Saturday, January 31, 2009

Lilly and the Ice Storm

Well, now that we have electricity and cable....here are a couple of things our little angel have been up to..... Holding her own bottle. For a while now she would grab it for a couple of minutes, but she held the above bottle for the whole time. Go Lilly!! She still holds her big bottles for a couple minutes at a time.
We officially caught her rolling over from her back to her front! (This is a picture right after she did.) We knew she was doing it because we would lay her down on her back and when we would check in on her she would be on stomach. Since Tuesday, she has been a rolling maching. She will roll from her front to her back or from her back to her front....but she will not do one right after the other. If she rolls to her stomach, she forgets she can roll back to her back. I know it won't be long before our little smarty figures it out.
All bundled up while we had no power. I might have over-bundled her because she started sweating. So, for the ice storm, we were without power for two days. We stayed the first night with our neighbors (and friends) because they had a wood-burning fireplace. However, it still got FREEZING so the next day we went to my aunt Theresa and uncle Mike's because they had electricity!!! Sweet sweet power!! How do the Amish do it?????? My aunt Cindy and uncle Greg are still without power. The womens hospital didn't have power for three days...talk about a bad time to have a baby!
The doggies...Champ and Chunk inside staying warm.
This is the bush outside on Tuesday around 2:00 (way before it had finished icing).

A tree at the same time.
This is the bench outside my aunt's house. They said we got at least 2 inches of ice. You could stand outside and just hear branches popping everywhere. It was crazy! The sky was also lighting up with transformers arching and blowing all over the place too.
A tree branch.
Lots of ice...and this was at my aunt's (we got more at our house).
The whole tree. Pictures don't do it justice.
This is that long grass in landscaping. So much ice.
My uncle Mike used the FAKE BIRD to play a prank of his neighbors.
The traffic lights weren't working for days.
Broken trees. It is so sad to see them all.

When it comes to trees, it pays to be flexible! This seemed like the best case scenario for a tree. Covered in ice and all bent over.
More broken and bent trees.
This tree is in our neighborhood.
This is a bush that lines the walkway. The branches broke off but the tips were iced to the brick and stayed there. There is no branch connecting it the bush on the side.
This is the tree in our front yard.
This is a branch in our yard after a full day of being above freezing!! Still so much ice. Well, we survived the ice storm and I really can't complain because we were blessed and had several options of places to go where we could stay warm.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

We're Pregnant!!!

SURPRISE!! Okay so first I will tell the story of how we found out and then I will answer most frequently asked questions and give family reactions. So, last Sunday (the day before MLK day) was the one year anniversary of the day we found out we were pregnant with Lilly. In honor of the day, I thought it would be cute to take a pregnancy test (thinking it was not possible for it to turn positive)...............well, it turned positive right away!!!! So, exactly one year apart to the day, we found out we are having another baby. For the past two MLK days, I have celebrated by going to the doctor and getting blood work done. Alright, now for the most frequently asked questions:
  1. Were you trying?? No, quite the opposite. I was still breast feeding and we were practicing birth control. God is funny!!
  2. What do you and Matt think?? What else?? We are excited! If we have learned anything over the past couple of years it is that God's plan for our lives is always better than what we planned. Plus, what could be wrong with another little Lilly.
  3. When are you due?? Well, Lilly was born Sept. 8th and this little bundle is due Sept. 10th.
  4. How are you feeling?? Thank you for asking! It has been a rough week--kind of like having the stomach flu and taking care of a newborn. However, if it is like my pregnancy with Lilly, I should start feeling better in a couple of days. Week 6 and 7 were the rough ones last go round and so far there are lots of similarities.
  5. Are we hoping for a boy or a girl?? We absolutely do not have a preference. We are just praying for a healthy little baby. I would be equally excited either way and Matt feels the same.

Okay, now for the reactions of our family and friends...

  • "Hahahahahahahahahaha"--Grandma DeDe...she laughs every time we talk to her.
  • "I'm sorry what did you say??"--MoMo
  • "Don't you know how to prevent that?"--Jennifer Kelly and Ryan Larsen and Grandpa Dennis
  • "My goodness!! Your doctor will give you stuff that is almost free to help prevent that!!!"--Melissa Cross
  • "That is wonderful news!"--Grandpa Mike
  • Remarks comparing us to the Duggers (i.e. calling Matt "Jim Bob")--Uncle Bert
  • "Congratulations...you are about to be busy"--several people in Perryville.
  • "No....huh-uh.....no???"--Lisa Trumbo
  • "That is great!!" --Granddaddy

It has been fun telling everyone...of course they are as surprised as we are!! Stay tuned to this blog because you can bet it is going to get a lot more interesting. (Oh yeah, when we went to dr. with Lilly we were 6 weeks and 6 days....when we went to the dr. Wednesday, we were 6 weeks and 6 days...crazy coincidinces!!

Granddaddy's Birthday

Well, we packed up Saturday morning and headed to Perryville to celebrate Grandaddy's birthday with the family! Granddaddy and Lilly.
Aunt Susan flew in from Louisiana and met Lilly for the first time face to face. I think they hit it off!!
Group Photo. Right after this picture Lilly spit up all down Uncle Bert's shirt...we got a good chuckle out of that.
Aunt Laverne and Deb. They are soooo cute together!!!

Karl and Jenny flew in from Kansas. It was so good to see everyone that we hadn't seen for a while!! As you might have guessed, Lilly was a big hit at the party. We headed down to B-town and had lunch their today and headed back home. It was kind of a whirlwind trip but it was worth it to get to see all the family.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Lilly's new favorite...

Lilly's Aunt Kay, Melissa, and Jennifer got her this bouncy jumper toy as a shower gift and we have been waiting for her to get big enough to play in it. Well, Lilly LOVES to stand...you can hardly get her to sit in your lap because she is always wanting to stand. So when MoMo was visiting us the other day, she assembled the bouncy jumping toy and Lilly loves it!!!!! She tries to eat the frog. There is also a mirror there and she finds herself very entertaining!
Posing for a picture...that's my girl.
Ok, so even on the lowest level...her feet can only touch one of two ways. Option one in the above picture is with one flat foot and the other one not touching....
or Option Two--touch with both tippie toes. She can bounce either way and she thinks that is funny.
Little sneaker!! I was playing with Lilly in bed one morning and she fell asleep in our bed (we are making her stay in her bed now). I was a big old softie and let her take a nap there and slept for a long time...like "ah, this is what I am talking about" comfortable. She is so sweet and cute!!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Babies that need Prayer

Matt and I were incredible blessed with such a healthy baby girl and I am realizing that more and more each day. Well, since I look at the blogs everytime I pump to pass the time if my actual friends haven't posted anything lately....I look at my friend's friends....pathetic, I know but whatever passes the time. Anywho, I tell you this to ask you to pray for the following two babies.
1. http://www.jennasjourneyblog.blogspot.com/ Brayden was born Tuesday the 13th. Although he was born at 39 1/2 weeks, his lungs had stopped developing at 36 weeks. He was flown to Arkansas Childrens Hospital where they performed an ECMO treatment and things are looking hopeful. Please pray for him and his family.
2. http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ Harper was born last night at 40 1/2 weeks..a whopping 9lbs. 12oz. She, too, was in critical condition and was going to be sent to Arkansas Childrens Hospital but it was full (maybe we should pray about that too..the fact that it is full), so she was sent to the Children's hospital in Tulsa. It appears as though she was born with a severe, severe case of pnemonia.
I posted the links because both of them are updating frequently. I know that if either one of those would have been Lilly, I would've wanted everyone in the world praying for her!!! Please pray for these kiddos and their families. Thank you....I will post a more fun post later.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Snow Day

Let me start by saying things with Lilly are going great in regards to sleeping. Tonight she went down with no crying. She also took her first long nap today. She took a nap for two hours!! She really needed too because the last couple of nights we have pretty much had to do a circus act to keep her awake to eat her last bottle.
Okay, so last night she slept super. She woke up and ate at 6 and then went back to sleep until 11:00!! Well, I heard that we got snow this morning so I was super excited because I was going to put her in her snowman suit and take pictures of her in the snow. However since we didn't get up until 11--the snow was pretty sparse. We are in the middle of taking down Christmas so Matt suggested using the fake snow from the Christmas village...GENIUS!!
Lilly thought it was a pretty good idea too.
This is a picture of the whole snowman suit. Grandma DeDe got this for Lilly. I wanted to get her pictures taken in this in front of the lights on the square, but that just wasn't in the cards this year.
She kept playing with the scarf.
She is all super cool with her sideways top hat. HaHa!
Playing with her taggie football.
Loving the ball. Loving the bumbo. Loving life.
Also, American Idol started this week. I have no favorites yet, but Lilly and I will keep you posted when we decide on our picks.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

How it is going..

Well I hadn't posted an update because I knew I needed to give it a couple of days or the post would have simply said, "This Sucks!!" So, first I will tell you our plan of action. Did you know about Mom and Dad's plan????!!!
Step One: Lots of daytime activity and playing
Step Two: Firmly establish bedtime routine...as follows
Bath
Lotion/Massage
PJs and Reading a bedtime story
Bottle
Gas Relief (Burping). Matt and I have done this routine since she was born but have been highly inconsistent at best!!
Step Three: When good and drowsy lay her down in her bed.
Step Four: Go in at timed intervals until she fell asleep.
So how is it going??? It is improving. The first night she woke up every hour until two and then slept through the rest of the night. During naps, it was an ordeal to get her to sleep and then both naps twenty minutes in the dogs went crazy and woke her up. Sooooo....last night we changed master bedrooms to one the guest bedroom furthest away from the dogs. It was that or get rid of them. Last night, although it took a while to get her to sleep (My Fault, I moved her because she had spit up and we had to start all over..stupid, stupid, stupid) but she slept until 5, woke up for 10 minutes and fell back asleep until 9:30. It is miserable at times but it is getting better and I know in the end we will be happy and she needed to be able to fall asleep or back asleep on her own. In the meantime I feel like a neglectful mom b/c I just want to pick her up and rock her to sleep...but that is not what's best for her (I have to repeat that to myself a million times a day). If anyone has a better way...let me know!!
She is taking all of this pretty well. I just took this picture. (I honestly think I have cried more than her....I used to not be this sen-si-tive! I am hoping it is just hormones and it goes away.)
Blinded by the flash.
You might not be able to tell in this picture, but she has her head and shoulders completely off the ottoman. She is doing crunches...haha...no, she thinks she can sit up on her own. She will grab my fingers and without me pulling, she will sit all the way up. The doctor kept talking about how strong she is! She does not like to lay flat.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Strength Prayer Request

Short Version: The Request--Tonight, Matt and I are going to start the "progressive waiting approach" to try to get Lilly to sleep in her own bed. We have never just let Lilly cry for anything are pretty nervous about the whole situation. Please pray that we will have the strength to get through it and that nobody involved gets traumatized. Also, pray that Lilly is a fast learner.

Long Version: The Reason--As I have mentioned in several posts, Lilly usually sleeps half of the night in her bed and then the rest of the night in ours. Well, as of late, she has been sleeping 20 minutes in her bed and the rest of the night with us. The problem with that is I am not asleep enough to not notice every little move she makes and therefore do not sleep very well some nights. So, last night, as soon as I got into bed she woke up. I tried and tried to keep putting the pacifier back in her mouth hoping she would fall asleep on her own....no such luck! So, Matt said he would rock her back to sleep and we could just put her in bed with me the next time. So he does. Well, a couple of times during the night, I would hear her and say, "Do you want me to put her in bed?" and he would say no and leave the room to rock. The last time I looked at the clock and it was 4:30!! Turns out, he had decided he was just going to rock her when she woke up....but everytime he put her down she woke right back up even more angry than the time before. Well, we finally put her in bed with us and Matt said, "I think it is time to start that program!!" See-when we were at the doctor, he suggested this program but we did not feel ready to let her cry--which is probable the first few nights. So please pray for us to have the strength to teach her to fall asleep on her own. The plan is the first night we go in after 3 minutes and rub her back and assure her we are there and she is okay. Then we do the same after six. And again after eight and every eight minutes after that if necessary. Tomorrow, we go after four, eight and ten. It increases nightly, but they say most babies don't need it after the third night. I am not sure I am ready for this. ):

Sunday, January 11, 2009

New Hats

For starters, we tried cereal again yesterday. No tears...but she spit most of it out. I think I am going to take a week off. Okay so before Christmas, I went a little crazy ordering hats from bibs and cribs. I ordered the above hat in like eight different colors. Lilly's head is so small that even with the ribbon--they are huge on her. However, she still looks so cute!! My thought was that they would keep her ears warm and she could wear them this year and next year...with her head size who knows how long these babies will fit!! Anywho, today was her first day to style in one of her new hats.
I love this new hat, Mom!!
Smiling with Grandma DeDe.
Reading with DeDe.
Cheese. Well, I didn't get the sudden blizzard that would force DeDe to stay here all week so she went home today. We really enjoyed having her here. It is so helpful just to have another set of hands around here. I JOKINGLY told Matt that now I know why polygamist women agree to multiple wives...they have kiddos. Anywho, Lilly seems to be filling much better and at this moment is talking and cooing so she won't fall asleep. She is just laughing and making all kinds of noises...such a silly girl! GOOD NEWS--MoMo is coming for a couple days this week and has agreed to help take down Christmas decor. Woohoo.