29

It is always so busy around this time of year, and I have SO much to catch up on, including the blog as well as finishing my Christmas shopping and wrapping a gazillion presents EEK!!!.  I have a list of about 10 things I need to post about.  Hopefully I can tackle all of it before the end of the year!

Yesterday was my 25th 29th birthday (sigh).  Time sure is flying.  I can remember last year around this time vividly.  It was just before I was put on bed rest, and I was so excited about my birthday for the first time in years because it meant that I was that much closer to meeting my baby girl.  28 was a big year for me.  As Steph wrote in my birthday card, it's gonna be hard to top this past year, but I can't wait to try.  Bring it on, 29.

Dan would never admit it, but he can be so sweet and thoughtful and romantic, and this birthday was one of the best I can remember.  Maybe it's just that motherhood has turned me into a total sap.  Anyway, the birthday celebration started on Sunday morning.  I woke Lilly up early in hopes that she would take an early (and short) nap because we planned to go to church, which is right in the middle of her normal nap time.  We'd just finished breakfast and I was cleaning the dishes when the doorbell rang.  I thought to myself, "seriously who is here unannounced on a Sunday morning before 10am?"  Then I heard Steph's voice.  Um, what?  Turns out, Dan and Steph had been scheming behind my back, stealth style.  Remember the bestie spa day at The Umstead that our husbands got us for our first Mother's Day?  We hadn't yet gotten around to going, so Steph came and kidnapped me for the day.  Jon had other plans, so Dan was keeping the girls.  Seriously, how cute are they?  I later found out that Dan wanted the spa day to happen on my actual birthday - he had taken off work to keep the girls and had even called to clear it with my boss - but they were booked.  Anyway, Steph and I had a glorious time and I am SO GLAD that she and Dan worked so hard and made this happen (it was no easy feat, from what I understand), because I really needed it.  It was so nice to relax for a while and not worry about anything.  Steph and I both told our husbands that they don't have to ever get us anything else for Mother's Day, ever, because we want a bestie spa day at least yearly.  :-)

On Monday morning, Dan took the morning off and made me my favorite breakfast, the same breakfast that my Mom has made me every year that I've been with her on my birthday: french toast and bacon.  I think it may be Lilly's favorite, too.  Then, I got to open presents!  Dan, Lilly and Layla spoiled me rotten, and I love all of my gifts.  Dan and I planned to go to a birthday dinner date last night, but I wasn't feeling well.  As a result, we ordered takeout and rented a movie, which Dan let me choose in honor of my birthday.  I chose Magic Mike.  Let's just say that Dan is an excellent sport for sitting through that one!  Anyway, it was a wonderful day, and I am so thankful that I got to spend it with my little family.  

I somehow managed to forget to take any photos to commemorate the occasion, but since posts are much more fun with photos, here are a few from my iPhone from the past week:

Best birthday gift EVER...Layla has started letting Lilly get close to her!  

I realize that Layla looks terrified, but I just KNOW that this is the beginning of BFF-ness...

Totally unphased by the Chick Fil A Santa cow.  Loved him!

28 brought me so much joy in the form of one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given, Miss Lillian Grace.  I am looking so forward to 29 and everything that it has in store.  If my birthday celebration is any indication, the year will certainly be fantastic.  Thanks to all of my friends and family for the birthday love and well wishes.  Happy birthday to me!  

Sarah

New Traditions

Poor, neglected blog!  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it is already December.  Where does the time go?  We had yet another busy weekend - but at least we were in town, for once!  We did some Christmas decorating - I didn't even put out half of the stuff I usually do this year, though, partly because I didn't have the energy and partly because Miss L is into everything.  My work Holiday party was Saturday night, and then today we took Lilly to Pullen Park for the Holiday Express.  It was fantastic and I promise to blog about it later in the week - hopefully tomorrow.

Tonight I wanted to play catch up and blog about a new Baum family Christmas tradition.  Last weekend, we went to the mountains (Boone, NC) to pick out a Christmas tree!  My sister's husband, Josh, told me at one point that his family goes to the mountains every year to pick out their tree, and I thought it was a wonderful idea and just knew that we had to start doing the same with our family.  It doesn't hurt that my parents are in the process of building a house in Boone, so it will be really easy in the future (and let's face it, you never have to twist our arms to head to Boone, the greatest place on earth).  For this first trip, my parents house is still under construction, so we rented a cabin in Banner Elk and headed to the mountains on Friday afternoon for the weekend.  My parents met us there on Friday night, and my sisters (and Josh) headed up the mountain to meet us on Saturday.  I was secretly hoping for cold weather - something about it makes it feel more like Christmas.  It was decidedly not cold, but the weather was absolutely beautiful.  My parents found a little family-owned Christmas Tree Farm very close to their cabin, because we all like the idea of being able to return to the same farm every year.  We ended up at Cornett Deal Christmas Tree Farm, and y'all, it is SO CUTE and perfect.  We had the best time!  

When we got there, we told them what size trees we were looking for, and we took a hay ride to pick out the trees we wanted (Lilly loved this part the most).  The folks at the farm cut the trees down for us and took care of everything else (drilled, shaken, baled and loaded onto the car).  They also have the cutest little shop where you can buy all kinds of local crafts - and the snickerdoodle cookies were so yummy.  When we were in the craft shop, a family of four came in and they were very taken with Lilly.  The mother told me that they had started the same tradition at the very same tree farm when her oldest child was Lilly's age, and now her kids are 10 and 12.  So neat.  I took quite a few a million photos and I couldn't narrow it down as usual, so I'll finish the post out with those.  I am looking so forward to continuing this tradition and making wonderful memories for Lilly and whatever future siblings she may have.  

TOO excited to nap on the way to the mountains.

Could you die over the hat?!  I surely could.  Thanks, Grandmommy!

What is it with this child eating hay?  She acts like she's malnourished!

Shout out to Miss Brenda on the TO DIE FOR red Cole Haan shoes...LOVE.

L wasn't sure what to think of the trees

Silly Daddy!  

Carney's baby tree that L picked out for her!

L was so worn out after all of the activity that we barely strapped her into the car seat before she was asleep.  Sweet girl!

Snuggles with Paw Paw on the porch overlooking Grandfather Mountain.  Can't beat it!

I just love Christmas time...it's my favorite time of year!  Our tree turned out perfectly, it is fat and I love it.  I'll try to post a pic of the finished product at some point.  

Sarah

10 Months Old: Part Deux

I know I'm a few days late on this, and I wasn't even sure I had the energy to blog before I sat down, but if I wait for a "good time" to post it will never happen!  

Weight/Length:  You didn't really think I'd know this without a doctor appointment, did you?  Although, I just realized as I typed that sentence that I never updated last month after our appointment.  At L's 9-month check-up, her stats were as follows: 28 inches long (80th %, up from 26.5 inches/90th % at 6 months); 20 lbs 13.5 oz (85th %, up from 18 lbs/96th % at 6 months).  Her weight/length % was 85 at 9 months. SO, if I had to guess, I'd say right now she's somewhere around there, possibly slightly bigger.  :-)

Sleep: Homegirl still loves to sleep, thank you Jesus.  The wake ups I mentioned in the last post must have just been something weird (probably teeth if I had to guess), and she finally adjusted to the time change after about a week.  We still put her down most nights between 7:30-8:00pm, and most week day mornings we're still waking her up at 8:00am.  Lilly is still on 2 naps/day, although I will say that there is a lot more playing in her crib these days before she settles down and goes to sleep.  She doesn't cry, it's almost just like she needs to wind down or something, although we are definitely going to have to mount the monitor because she keeps trying to eat it.  She normally is in her cribs for 2-ish hours and asleep for 1.5 of that at each nap (sometimes a little longer depending on the day).  We are also very lucky that she is not married to that routine/schedule.  On days when she doesn't get a very long nap or sometimes misses one nap all together, although she's tired she's still generally very happy.  It's nauseating, I know...I am also well aware that some future child of ours will be a terror and give us a terrible time, blah blah.  ;-)

Feeding:  We are still nursing, although I'm probably going to try to start figuring out how to slowly wean shortly (can't talk about it).  Lilly nurses when she wakes up, after her morning nap (before lunch), after her afternoon nap (before dinner), and before bed.  She is nursing less these days so we've just this week started decreasing the size of her bottles to 5 oz. again, which is a relief because my freezer supply is thinning quickly due to all of the trips we've taken and I don't produce a ton when pumping anymore.  

Lilly prefers to feed herself these days and mainly eats whatever we're having, although I am still able to sneak some purees in between bites.  For the first time this month, I've noticed some pickiness/taste bud changes.  For example: I haven't made home made chicken noodle soup since last winter, and I made some yesterday as part of a meal to take to a friend who recently had a baby.  Last night Lilly was literally INHALING the soup.  Dan put the noodles on her tray and she was slurping and smacking and squealing because he couldn't feed her fast enough - it was the first time she'd tried it and she LOVED it.  Tonight, however, when I tried to feed it to her again, she was not having it.  She would put a noodle in her mouth and then spit it out, and then spent quite a lot of time playing with the noodles on her tray.  We couldn't figure it out, because she liked it so much last night!  Dan said that maybe she's like him and doesn't like to eat the same thing two nights in a row.  I told him that maybe she's like our niece, Erica, who is famous for once telling my in-laws that she "doesn't eat leftovers" (love that kid!).  Lilly loves to try new things, and any time anyone is eating anything in her presence, she will open that little mouth like a bird for a bite.  She loves to feed Layla as well.

Yet again we introduced way too many new foods to name this month, but two memorable additions (besides the chicken noodle soup) were chinese pork (courtesy of Mere & Mikey) and fried turkey at Thanksgiving.  Lilly will eat both fruits and veggies, but prefers fruit.  She must like the sweet flavor, because her favorite veggies are those that are sweet as well.  A few of her favorite foods as of late: turkey breast, string cheese, applesauce (this is probably her hands-down favorite), peeled apples, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, bananas, pasta, blueberries, graham crackers, cheerios.

Firsts This Month: The most memorable "first" this month was for sure L's first Thanksgiving.  Sorry in advance for photo overload, I tried and failed to narrow it down further:

Cute Thanksgiving-themed PJs!

The outfit.  I die.

Outfit #2, also known as the "dinner outfit".  Because I couldn't decide which one to buy so I bought both.  :-)

First taste of turkey!

Dan wanted to see what L would do with her own piece.  I think it was a hit!

I can't leave her alone with her father...

Dan refers to this as her "pilgrim look."

First taste of cool whip, which Dan was supposed to be serving on the pie.  Also a big hit.

Family pics, courtesy of Grandma Susie

I somehow managed to forget my camera for the trip, so iPhone photos will have to do.  I also somehow managed to not take any photos of Lilly with her grandparents or Aunt Mere/Uncle Mikey.  Parenting fail.  We'll have to get some at Christmas for sure!

Developments:  There are so many every month, my baby girl is just growing way too fast.  She is a professional "cruiser" and will often push herself up into a standing position in the middle of the floor without holding on to anything.  She'll stand for a few seconds and then once she realizes what she's doing, she's surprised and plops down on her bottom.  She definitely prefers to be standing, and if there's nothing within her reach to hold onto and cruise, she has no problem plopping down and crawling off at the speed of lightning.  Lilly "sings" (I call it singing, basically she'll just kind of hum in a sing-song voice that's super cute), laughs, coos, and babbles all the time.  She is now more than ever repeating sounds back to us.  She is into absolutely everything - I don't care if I have just vacuumed the rug, she will find some microscopic spec of something on it and immediately put it in her mouth.  Her favorite thing to repeat is "uh uh" (I try not to say the word "no" all the time so she doesn't ignore it on principle, so we're working on variations of "no" which still get the point across).  She discovered the stairs shortly aftr my last post, so that's been lots of fun (can you say baby gate?).  Also, we went from 2 teeth to 6 teeth overnight.  She has her bottom center teeth, and shortly after those her top center teeth came in, and we just noticed over the weekend that there is one on either side of those with 2 more that have just broken through.  She has also in the last two weeks started using a push toy to walk.  We don't have one at the house - she's getting one for Christmas - but the neighbors whose house she stays at every day have one.  Carney sent me this photo today:

She sent me a few more that were blurry because L was off.  I guess we know she'll like at least one of her Christmas presents! :-)

Likes: Mostly repeats from last month: being outside.  Eating.  Layla.  Bath time.  Snuggling (but only on her terms - normally when she's tired or feeling icky/teething).  Giggling.  Talking/cooing.  Reading books (She LOVES reading books and it is really the only time she'll sit still these days.  She gets so excited and has started turning the pages, too.).  Nap time/sleeping in general.  Sucking her thumb (especially when sleepy).  Music - she LOVES to sing songs, the sillier the better (Daddy's specialty).  Laughing.  Crawling (especially towards things she shouldn't be getting into).  Standing.  Walking/cruising.  Being naked.  Squealing.  Babbling.  Being silly with Daddy.  Jumperoo and door jumper.  Grocery shopping/shopping in general/public outings/people watching. Blocks. Walks/stroller rides.  Bike rides.  Sampling anything and everything Mommy and Daddy are eating.  Pulling and standing up.  

Dislikes:  Again, mostly repeats from last month: sitting in the high chair but not eating.  Getting lotioned up before bed (although this is finally getting to be less of an issue, it's still not her favorite).  Additionally, putting on PJs or changing clothes.  Mommy trying to feel for new teeth.  Being tired.

What I'm Thankful For:  I had some time to reflect during the Thanksgiving holiday.  I am so truly blessed and thankful for so many things.  I am thankful for family and a wonderful support system.  I am thankful to have the best friends in the world.  I'm thankful that Dan and I both have good jobs that we enjoy.  I'm thankful for my little family.  I am thankful to have a thoughtful, supportive, loving husband, and I am thankful that I get to fall in love with him a little more with each passing day as I watch him with our daughter.  I am thankful for a happy, flexible, healthy, beautiful baby girl.  And I am truly thankful that God chose me to be her mommy.

What I'm Looking Forward To:  More Holiday fun!  Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year.  We are heading to the mountains this weekend to start a new family tradition of choosing our Christmas tree, and while I know Lilly is too young to understand it just yet, I'm still excited about it.  I can't wait to see how she reacts to Santa when we take her to see him.  I'm excited about all of our holiday celebrations, spending time with family, and Christmas morning.  Eeek!  Oh, and I'm also excited that since Thanksgiving has passed, it's now officially appropriate to listen to Christmas music 24/7 - and watch Elf as many times as I want.  Yippee!

Next Pediatrician Appointment: We have to go back sometime soon for round 2 of Lilly's flu shot, but I haven't made the appointment yet - it will probably be this week or next.  After that, we don't go back until her one year check-up (tears!).

How Mommy's Doing:  I'm feeling like I have a better grip on things this month.  That's not to say that I never feel stretched thin any more - maybe I'm just getting more used to it, but I feel like I've done a little better at juggling everything.  

As always, this post was way longer than I intended when I sat down to write.  Happy 10 months, Lilly bean.  Being your mama is the best thing I've ever done.  I love you to the moon and back, a million times over.

Sarah