Easter

Samuel wanted to hide the eggs for Emma, but we didn't have any plastic ones (yet) so he hid his cars for her to find...

 Egg hunt!

 Baskets from Mommy and Papa…

 Baskets from Gigi and Dodo…

6 months old

We celebrated Lily's half birthday last week. Time is flying by! Here are her latest "tricks"… 

- Sleeps 7 to 7 and has for about a month now. 

- We moved her into Emma's room (which we are trying to be better about saying "the girls" room) and it has gone so smoothly. I expected so much more drama, but they don't really bother each other. When one is being loud (usually the big girl), the other just ignores and rolls over. 

- Lily started real food right on her 6 month birthday. She loves it and is already consistently eating food every night. The other two started more hesitantly, but Lily jumped right in. 

- She's sitting up pretty consistently now. I still put a pillow behind her just in case, but she rarely falls. 

- She rolls and scoots around, but doesn't go too far yet (Thankfully!). 

- First tooth came through last week. She really didn't fuss too much, but was chewing on anything she could get her hands on and was drooling like crazy. 

- She loves her exersaucer and just sitting on the floor with a few toys around her. But her favorite times, are when brother and sister get close. She laughs at them all the time. 

- She loves people! She smiles at everyone, everywhere and is quite charming even when she's tired or hungry. 

- She sucks her thumb! Samuel and Emma use their thumbs to go to sleep, when they have their blankets. Lily has her thumb all the time. Anytime she gets a little upset she cries for a second, finds her thumb and puts her head down on my shoulder. It's so nice that she can self soothe and she's so cute with her thumb in her mouth and her index finger hooked on her nose. 

- She doesn't sleep as well on the go anymore, but is really flexible. She can make it through with just a few catnaps during the day. If we are home she will take 2 lengthy naps (2+ hours) and one short nap. But that really only happens about once a week. She's easy going with 20 minutes here and there while in and out of her car seat or the ergo carrier. 

Enjoying her new bed… 

 Thumb sucker…

 Happy half birthday party…

 Love that she will still sleep on my lap sometimes…

4 Months Old

Lily is flying through these milestones so fast. Life is busy, but full of fun. My 3 blessings keep me on my toes and always entertained. Never a dull moment. I recently saw this parody on the books "if you give a mouse a muffin" that did the same chain of events writing method with the daily events of motherhood. One thing leads to another and nothing gets finished. Pretty accurate. :)

This is where I've been looking to see what sam and emma were like at each month (since my memory is no good), so I'm writing so much detail for my own future reference. Feel free to skip this part. :)

Lily at 4 months… 16 pounds, 2 ounces (95th percentile) and 25.75 inches (95th percentile) BIG girl!

Eats - Eats every 3-4 hours, no dairy. I tested her supposed dairy allergy last week and she broke out in an awful excema rash and had tummy pains again. So, for now we will continue on a dairy free diet to keep her comfortable. She still doesn't ever really relax while eating which makes it difficult to nurse in public as she's constantly tugging on my cover. But she's obviously getting plenty.

Sleep - She takes naps on and off throughout the day (often in her carseat), pretty much following an awake for 1.5 hours, asleep for 1.5-2 hours routine. She often needs help going back to sleep in the middle of her nap, either with a pacifier or rocking. But she also often gets interrupted from her sleep to go get brother or sister from school or run errands, so it's hard to expect her to nap better.

At night she sleeps about 7pm to 3am to 8am (approximately). She has had trouble falling asleep sometimes, fighting it until 10 or so. A few days ago we let her cry it out. She was waking up every couple of hours, but would go right back to sleep if we put the pacifier in. So, we needed to teach her to sleep without the pacifier. I couldn't let her cry it out without her being able to self soothe with either her fingers or the pacifier, so we left her unswaddled too so she could use her hands. She would cry for about 10 minutes, then be quiet for a bit, then start up again for about 1.5 hours. I wouldn't have let her cry steadily that long, but she kept getting quiet in between. The next 2 nights i laid her down without a peep! She sometimes still fights falling asleep, but not for too long usually.

Plays - She grabs at toys. She smiles ALL the times. A few times she has giggled, but really saves it for only the most hilarious situations. She can roll from tummy to back and has started scooting in circles on her play mat. She loves her bouncy seat, play mat, swing, and wubanub most of all, but has started to explore other toys and the bumbo seat.

Other - She is well loved by all! Everyone is always willing to help her by bringing toys, pacifiers, or singing to her. The big kids are also very curious about her and always asking many questions about her. Emma asked, "Why does Lily have a mouth if she can't talk?" They are both begging for Lily to sleep with them, but for now she's still in the hallway. :)

3 Month Pics

I couldn't decide which ones I liked best. She has the best facial expressions. 3/4 month update coming soon (hopefully :)). 

Christmas

My posts are lagging behind here. We've been so busy. But I don't want to forget about these happy moments with my little family, so I'll try to catch up a little.  

We got to stay home for Christmas this year, which is something we have always loved doing. Buds parents came to us for the week and we stopped by Gigi and dodos for a quick "merry Christmas" that afternoon (we celebrated with them earlier in the month). The kids really understood the Santa thing a little more this year, although we don't really talk about it much. They didn't want to go see him at the mall though because Emma doesn't like "mascots" and Samuel wasn't so sure either. :) We also loved having papa not traveling and Samuel home from school for two weeks straight! We enjoyed a Christmas Day service at our own church and had fun just hanging out. We all came down with some variation of the flu during Christmas week, so it was nice to lay low for a few days. 

We took advantage of Samuels time at home to try some projects that I found on Pinterest. This "indoor snowman" was a complete flop, but Samuel still had fun playing with the concoction. 

We took everyone to see the lights at opryland hotel.

Emma was the only one who wanted to ride the train.

Making cookies for Santa... 

And eating the icing. 

"Santa clause been here! Santa clause been here!" (Probably only a few of you will get that reference. :)) 

They really were excited, despite the looks on their faces. 

Lily slept through most of the present opening, but at least she got to sleep in grandmas arms. 

We all went to see frozen. It was really cute and everyone enjoyed it (and thankfully lily slept through it). 

Samuels teacher gave us a list of some things to do during the weeks off. One was to write letters, numbers, shapes, etc in flour. It kind of got out of control. Ending with them sticking their whole faces in the flour. 

Love little lily smiles... 

Emma got some craft supplies for Christmas and has loved working on projects. 

The big kids occasionally happily play together. I always have to capture these moments with a picture since they are few bad far between. 

Merry Christmas friends and family!!