Pics of the Family

Where are all the ducks?

We have tried nearly 10 times to find ducks at a pond or lake nearby to go feed. Every time we think we found some ducks we show up and they aren't there. Some friends of ours live in a neighborhood that backs up to a park that has a pond. So, the other day we got together and walked to the pond only to once again not find a single duck, I mean shoot, we would be happy with some geese, but there was not a water floating bird to be found. Oh well! Here are a couple of pictures of Lily while we were on our walk.

Belated Halloween post

So, I am a little behind in posting some of these Halloween pictures. I think I had a momentary apathy for posting blogs but that feeling has since subsided so I am going to try to play catch up here.

The week before Halloween we had several events that involved getting dressed up! First, we went to a playdate with some of the other moms from our new church. We had a great time and Lily had fun playing with all the other kids. They did a tree craft, ate lunch, and then ate cookies with icing. It was optional to dress up in costume but Lily had such a good time wearing her SuperGirl costume that I found every opportunity to get her in it (besides at home).

A friend of ours through a family Halloween party on Friday night where the whole family dressed up. The kids played some cute games and of course there was eating involved (when is an event not centered around food?!). Since the entire families were there moms and dads dressed up too. Josh went as a referee unfortunately, I don't have a picture of him. He looked authentic though. Black pants, black and white striped refs shirt, yellow foul flag, and completely shaved head (and I mean Mr. Clean shiny shaved)! I went as a snow skier. Free costumes are my favorite, mine was a tossup between a snow skier and an equestrian (I didn't want to wear the spandex pants and reveal all my flaws so I stuck with the bulky ski suit). Lily was SuperGirl and Davis was a lobster. Since he is crawling his costume was not really practical. I bought it at a consignment sale long before I knew that Davis would be an early crawler. Needless to say, he didn't wear it for very long.

Lily got to dress up for preschool one day too. I guess since it is a church preschool and they don't celebrate halloween but still want to let the kids dress up they called this particular day, "Favorite Book Character" day. I guess I could have let Lily wear her Super Girl costume again but I took the book character thing literally. So, Lily dressed as a mouse. She basically was Angelina Ballerina (a ballet mouse). People thought she was a cat though which is probably my fault, either way though she was cute!

We had planned on actually going trick or treating this year but other plans came up the week before. Elon University's (our alma mater) football team was playing Wofford's team. Wofford is in Spartanburg, SC. Several of Josh's buddies were planning on meeting up and going to the game. Some of the guys had their families come too, so we packed up our whole family on Sat morning and drove up to Spartanburg. The weather that day was not so great so the guys went to the game while the wives and kids stayed at home and let the kids play and nap. That evening the group of us got our kids dressed up (we borrowed a Tinkerbell costume for Lily since we weren't planning on being there in the evening) and we went to a church festival where the kids dressed up and got candy and food and played on big jumpy slides. It was a lot of fun but probably one of the most exhausting days I have had in a very long time. Thank goodness kids are resilient because Lily and Davis bounced back the next day like always. It took me a little longer to recover though!

Lily as Angelina Ballerina on her way back from preschool's Favorite Book Character day.

cat/mouse, whatever.

Lily and her good friend McKenzie at Jenny's family Halloween party. Kenzie had purple color in her hair.

Halloween playdate at Jessica's!
Too bad I didn't know that her costume says to spot clean ONLY. I mean come on, a toddler costume that can't be washed? Mac n Cheese is not friendly to the clothes of toddlers.

You can't really tell, but Davis is wearing a skeleton shirt. He was just content to crawl around the whole time.

We sprayed Lily's hair with blue sparkle spray for the family Halloween party at Jenny's. It looked so cute and washed out super easy.

My snow skier outfit and Davis as a lobster.

Marco with his daughter Madison (middle), McKae (right) and Lily dressed up and ready go get candy.
Lily, Brady, Madison and McKae (Lily, Brady and Madison are the same age all born Aug/Sep 07).

The only picture of Trevan that he would allow. Trevan, McKae and Brady are Brannon and Kelli Rice's kids. Madison belongs to Marco and Shannon.

Davis 6 month Stats

Weight = 15lbs 3oz ------------> 12%tile

Height = 26.5 in ---------------> 65%tile

The Dr. was very impressed with Davis' crawling and pulling up. We spent some time talking about Davis' eating issues. We started Davis on solids back when he was 4 months old. He had trouble from the beginning but I just chalked it up to him being young. I figured with time he would get better (time being a couple of weeks). Well, two months later and he is still having trouble eating solids. Basically, you can put the food in his mouth but he doesn't swallow it unless he puts his thumb in his mouth and that helps him swallow. If you don't let him use his thumb the food just drains out of his mouth. He doesn't gag, he doesn't push the food out, he just doesn't swallow.

The Dr. thought that it could possibly be his reflux issues again. I stopped his medicine a couple months ago because it seems like Davis was feeling better and it was so EXPENSIVE. So she wants me to start Davis on the reflux medicines again to see if it helps him. She thinks that he was exhibiting some oral aversion. When I told her about how he sucks his thumb to swallow she thought he may have a high arched roof of his mouth which would be why he was compensating with his thumb. A final possibility is that he has some muscle issues with his mouth in which case she will refer Davis to a speech pathologist if things don't get better in a few months.

Davis has been on the meds now for about 10 days and things do seem to be progressing. I have also been letting Davis suck his thumb to help him swallow. We are up to 2 "meals" a day of solids. He is eating about half a jar which is not a lot but for him I feel like we are being successful.

That's what's new with Davis these days. He is just such a happy active little guy. ACTIVE is the key word there.

My Early Crawler

Davis will be 6 months old on Saturday! Time has just flown by this year. Since Davis was about 4 1/2 months old he was getting on his hands and knees and scooting everywhere. The official crawl started in the last few weeks where he is on his hands and knees alternating back and forth. It really is quite funny to see because he is just so small and it doesn't look like he should be able to move like he does. He is also pretty daring. Once he was proficient at getting on his hands and knees he started to pull up on his knees. I didn't think him pulling up to standing would be so close behind but he has been doing that for about a week now too. All this is well and good except that he is still not real aware of his surroundings so he bumps his head on furniture a lot and falls over quite a bit too. When they are this young they don't have as much cognition to go along with the movements and so you end up with a little guy getting beat up as he moves him self all over the place. I keep thinking, what does the rest of his first year have in store for me......I am certainly not bored these days.

A church home!

For the past 2+ years we have lived in Auburn. When we first moved into our house here we didn't have any children although I was 7 months pregnant with Lily at the time. Before we moved out here we lived in Snellville and had been there for 2 years. During those 2 years we had gotten pretty connected to a local church. We, along with another couple started a young couples small group that allowed us to meet some of our closest friends. So, when we moved out to Auburn we briefly talked about finding a closer church but reconsidered when we thought about trying to "start over" in the friend department. Anyway, so we stayed involved at Grace until the beginning of this past summer. We knew that when Davis got here it would be much harder to drive back and forth to Snellville once or twice a week for church and small group. We actually tried commuting for the first month or two for church and it was just very hard emotionally and physically. We felt rushed every Sunday morning. As most of you know, Davis very much dislikes riding in the car so a 30+ minute car ride each way did not help that situation. It was just a stressful experience. We knew that the small group that we helped start was in good hands so we just left it up to God to help us find a church home that was close by.

Over the course of the 2 years that we have been here in Auburn we have tried several churches and didn't have any luck really in finding a good fit. I was hopeful but realistic that trying to find a good church fit for us might not be an easy feat. The first weekend that we tried a new church we tried a church called The Vine. I was a little skeptical honestly because I had always gone to either a Baptist church or a non-denominational church. Well, The Vine is a Methodist church. After going on-line and reading the mission statement and vision of the church as well as the background I felt like I should just throw out my bias and give it a try. Our plan was to leave Lily with grandparents while we tried new churches because we didn't want her to have to go to a new place each Sunday. Unfortunately, this particular Sunday we didn't have anyone to watch her so we ended up taking her and putting her in the nursery. Davis was so little at the time he just slept in his carseat on the floor next to me during the service. After that first service I think both Josh and I knew that this church was "it." It seemed like a good fit all around. Great message, Great worship, Lily loved nursery, Davis actually slept in his carseat (hehe, not a requirement but a perk), young families, lots of children, etc.....

It has been several months now that we have been attending The Vine and Josh and I have felt led to make a commitment and jump on board with what's going on at The Vine. We attended the membership class last weekend and we will officially be joining The Vine Sunday, October 25th. We are very excited as it will be the first time that we have joined a church since we have had children and we really feel like we are committing as a family to be part of the team there and to serve the Body. It's exciting for us. We already feel pretty connected to a good number of people in the church and have even run into people that we already know there.

We are excited about what is going on at The Vine. I think one thing I can say with certainty is that The Vine really wants to love people. I know from experience that you can't say that about every church. It is definitely a place where I think a huge priority is to Love people. Refreshing!

You can check it out if you like at http://www.connecttothevine.org/index.php or http://vineoutreach.wordpress.com/

So that is a little update about where our family will be serving, worshiping and fellowshipping!!

Return to The Vine Homepage

At Home photo shoot for Lily

So, a few weeks ago I entered Lily into a Gap Casting Call on-line but didn't have any photos of her that I owned the rights to. So I decided to do a photo shoot of Lily myself. For a 2 year old she was actually pretty cooperative. Here are a few of my favorites:

West Hall HS 10 year reunion

Josh and I went to his 10 year high school reunion this past weekend. We had a great time. It was a lot of fun to see Josh reconnect with some people that he went to high school with. There were about 50+ people there. The food was good but the friends were better. Here are a few pictures of our night out: (The reunion was at the Legacy Lodge in Lake Lanier Islands).

Lily's 2 year stats

Height = 36.5'' tall -----> 97%tile
Weight = 33 lbs -------> 97%tile
Head = 19.9'' ---------> 98%tile

She is still my tall girl! Josh and I like to speculate at how tall she will be when she is an adult...... we'll see.

First Day of Preschool!

Lily's first day of preschool is today! I dropped her off about 2 hours ago and I can't wait to go get her in an hour to see how much fun she had. I got a little emotional when I left the room but honestly I am more excited for her to have this exciting new experience. She didn't seem to mind me leaving her there this morning and I feel certain she didn't even know I left. She loves other kids and loves playing with anyone that will play back, so I know she is going to have a great time.

She has 2 teachers who are really sweet and seem to have a lot of experience. There are 7 other kids in her class. I can't wait to see all the fun artwork she makes for me to hang on the fridge. They have snacktime, storytime, playtime, and music time during each day. She will only be going 2 days a week for 3 hours a day.

I am not only excited for Lily but I am excited for Davis too. It will give Davis and I a chance to bond and get good quality time alone. I look forward to being able to give Davis a lot of attention that Lily was able to get when she was little. I may even get the chance to get a few things done around here while she is in school and he is napping.

Yay for Preschool!!

Lily turns 2!

Lily turned 2 over the weekend and we had a fantastic time celebrating her special day with her. We had a Winnie the Pooh party. There were kiddie pools, sandbox, sand table, bubble machine, bubble wands, pinata, etc.....The kids had a really good time and so did the adults of course. Lily loved having her friends over to play. She got a lot of neat gifts that she has been thoroughly enjoying since her party. Lots of puzzles, books, a tee ball stand/bat/ball, soccer goals and soccer ball, shopping cart, clothes, lots of fun stuff to explore and enjoy.

Thank you all who were able to come celebrate her birthday with us.

On Sunday after church Josh and I decided to take Lily to Babyland General in Cleveland, GA to continue the celebration of turning 2. For those of you unfamiliar with Babyland General it is the official "birthplace" of Cabbage Patch Kids. The small house is organized like a hospital where the dolls are born in a cabbage patch. You can watch the "birth" and help name the new dolls as well as adopt them too. To adopt a real handmade doll (basically one with no plastic) it costs anywhere from $185-365. Those dolls, beautiful as they are, are unfortunately out of our price range. We did get Lily her very own Cabbage Patch doll there with 2 outfits to go along with it. Her name is Ellie and Lily picked her out herself. The doll reminds me so much of the one that I had as a little girl.

I was so proud of Lily this weekend celebrating her birthday. Seeing her eyes light up at seeing her Pooh cake and being so surprised that everyone was singing Happy Birthday to her was just so neat to see. Lily has grown up so much this summer as she has turned 2. She no longer has her pacifier and the transition away from it was much smoother than I anticipated. She is now fully potty trained. She has not had a single diaper on in almost 2 months now. She can take herself to the potty and only really needs help to pull her panties back up. She is so grown up. You may remember we had her evaluated over the summer for speech delays and after 3 visits by Babies Can't Wait it was determined that Lily is not behind in speech at all and is actually a little ahead with her speech. Her progress over the summer with her verbal skills has been incredible. She went from having just single words to having 4-5 word phrases, using pronouns and possessives, saying friends names, etc. It has been wonderful to see her blossom in her speech over the past 2 months. Lily is an absolute joy to be around, she is funny, friendly, spunky, loving, energetic and just such a charismatic and beautiful 2 year old. I love seeing her learn new things every day and I love seeing her become her own personality. I look forward to this next year of growth and learning with her!

Pictures of her party to come.

Back and forth

Well in the past month or so Davis has perfected his ability to roll over both ways. He has been rolling belly to back for a while but he started rolling back to belly about 3 weeks ago and has gotten pretty good at it in the past 2 weeks. If you put him on his back, he rolls to his belly. If you put him on his belly, he rolls to his back. He's a squirmy little guy. Did I say little? Skinny is a good description for him. A couple weeks ago Davis turned 4 months old. We went to the pediatrician for a check up and got his stats.

4 month stats:
Weight: 13lbs 2oz -----> 16%tile
Height: 25.25in -------> 62%tile
my tall skinny guy!

A friend of ours let us borrow her bumbo seat and Davis has really really enjoyed sitting in it and playing with toys that Lily so willingly brings to him. He also likes to play in the entertainer that another friend of ours lent to us. He is quite the engaged and active guy.
I have tried to start rice cereal a few times in the past month and have failed each time. How can you fail at feeding your baby rice cereal? well I will tell you. First of all when I put the spoon with the cereal on it in Davis' mouth he just sits there and smiles while all of it drains out his mouth and down his shirt. Clearly not interested. Secondly, what little amount he does swallow seems to upset his tummy pretty badly because he has some serious sleeping issues on those nights. We are getting about 11 hours of his sleeping a night and on the rice cereal nights he sleeps for about 4 wakes up cries for an hour+ and then goes back to sleep to do the same thing again later. SO, a good number of my friends suggested trying oatmeal instead of rice cereal. We did that last night and he still didn't eat a ton of it but he didn't have tummy issues which was GREAT!

So, that is the update on my little man. He is so happy and loves EVERYONE. He will give smiles to anyone who will pay him attention and he absolutely adores Lily and of course she adores him in return.

Here are a few of the professional pics that we got done of Davis at 4 months.

Potty Training Part 2

Monday we started to potty train Lily again. We had attempted potty training back at the beginning of the summer when Josh first got out of school and it did not go very well. We took a 2 month break almost and started trying again. We are using the 3daypottytraining.com method. I read through the whole method and it seemed like a realistic plan for Lily so we started on Monday.

Monday was a long day with a good number of accidents a few successes but lots of praise and excitement thankfully. The previous method we tried ended about 4 hours in because of the complete meltdowns Lily was having in response to being asked to sit on the potty. This method gets the parent to wait for the child to prompt the trip to the potty either by saying, "potty or pee pee" or by starting to have an accident and rushing her to the potty to finish it out if there is any left. Monday her accidents were full blown with a little success once she was on the potty.

Tuesday felt longer but went better. Lily had fewer full blown accidents and more success of telling us she was about to go, leaking a little, holding the rest until we got to the potty and then finishing. She did a great job on Tuesday and woke up from her nap dry.

Wednesday which according to the method is supposed to be the "final" day of training went as good as I hoped. Lily didn't have any pee pee accidents at all. She told us when she needed to go and went potty successfully each time. She never managed to have a successful poopy experience at this point. We caught her in the act the first day and she finished it out on the potty but the last couple of days she has tried to hide and does it in her panties. We are still waiting.

Today, Thursday we went out of the house for the first time since we started potty training. We were all starting to feel a little cooped up. Lily did great and didn't have any accidents while we were out. She even went potty in a public restroom without her potty chair. Lily also went all night last night without wetting the bed. I was unsure this was possible since she pees quite a bit at night time and wakes up pretty wet every morning but we tried the method suggested by the author of the 3daypottytraining.com ebook and it worked. Basically, we stop giving Lily a lot of liquids after about 4:30 (since her bedtime is 7:30) and we only give her a little bit of milk before bed instead of a full cup. The last technique we used was a result of her wetting the bed the 2 previous nights. Right before we go to bed Josh went in Lily's room and got her out of bed and put her on the potty. She pee peed right away and he put her back in bed for the night where she went right back to sleep. This process resulted in Lily waking up DRY!!!

Lily's diapers do not exist in our house anymore so she will be potty trained one way or another!! Just wanted to share our potty training experience. I definitely recommend this method since there have not been any meltdowns or power struggles in relation to the potty as there were with the "one day potty training" method.

Davis giggled!

I would like to mark this event for Davis. On Monday, July 27th, 2009 he giggled. I know you may be wondering what Davis giggled at, well....his dear old daddy. Josh has a pretty good ability of making crazy faces and one of Josh's animated faces got Davis to giggle. I do believe that a silly face from Josh is also what got Lily to giggle for the first time too. I am beginning to think that I am just not that funny.

I don't have video yet of the giggle, I am going to work on that soon.