Lilli's First Thanksgiving

After a few days of traveling, colds/coughs x 3 we're back in the routine again. Here's a look at Lilli's first Thanksgiving. And it definitely was not an uneventful holiday!

Stop #1 on Wednesday afternoon was Brent's family in Southern TN. Instantly upon arrival it was cousin overload.

Lilli showed off her ability to multi-task of walking + feeding herself. It is very handy now that she can hold her own bottle, though most of the time she'd rather chill out and have you do it for her.
Bottoms up!
Thanksgiving Day brought the rest of Brent's family:
She had a good time playing with her Great Grand-daddy:She woke up from her morning nap just in time for Thanksgiving lunch. She had a fine lunch of organic "sweet pea + turkey" that she loved.

From there we left to go and visit my family in West Tennessee. Lilli absolutely loves her cousin Cody. He's the oldest of her cousins (he's 8) so he enjoys playing with her but isn't in her face trying to drag her around all the time!
They play so well together! She just loves her blocks. Right now she's really into blocks, balls and cars - couldn't care a thing about dolls or stuffed animals, so she just may turn into a tomboy or an maybe an architect or engineer!From there the trip got super-exciting. After dinner Thursday night Lilli was walking around and managed to slip while walking along the back French door - banging her head on the door hinge. At first I thought it was her usual bump until I grabbed her up and saw her head was really bleeding! I quickly summoned the troops and Brent put pressure on her head to get the bleeding to slow down and within a few minutes she was ok, but it was a pretty deep and fairly wide cut. We weren't sure if we should go and get her stitches or not, so we decided to wait a few minutes until bathtime and reevaluate.
After an hour it hadn't sealed up at all, and was still bleeding/oozing some. So, my dad loaded up with Brent and I and we headed to the closest hospital several miles away. The waiting room wasn't especially packed, but they were really behind so we ended up being there a couple of hours. Fortunately I had given her her bedtime bottle in the car so she slept during the entire wait and up until her exam. The doctor and nurse were really friendly, and used a super-glue type product on it. They wrapped her arms and legs in a sheet (basically swaddling her) and the nurse pushed up and the doc down to get the skin back together again. The Dermabond will fall off on its own within a week or so, and then we'll see how much of a scrape still exists! She did great during the procedure, and didn't get fussy until they'd been holding her down for a while. We've been keeping a bandaid on it for a little extra protection from other scrapes - it would be bad news if the Dermabond peeled off early. Hopefully it won't leave too much of a scar!We were up late that night - it was after midnight before we got in bed, which is super late for Lilli but she did have a 2+ hour nap there in the middle at the ER! The next morning Granddaddy still got up early to go and get the laptop he was eyeing, but after we all got up he and Lilli shared some morning coffee together.We left later that afternoon. Lilli had been sick with a cold earlier in the week, which she gave to me pretty badly on Tues-Thurs, which Brent came down with on Thurs and felt pretty bad with through yesterday! Our immune systems are really getting a workout this year! I really hope next year's Thanksgiving is a little less exciting!

Happy 10 Month Birthday!

Happy 9 months of Lilli!

Your Birthday - January 24, 2009

7 lbs, 6.5 ounces 19 inches

One Month - February (first smiles!)

9 lbs, 1 ounce (45th %) 21.5 inches (55%), head: 70%

Two Months - March

10 lbs, 12 ounces (50%) 22 5/8 inches (55%), head: 65%

Three Months - April

(No official weight/measure)

Four Months - May

13 lbs 1 ounce (35%), 23 7/8 inches long (30%), head: 85%

Five Months - June!! And starting to sit on your own with a little help from Boppy!

Unofficial - Measurement of 25 inches and weight measurements - 14.2 pounds

6 Months - July Official Stats (which is actually 6months, 1 wk) - 25 3/4 inches long (50th percentile!), Weight: 15 lbs, 8 ounces (40th percentile), Head: 75th percentile


7 Months - Unofficial Statistics: 16.2 lbs, 25 3/4 inches long (probably not right, because measuring her is "like trying to catch a butterfly") 8 Months - Unofficial stats: Weight - 16.5 lbs, Length 26.25-26.5 inches, you are a rapidly moving target.

9 Months - Official stats (9 months + 3 days) : Weight- 17 lbs 4 ounces (25th percentile), Height - 28.25 inches (75th percentile), Head: 65th percentile

10 Months - Unofficial Stats: Weight: 18 pounds, Height 27 inches. Obviously the nurse did measure you wrong at your 9 month appt as I don't think you've shrunk 1.25 inches over the last month, and this seems much more accurate.
Happy 10 month birthday! Once again it's been a full month of new and exciting things for you. The biggest news in Lilli land this month has been a biggie - WALKING!!! You started walking at 9 months, 3 weeks - or day 296 as we like to call it. You still don't do it a ton, since crawling is a much faster route to danger, but you're starting to use it more and more often (much to your daycare teachers excitement!) Your favorite toys are still anything that is off limits - the lamp, my necklaces, your baby monitor (what an exciting discovery THAT was!), doors, blinds, tools, paper, cabinets and drawers, the toilet, remotes, cell phones, and really I think you get the point?!!? Your understanding of things has really progressed so much this month - you know the word "bye" means to wave, and clearly understand what Momma and Dadda mean (as well as Pippin). Your words are still Momma, Dadda, Ah Dah (dog), and now Ho!Ho!Ho! - very valuable this time of year. You LOVE your snacks and everywhere we go we leave a trail of Puffs behind us. You get small amounts of table food at all of our meals and are doing well with it. You and Pippin are still the best of buds - following each other around endlessly, and it's pretty hilarious watching you try to race him down the hall. This month you celebrated Halloween & went trick or treating for the first time, completed your first set of swim lessons, went to storytime at the Library for the first time, visited your grandparents, and visited where we went to college. You had lots of playdates and dinner dates with our friends, and were even an assistant on one of your Dad's photoshoots and helped get some other kiddos to smile! I can't wait to see what the next month holds for you - lots of holiday activities, including your very first Christmas program!

When "No" means "Oh Yeah"!

The lamp in Lilli's room has been the Holy Grail FOREVER. There's just something magical about wanting to touch it, but she also wants to stand and wave it around and dance with it, and as we generally try to keep her from being electrocuted and burned it's a daily battle. For a while now she has known the difference in what's allowed and what's not, it's just a struggle at this point to know the best way to discipline her. She crawls over to it and will touch it - then look at us - because she KNOWS it's off limits. It's become an attention thing recently, and on this particular night last week it was ALL about the attention:



So this weekend (and since then) we pretty much ignore her when she touches it and for the most part she'll touch it once or twice, not get a reaction, and move on to something else. Like trying to climb the baby gate to get out of her room.

Thanksgiving Story Time!

Thursday night we went to Bedtime Stories at the Inglewood Library. I was looking at various posts on our East Nashville Google board one day last week and had seen a post where the librarian was getting the word out that the evening storytime would be a week earlier due to Thanksgiving. I had never heard of evening storytime before, but instantly knew we'd be there! I'm always checking Main's storytime hours, but all of those are during the daytime and their weekend stuff is more craft related. The info said kids were more than welcome to wear PJs, but since the stories were going to be Thanksgiving centered I wanted Lilli to wear one of her Thanksgiving outfits!

Storytime started at 6:30, so after dinner we headed over and got there right on time. I saw the librarians eyes raise a little when we walked in (the website clearly states it's for preschoolers but I don't care. My tax dollars fund the library and I can go if I want to! Obama said I could!) We grabbed a mat and sat in the back, just in case we needed a quick exodus route. She started right away with a Thanksgiving song and Lilli was very interested in listening to her and looking at all the other kids.
The librarian even gave us a little syllabus with the order of events - first a song, then a story, then a song, another story, another song and one last story before craft and snack time. She had a very interesting voice, so she really had all their attention.
We broke Lilli's snack bowl out during the stories as one more way to keep her on her mat, but when the vanilla wafers were passed out she wanted some of those as well! But of course she kept that other hand in her snack bowl......
The craft for the evening was making a turkey out of a cup, pom poms, little eyes, etc.
It turned out really cute! Lilli was very proud of how well Daddy did making her turkey!
Gobble Gobble!!! Afterwards the librarian invited us back next month (which will be Christmas themed), and Lilli got several comments about how attentive she was for her age. AND she got numerous references as a "he". Sigh. She can't always wear pink!!

When we left storytime we went over to the kids section so she could pick a book out for herself. I've been picking things out for her at the Main library to rotate other fun stories in, but this time she got to pick whatever she wanted.


Her final selection was a book about dragons, but we haven't had a chance to read it yet. I requested several Thanksgiving books last week, so I picked them up on Friday. Once we've read all of them we'll read her dragon book.
I can't wait until storytime next month! But you can bet Lilli will be decked out head to toe in PINK!

More Walking!

More of Lilli and her walking!




Last night we went to Storytime at the library near our house (well, not the closest one - but it is nice to have 3 libraries within a 5 mile radius - one of them being the Main, another perk of living urban!). More about that in another post, but all that to say this video was at about 8:15 last night which is pretty much bedtime, so she was really tired but adding a lot more steps! I think this weekend she is going to REALLY work on it!

Tutu Cute

A couple of weeks ago at the Lifeway Craft Fair there was a booth with a lady selling tutus. She's trying to adopt a baby girl from China, so she's making tons of tutus to help fund all the expenses. You just can't say no to something like that, and I'd actually been looking for Lilli one for a while - but had been really frustrated at all the boutique prices I had seen. She didn't have many smalls left & I really wanted a pink and white one with silver ribbon, so I placed a special order and she had it ready in just a week's time. I think she got a TON of orders that day - enough that she reserved one of our major corporate conference rooms for picking them up at lunch last Wednesday! They're only $10-$12, so if you know a little girl who needs one this holiday season let me know and I'll get you her contact info. Here's a few pics from last Thursday of Lilli playing in her tutu. I'm pretty sure we'll do her 10 month pics in it!

Showing it off to Pippin:
Pippin REALLY wanted to be in front of the camera that night!
Ready to declare war on the universe, princess style.
If this were a picture of me I would hide it for all eternity. But there's just something cute about a baby behind clad in BabyGap and a miles of toule!
Off she goes...
For some reason she can only use her walker with her mouth open??? Weird!

FHU Reunion/Weekend with Grandparents

This past weekend we went to Henderson for our 10th college reunion. (Really it's 11 years for us since we got out a semester early, but classes one year up and down are invited to reunions). It was pretty sad, very few people even came to it, but it was nice to see the campus again since we haven't been since April 99.

The various social clubs were having spirit competitions. This club didn't even exist when we were there! Lilli was very intrigued by the Lion. She had already been stickered by Sigma Rho (booo!) and was about to be stickered by Phi Kappa (Brent's old club).

Of course we had to have our pic made on the Lion!
All the construction to the commons really didn't make for a nice picture backdrop.
Brent and Lilli on the Lion....
Our friends The Halls (who live in Indiana) were there. It would have been a more exciting reunion if we hadn't seen them the previous weekend when they were in town visiting Jim's family! Jim was Brent's next door neighbor in college, so there's a lot of stories there I am probably not supposed to know!
Ryan is about 3.5 months younger than Lilli (but of course already outweighs her!)
Since my parents don't live far from Freed we dropped Pippin off before we went to the reunion. He enjoyed getting some extra attention and a lot of walks! But once we were there it was time for Lilli and Grandma to play! Of course a few of those toys made it back in our car for the return trip....
Bath time at Grandma's is always fun....but I think next time she's going to need to use the real tub! She almost climbed right out of the sink....
Ready for church with Grandpa.....she was a good girl in Sunday school and church. She enjoyed sitting with Grandma and Grandpa and ate snacks and looked at books. She did find it weird to actually use a song book! Where were the screens at???


Yeah, I bet it was Pippin who messed up the Sunday paper.
And probably Pippin who put marks all over the glass door.
It was pretty to see all the cotton fields of West TN - I forget about things like that since we don't have those types of crops in Middle Tn!
After lunch it was time to head home. Lilli did not sleep well the night before - she woke up at 5:30 pretty congested and just wanted to be held, so we woke up quite a bit before our alarm clock and I was TIRED! Leave it to Brent to snap this super flattering pic of me asleep with my mouth wide open! Apparently Pippin was not as worn out though!
The drive back was awful. The interstate was jam packed and slow, full of lots of bad drivers. To top it off we had a rock thrown up on my windshield that cracked it. Then we got home literally as the Titans game was ending which is bad news for us since we live less than 2 miles from the stadium and have to endure insane quantities of road closures and detours during football season. Hopefully the traffic was not a prelude to things to come next week during our Thanksgiving travels!