Lilly Rae - Week 29

Sunday, December 30

Today we had to say goodbye to Aunt Jekkah L  We had a nice morning together though and Lilly was very happy to get in some great cuddle time and a few rounds of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” before Jess left. 

Lilly wore one of my favorite outfits today.  It is a cute outfit, but it’s mainly a favorite because it has feet so I don’t need to put sock on Lilly.  Any parent knows that it is impossible to keep socks on a baby’s feet!  We thought we had it easy when Lilly was an infant because she rarely kicked her socks off and people would tell us how rare it was that she would keep socks on.  Now it is like a constant game with Lilly.  She knows exactly how to rub her feet together to get those socks off in a hurry!  So let’s just say that I am very excited when we get to wear this outfit and don’t have to hunt down socks every few minutes.

29 weeks have sure flown by!  Look at my beautiful baby girl!  She is so interested in the sign that I have to hold it behind her head to get it in the picture, but we got it!

Monday, December 31

New Year’s Eve day was actually pretty nice here.  The sun was out, so it wasn’t too terribly cold.  We decided it was nice enough to take a walk, since that is something Lilly always enjoys and it’s been too cold to do so recently.  Plus this gave us an excuse to have Lilly wear her monkey hat! 

We went next door to our neighbor’s house for a New Year’s party.  As soon as we walked in, our neighbor tried to say Hi to Lilly (with a lot of enthusiasm) and she started to cry!  She has just started the “stranger anxiety” that tends to show up around 6 months, but I felt really bad.  She was also tired, but it was clear that she is starting to get nervous around people she doesn’t know. 

She played with our neighbor’s teenage daughter and her friend for a little while, which was great, but then it was time for Lilly to go to bed, so I took her home with me.  I know I didn’t get to celebrate the New Year at a crazy party or toast with champagne, but I didn’t mind because I wouldn’t trade being Lilly’s mommy for anything.

Tuesday, January 1

I am so anxious for Lilly to crawl.  I really want it to happen over track out so I don’t miss it when she is at Kristi’s and I am stuck at work L  I know you can’t rush these things and she will crawl when she is ready, but I figure the more time she spends on her belly and the more I am down there with her encouraging her, the better J

Plus she is just so darn cute!

Trying to fit her whole fist in her mouth to help with teething...

Wednesday, January 2

I didn't realize how fun it would be to feed an infant.  Every time seems like a brand new experience.  Lilly has started eating oatmeal or rice cereal in the morning for breakfast.  Below I actually caught her mid sneeze!  I have learned to love the mess that feeding time creates :-)

Lilly wasn’t feeling very well today and, stupid me, thought it would be a good idea to go out to lunch.  We went to Cooley’s and the waitress was a very sweet older woman.  She commented several times on Lilly’s beautiful smile and when she asked her name and I told her it was Lilly, she said “that suits her and that beautiful smile.”  There was an older couple sitting across the aisle from us and they were very sweet as well, even when Lilly started crying. The woman looked over to me and after helping to pick up Lilly’s burp cloth said, “we’ve all been there,” and she gave Lilly and I a smile.  It’s nice that people are understanding of babies and try to be helpful instead of make things worse by seeming irritated. 

We tried green beans for the first time tonight.  Lilly wasn’t feeling 100%, so I was pretty lax with how she ate…and she made a mess!  I put a few puffs on her tray to keep her occupied so I could eat my dinner as well, and she was having a blast getting them stuck to her fingers.  She always looks so intense when she is trying to use her fingers to grasp something small.

Thursday, January 3

Lilly was back to her happy self today!  It is so hard as a parent to know your child is not feeling well and there is little you can do about it.  I am so glad she is better now and we can all enjoy our time together J

When I came home from a massage appointment today, Lilly was snuggled up with Darren fast asleep.  It melts my heart to see her sleep, but especially when she is asleep in daddy’s arms.  I love how much Darren loves her and how much joy I see in him when he is holding our precious baby girl.  For once I didn't take a picture because I worried about waking them, but I will have that picture in my head forever.

I brought Lilly out to a few stores with me today and I don’t know why I am still surprised by this, but people were fawning all over her.  I don’t get why TV shows says babies are “chick magnets” because the truth is, they are magnets for the elderly (and I mean that in a nice way).  Today, we met 3 different elderly people who were so taken by Lilly that the entire checkout line started having a conversation about how cute Lilly is.  It was a nice way to pass the time waiting in line.  Lilly really knows how to charm people when she wants to.  She has this perfect little shy smile that is virtually impossible to look at without smiling yourself.  You can’t beat a beautiful baby smile, especially my Lilly’s smile! 

To help with Lilly's teething, I tried putting a small ice cube of frozen breast milk in a mesh feeder.  She seems to like it!

Friday, January 4

So who does Lilly look like?  We took pictures with Lilly this morning, not for the purpose of seeing who she looked like, but some people commented on them with who they think she looks like.  I see Lilly.  I don’t see myself or Darren as much as others do.  I think she is the most beautiful baby in the entire world, so it would seem awfully conceited of me to think she looks like me! 

Lilly loves car rides.  We have actually been using the car to help her sleep this week while she hasn’t been feeling well.  Today we needed to go to Cary anyway, so when she fell asleep on the car ride home, it wasn’t all that surprising.  It wouldn’t be a blog if I didn’t include at least one picture of Lilly sleeping J

Waiting patiently for Mommy to finish up in the store

Saturday, January 5

I think mornings are still my favorite time with Lilly.  She is always SO excited to see us in the morning when she wakes up and she is content to just nurse and sit with me snuggled under a blanket.  I just look down at her while she is nursing, stroke her head and tell her how much I love her.  These moments in the morning are such a gift right now because normally our mornings are much more rushed and I am thinking of a million things instead of focusing on what's really important.  I don't make resolutions, but I am definitely going to work on savoring these moments with Lilly even when I go back to work and not let my mind wander to other things when I need to be soaking up this special time.

Lilly has also really found her voice and enjoys singing and cooing constantly.  I have a bunch of video clips from this morning and her "songs" but below is the best one:

   

Lilly's teeth seem to be bothering her more lately and one thing she does to help is suck on her lips.  It's so funny when she does it!  You can see it below.

I love the pictures below because it shows the progression of Lilly's "poses" during tummy time.  She starts off strong and fully holding herself up.

As she gets more tired, she does a "superman" pose where she actually lifts up her legs and arms and balances on her belly (don't ask me why this is comfortable!)

Then when she gets tired, she takes a break :-)

Lilly Rae - Week 28

Sunday, December 23

 I used to think it was weird when people would say they watched their baby/child sleep, but I understand it completely.  My heart fills up every time I see my sweet angel sleeping and I am almost brought to tears at how beautiful she is.  I know it sounds weird, but it still blows my mind that she is mine and this perfect, beautiful angel is my daughter.  

We had a very eventful day today.  Lilly had to take a mid afternoon bath after a "poop incident" but I didn't mind one bit because bath time is always fun with Lilly.  She looked so cute wrapped up in her towel holding her rubber ducky that I had to come down and get Darren to take a picture.

While hanging around on the couch, Darren was playing with Lilly and since Lilly loves Maggie so much, he wanted to let Lilly lay on her.  We weren't sure how Maggie would react, so Darren stayed close and was very careful, but Maggie did not seem phased at all.  Lilly was in heaven!

Lilly is sitting up on her own for short bursts, but we still used the Boppy to help her.  Plus, the Boppy is a great way to show how much she has grown.

Maggie is trying to help Lilly learn how to crawl.  She's the only one who gets around on all fours, so it's worth a shot!

That night we went to Chad and Michelle's for dinner and to watch Pitch Perfect.  Lilly was too excited to see everyone to go to sleep and apparently she really wanted to see the movie, because she stayed up until the last 20 minutes or so.  More time with my baby!  :-)

Monday, December 24

Lilly sleeping in her Daddy's arms = priceless.  I almost ruined it with the flash of the camera (you can see her face scrunched up here)...

Luckily, she didn't seem to mind too much.  I think she's completely relaxed and sleepy here!

Carissa, Jared, Addie and Drew came over for Christmas Eve.  We have a tradition of having pizza (and wings) on Christmas Eve to keep things low key and low stress.  It was nice to just hang out with everyone.  I love the holidays, but we all know how much work they can be as well.

After dinner, Addie wanted to play with Lilly while she was sitting in her high chair, so she stood in front of her and danced and sang a song.  Lilly was cracking up!  It was so adorable.  I have a video of this, but it's too long to post.  :-(

Lilly is still teething, but no teeth have broken through yet.  She loves chewing on her cold teethers and anything else she can get in her mouth!

Drew really loves to play with Lilly.  He was doing a great job of bringing her toys to play with.  Carissa wanted to make sure he didn't bombard Lilly with too many things, so she told him only one toy at a time.  Lilly had a toy and I went over to give her something and he told me, "One toy!"  It was so funny!

Here is a video of Lilly enjoying her bouncer.  It's so cute because she even tries to bounce when she is not in her bouncer, especially when Darren says, "Bounce, bounce, bounce!" to her.

Tuesday, December 25

It's here!  Lilly's first Christmas!!!  We were so excited to see Lilly open presents on Christmas morning.  I know she is too young to really understand, but she actually did a great job tugging a the paper (when she wasn't eating it).  We opened presents right away then let her take a little break to nap and eat breakfast and then we opened some more.

Lilly took a break from opening presents to actually play with some of her new toys!  She really loved Violet, the talking puppy that she got from Kristi and family.  She also really loved the radio that Santa brought her.

We wanted to get a few pictures of Lilly in her Christmas dress before opening more gifts.  She looked so adorable!  I worried that the dress was not very comfortable or that she might get it messy, so I took the dress off and just left her onesie, tights and bloomers on.  This was a great plan except for the fact that she leaked through her diaper onto the onsie, tights and bloomers and she can't wear the dress without these things!  Oh well!  At least we got a few cute pictures of her in the dress.
 

I love Lilly's face in this picture.  She really looked excited to see her new toys!

Mmmm...this paper is delicious!

Everyone is always saying that Lilly should be a piano player because she has very long fingers, so we figured we would get her started.  She loved banging on the keys and "making music" right away.

Lilly loves the computer and our tablets so much, we figured we would get her a laptop of her own (a toy of course).  Silly us, she is barely interested in it at all and still reaches for the computer and the iPad every chance she gets.

Mommy couldn't resist getting Lilly some sing-a-long DVDs from Disney movie club even though she is a little too young for them still.

We went to Jared and Carissa's for Christmas with the Smiths.  Chad and Jared's parents, sister and brother-in-law were there was well.  It's so nice because they all treat us like family and even bough gifts for Lilly so she would be included in the gift exchange.  We had a great time (as always) and Lilly got some great new books, an adorable outfit and a new hooded towel with bath toys.  Here is Erin with Lilly.

Wednesday, December 26

Darren told me that he needed to go to Apex to pick up my birthday present, so Lilly and I spent the afternoon hanging out.  Little did I know that my birthday present was actually my friend Jess coming to visit!  I truly had NO idea that she was coming, so it was an amazing birthday surprise :o)  It's been so long since Jess has seen Lilly I was extra excited for her to see how much she has changed and grown.  

Here is a video of Lilly playing in her bouncer!

Airplane!

We are still working on how to crawl, but in the meantime we are very interested in the blanket.

We went to dinner at the Aviator that night.  Lilly had some applesauce and I put Cheerios on her tray to keep her occupied while we ate.

Thursday, December 27

It was my birthday, but the best present was brought to me on June 10.  I was lucky that my amazing husband and friends wanted to make sure that the big 3-0 was memorable for me.  Chad and Michelle came over for dinner and Cold Stone ice cream cake.  

I know, it's another picture of Lilly sleeping, but look how cute she is!

Lilly loved playing with Aunt Jekkah.  Jess definitely has a way with babies because Lilly has just started her "scared of strangers" phase, but she took to Jess right away.

Friday, December 28

Lilly really likes the Laugh and Learn Puppy that Santa brought her.  She grabs the puppy and rolls from side to side while squeezing it and making it talk/sing.  I love that she is learning to "hug" and snuggle up to things.  Mommy loves hugs and snuggles!

I learned this trick from Michelle!  Lilly loves to look at herself on the camera on my phone, so I switch the camera to the front camera and she can see herself and I can take cute pictures.  She was giggling and grabbing at the camera the whole time, but I managed to snap a few.  Lilly definitely loves her own reflection and laughs every time she sees herself in a mirror so this was perfect.

Saturday, December 29

We had an ongoing joke during Jess' visit about Lilly's radio toy.  The woman who sings the songs was VERY into singing "Baa Baa Blacksheep" and sang it with a lot of gusto and coloration.  Darren was mocking her, which was making Lilly laugh...ok, ok, it was making Jess and I laugh, but Lilly liked it too.

After hitting a few stores in Cary, we drove home and Lilly was not too happy.  Luckily Jess was in the back to sing her songs and then discovered how much Lilly loves peek-a-boo!  Jess was a great sport and played peek-a-book with Lilly for almost 10 minutes to get her to stop fussing.  I can add that to the huge list of reasons why I love Jess.

Look at how happy Lilly is to be playing with Jess!

Darren discovered that Lilly loves to "play the drums" on his head!  I know that sounds weird, but she was giggling so hard when he was doing it.  These videos don't quite do it justice, but they're worth a peek.