Happy Thanksgiving! (11/26/09)

Here is Lily enjoying her very first Thanksgiving. More pictures and text to follow.

Lily's 38th Week (11/16/09 – 11/22/09)

Paul had Monday off of work to process his deer. He also took Rachel to school to help her turn in some donations and clean out her locker. Lily still went to Kirsten’s house where she showed off her newfound crawling skills. Since she is apparently already bored with crawling, Lily spent most of the day trying to pull up to standing. She just needs the slightest bit of assistance to help her up so I know that she will be pulling up on her own pretty soon. She is super wobbly on her feet so hopefully walking will not be in her near future. At home, she wanted to pull up on the ottoman so I helped her up then she held on by herself and took a few steps sideways over to her walker so that she could play with it. That was pretty amazing. Only three days after learning to crawl, she is already walking while holding on to furniture!

The rest of the week was spent trying to keep up with our little crawler who is getting faster and better every day. She helped show us all the things around the house that we need to baby-proof so we moved a bunch of items and made a list of other tasks that need to be done. We were also quite busy trying to keep her from getting hurt as she tries to pull up on everything then falls down because she can’t quite do it without assistance.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family a few days early because my grandma will be having knee replacement surgery on the day before Thanksgiving and will still be in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. We always have our celebration at my grandmother’s house so she and my mom cooked us a delicious meal and we spent Saturday with my parents, grandma, Aunt Robin, Uncle Lee, Ashlee, Jeremy, Todd, and his girlfriend, Kaylee. It was a wonderful day. I admire my grandma for still always wanting to host the family and take on all of the cooking at her age, especially with her bad knee. She always makes the best meal! It was actually quite nice celebrating the holiday early because no one had to run off to another family celebration and we could have Rachel with us since she will be at her mom’s house for the actual holiday. Lily showed off her crawling skills to everyone. Unfortunately, the dinner was during her afternoon nap and she couldn’t fall asleep with all of the excitement so she got a bit fussy. My mom finally got her to take a short nap in the sunroom away from all of the fun. Lily must be going through some odd phase because she usually loves my Uncle Lee but on Saturday, she cried really hard every time she got too close to him or he tried to talk to her. It was so weird. My poor baby seemed traumatized a few times and poor Lee felt quite rejected. One very cute thing that she started doing on Saturday at my grandma's was dancing to music. She was playing with her Leapfrog Tad's Counting Farm and every time it played music, she bopped to the beat. It was so adorable!

Most of Sunday was spent taking Rachel to the airport. She will be gone for a week to visit her mom for the Thanksgiving holiday. She will miss a day and a half of school so we made sure that she took all of her make-up work with her. Taking her to the airport is pretty much an all-day venture because it takes 45 minutes to get there, then you have to park in the giant structure, wait in line to check in at least an hour early, walk forever to her gate, wait until after her plane is in the air to leave, walk all the way back from the gate to the car, then drive 45 minutes home. The trip took us five hours total. When we got to her gate, we found out that the plane was delayed by 30 minutes so we went to Wendy’s for some lunch. Lily always wants to participate in meals with us so Paul fed her the inside mush of his french fries which she absolutely loved. I made the mistake of giving her a spoonful of my Wendy’s Frosty and created an instant addict. She could not get enough of it and cried like her heart was broken when it was all gone. On our way home, we stopped at Babies-R-Us to get baby-proofing supplies for the house. We got a little over half of what we need and it cost us $150. Yikes! We know that we still need more gates and may need more cabinet locks but we wanted to make sure that we liked what we got before we bought more. We definitely need to get more gates and locks very soon. Then when she starts pulling up on her own and walking, we will need to buy another boatload of safety gear. When we were loading Lily back into the car, I noticed that she had an infected sliver in the inside bend of her left thumb. Poor little thing! It probably came from trying to pull up on my grandma’s wicker furniture on Saturday and could have contributed to her fussiness. I dreaded pulling it out when we got home but she actually did great. The hardest part was holding her still but once I got her pinned down, she didn’t even cry when I pulled the sliver out and bathed the area in hydrogen peroxide. We didn’t have time to install any of our baby-proofing supplies because we needed to do some laundry, pick up the house, and get ready for the work week ahead as it was already dinnertime when we got home. My parents will be coming on Monday so I asked my dad if he would install everything while my mom cleans. They are always so helpful.

Here are some pictures from this week.

My hooded gals getting ready to leave on Monday morning:

When I picked Lily up from Kirsten’s after work on Monday, she was snacking on some Cheerios:

Oreo was sitting next to her wondering if he could have some too:

Playing with Jack’s old big bird stuffed animal that she got to take home from Grandma Maureen’s house:

Lily wanted to help organize Rachel’s schoolwork on Tuesday evening:

My girls hanging out together on Wednesday:

Lily had this same exact outfit in the newborn size. Here she is wearing it at 8.5 months old versus 6 days old. She has really grown and changed:

My big girl looking cute on Thursday:

Her hair is finally getting longer on top so I couldn’t resist giving her a little mohawk during her bath:

My precious angel passed out after her bath:

Lily playing with my Pooh bear on Saturday morning. I got Pooh for my first Christmas when I was 8 months old. Apparently she likes him too:

My mom, Rachel, Lily, me, my dad, and Paul celebrating an early Thanksgiving together at my Grandma’s house:

Lily entertaining herself with Cheerios and wearing her ‘Baby’s 1st Thanksgiving’ bib while we got ready to eat:

Lily with my cousin, Ashlee:

Lily snacking on my dad’s new watch:

Happily playing with her lion:

Four generations: my mom, me, Lily, and my grandma:

Lily eating a book with her grandma:

Playing with her new toy:

Lily always wants to stand up so my Aunt Robin helped her out:

My girls playing on the floor after Lily finally took a nap:

Paul and Lily going through the tunnel of lights and music at Metro Airport:

Lily with me:

Lily and Rachel enjoyed some French fries while we waited for Rachel’s plane:

My cuddly kitties, Amber and Reiley:

Lily Can Crawl! (11/16/09)

Lily has been crawling for three days now. Here she is showing off her skills.

Lily's 37th Week (11/9/09 – 11/15/09)

Lily continued to eat solids for breakfast this week and continued to try to crawl. I felt bad for her because she got so frustrated sometimes. On Thursday, my mom came over shortly before we returned from work and brought us dinner. She stayed to visit for a while then took Rachel back home with her. Rachel didn’t have school on Friday so she got to hang out with my parents all day. They stayed pretty busy. They went to see ‘A Christmas Carol’ in 3D then went shopping so that Rachel could pick out some of her Christmas presents. Since it was opening weekend of firearm season for deer, Paul wanted to go hunting at his parents’ house so we planned to head up there after work on Friday. When we got home, I quickly packed then Paul took forever trying to figure out how to pack everything into his new truck. It doesn’t have a topper or bed cover yet so we had to put everything in totes then he had to fit them all together in the bed of the truck. While I was waiting, Lily crawled for me! She crawled for Paul on the bed while I was packing but I told him that didn’t count because it was on a soft surface and I didn’t get to witness it. She is such a cute crawler. Of course, she crawled over to get a cat toy that I then had to take away from her, much to her displeasure. Apparently we will have to start baby-proofing once we get back from Lovells! We called my parents once we got on the road and they met us at a gas station off of the highway to hand Rachel off to us. We had a fairly uneventful drive up but didn’t get to his parents’ house until around 11pm so everyone was asleep when we got there.

Paul spent most of Saturday hunting while Lily, Rachel, and I hung out with his parents and his sister, Debbie, and her kids, Jack and Sophia. Sophia will be a year old in a few days so we had a little pre-birthday party for her. Rachel made a cake and cupcakes for the party. Saturday was still bow season while Sunday was the start of firearm season but Paul got a deer with his bow and arrow on Saturday evening. He spent Sunday processing it and will finish Monday at home as he has the day off. I had a pretty nice relaxing weekend and napped while Lily napped. It was enjoyable to see all of the kids play together. Lily had a lot of fun practicing crawling around her grandparents’ house.

Here are some pictures from this week.

Rachel put Lily in her violin case on Monday evening:

Private concert:

My little girl getting sleepy at bedtime:

And she’s out:

Watching Blue’s Clues with daddy on Tuesday evening:

Lily was still trying to crawl on Wednesday but she kept putting her butt up in the air:

My goofy girl wondering why she couldn't crawl that way:

Hanging out in her walker from Carol. She seemed to only be able to go backwards in it:

Looking skeptically at her purring lion:

Passed out on Thursday night:

Eating Cheerios during dinner on Friday:

Lily happily playing in the wasteland of toys at Grandma Maureen’s on Saturday morning:

She loved this old rolling chicken toy of Debbie’s and quickly figured out how to make it work:

Standing up to play. I love her big diapered butt:

This is fun:

Lily playing with her cousin, Sophia:

Sophia was really into the television:

Rachel and Sophia:

Lily loved this peek-a-boo toy:

My tired girl relaxing with a teether on daddy:

Grandma Maureen reading a book to Sophia:

Sophia passed out on a walk down the driveway:

Rachel found a wild turkey feather:

After her nap, Sophia got dressed up and we celebrated her upcoming 1st birthday:

Sophia was very interested in her cake:

Singing ‘Happy Birthday’:

Jack enjoyed a cupcake while Lily watched all the fun:

Sophia got a little messy:

I let Lily taste some frosting. She loved it:

I’ll get some more myself, mommy:

Lily and Sophia were very color-coordinated:

Lily loved this treehouse toy:

Hanging out in the empty toy basket:

Rachel practiced her violin while the little ones played:

Lily tried to stand while playing with this table but could only get one knee up:

I felt like she was trying to explain something to me:

Passed out on her camouflaged daddy on Saturday night after a hard day of playing:

Back to playing with the pizza teether on Sunday morning:

Jack loved Sophia’s birthday present. Sophia loved what was on TV:

My naked little girl playing in the sunlight:

Lily loves to hang out in a diaper so I let her play with Sophia for a while before getting dressed after her bath:

Such a cute little pudgy belly:

Sophia and Lily love their Grandma Maureen: