacked off a lota bit.  I couldn't go more than a few hours without throwing up, so pretty much Eric had to take over dinner duties... which meant lotsa pasta!

Now that I am neither pregnant nor going to school. I almost enjoy planning and making dinner every night. Its fun to try new things! Above is pictured our dinner from last night, Chicken Tikka Masala and homemade Naan bread! We had this dish at an Indian Food place for Rod's birthday and LOVED it! We also have recently watched "The Hundred Foot Journey" (loooved it, go watch it) and "The Million Dollar Arm" (Fell asleep through it... so... uh) both of which feature the Indian culture, so we were inspired to bring a little bit of Indian lovin' into our own house with this fabulous dish.

We actually just did it in the crock pot, so it was a piece of cake but turned out pretty gosh darn delish!

Hellllooo October: Update

Here's whats been going on with the Hillams!

1. Dental School Interviews:

Eric applied to nine different Dental Schools in June and we've been hearing back from them one by one throughout these past few months. So far, he has been offered six interviews! This is incredible and more than we had hoped for! It's awesome! What's not awesome is that Eric hops on a plane and leaves us for 3-4 days every other weekend to go out and interview... ex-peeeen-sive!

This was us Facetiming Eric while he was interviewing in OK City. His face got frozen like this for like 5 minutes. So stoic.

But he's been a champ and has been able to successfully juggle school, interviewing and family time really well. I'm so proud of him! Schools are allowed to start sending out acceptance letters (or e-mails I'm assuming... although a letter would be 100x cooler) on December 1st! We can't wait to see where we'll be spending the next 4 years!

2. Delta Phi:

We are still managing Delta Phi - a BYU-I men's apartment complex. We've been doing it for just over a year and...our enthusiasm for it is waning. We still love the free rent, we love the owner we work with and we love (most of) the tenants.

We don't love how tiny our apartment is. Adding a baby and all of her glory (read: clothes, bed, bouncer, toys, bows, diapers, wipes, toiletries, blankets etc) to the mix has made things extremely cramped. We get by, and are planning on continuing to "get by" for the next 6 months. Although if Hallie is crawling by then... I don't know what we're going to do! Oh the things we do for free rent.

Also, Rexburg exploded this past year with new, ginormous apartment complexes. So we've been working our tails off trying to get students to sign up with us! We've taken quite a hard hit. Of the 60 spots we have available, we have 14 empty ones this semester. Gross. That depresses us and makes it not as fun to live here.

SO... tell your male, single, BYU-I attending friends... Delta Phi! It's ridiculously cheap, close to campus, and they are really nice, spacious apartments! Seriously, if I fit the criteria, I'd live here in a heartbeat.

3. Baby Hallie!

Ahhhh Miss Hallie Grace. We are so in love with her. It's almost unhealthy.... but really.

 We love that she's big into smiling right now. Gosh, we'd do anything to score one of those gummy smiles!

 We also love that she's big into sleeping! We switched her over from her rock-n-play to a pack-n-play last week (don't ask how we fit a pack-n-play into our house, it's unreal) and the first night was horrific! She woke up every single hour and just squirmed around in there. The next day, we swaddled her up tight and put her down and she slept for 12 hours. She NEVER let us swaddle her before. She hated it, but looks like we're back to the basics and it's working like a dream. She sleeps from 10 pm - 10 am and I am loooving it!

 She's been quite a stinker with her feeding habits though. She'll nurse great when she wakes up in the morning, but refuses to nurse anytime after that. She demands the bottle! Which is great, I love that I have a baby that won't turn up her nose to a bottle, but man alive, I am beginning to loathe pumping. I'm trying to get her to nurse more, but she just wont' have it. Silly girl.

 She is still incredibly vocal and will hum in her sleep and babble all day long. There have been several times where we're skyping with my parents and she will just lay next to the Ipad and babble to them while I help tenants or do things around the house.

She still adores a good diaper change and sometimes I think that she'd rather be laying on her changing table than be held. She loves her changing table! She'll lay there and talk and smile and touch her toes for as long as I will let her!

 She is well into wearing her 3-6 month clothes. She's been wearing the 3-6 month PJ's since she was 2 months because she's just way too long for anything else and hates not being able to stretch her legs out. We'll be whipping out the 6-9 month Jammies before too long!  She's in size 1 diapers and we are loving the Luvs brand! We got a pack of pampers and huggies as gifts, but those are the only brands we've had troubles with so far! We love our luvs!

Hallie loves her little Koala bear from great-grandma Rust! Aunt Holly has dubbed him, "Kenny the Koala" and Kenny is one thing that can get Hallie to smile almost everytime. I put her down for a nap with Kenny by her feet. When I went in a half hour later to check on her, I found her like this:

She had completely broken loose from her swaddle, had some how managed to get Kenny, grip him tight and was sucking on his nose. She could not have been happier!

 Last weekend, Hallie met her Great-Grandpa Johnson and her Great Uncle Boyce, both are really old and suffering with dementia, but it was so sweet to see Grandpa Johnson play with her and snuggle her. I had left Hallie playing on the floor in the living room while I was doing some things with Melanie in the Kitchen, I heard Hallie start to fuss, but we were in the middle of something so I couldn't go get her. 30 seconds later, her fussing stops and I turn around to see that Grandpa Johnson had picked her up and was rocking her  and feeding her. He's such a sweetie!

When I let Uncle Boyce hold Hallie, he said, "I'm an Uncle!" and the continued to let her know that she was ok and he was going to take care of her. I love those two guys!

 We're trying to take a family picture once a month (usually on Sundays because thats the only time we can count on all of us looking photo ready)

I love this cute dress that Crystal and Jordan gave us! Her white tights are ruffle-bum tights and the shoes (from Julia) match the dress perfectly! She gets SOOO many comments when she wears this to church!

 Every couple of days, Hallie and I brave the elements and go on brisk morning jogs! I bundle her right up and she looves the ride!

 Eric discovered last night that Hallie was slightly big enough to ride on his shoulders. So this was her ride into bed last night. He loved it and she loved eating his hair.

All in all, we're happy, we're healthy and we couldn't really ask for more than that!

Picking A Name for Hallie Grace.

Pretty much this is the most stressful part about having a baby.
You think I'm joking.
I'm not.

When we hit about our 8 month mark, we complied this list of names that we liked. At the time, we were pretty sure we were going to name her, "Hallie Elizabeth Hillam". I absolutely loved it!

We were almost 100% set on Hallie for the first name, although she almost snuck out as a Heidi. I really like Elizabeth for a middle name, but Eric wasn't sold on it. Then we realized that "Hallie Elizabeth Hillam" was way too close to our sister-in-law's name "Kallie Elizabeth Hillam".

So we scratched that. 

If you'll notice, the middle name we did go with, "Grace" isn't even on the list. 

This is because, I LOVE the name Grace. LOVE IT. I originally wanted it for a first name, but Eric shot that down quick. He wasn't keen on the name Grace. So I totally dropped that name and never mentioned it again. We also really wanted to name her after someone, and since Hallie wasn't a family name, I figured her middle name had to be reserved for a family name (which Grace is not).

Well, one night, towards the end of the pregnancy, we were laying in bed talking about names. The conversation had died and I was just about asleep when I hear Eric say, "What about Grace? Hallie Grace?"

If I didn't have a huge belly and an aching back, I would have shot up in bed right that instant. I was shocked that he had even brought that up because he turned his nose up to the name when I had mentioned it previously.

I instantly fell in love and knew right then that Hallie Grace was the name.

Well, a few weeks later, baby girl is born. I'm laying in my hospital bed with her the day after she was born when the nurse comes in with the birth certificate paperwork. Up until this point we had not concreted (sp?) a name. We thought we liked Hallie Grace, but then again, we really wanted to name her after a family member. So we started throwing around "Hallie Jane". At one point, Eric even said, "Maybe her first name should be Grace and her middle name should be a family name!"

It was so stressful! We kept going back and forth and back and forth and randomly pulling out new names that we'd never even considered!

And then it hit us. She'd be named Hallie Grace Hillam. Initials H.G.H. The same initials that are on the license plate of Grandma Hillam's car. The same initials of Hallie's great-grandpa Hillam, Harold Gordon Hillam. He passed away while Eric was on his mission, so I never met him, but from what I've heard, he is an amazing man who has done incredible things. He is definitely someone I would be proud to name my daughter after (in a round-about way :)

So there you have it! 

That's how we arrived at Hallie Grace and we absolutely love it.

Blessing Day

We blessed Hallie on Sunday, September 13th, 2014.

We blessed her right here at Delta Phi! The apartment right next door to us is empty this semester, so we took advantage of that and did it in there (#9). It's 3x as big as our apartment, so that was really nice.

We just had a few friends and family there and were so grateful for those who made the trek up to Rexburg to support us.

And now for a picture overload:

Reporting for Duty

Grandma getting her ready with the beautiful dress she made for her.

This was not her favorite part.

Hooray for not being the only girl in the entire complex anymore! I can't wait to tell her about how she spent the first year of her life living at a men's apartment complex.

This girl couldn't have asked for better grandmas. She got the best of the best. Including her great-grandmas!

4 Generations of Hillam Women

4-Generation picture

Hallie with the people who love her best!

Hallie adores Grandma HIllam... but then again... who doesn't?

8 Weeks of Halie

I can't believe I've been a mom for 8 weeks. Sometimes it seems like it's been forever, other times, it feels like she was born yesterday.

I keep being bi-polar with the whole thing actually. I'll be bawling (on the inside, I'm not a cry-er) with each little newborn sized outfit that I have to pack away one minute...and then getting all excited for her to get older and bigger and stronger the next minute. I guess I can't decide what I want.

One thing I know for sure is that Hallie Grace is the most gorgeous, funny little person I have ever met. I've always known that I loooove babies and little kids. Like I love, love, love them! But I could've never imagined how infinitely more I love my own little baby. So here I am to brag my face off about her.

Ready. Set. Go.

At eight weeks, Hallie has mastered her smile.
Oh my gosh I love that smile.

The best time to catch her with a good one is when she's awake and focuses in on the first familiar face she sees. Smiles all around! I love that I am usually the familiar face that earns those smiles.

Hallie's favorite place right now is the changing table. Oh she loves it! We recently taped a picture of Jesus on the shelf above her changing table so she has something to look at. She focuses in on that picture and stares and smiles and coos at it the whole time. It is seriously the sweetest thing. I have come to loooove changing her diaper because of this new-found experience.

Hallie seemed to find her voice this week. She seriously hasn't cried/screamed once up until she turned 7 weeks old. Seriously, we had 7 straight weeks of nothing but happy noises coming from those cute little lips. However, on week 7... she realized that she can scream really loud and it sends mom and dad running! It's usually just one high pitched yelp to get our attention, and I'm sure it's nothing compared to what most babies can deliver, but it was such a change from her silent 6 weeks.

Hallie is so cute during tummy time. She makes the funniest noises!  I need to take more videos of it because it is so cute. She still doesn't really lift her head up during tummy time... she works on her legs instead. I'm cool with it.

Hallie loves to sit up and look at the world. She does not want to be held close and cuddled unless she is dead tired and can't keep her eyes open. If she's awake, she wants to be able to see everything! It's so cute to watch her little head swivel around as she looks towards different sounds she hears. She especially likes to look at bright lights; she's constantly staring out the window or the TV screen (whoops!)

Hallie really likes her binky, but only when she's really hungry or when she's really gassy. Any other times, she refuses it. She takes a bottle really well, but likes to push your hands out of the way and try to hold it herself.

Nothing can calm Hallie down like a ride in her stroller. I've yet to see her fussy in her stroller. She loves it!

At 6.5 weeks, Hallie weighed 10 lbs 1 oz and was 22 inches long.
She is still wearing a few newborn onsies, but she's now mostly into 0-3 month onsies. I had to break out her 3-6month PJ's for her to wear because anything smaller is too short for her! I'm about to just cut off the feet of her 0-3 month PJ's because they fit her fine except for the length! She's a tall, skinny girl!

She's getting lots more hair in the back! Right now it looks like a dark, dark blonde.  Eric claims that there are tinges of red in it still... but idk! Her eyes went from looking really blue, to a dark blue/dark grey color. I have no idea what will come of them!

Sleep! Hallie's sleep schedule is totally unpredictable during the day.. but by night, this girl is awesome! I put her down at around 10pm and she sleeps all the way until 6am (give or take an hour). She'll nurse for 15 minutes or so until she falls back asleep until around 9. It's been great!

Pretty much we love this little thing more than ever. She is such a light and joy in our lives and we couldn't be more grateful to have her.