Month 5 continued, A few more photos...

So I found another group of photos for this month that were hiding out in another folder. I figured I'd post a few of the 9,657 of them because I'm feeling a little frisky..., or maybe just because!

Silly with Daddy or maybe just Silly Daddy

Grandma & Grandpa Sneed

GiGi & PaPaw Brown

I think I'm in love...

Lily Update: Month 5

Month five began at Thanksgiving, just after Lily turned four months old. I love Thanksgiving. I love November. It was one year ago that we found out we were expecting this little miracle and now here she was smiling and giggling at us!

Here are Lily's top 5 for month 5:

• Cereal - Lily had her first bites of cereal this month! She really seemed to like it. It was pretty messy with it being so runny at first but she did really well. It was exciting at first, then I realized this meant feeding her took twice as long!


• Tummy/floor time - Lily seemed to start really liking tummy time and playing with her toys on the floor. She was grabbing things and putting everything in her mouth. It was really exciting because she was all of a sudden so content to "play".


• Rolling - Lily rolled from tummy to back for the first time during this month! However, she only did it every once in awhile. She didn't seem too excited about it so I guess she just didn't have much motivation to keep doing it.


• Sitting- Lily started to work on sitting this month. She was really pretty strong and doing it mostly on her own. I placed the boppy around her to help give her a little more support. She seemed to like the new position.


• Laughing - This is my favorite! She had been giggling for awhile but it really seemed to kick in this month. Her personality was starting to show more and she was getting pretty silly. It was so much fun!

What's wrong with this photo photo? Ellen watchers? Anyone?



"Mmmmm"

First Thanksgiving with the Sneed/Elkins Family

Lily and Great MaMaw Sneed

The world's longest drool.
And look at her sitting up ALL on her own!

Christmas already?

One of the few good ones I got from our little Santa hat photo shoot...

... and these well, these are the bloopers!!

Laughing in the tub!

Lily Update: Month 4

The fourth month was kind of a roller coaster for me. Near the end of this month when Lily was just about to turn four months old I stopped nursing. I had very much intended to nurse Lily for a year but I started having trouble and after an emotional couple weeks of trying to fix things, I gave in. In the end it really was a good thing. I loved nursing and really really missed it but after a little while I began to realize that I was a lot more relaxed and that was a good thing for us all. Thankfully, Lily didn't seem to mind and I prayed so hard that she wouldn't get sick and that by at least being able to nurse her the first few months her immune system would be strong. And once again, she was our little Champion!

Here are Lily's top 4 for month 4:

• The Jumparoo - I often found myself wondering what to do with my little 13 week old. Of course I could hold her and love on her for hours but when you are doing that all day everyday, you start to want some other options. We bought Lily the Fisher Price Rainforest Jumparoo and it was such a hit. It was so fun to see her in an upright position learning to push off with her legs and bounce. We love you Jumparoo!


• Extended nights - During this month Lily dropped her late evening dreamfeed (waking her at 10pm to eat, then right back to bed) so when she went down around 7:30pm she didn't wake up to feed until 7-7:30am! Some nights she'd still wake crying and we would give her the pacifier and she'd go back to sleep. She didn't do it every night and would sometimes go a week or more without doing it. But when she did, we continued to stumble our way up the stairs and put off CIO (cry it out) a little longer. It still just seemed easier to give her the pacifier.


• Road trip - This month we went on our first over night trip. My friend Kacy was getting married in Lee's Summit, MO and I wouldn't have missed it for the world! I even got to spend the night with the girls the night before. Lily and H stayed at a hotel and Lily did amazing! The trip was very much a success and I was so proud of how well she did!


• 4 month check-up - At her 4 month well baby appointment Lily weighed 15lbs and was 25 inches long. I believe she was around the 70-80 percentile for both height and weight. I feel horrible for not remembering or writing it down. I do remember it went down a little for the last check-up. Her little head was only in the 25th percentile but was still growing appropriately. She got a great report and we were so thankful she was such a healthly little booger.

Here are some pictures from month 4, weeks 13 through 16:

I love this one. Terrible quality but so cute in her Daddy's shoes!



From batting to serious grabbing!







Oh Lily, my cup runneth over!

Lily Update: Month 3

By her third month of life, Lily really started doing some fun new things. It is amazing how big a deal those "little" achievments can be.

Here are Lily's top 3 for month 3:

• Batting her toys - It was so fun to watch her stare so intently at the dangling toys on her Baby Einstein, Around the World activity gym waiting for the perfect moment to bat one of the them and watch it dangle and sway in amazement.
  


• Holding her head up - Lily was getting really good at holding her little head up during tummy time. She was a strong little one, no doubt! I loved watching her eyes get so big and bright as she held her head up high.


• Giggles and Coos - Every once in awhile she decided she had something to say. They were the sweetest little girgling noises. We would try so hard to get her to do it again and again. We just couldn't get enough of those sweet sounds.

Here are some pictures from month 3:

9 weeks old

I love this one. I often found her like this when it was time to wake her up from her nap. She would work her little arms out of the swaddle. Little stinker.

Hey there Bright Eyes, 12 weeks old

12 weeks and holding her head up so well

Happy Baby. We love you so much Lily Grace!

Lily Update: Month 2

The two things I remember most about month two are sweet smiles and the wubbanub. Wubba huh? It's a pacifier. http://www.wubbanub.com/ Strange name, amazing results. It was loads of fun to really start getting some good smiles from our little dumpling. No more of this gas hogwash. Her sweet little personality was beginning to show and we were loving every minute of it. Schedule-wise things were still going great. Around 6/7 weeks we knew she was capable of making it through the night without the middle of the night feeding which usually occured around 3-4am. We decided to try giving her a pacifier when she woke up. It worked great and she would go right back to sleep. Wonderful and perfect right? Well, yes and no. We knew we were potentially starting a habit that would need breaking in the near future. We certainly didn't want to have to give her a pacifier when she woke in the middle of the night to get her back to sleep. We knew she needed to learn to put herself back to sleep. Well so much for that. Most nights it only happened once but some nights 2 or 3 times. It seemed like she was getting a little too addicted to the paci and was waking up when it fell out. We got adventurous and decided, no more paci and bring on CIO (Cry It Out). That didn't last long. There was a time or two that we let her cry for an hour and it nearly killed me. I was literally traumatized. My mom came to the rescue and found the infamous Wubbanub. Basically, it is a soothie pacifier with a little beanie baby-like stuffed animal stuck on the end of it. It is designed to help keep the pacifier from falling out. It helped and Lily seemed to really like it but we still found ourselves getting up to put it back in to help her get back to sleep. It's not so bad when she is two feet away from your bed but up and down the stairs is a different story. We moved Lily to her crib in her nursery upstairs when she was eight weeks old. Kind of scary. Since she was no longer nursing in the middle of the night I was ready to go for it knowing I'd have to do it at some point anyways. She did great and I think it helped us sleep a little better too. Lily just made things so easy for us. I am so thankful for that but worried that next time could be a totally different story. At her 2 month check-up she weighed 11lbs 5oz and was 23 1/2 inches long. She was in the 90th percentile for both height and weight!

Here are some pictures from month 2 of precious baby Lily's life:

Trying to hold her head up and doing pretty good for only 5 weeks old!

Bathtime with Daddy, 7 weeks old



Mommy's little sweetie, 8 weeks old

Last but not least, The Wubbanub

Lily Update: Month 1

At present, our sweet Lily is 7 1/2 months old but I want to go back and document the past 7 months and eventually get caught up. So here goes...

If I had to describe our baby girl with one word for her first month I would choose, Champion. She was our little Champ. If I had to describe myself with one word however, I'd choose Freak-O-Nature. Does that count as one word? But Lily Grace was just perfect. We chose to follow a schedule in which I woke her to nurse every 3 hours, tried to have a little wake time with her (except during the night when I put her right back to bed) and then down for a nap. The goal being that if I did this she would be sleeping through the night (7-8 hrs) by 6-8 weeks old. And it worked, like a charm. I like schedules and doing this made so much sense to me. I noticed pretty quickly that our parent's generation was quite unfamiliar with this way of doing things. For the most part they were used to feeding the baby when they cried or seemed to be hungry and letting them sleep at will. It was a little hard for me to be confident in doing things my way, being a new mommy and all. I certainly let being afraid of what others might be thinking bother me way too much. In reality they weren't even thinking the things I thought they were anyways. Sounds silly. It was. But I truly believed in this schedule thing. I believe it created a peaceful environment with a comfortable consistency for Lily and for us. At her two week check-up she had regained her birth weight and then some and had grown an inch and a half. Champion. Our doctor is pro schedule and since Lily was gaining weight well he suggested we let her go 4 hours at night for a week, then try 5 hours the next week. She did it with ease and by her 3rd/4th week she was consistently sleeping for 5 hour stretches at night.

Our schedule looked something like this:

7:00am wake, nurse

7:30am wake time

8:00am nap

10:00am wake, nurse

10:30am wake time

11:00am nap

1:00pm wake, nurse

1:30pm wake time

2:00pm nap

4:00pm wake, nurse

4:30pm wake time

5:00pm nap

7:00pm wake, nurse

7:30pm wake time

8:00pm bath & bedtime

10:00pm wake, nurse, back to bed

3:00am she woke for this, nurse, back to bed

And on and on and on and on.... to infinity and beyond.

Here are some pictures of sweet Lily Grace from her 1st month of life:

5 Days Old

Meeting Molly

1 Week Old

2 Weeks Old

4 Weeks Old

A few more pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital. I wish so bad I would have taken more of family, friends, EVERYTHING. And next time, I'm calling the professionals! I love seeing all the beautiful pictures of our friends' little ones taken by professionals but it also makes me sad that we didn't do it! Next time!!!

So sweet. I think she's looking a little like her Daddy here.

Great "G-ma" with Lily

Some of the cutest little visitors we had!

Graham, Hannah & John John

One last nap before heading home!

She's in and ready to go. Let the journey begin!!