Lily (finally!) Gets to Swim!

This week we had another adventurous trip for Lily. So far, since she was born, she has traveled to Asheboro, Greensboro, the Outer Banks of NC and now has taken her first trip out of state to Virginia Beach, VA. She's been a busy traveler! Mom and I headed up to Virginia on Wednesday of this week to visit Cara, Phillip, the boys and Miss Sophie and to see some good family friends we haven't gotten to see in quite some time. We had the chance to check out Cara and Phillip's new home and I got the chance to see the base for the first time ever - it was a lot bigger than I imagined! We loved their new home and getting to see the family - I really think Lily is a lucky girl to have such a great group of cousins to grow up with - and especially lucky to have Sophie. I imagine (and hope!) that they will be great friends while growing up. 

Our friends Susan and her daughter Jennife drove down from Maryland where they have been vacationing, to meet us in Virginia to visit for the day and to meet Lily. Mom and Dad have known Susan and her husband Mike, for several years and we were neighbors while living in Houston, where both Katie and I were born. Mike and Susan's youngest daughter Kelly (who was greatly missed at our visit!) was my best friend growing up in Texas; she and I were born just 5 days apart at the same hospital in Houston and although my family moved to North Carolina the year we were in 1st grade, we have kept in touch throughout the years and have been lucky to squeeze in visits every now and then. Jennifer is Kelly's older sister and is a couple years younger than Cara -  our two families are truly lifelong friends. Although we missed the other two members of their family,  we really enjoyed getting to spend some time with Susan and Jennifer. We got to hang out and discuss wedding plans (both Kelly and Jennifer are getting married in the next year!), discuss baby stuff and really just catch up for a whole day - we had a great time! Here are a couple of pictures of Lily and Susan and little Sophie-bug:

 Mom, Lily and I were scheduled to head back to Raleigh on Thursday evening, but we were delayed by some really bad weather in Virginia and down through Raleigh. It was a pretty exciting bout of weather - we had tornado warnings (2 tornadoes touched down within miles of us) and some severe storms throughout the evening. Thankfully, we all made it through the storms safe and sound and we got to camp out at Cara and Phillip's house for an extra night! On the trip home, we also got to be heavy by 2 passengers - Caleb and Tyler made the journey back with us to stay with their Nana and Grandpa for awhile. The ride home was really uneventful - Lily slept for the majority of the trip, only waking about 20 miles from home. She never needed us to stop to feed her and so we made it home in really great time. Even after she woke up, she was in a great mood - mostly because she was being entertained by her two older cousins! 

When we arrived in Raleigh, Lily and I got our swimming gear together and we headed over to her Nana and Grandpa's hotel to meet up with everyone, including her Aunt Margaret who came to spend the afternoon with us. After eating lunch, we took everyone upstairs to change into our swimsuits and headed to the pool. Lily took a brief nap, ate her lunch and then it was time for her first swim! It took her a few seconds to adjust to the feeling of being in the water, but after she did, she really seemed to enjoy it. She kicked her feet and splashed her hands and seemed to have a good experience all around. She never cried or seemed nervous and lasted for a good 10-15 minutes before she was ready to get out and get dried off. We had a great afternoon and it was so nice to have Lily's Aunt Margaret make a special trip up to hang out with us - Caleb and Tyler really enjoyed getting to hang out with her too. Hopefully, we get to see her again soon! Here are some pictures from our swimming adventure:

Whew, is it hot or what?

Oh my goodness, has it ever been hot this past week! We have a heat index of 108 today and both a heat advisory and an excessive heat warning in place from the weather station - wow. Because of the heat, Lily and I have been spending very little time outside, occupying ourselves with indoor activities instead. Last Friday, Lily's Grandma Libby came up to spend the afternoon with us doing one of our favorite activies - shopping! We picked up some very cute summer outfits for Lily that will work well for keeping her cool during this crazy heat wave. Lily slept for the most part while we shopped, but after she ate that afternoon, she entertained both Grandma Libby and I with smiles and some stories. Later that day, we met Grandpa Rick and daddy for a yummy dinner at the Twisted Fork at Triangle Town Center and were able to just miss the big storms that happened later that night. 

 

On Saturday, Lily and I headed over to her Aunt Katie's house to help pack up some of Aunt Katie's things for her upcoming move and to hang out with her and Nana for awhile. It stormed that afternoon too, which helped to keep us cool and Lily got a great long nap in - that packing sure made her tired! Before she conked out though, we got a good picture session in:

We got to go out to dinner with one of our favorite couples, the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Fine, on Sunday evening. We went to On the Border, which was one of our regular places to eat with Kenny before he was a married man, and we had a great time. We had a tasty meal, topped off with one of their Border Brownies to share between the 4 of us - yum! Lily slept through the majority of dinner, but woke up right before we left and I was able to get a few pictures of Lily with Callie.

On Monday, Lily and I went out to lunch with Aunt Katie to Kanki, a Japanese steakhouse in Raleigh - yet another yummy meal! After lunch, we headed out into the mall to walk some of our lunch off and do a little more shopping (haha). Lilypie got another good nap in her stroller. 

Even though Lily is not a fan, we've really been trying to work on her tummy time since she hit the 2 month mark - the point at which her doctor thought it was more important to make her suffer it. We still can't have tummy time for longer than 5 minutes at a time before she gets really upset, so we do it throughout the day and make it a combo of back playtime and tummy time, which seems to help. I also try and do it in a couple of different places, which also seems to make it a little easier. Lately though, she has gotten really good at holding up her head - and even better at rolling from her tummy to her back! Here are some latest pictures and a video I shot last evening from Lily's tummy time. Notice how quickly she flips right over onto her back!

And we'll leave you with some of Lily's cute pictures this week:

Lily Rolls Over!

So this morning during tummy time, I got a great surprise - Lily rolled over!! At first I thought she was just going to roll to her side and hang out (which would only be the second time she'd done that - the first being on our family trip to the beach) and then to my amazement, she rolled right over! Of course, since I wasn't expecting it, I didn't get it on camera. So I ran to get my camera, rolled her back to her tummy (which she just loved) and then watched to see if she could do it again - and she did! She got stuck on her side for a few minutes, but she finally got over to her back - you can tell she's very relieved to finally be there. As I've mentioned before, Lily is not a tummy time fan, so she's pretty unhappy until she gets on her back! I only got her rolling from her side to her back, otherwise the video would be quite long, but I am sure there will be more rolling over events and I will share them as I capture them. Enjoy!

Lily at (almost) 10 weeks

Lily will be 10 weeks old tomorrow! This morning, we took her in for her 2 month visit. It was a little late, because her doctor was on vacation last week. Her doctor's office gave us the option of seeing someone else in his absence, but we really enjoy her doctor and he's so great with her that we decided to wait until he was back in the office to take her in for her check up. She did great, as usual, even giving her doctor a big smile and chatting with him a little bit during her exam. We got her measurements again and although I could tell she'd grown (I had to clean out some clothes she'd outgrown this weekend), it's always cool to see the numbers. Today was also a vaccine visit - definitely not mommy's favorite visit so far. Lily did really well with her shots - she didn't care a bit about the oral vaccine and after her 3(!) vaccines in her legs, she only cried for a few minutes and then went to sleep and slept for the ride home. I think she handled them better than I did! 

We also got a chance to talk to her doctor about Lily's reflux. Before our trip to the beach, I took Lily in to the doctor because of some excessive spitting up and pain/fussiness while eating and after eating. The doctor we saw that day told us that all babies, to some extent, have reflux due to an immature sphincter at the bottom of the esophagus that allows stomach contents to come back up because of gas or an overfull tummy, resulting in lovely spit up. It looked to her like Lily had just a little bit more reflux than the usual baby and we talked about some reflux precautions to use during and after feeding her, which include burping more frequently and sitting her upright for 30 minutes to an hour after she eats to help gravity do its work - this is why a lot of her most recent pictures are done in her car seat - it's the best place for her to sit up after eating! Unfortunately, while we were at the beach, she had to take a trip to the pediatrician down there (an extremely nice doctor) because of some brown fluid and a tiny bit of blood that was mixed in with her regular spit up. It looked like her esophagus was really irritated from the reflux, so she was put on Zantac to decrease the amount of acid in her tummy. Her regular doctor told us today that we can try getting her off the Zantac in a couple of weeks and see how she does; both her daddy and I would like for her to not be on this long term. We'll keep doing the reflux precautions to try and help decrease her spitting up and the irritation on her little system.

Here were her stats today:

Her weight was 9lbs 9oz, putting her above the 10th percentile now! Her head circumference was up to 38 cm and her length was a full 22 inches - her length puts her above the 25th percentile and her head circumference puts her right in the 25th percentile for her age. Her doctor seems pretty happy with how she's growing and her developmental progress to this point.

Lily at home:

Lily's still eating exclusively breastmilk, either nursing or bottled breastmilk when we're out and about. She's eating a steady every 3 hours, except for in the evening, when she still wants to eat every 2-2.5 hrs. For the past week, she's been going to bed between 9-10pm and sleeping until 2:30 or 3 every night, which mommy loves! She nurses and then goes right back to sleep for another 3-4 hours, depending on the day. After she wakes up in the morning, we have our playtime and Lily does her tummy time (she's still not a fan) and she gets to chat with her butterflies for awhile. This is really the best time to see her smile and hear her chatting away.

She's not really in a steady routine during the day, but does usually do a morning and afternoon nap for 2-3 hours and then another nap in the evening. Her morning nap seems to fall between 9-11am most days and her afternoon nap usually falls after she eats again in the early afternoon. Her evening nap is usually at some point in the early evening, around 5 or 6, and is usually her shortest nap of the day, if she's slept well throughout the day. After she wakes up for that, she may have a little bit of a fussy time before she's ready to get her bath (if it's a bath night), change into her jammies, get all swaddled up, nurse and head off to sleep. 

Instead of doing an eat, activity, sleep schedule, we do more of a eat, sleep, activity schedule. Because Lily has to sit in her seat or be held upright for 30 minutes after eating, she usually falls back asleep before we can do any playtime, so her playtimes usually come after she wakes back up and before she's hungry again. We do tummy time twice a day, most days, because she's still pretty frustrated by it and really only tolerates it for a little while before getting pretty upset. She is getting better about it though, the easier it gets for her to turn her head from side to side and pick up for a little while.

Lily is starting to smile a lot now, and even laugh/giggle a little bit, which is so fun to hear! She's much better at eye contact now and will turn her head when she hears a noise she's interested in - usually when either I or Richard are talking. She loves to chat with her carseat toys and really enjoys rattles and watching the baby in the mirror - either in our big bathroom mirror or in the mirror on her playmat and in the car. She's also started watching Oz and Stella and you can tell they are extremely fascinating to her. Usually, Oz is up with us in the morning during her playmat time and she will stare at him when he's checking things out. 

Here are a couple of videos I took yesterday of Lily just hanging out on her playmat and during tummy time:

This next one is of her eating her fist - one of her newer tricks when she doesn't have her pacifier - and the last is of her after eating - she sure is happy when she has a full tummy!

And a couple comparison pictures:

Lily in her carseat the day we brought her home:

Lily in her carseat Friday:

Stella Bear Talks

We have finally caught exclusive video footage of a talking Stella Bear! We've been working on this for awhile, but sometimes it's difficult to get her to cooperate and then we have to remember to actually turn on and use the camera to capture her talking away. I love this video editing software, in case that wasn't obvious. Enjoy the Bear's movie debut:

Lily the movie star

Well, since I have FINALLY figured out how to use our movie editing software, I thought I'd upload 2 other videos I'd taken back in June. In the first video, Lily's checking out her playmat and the baby in the mirror (one of her favorite companions) - this one was taken June 13th and she's wearing the same outfit she's wearing today in her smiling/laughing videos in the previous post - she's grown so much since then! She definitely won't be wearing this outfit for long. In the second video, she's watching her mobile and laughing at it - it definitely captures her interest. This video was taken June 25th. Enjoy!

Lily Smiles

This week, Lily has really started smiling, doing some laughing and chatting with her toys and especially with her butterflies on the quilt hanging beside her changing table. The morning seems to be the best time to catch her chatting away, but during naptime in her bassinet, I can hear her chatting with her monkeys at times as well. Her smiles are just awesome to see - I love it! I've got a few pictures of them and I was able to take a couple of movies this morning as well and thought I'd share them with everyone. Lily's Aunt Katie was also able to get a great picture on our beach trip and I included that one as well. Hope everyone's having a great weekend! Enjoy!