5 months

Five months ago I sat in a hospital bed for twenty-three hours. Five months ago I held my precious baby for the first time. Five months ago I fell so completely in love with my daughter. I know I say this each month, but I can't believe that Lilybelle is five months today. In those five months she has grown and developed so much. She has gone from a sleeping, eating, and pooping baby to a playing, talking, sleeping, eating, and pooping baby. We have been fortunate that our baby has always seen sleep as a priority, but I love those moments when she wakes up in the morning talking to you and when you go in her room to get her up, she starts smiling and kicking her legs. She has also really started rolling all over. It's her mode of transportation these days.

She also started to become more aware of her surroundings. If she hears a sound, she looks to see where it's coming from. It's cute, but not when we are trying to feed her. She has dropped the bottle on more than one occasion because she turns her head suddenly to look for a sound. She is also more interested in what the dogs are doing. She seems to study them, especially when they climb up on the couch to sit with us.

Getting this month's picture was a little harder that the previous months. She stuck her tongue out for most all of the pictures. Tim claims that she is just taking after her mother who doesn't like to have her picture taken. I hope she isn't starting this early. It took me to adulthood to quit liking having my photo taken.

Check out those leg rolls, aren't they cute?!

My Big Girl

I have come to the conclusion that my daughter is growing up, and before I know it she will no longer be the small little baby that they handed to me in the hospital. It's not been one event, but a series of events that have led me to this conclusion as I will outline below.

Point #1: She started rolling over, scooting, and really playing with her toys. I was so excited when she started rolling over and amazed when she kinda scooted off her play mat. She has so much fun with all her toys on her play mat and all her stuffed animals on her blanket. She really plays with the toys now. She doesn't just look at them, but grabs them, shakes, them, and tries to stick them in her mouth. I thought, "how fun is she getting?" But I didn't really start thinking of her as a big girl until point #2.

Point #2: It seemed to really hit home that she is getting older at her four month doctor visit. She weighed in at 13.5 pounds and  25 inches. She's not that heavy (60th percentile for weight), but she is long (90th percentile for length). I  think it took a doctor visit to get me thinking that she is growing up (aka becoming a big girl) because she just recently grew out of three month old clothes at four months old. So to me that signaled that she is not growing up. Ha! Also at this doctor visit, the pediatrician told us we could start feeding her rice cereal to get her used to a spoon, and start on a sippy cup. I was excited for rice cereal and expected it, but a sippy cup! I equate sippy cups with big kids, and so I must admit that it was a sippy cup that led me to believe that my little baby is growing up.

Point #3: Last weekend my mom and I went shopping for her sippy cup, a teething ring, and some clothes. My mom bought her a big girl coat (another reminder that she's growing up...ugh, which can be seen on the left). When we got home and I had washed everything; I gave her the teething ring not expecting much, but she loves to chew on it, and she knows exactly what to do with it when you give it to her. I also tried the sippy cup. She will suck on it, but doesn't have too much luck getting milk out of it and knowing to swallow it. The first time we tried it she sucked on the cup, and then opened her mouth and milk came spilling out all over her. We have work to do before she masters the sippy cup.


Point #4: This past week I started feeding her rice cereal. It was a success. She doesn't mind that spoon at all, and waits patiently for mom to give it to her. It worked out so well that Tim brought up her high chair from the basement so we can feed her rice cereal more regularly and more easily. Another reminder of her big girl status.

Point #5: Yesterday Tim had the day off and took Lilybelle to Costco in her stroller. HER BIG GIRL STROLLER. He then texted me a picture of it. This picture was final proof to me that she is a big girl. I mean, just look at her! She doesn't look like a baby!

Well folks I believe that my five points that I  have outlined above are proof that my little girl is growing up faster than I want her to. I never really believed when people told me that, but now I am a firm believer. Guess it's time to have another baby! (wink, wink)

4 Months

Today Lilybelle is four months. We took our standard monthly picture, and it's so much fun to see how she has changed. It's so much easier to get her to smile now when we take the photo. I swear she was hamming it up for the camera. She's a hoot.

Also eventful in our life was the first big snow storm that came our way yesterday. I took me an hour and a half to get home when my normal commute time is around a half hour. My Subaru was a champ though. It handled the commute very well and only slipped getting up my street. Lilybelle didn't seem to care that it was bad outside. We would have taken her outside to see the snow, but she's currently recovering from a cold and I didn't want to make it worse. In typical weather, the snow is gone today, but it was fun while it lasted.

Because I can

This post is just because I can and because my baby is cute. Lilybelle has started to talk, and she likes to take very opportunity to talk. When she wakes up in the morning she talks, when she is in her swing she talks, and when she wants your attention she talks. She is so happy when she talks. I'm sure that in a few years when she is talking my ear off I will get annoyed of her talking, but right now I can't get enough of her talking. Right now for example, she is talking her to her zebra hand puppet. I wonder what she is telling it. Maybe she tells it,"you taste good" or "don't mind me, I'm just trying to eat your nose." Whatever she is saying it amuses her very much. This is a video that Tim took today of her talking. It's kinda hard to watch with the swing moving I know, but if you can get over that her talking is hilarious.

The tutu Nana got her for Christmas

Hanging out this morning

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone! We had a good Christmas Morning at our house that started a little later than is traditional. I usually wake up at six on Christmas Morning and wake anyone else that I am spending Christmas with at this hour too. But since I had Lilybelle, I didn't want to wake her up until she woke herself up (it just seems so wrong to wake a sleeping baby). I didn't have to wait too long, just an extra hour, but it was so hard! After we got her up, changed, and fed; we opened presents. Lilybelle was very interested in her presents and the dogs enjoyed their treats.

Tim feeding Lilybelle before we opened presents

Sunny after his Christmas treat

Sophie begging for her Christmas treat

Lilybelle opening her presents

Lilybelle playing with her toy from Santa

Busy Weekend and a leaky pipe

Our little family had a busy weekend. It started on Saturday with Tim's Grandpa's family holiday gathering. In order to get ready for being gone for a few hours, Tim took Sophie and Lilybelle over to play with Darby and I took Sunny for a walk. When I got back from my walk, I needed to pump. So I started pumping when we got a knock at the door. I almost ignored the knock, but I decided that I should look to see who it is in case it was Tim and he needed help in with the baby. It wasn't Tim instead it was a police officer who asked me to open the door. So I quickly put Sunny in the bedroom and remove my pump accessories (although it would have been a little funny to open the door with them still on, I just wasn't feeling it). He asked me if that was my car parked on the street in front of our house and I said yes. He then started talking about the street leaking and I assumed that he meant Tim's car is leaking, but when he started talking about a sinkhole I really look at the street, and realized it was leaking water; water was shooting out of the street.

  I couldn't believe it, I had never seen anything like this. I called Tim and let him know about it. By the time he came home he had to park around the block because they had our part of the street blocked off. We went to Tim's Grandpa's party, and when we came home the utility workers were working on it. I then started getting ready for our Ward's Christmas Party by making my first ever batch of funeral potatoes that turned out good if I do say so myself.

By this time, we still had water. When Tim let the dogs outside one of the workers stopped him and let him know that they were going to have to turn our water off in order to fix it because it was our connection to the water main that was leaking. In the picture below is a sandbag over our connection to help slow down the small stream in the hole in the street. So we went to our party, and when we came home we had no water, but it was back on before we went to bed. When we went to bed that night, they were still working on it, but by the next morning everything was fine.

So that was our adventure over the weekend. Two parties and a broken pipe in one day.

30th Birthday Party

Saturday was amazing! Tim gave me the best 30th birthday that a girl could ask for. Now I know that I still have a few days until I am officially thirty, but you can't have a party on your birthday when your birthday is five days before Christmas and expect people to show up. Tim took care of the food, decorations, and invitations. All I had to do was create the Pinterest board (Thank you Pinterest) and show up. It was a really nice party with just close friends and family. When it came time to blow out the candles, Tim got those kind that never blow out so that proved to be really funny. At least I didn't have to try to blow out thirty of them.

Hot Chocolate Bar, Cupcakes, & Drinks

The Food

My Birthday Tiara (it has a 30 on it)

Another picture of the Cupcakes, Hot Chocolate, and Drinks

My pretty Princess in her cupcake outfit

Today is three months! I can't believe how the time has flown by. It really seems like just yesterday that I was still pregnant with her. She has been so much fun to play with and hold. For example, this evening she slept in my arms. It was so nice. I love snuggling with her, and I don't feel I get to do that enough with me back at work. She's also getting more animated as seen by her smile in the photo. When we took it we had a  bunch of smiley photos to choose from. I continue to be amazed by everything she does.