Lily's Page

She LOVES her toes!

The "just taking it all in" face.
I think this one speaks for itself.  :)
Talking!
Laying in her crib.
Playing with her toys.
We took her to see Santa today at church.  She did great!  Here we are afterwards at Grandma's house.
She loved the Christmas twinkles!
LOVE this one!  Ooooo!!!!
I hope everyone is enjoying Christmas time!!  We are listening to Josh Groban's "Noel" today as we put up our tree and decorations.  Great CD!

And her are a couple of cute pics from her 3 month photo session.  I think they are so sweet!

And here is a Halloween onesie from Aunt Carrie and Uncle Matthew.  I thought her expression was so funny in this pic.  It's like she was trying to make a scary face to go with the outfit.  Or maybe it had something to do with just getting out of the bath.  You can't really tell, but her hair is all spiky.
Over Halloween weekend we were so happy to have Nana, Scott, Cheryl and Caleb visit!  We had a great time playing with the kids and just enjoying being together.  We missed Papa a bunch though!  Here is Nana with both of her grandkids.
And here's me and my bro with our families!
Lily is growing so fast!  She is three months old and learning everyday.  She can hold her head and chest up during tummy time.  Her Tigger toy is a great motivator.  She just stares and stares at it.  If she is held sitting up or is in her Bumbo chair, she can hold her head pretty steady.  She smiles all the time and even squeals sometimes when she's excited.  You can tell she really wants to talk so badly!  She coos and "talks" often.  She has started reaching for things and grabbing them.  She can even bear some weight on her legs for a few seconds if you hold her up and she's in the mood.  She doesn't seem to like photo sessions though.  I took her for her three month pictures and she was pretty fussy.  But the best part of all is that she is still sleeping pretty well at night.  She usually wakes up only once if at all.  It's great!!  

It's official.  I'm a stay-at-home-mom!  It was a very difficult decision to make.  I truly enjoyed my job and love the people I worked with.  But all in all, we felt it was best for me to stay home to take care of Lily...a job that is much more difficult than I had imagined, but also much more rewarding.  We know we are very blessed that we have the option to do this.  We love this little girl so much!  

Many of you are just not going to believe this.  I can hardly believe it myself, but trust me...I know!  Our sweet little girl slept for EIGHT hours straight last night!   We have been struggling so much to get her to sleep well and I'm so happy she was able to get lots of good rest.  There is a catch to all of this of course.  I was actually holding her on the couch.  I know, not really the ideal.  And that's not what I had intended to happen.  She had eaten and I'd changed her and swaddled her up.  I sent Barrett to bed early for once (He usually keeps her during the first part of the night so I can sleep.  He's so good to me!)  Then all the sudden Lily starts acting hungry again (she's been eating like a horse lately).  So instead of unwrapping her to feed her and then wrap her back up, I just fed her while she was swaddled.  I always like to hold her up for 15-20 minutes after she eats because of the reflux.  Well, I guess we were both exhausted because we both fell asleep and stayed that way!  Now, I am not naive enough to think that this trend will continue every night, but I am hopeful that it is a sign of good nights to come!  :)

So I've sent the invite to read this blog to several people and I now know that several have not received it even though I've resent it.  If you know of someone who would like to be a reader, please let me know so I can figure out how to get their invite to them.  

As many of you know, Lily has reflux which has meant that she is held upright just about 24/7.  Yes, we have slept sitting up and holding her for a long while.  Even giving her reflux medicine and elevating her mattress didn't seem to help.  Well, we went to the doctor for her 2 month visit (and shots - sad!) and we told her that we were still struggling with her reflux and were sitting up with her, etc.  She told us that Lily was very healthy and the fact that she was choking and gagging on the reflux (sorry, that was kind of gross) meant that she had good reflexes and was keeping it out of her airways on her own...which that means we shouldn't worry as much (yeah, right) about laying her down as long as we kept her elevated as much as possible.  The doc also said that she could tell by some of Lily's actions that she wasn't getting enough good sleep.  Yeah, not surprised there.  So we took the doctor's advice.  We elevated her mattress even more, swaddled her up, turned on the white noise machine and tried getting her to sleep by herself in the bassinet so we could get her on a regular schedule.  It did not go very well for the first few days.  But then, enter the Miracle Blanket.  A friend of ours gave us one as a gift and had told us it had worked wonders for them.  And let me just say - woo hoo!!!  That thing is awesome!  Thank you, Adrienne!  Lily always squirmed and wiggled out of all the other swaddling blankets we'd tried.  But not this one!  She has been sleeping by herself for up to 4 and 5 hours at a time!  It is truly life-changing!  I highly recommend it.  You can get one for yourself at Pickles and Ice Cream and a few other places in the LR area.

This past Sunday we had our friend Kelly Bittle take professional pictures of our little model. A link to Kelly's Photography is on the right. I think Kelly did a wonderful job and I can't wait to see the photos later this week! She sent us a few preview pics today and is allowing us to post them to our blog. Enjoy!!

She officially weighs 9 lbs and 14 oz!

"Staying Alive"

In her first Sunday dress.