Lily's Baptism

This past weekend was a very special one- Lily was baptized and some great friends and family were there to celebrate this little covenant child with us! It was also very special to have our dads participate in the baptism as well. It is a testimony to God's grace in our lives and in the lives of our families. We are so thankful for that!

In other updates, Lily is pretty much like a new kid these days. She is happy almost all the time, hardly cries, sleeps through the night (with me giving her one dream feed), takes 2 or 3 great naps a day, has taken bottles from strangers (ok not real strangers, just people she hasn't been with before), doesn't scream in the car anymore, the list could go on and on with all the great things she is doing!! It is such an incredible difference compared to where we were before and it sure makes things a lot less tense in our house.

I am feeling very thankful for the sunshine and beautiful weather these days, and just the chance to enjoy life a little more as a family (now if only Nelson didn't have to work so much these days...).

Yummy Lunches

Since I all too often make Tripp a pb and j sandwich for lunch, I figured it was time to branch out. He gets Highlights magazine and as we were reading it today, we saw a tasty recipe that we knew we had to try out! I am pretty sure it was meant for a snack or special treat, but I thought it seemed perfect for lunch (and I did not have any ideas for our lunch today). I did not want to be left out of the goodness, so I made something special for myself (that I saw on Pinterest).

Tripp's is vanilla pudding with fruit on top and he ate it using graham crackers. He ate about half for lunch and saved the rest for his snack.

Mine was a dip of sorts- hummus on the bottom, then feta, black olives, cucumber and tomato. I used pita chips for my dip. Yum!!

Lily updates!

Seeing as I have done nothing with Lily's baby book since the day she came home from the hospital, I figured I need to at least update my blog with her life so I can go back and add it to the baby book whenever I decide to stop taking naps when they nap (which I am not planning on for a long time). Anyway- today was a big day for her- she had her first rice cereal! When we were at her four month appointment, the pediatrician updated me on the new feeding guidelines that have changed even since Tripp was a baby. Apparently, if you have no history of allergies, everything is fair game after 6 months (including peanut butter!) and we are supposed to start rice cereal with her now cause she needs the extra iron. So seeing as I finally got around to buying it, today was the first day of cereal for Lily. She did pretty well, I think she might have actually swallowed some! Tripp was cheering her all the whole time and she was just laughing at him, so she might have been a bit distracted. But that is the story of her life whenever he is around.

I also realized I never gave the update on her eyes! They are a little crossed, but it is definitely intermittent so she gets till 6 months for them to straighten out. The ophthalmologist said with our family history, they might just take longer to straighten. If at 6 months, they are still not straight, we will start intervening. Her vision is still good so that was a good thing. When Tripp's eye started turning in, his vision was already affected, so I was glad to hear that her's was still ok (although I would love to know how they can tell what her vision is!!). So now we are just praying that they straighten up on their own (although they haven't made much progress so far) and we don't have to do anything else for her!

Quotables

Some of my favorite of Tripp's lines these days:

After I explain something to him: "Oh yeah Mom, I see what you mean, Mom."

Me: "Hey Tripp, can you go and do (whatever I need him to do)."

Tripp: "Oh yeah Mom, I can do that quite easily."

He also likes to add "normally" to his sentences- e.g. "Where do we normally go to the grocery store?" "Where do I normally keep my toothbrush?" "Where do I normally sit at the table?"

I think the "normally" and "quite easily" come from his Thomas book which we read pretty regularly.

I will have to update with some other ones after he says them. It's hard to think of them off the top of my head!

Four Month Stats

We went to the pediatrician today, and Lily had a great visit. She actually has a fever that has hovered around 100 or 101 so I was glad that we were going in anyway today cause we could get that checked out as well. She has a cold and everything else about her is fine, so it is most likely because of that. It makes me so sad for her but she is still in pretty good spirits. Anyway, she had a great check up although she did have to endure getting a bunch of ear wax cleaned out!! And like everyone else, the doctor commented on how loud her cry is. Yes, I know. And now that I don't have to hear it as often, I would rather not be reminded about it. She continues to "shrink" in her weight (really she is just normal now) but her length continues to remain high.

Weight: 14 lbs 6.8 ozs (52nd percentile)

Length: 26 inches (96th percentile)

Head: I don't have her sheet near me and I don't remember, but it was somewhere where it was supposed to be. and besides, that is never that interesting to me.

The next appointment is her 6 month and Tripp's 3 year! That will be here before we know it!

Happy Four Months

Today Lily turned four months old! We don't go to the pediatrician till Thursday so I will have an update on stats then. Things are really going a lot better with her in all areas. She eats and sleeps better than she did before, and she gives away lots of smiles. She loves to watch Tripp and follows him all around the room and then looks for him when he is out of the room too. Tripp apparently enjoys having her around as he asked for another sibling this morning. He thought maybe we should have another boy so that that boy could be a brother to Lily too, just like him. I texted that to Nelson this morning and the conversation that followed pretty much summed up how Nelson and I adjusting:

E: The bug just suggested that we have another baby-this time a boy.

N: Oh wow! Funny, he already wants another kiddy!!

E: I know! Crazy! I guess he is not too traumatized by Lily!

N: Right! That is a good thing!

E: Yes for sure! I think I might still be traumatized though!

N: hahaha! Yes, me too!

Besides the fact that I just noticed we always use exclamation points, I thought it was pretty funny that we both admitted to still being a little traumatized by her birth. I am not sure that it qualifies for PTSD or anything, just still acclimating to having her around. Things continue to get better by the day, although apparently last week I totally turned off a co-worker to wanting to have kids. She apparently had been feeling bad that she wasn't married and didn't have kids, and then unbeknownst to me and my sharing of stories of how things have been going, I have successfully helped her realize that she is not quite ready to enter that realm of life yet. So glad I could help her out! I also realized today how much I benefit from my time alone in my car driving to visits for work with the radio blaring Rhianna's "We Found Love." Don't judge- I am sure you have a secret like that too!!

Silly Lily

On Friday we had an excellent visit to the ortho doctor who declared that Lily's hips are totally normal!! He checked all her "angles" from her hip ultrasound, moved her legs around, applied stress (which really means that he checked to see if they would come out of the socket), and did a few other things which she apparently passed with flying colors. I am pretty sure that it is all because we are phenomenal double diaper-ers. Not really, I am 100% sure that God healed her right up! After seeing a baby in the ultrasound waiting room wearing a Pavlik harness (what could have been Lily's fate), I am so thankful that we did not have to go through with that!! We go back in six months to make sure everything looks great and in the mean time, we can save some extra money by going back to just one diaper at a time (although it sure did help prevent blowouts)!!

Of course as we were leaving, I got the reminder phone call for her next doctor's appointment-the eye doctor. We think she might get to wear a patch just like Tripp, but we will find out for sure after Wednesday. Then we go for her regular four month appointment on Thursday. Hopefully we can hold off on any more doctor visits for a while- I am getting tired of paying co-pays (but I am very thankful for insurance)!