Lilli's 3 Month Portraits

Here's Lilli's 3-Month Portraits. We took them at Cheekwood and also here at home (for the more detailed ones). I think Brent did a great job (and I did too on the one of him & Lilli!) And at no point did Lilli have a cupcake with fire on it that close to her, the fire was drawn in later by Brent!

Enjoy!

Runs with Lilli

Since she did so great running 5 miles with us on Saturday I've decided to just go ahead and start running with her in the running stroller. So this morning after her breakfast we (Lilli & I) headed out for 4 miles. We ran from our house down to Shelby Park, around the lake and part of the greenway. Basically I ran 2 miles out and then back. I stopped for some water (man, it was hot and sunny!) at my turn around point and a cyclist meeting me told me there was a snake up ahead but he didn't THINK it would hurt me. AAAAK!!!! Think???? That's not too reassuring! I had just come through there since I was at my turn point, so I can't believe I didn't see it! Another runner was coming towards me so I told her about it and gave her a little head start. I never saw it and I never saw her jump so hopefully it had slithered off! We had a great run, she slept off and on and I enjoyed the peaceful park on a workday morning. The hill out of the park is murder, so I had to walk that bit and some traffic slowed me down at intersections heading from our house to/from the park but I was still pleased with my time. My park miles were right around 10:20 each, so that's not bad for 13 weeks PP and pushing about 37 pounds of combined baby/stroller! I'm somewhat contemplating running the Girls on the Run 5K in a couple of weeks with Lilli. Since it's a program to encourage girls to run I think it would be a fun race for us to do together, and I think I could probably run it decently well with her as long as it's not super crowded.

We also did more photos of Lilli yesterday afternoon (indoors) for her 3 month milestone. I haven't really gotten to go through them yet, so I'll probably add a Picassa slideshow in here once I can get them organized (we took a few hundred or so!)

Here's a couple of pics from this morning:

Running at Shelby Park:

After my run, my waterbottle is one of her fave toys!And here are a few sneak peaks from yesterday's 3 month photo shoot with Brent!
She is getting great at pushing up on her elbows and holding up that noggin!
No cupcakes or icing were consumed by Lilli! (or us, either!)
Enjoy your Monday!

Lilli's First CMM

Today is pretty much the only day Nashville celebrates running in any form or fashion - it's Country Music Marathon day! (Or really I should call it Country Music Half Day since very few people actually run the marathon yet all the half-ers tell people "I did the marathon" when in fact they only ran 13.1 miles and a marathon is 26.2 but I'm off on a running tangent on my Runners High Horse so whatever......) I think it's great that at least one day a year the news is focused on doing something healthy, but really there are races and half-s here all the time and it would be nice if there was some support for those, too! I've done this race 3 times and Brent's done it once, it's actually my current half PR of 1:50:12, so it does hold some significance to us and we like to go out and support the runners. Since the true marathon winds around our house our street is closed from 6 am to 2 pm, so it's a little hard for us to get out during this time. Last year we rode our bikes to support several friends we had running the half and the whole, this year we don't have a good bike trailer yet so it was off on running stroller we went. Also, most of my running pals have moved away from this race as it's become a crowded disaster and the price tag is ridiculous - pretty much all my running fees for 4 or 5 good races the rest of the year add up to less than the $100 insane price tag of this one!

We got there around 8 while the race had started at 7. We visited miles 3, 10 and the finish before heading back around 10:45. Lilli did great and had a lot of fun with us running and watching all the sights. It's SO hot out today we were careful to keep her in the shade of her stroller canopy and both yesterday and today I've put a little baby sunscreen on her. I know we're not supposed to do that for 1 more month, but the risk to me yesterday and today on our all day outdoor outings was greater for a sunburn than for her to have an allergic reaction to the lotion. I loooooove my running stroller. It runs like a dream! It's very sturdy and so easy to maneuver around. Brent and I ended up getting in a 5 mile run with Lilli while spectating and cheering.

Here are some pics from today's fun outing:

Running up the Shelby Ped Bridge (chugga chugga outta breath.....)
Lilli & the runners around Mile 10:


My little cheerleader with me at Mile 10 in the Gulch:
With my clapper noisemaker from the Flying Pig Marathon we ran back in 06:
She's really into holding her "toys" now and really checking them out:On the marathon course around mile 19/20 there was a monkey organ guy so we had Lilli's picture taken with him since she's our little Monkey.You can't really tell from the pics but she's in one of her little cowgirl onesies - it has cowboy hats, etc on it - along with some jean shorts. It was about the most appropriate thing I could think of to dress her up in for the Country Music Marathon since she doesn't have any running gear yet!

She did great with running in the stroller so I think we'll probably start running with her more at the Greenways, etc. It's only a half mile run to Shelby park and from there we have miles of greenways for us to explore this summer! I plan to run at least one race with her this year in her stroller, probably Oktoberfest, so I can show her the pics of me running it "with" her 7 months pregnant last year, and then 9 or so months old this year! It felt so wonderful to be back out running around downtown today, it's always been mine and Brent's favorite way to get around. It's wonderful knowing all you need is a good pair of sneaks (and now a running stroller!) and there's nowhere you can't go!

Botanical Fun

After running errands and taking care of some "business" this morning, we took Lilli on a fun-filled picnic to Cheekwood Gardens for the afternoon, and then to Bongo Java East for Las Paletas Popsicles, yum! She did great on our all day adventures, only fussing a few times but missing naps didn't make trying to take some photos easy since pretty much every time we found a great spot she just wanted to snuggle and sleep! But we did get a few really good ones today to mark her 3-month birthday!

I love this one of Brent and Lilli:

She loved playing in the shade on her blanket:


Styling in her cute peasant style top and jean capris (she also had some cute babyGap open toed pink sandals on earlier but I took them off when we started playing in the grass):


Another reason she's hard to photog these days - constant fist in mouth! It doesn't exactly make for the prettiest pics! We took several (hundred) more and once Brent crops some of them I'll post some of the others from our little outing today! We'll probably get a membership to Cheekwood later this year, right now there weren't a lot of things blooming we could really get a picture of her with, esp since she can't sit up.

Happy Friday! Tomorrow morning we're planning to walk down and cheer on all the runners doing laps around our neighborhood for the marathon, so I need to go find my tambourine so I can annoy as many other spectators as possible!

Playmates

Yup, she's still at it with the dragonfly, these are from this morning's play session:

She's now into grabbing it and pulling the whole mirror on top of her.
Look at those chubby cheeks! She was having fun with her daddy last night at Babies R Us....normally by the time we hit the car after church she is D-O-N-E with behaving and melts downs, but she handled shopping well and saved her melt for the car ride home. Which, in her defense, out of the 6 car rides she had yesterday she only melted down once, and she was great on the 3 she and I had together so maybe we're making some progress!

We took dinner to Lilli's new friend Rachel on Monday night. Lilli likes anyone who likes the swing as much as she does. This is their first official pic together of their first ever playdate, which one day may be used for blackmail and/or torture. (Rachel's in the swing, Lilli in the carseat watching.)And this is what dinner looks like at our house. It's amazing all the things you learn you can do with one hand. Clearly both our children feel they need some extra attention! Remove Brent and add me in his place and that's what lunch looks like around here!

And then she passes out......For some reason she woke up insanely early this morning - 5:45 instead of her usual 7! So that's thrown us off schedule today and I really hate to not be on schedule! Instead of Eat-Activity-Sleep she's been Eat-Sleep-Activity-Sleep so it's all off today. But, I did feel pretty spiffy getting my daily 4 mile run finished before 7:30 am! OH, how I wanted to go back to bed, but I knew if I didn't get it done at 6:45 in the morning there wouldn't be a nap of hers long enough the rest of the day to make it happen! I'm currently employing the hairdryer-next-to-the-swing trick to help her take this current nap a little longer and get her second feeding closer to normal time! Sorry Mother-Earth-during-Earth week, I'm using a little extra electricity to make the rest of my day easier!!!! At least she prefers the hairdryer to the vacuum, right????? And I grow my own garden, bought super duper Energy Saving appliances for our new kitchen and recycle everything so I'm entitled to some extra electricity!!!!

Love at First Sight

Lilli has a new love.....the dragonfly on her play mirror.

On Friday:
Then on Monday, she quickly remembered her old friend.

Then today - she showed her friend her great fist in mouth trick, and examined the dragonfly a little more closely.And her other new BFF, if you haven't noticed, is putting her fist as far into her mouth as possible. It's a great trick for any quiet place as she sucks away loudly on it. That's my girl!

Hanging with Grandad

Here's Lilli and Granddad, with her tear streaked face after a long cry! Look at those poofy eyes! Saturday was not her best day ever.....

Growth Spurting...

Well, I think we may be in the midst of the 3-month growth spurt. Her 6-week growth spurt nearly killed me. I knew she would have a 3 month one, I was just hoping we wouldn't notice it. She's been fussy all day today and been eating every 2 hours or so instead of her usual 4 hours. Ugh. Then she screams a while and passes out. No fun, I'm sure my parents highly enjoyed their visit with Miss Fussybritches today. In reading up on this one it seems like their sleep can be disrupted too, reverting back to waking up at night to eat. NO FUN, I like my 9-10 hours sleeps at night! And with just 2 weeks to go until I go back to work I'd like to keep my nightly sleeps, thankyouverymuch. And many people said it last longer than the 6 week one - often for 5-7 days. Yippppe!I took Lilli to Fleet Feet for the first time Friday! They don't carry Mizunos in her size so I got some new running shoes for me instead. This week I ended up with about 21.5 miles, including a run outside this morning to enjoy the beautiful weather. Besides some other shopping (one of our fave hobbies) Lilli and I also walked down to the park Friday afternoon to soak up the sun and hang out with one of our friends and her one year old boy. She was awake most of Friday - pretty much awake from 9:30 in the morning, with a short 20 min nap in the car, until about 2. Then she just took a short 30 minute nap before we went to the park and she was awake there the whole time watching our friend and the geese. And now today - passed out and fussy! Growth spurts are so odd! And it seems she is due to have another one at 4 months, ugh!!!!

Head Games

She is really starting to have lots of head control!!! Look at that focus!

She just may achieve Ironman status before I do at this rate! (ooooh, or maybe we can do it together one day???)
It's also very cute when she gets excited because she can tell we're so proud!!

Bath Time Yoga

It's so odd how things just suddenly change for Lilli. Right at 4 weeks she starting enjoying diaper changes, at 6 weeks sleeping through the night, and at 9 weeks taking baths wasn't something to cry about! She still doesn't like baths AT ALL, but she no longer cries during them. She keeps a "I really don't like this" face on the whole time - and keeps her legs as out of the water as possible! Last night was the first time she EVER smiled during a bath. It was brief and fleeting but hopefully one day she will enjoy baths and learn to splash around. This gives me hope for car rides!!! (Although today when she started crying in the back seat I was able to talk to her a bit and calm her down some...so maybe before long car rides won't be torture!)

Easter!

Lilli was very happy with all the goodies the Easter Bunny left her! Even her Grandma Spears and Aunt Becky had some great baskets for her! In fact, she was so excited she didn't even sleep through the night and woke up at 2 am for a snack!!!!! Not fun, we've become very used to her 9 hours of sleep a night!!!!
We all got dressed up in our duds and had a nice morning at church and then took some pics.

We got lots of honks, cheers and waves taking this one! I guess a few years ago I should've planned ahead and bought more ears!!!! Lilli is wearing a bunny hat though, it's just harder to see!
The ladies wore our pearls yesterday.....it's never too early to teach her about jewelry and always looking our best!
Later Brent read the kiddos The Easter Story so they both realize it's not all about candy, toys and looking pretty awesome.The Easter Bunny even had a surprise for me! I took a short 30 min nap and woke up to see a basket in front of me that there were 24 eggs hidden around the house for me to find! I found all of them (some were VERY hard!) and ended up with $2, Reeses (my fave) and puzzle pieces for a note I had to assemble from Brent!! Too fun!We had a great time visiting with family over the weekend, and spent some time at Opryland Hotel visiting with some of our old college buddies (and some other friends) in town for L2L. Before we left we wanted to take some pics of Lilli's first visit to Opryland Hotel. I was doing some of her and Brent and we had a million people stop to ask to take our pic! Hilarious!!!! We took a few people up on their offers (but sometimes we do just like mom/Lil and dad/Lil pics too!!!) Here's our best stranger shot:
I think Lilli had a great first Easter! (And isn't Brent looking skinny!!! He's down 14-17 pounds (depending on who you ask) and I'm down 26-28, with 9-11 more to go (depending on when I weigh!)

Twas the Night Before Easter

And all the lambs and bunnies are lined up waiting for the arrival of the Easter Bunny. (Ironically all but 1 are samples from work....if it was the Easter Monkey instead of the Easter Bunny Lilli would seriously be in the money!)

Carrots have been left to lure the Bunny in....
But I think the Easter Pippin may have gotten to them before the Easter Bunny....

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the Easter Bunny brings Lilli!

Cuteness, Cousin Edition

One of my favorite Lilli pictures, ever. (Of course there's only 11 weeks of them - but we already have over 20GB of pics of her, still avg about 50 pics a day and sometimes as many as 300-400 pics!).

That's Cousin Madison aka "Little Momma" FINALLY getting her hands on that baby all on her own, and Auntie Becky.

Poop on Pop

Today I decided to dress Lilli in "Daddy thinks I'm sweeter than Sugar" attire since she had a diaper explosion last night that put an untimely end to Easter outfit #1 and Brent's favorite pair of jeans. Naturally this happened about 5 minutes before we needed to leave. Maybe she'll make amends and be extra sweet to Brent while I'm gone tonight for Girls Night Out!!!

She's still doing great sleep-wise. Last night we put her to bed at 9 and she still slept until 7 am. Her daytime naps are getting shorter which means it's harder and harder for me to get anything done! She's generally fussiest when she needs a nap and just hasn't gotten it out. I've also realized that I'm past the point of really being phased by public meltdowns. She and I did some shopping this afternoon, and then walking with a friend. She had a mini-meltdown in the quiet store but I just did several 50 mph laps around the narrow aisles until she calmed down and I finished my shopping. The lady who checked me out complimented me on my ability to speed walk the aisles with my arms full of product and not miss a beat with the stroller! And I have to admit I really didn't think about it or even care how many people were staring at us. I guess I have arrived at mom-dom! She still screams bloody murder most everywhere we go in the car, but I've pretty much learned to tune that out too. I just tell her payback will come one day when she's a teenager and I embarrass her as much as possible! I think the good nights of sleep and all the smiles help with overlooking the awful moments!

Happy Easter!

Lilli & The Lillies

I think someone thinks her daddy brought her some flowers!

My guess is she's probably right!We've been talking about the Easter Bunny today so I went ahead and rolled out the first of her (several) Easter outfits!Here's hoping the Sunday forecasted temps quit dropping so I don't have to run out and buy a little white sweater last minute for her Easter dress! (Yest they said it was going to be 70 and now it's down to 65 degrees!!!)

School Days

Today after the usual Bible study/office visit Lilli and I go to we stopped by her dayschool to pick up her enrollment packet and drop off our deposit. I hope she learns to read and write soon because we have a whole book to fill out! She's got lots of cute little babies to play with, and I got to meet a little girl named Cleo who is right about her same age and size.

Here's a cuter pic....Big Brother is ALWAYS nearby!

And sometimes he just makes himself right at home when our playtime ends!

Where did Spring go?

Hello! We had a great weekend around here. Friday Lilli and I did some shopping, and I was going to treat her to the Southern Women's Show but there was NO parking around downtown!!! Every garage within 5 blocks was full, and I could have parked at work for free 5 blocks away but decided it wasn't worth all the "stuff" I'd have to tote on my own. So maybe next year! Saturday morning, even though it would've been a great morning for me to get out for a solo run, I took advantage of Daddy Daycare and went out and did some major retail therapy. I tore up a coworker's yard sale (they have two little girls) and scored a ton of summer stuff for Lilli, then tore up the last consignment sale of the season and got MORE clothes for Lilli and an Exersaucer for $7.50 (BRU has the EXACT same one for $90!), did some Easter dress shopping for me and Lilli, and then got everything I need for her Easter basket. No candy for her - since we'd end up eating up, but lots of cute little toys for her particular age that I think she will enjoy. Brent and Lilli did just fine and had a good morning hanging out together. We enjoyed the rest of the day together watching Brent work on a bookshelf for Lilli's room and then we walked down to the neighborhood ice cream shop and treated ourselves to the first cone of the season.

In spite of the ice cream, losing weight is still going well here. I lost 3 pounds two weeks ago, and 2 pounds last week. I'm back to my normal exercise routine for the most part. I run every morning while Lilli snoozes during her morning nap. Normally she gets up around 6:30-7 and is back asleep by 7:30 - 8 so I hop on the treadmill and run anywhere from 3-4.5 miles, depending on how zonked out she stays! I still have 11 pounds to go and hope to keep losing 2-3 pounds per week. I'm almost back up to my regular number of miles, last week I ran 17.5 and the goal for this week is to be back to my usual 20 miles/wk. From here I just have to work on gaining back my speed!

With the reemergence of winter I decided to take this opportunity to make sure she got to wear some of the winter things she still hasn't worn yet! So, even though we're staying in on this yucky day she's dressed to the 9's. She's getting harder and harder to photograph since she just loves to kick those feet - so in half my little point and shoot pics she's a bit of a blur - but I think it illustrates that she's a baby on the move!