Lilly learns some new tricks at 5 months

Here is some documentation of Lilly's last few days. She is becoming a reliable sitter. She is also gaining more and more rolls! She has been so much fun. I think month 4-5 is my favorite. It has been sooooo much fun. She still does not sleep through the night. I know it is most likely my fault, but unfortunately since I never get to see her, I just get up and get her when she cries because I like to hold her. Well enough jabber, here she is...

Here she demonstrating how adept she is at posing for the camera and rolling over :)

My big girl no longer needs her carseat adapter to go trotting!


this, my friends, is quite possibly the best baby toy ever. The exer-saucer is BRILLIANT

And now for the big tricks...Lilly can sit! I can't even believe it!

Thanks Grammy for this sweet dress!

Thanks Grandma Ruth Ann for bringing me this awesome outfit from the Big Easy! Not every girl can have a biker grandma who loves her so much~

Lilly SWIMS!

Today was Tucker Chipman's 1st Birthday Party...A pool party. We thought we would take Lilly for her 1st swim. Loaded down with her swim suit that Grammy bought her, we took the plunge. As soon as we lowered her into the water, we could tell by her face that it wasn't going to be a great experience. Jaclyn quickly ran to get the camera, b/c we knew this fun wasn't going to last long. Here's all we got! The video isn't 5 minutes long this time...only 39 seconds.It didn't start out so bad...

But quickly got out of hand!

Lilly eats cereal!

I know we are way behind blog posting...i still have to talk about the end of vacation, father's day, etc...but we just shot this video of Lilly eating rice cereal for the first time! It's so cute! It was too big to upload straight here, so I'll uploaded it to YouTube and had to embed it here. So fun. It's amazing how fast they grow up!

Four months

My apologies for the lack of pictures and posts over the past month. It has been nuts. I will not muse about this past month at this time, since this is meant to be a happy, light and fluffy post. Lilly celebrated 1/3 a year on earth with 2days of fevers! Luckily she perked up enough to pose for her portrait. Check out the dress that Grammy (Blake's mom) smocked. She is AWESOME!

The past month has been one of the most fun months of Lilly's short existence. She started to smile, giggle, screach, and play. She has rolled over from back to front and front to back... ONCE. She now just screams when we try to make her do it again, and without fail, Blake rescues her. No wonder she won't roll over, daddy does it for her :) She plays with her lion and monkey and various other weird animals on the mat my friends Anju and Carol Sue gave her (miss you guys).

She holds her tongue out to catch water in the bathtub the way you or I might try to catch snow. She has definitely learned to prefer her parents if given the option.

As far as sleeping goes, she gets a big fat F. She rarely sleeps more than 3 hours, and even that has become more rare. As you might imagine, this is an unwelcomed habit given the 2 times a week both blake and I pull 30 hour shifts. But we love her nonetheless. Hopefully she will grow out of it before my eyes have permanent circles under them.

It has been the best 4 months ever. I love being a mom, and every day is richer. She is so curious, and it is amazing to watch her discover the world. I used to wish that she would stay little and cuddly so I could always hold and protect her. I thought it would be so sad to watch her grow, but it is just the opposite. Sure I am aware of the passage of time, and how each minute is only here once. (more on that later... therein lies my problem with residency) But what a great joy it is to watch her grow and develop, to smile, and coo. I love my life! I am so blessed. Happy 4 months.

Beach Vacation - Installment #1

All the cousins at the beach. (I didn't get the jeans memo?!?)

Hey! Sorry it's been a while. We have had a CRAZY few weeks with a vacation, father's day, start of Jaclyn's orientation/residency, me on extra call followed by 3 nights in the ED...all combined with a pumpkin who has decided that sleep is for the birds.


Personal note: please pray for our household. While we are in a very large transition with adjusting to life with Lilly, Jaclyn starting residency, juggling terrible upper level residents and attendings, things are stressful to say the least. Jac and I are doing great with our marriage (it helps when you marry a stud that is the best mom and the best doctor I have ever been around), but b/c of my schedule this month, Jac and I have literally only seen each other for a few HOURS! We are each spending quality time with Lilly too, but that sometimes means sacrificing time with each other. It's tough to say the least, so pray for supernatural strength, wisdom as we are praying about what we should be doing and what life should look like, and thank for all the encouragement. Not to mention that I started running a fever last pm, cough, body aches, etc...so add to all of this an illness that I may well give to both Jac and Lilly!! Yikes! We couldn't make it without God's Grace and all of your love!

Lilly's cute beach hat! (Thanks Cousin Sherry!)
Ladybug outfit

Jaclyn graduated (YAY!), then shortly thereafter we headed to the Outer Banks, NC (or OBX) with Jaclyn's whole family for a week there. There were at least 20 people there the entire time: Jac's 3 aunts, all of her cousins and their families in tow. We had a great time, relaxing on the beach, going for short jogs, and watching Lilly meet her cousins and aunts. Like most great vacations, not too much to report, lots of rest, good food, fun stories, and whenever the crew gets together, tons of laughing. We took Lilly to the beach one day for pictures, but we didn't want to expose her to direct sunlight before 6 months of age (as per AAP guidelines), so she visited once and got to take lots and lots of baths with Grandma RuthAnn. More stories to follow, we did take one day trip as a family. More to come later. Here are some picture highlights:

Family on the beach in Nags Head, NC.

More adventures to follow...including a disaster poop story (Aunt Tara we need the pictures!)

This is crazy~

DISCLAIMER- This is not an attempt for pity comments :) Merely and observation that I find funny... I am just jealous that Blake is funnier!

It is disturbing to me that Blake's post about me not kissing him got more comments than the fact that Lilly turned 2 months and I graduated from medical school.... I mean really. I suppose this is similar to that saying in order to have a friend you have to be a friend. So I suppose in order to have comments you have to comment on others. Oh well... I guess I will begin commenting because I so enjoy when others comment. Really?!?!?! only 2 comments for graduation?!?!?

Just kidding. To set the record straight, what Blake did not tell you, he was trying to kiss me in a rocking chair and I was seriously convinced I was going to end up on the concrete with a busted head... hence the hesitation to feel overly romantic!

Jaclyn Hates me

It's blake. it's almost midnight on Friday, June 5th, 2009 and I just wanted to say that for whatever reason, Jaclyn doesn't like me anymore. We were sitting by the fire out back and when I went to kiss her, she put both hands up and totally pulled her face away. We were even having a great conversation! Whatever...So, for the record, she doesn't like me and we are fighting. I Cor says that, "love is patient, love is kind...and love is always kissing your husband back when he wants to kiss you." See, baby, even the bible says so! Oh well. Here is a picture of Lilly. She is asleep in her swing right now. In this picture, she is in a pretty yellow dress and looking GREAT!!


UPDATE:: Now it's around 10am on Saturday morning, and we are not fighting anymore. Everything was fine, and Jaclyn even let me kiss her a few minutes after I made the blog post. Just wanted to set the record straight . In other good news, Lilly went about 7 hours between feedings last night, so now we know she definitely can do it! OK, happy saturday!