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.

Panama City Beach July 11th-17th 2009

We just got back from the beach where we spent the week with 2 families that we are good friends with. The trip was a lot of fun and we are glad that we took our first real family vacation with Lily and Davis. They both did great while we were gone and Lily had a great time at the beach in the sand with McKenzie and Haley. Here is a brief rundown of some of the fun things we did while at the beach:

Saturday: Left at 9am and drove for 8 hours (1-1.5 hours longer than hoped) arrived at 5pm and got all unloaded and unpacked at our condo. 1501 Ocean Reef and went to dinner at Hana Japan in Pier Park.

Sunday: Beach in the morning, nap and then dinner at Pineapple Willy's with the families.

Monday: Beach in the morning, nap and Josh, Lily, Davis and I went to Pier Park to walk around. Lily rode the Carrosel and the train there. Dinner courtesy of Josh and his fantastic chef abilities.

Tuesday: Beach in the morning with some pool time, naptime and then a trip to shell island with the Anderson's. (Do not go to shell island for shells since there are no shells there it seems and with a child who doesn't walk and a child who walks in the water with her clothes on). Dinner compliments of the Andersons (Taco Salad Bar).

Wednesday: Beach in the morning with pool time, naptime and then a trip to Gulf World with sea lions, sharks, alligators, divers, parrots, penguins and lots more. We saw a great dive show and a great sea lion show. This is a great place to take the kiddos. We went to dinner at Guy Harvey's Island Grill that night.

Thursday: We went to St. Andrew's State Park to the lagoon beach area in the morning. This is a great place to take little kids because the water is very shallow, few waves, crystal clear with fish and shells to see. Naptime in the afternoon. Trip to Walmart where we had a fight with a woman over our place in line. Dinner compliments of the Lamberts (Lasangna).

Friday: Pack up all our stuff (too much stuff really). Took a 2 hour boat ride on The Sea Screamer. Got some lunch and drove the 7 hours home (shaved an hour off the trip).

Whew....what a week.

Here are some pictures to document our first Family Vacation:

Have I got a Deal for you....

Davis wakes up sometime between 5am and 7am to eat and I am typically the only one up at that time so things in the house are quiet and dark. I have a hard time staying awake during this time due to the fact that I am sitting in a super comfy glider with a sound machine going. To keep myself awake I get on my laptop and look at my favorite sites.

I am a glutton for a good deal and I have a number of websites that I LOVE to look at in my daily routine, so I thought I would share some of them with you in case you love a good deal too. So here they are (in the order that I actually check them):

www.woot.com
sellout.woot.com
www.dailydeals.com
www.lootpig.com
www.1saleaday.com
www.mamabargains.com
www.tottlers.com
www.greenbabybargains.com
www.slickdeals.net
www.babycheapskate.blogspot.com
www.shnoop.com
www.babysteals.com
www.babyearth.com/baby-sale

Hope you enjoy some of these sites. If you have any favorite sites that you would like to share with me that you think I might like definitely let me know! Happy Deal Hunting.

Lily is Paci-free!

So on Tuesday the 23rd a lady from Babies Can't Wait came to the house to observe Lily. I had called the program because I have been a little concerned about Lily's speech development and wanted to get her evaluated early. They had sent me a couple of surveys to fill out before she got here to go along with her actual observation. She was here for about an hour and basically watched Lily and her interaction with us and her toys, etc. We tried to get her to talk with us during this time so that the lady would be able to see my concerns. Well, she said that she thinks Lily would benefit from a full evaluation which would be done by 2 people that would come to the house for a longer period. This evaluation will happen sometime toward the end of July when we get back from our vacation. In the meantime I was instructed to get Lily's hearing evaluated just to make sure that the speech problem wasn't due to ear problems. On Friday (yesterday) we went to Lily's pediatrician to get her hearing checked. She passed the hearing screen. I asked the Dr. if she could check to see if there was fluid behind the eardrum causing a problem. She did that test and it did come back positive but the Dr. didn't feel that it was significant enough to be causing a speech delay.

On to the paci part of this story.......the lady that did Lily's evaluation had asked us if she uses a paci. Well, Lily does get a paci at night, naps and in the car. I told the evaluator that and she said that we really needed to get rid of the paci if we want Lily to be successful with her speech from here on out. I mentioned that Lily only got the paci only at night, naps and the car and she said that it still causes Lily to put her tongue in the wrong place in her mouth hindering her from learning the proper way to form words. Well, I guess that was all I needed to hear to convince us to get rid of the paci altogether that day. Josh and I had been talking about when would be the best time to get rid of it.....well this evaluation made that decision for us I guess. That was the last time she saw her pacifiers.

Day 1- Lily did awesome without the paci for nap and night. She only cried for about 15 minutes at nap time and didn't make a peep at bedtime.

Day 2- A harder no paci day than day 1. Lily didn't want to take a nap in the pack n play at her Grammy's house and with no paci I thought she might just not nap but she did nap once I put her in the "big girl" bed that Grammy had in the room. That night was not so good either....Lily basically screamed for 30 minutes straight before she finally went to sleep.

Day 3- Nap time was awesome! Bedtime was awesome!

We'll see what today has in store. She still asks for it when I am putting her down for her nap and bed. She will look up at me and smile and say "Pass" (which is her way of saying paci). It's so sad and cute all at the same time, but no giving in here!!

One transition down.....a thousand more to go!!

A Smile that melts my heart!

This past week Davis smiled for the first of time. It honestly came as a surprise to me because Lily didn't smile for months it seems like so I wasn't expecting it to come so early. Most of the baby books say that social smiles can show up as early as 6 weeks but are more typical after 8 weeks or so. Well Davis was on the early end of smiling I guess, he was 7 weeks when he smiled at me and getting him to smile is not nearly as difficult as it was with Lily. With Lily you really had to work for the smile. With Davis all you have to do is say "smile" in a really sweet voice and he does it! I knew trying to capture the smile might be hard though but I feel like we got pretty close, here are some of the pictures...

5 YEARS

Last Friday, June 5th was Josh and I's 5 year anniversary. It is fun to think back on the 5 years we have been married and the 8 years we have been together. Here is some of what we have accomplished in that time: 2 Bachelor's degrees, 1 chopped off ring finger (2 weeks before the wedding), Honeymoon to Niagara Falls, camping trips, rafting trip, mission trip to Ecuador, 2 dog adoptions, young couples small group at church, 1 home purchase, 2 Master's degrees, 1 Specialist degree (Josh finishes in a month), 7 years worth of teaching combined, 3 years coaching wrestling with 1 state championship, 2nd in state and 3rd in state finishes, 2 pregnancies, 2 babies, Lots of tears and Lots more laughter!

We didn't do anything fancy to celebrate the anniversary this past week but we are taking 2 vacations this year that definitely count. We are going to the beach with some friends next month and we are planning a ski trip over Christmas break to Big Sky, Montana. We did take Lily and Davis with us to downtown Gainesville where Josh proposed to me almost 6 years ago. We went and ate at my FAVORITE deli which is also where we ate before Josh popped the question and then we went to the Square downtown and sat on the parkbench where he proposed. As an extra treat we also went to the jewelry store and got our rings cleaned (boy they needed it).

Here are a few pictures of Lily in the square of Gainesville. There is also a video of her dancing to a couple local musicians who were playing in the square.

Sorry the video is sideways....you get the idea though. She really liked the harmonica!

Lily's Swimming Lessons

Lily started some swimming lessons on Monday, June 1st. She is taking the lessons at Swim Atlanta in Dacula. They are 30 minutes a day M-Th for 2 weeks.

Here are some pictures and video from some lessons.

Davis participating in swimming lessons.....Lily's cheering section.

A Big Thank You

Josh and I want to thank all our friends who took the time to bring us dinner during the weeks following Davis' arrival. It was such a blessing to not have to think about preparing dinner during that time especially with a toddler and a newborn. Thank you so much for serving us so willingly and generously. We feel blessed with your friendship and generosity and of course we hope we can return the favor in the future!

Love,

Josh, Carrie Anne, Lily and Davis

Lily's Stitches

Well, I finally am getting around to posting Lily's stitches from the Yellow River Game Ranch incident.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good:

A few months ago I bought Lily a potty for when the time came to potty train. I was fully prepared to have it packed away for awhile because I was not about to start trying to potty train her while having a newborn to deal with. Since I have bought the potty however, Lily has been incredibly intrigued by its presence. Fairly often she will point to her diaper and say, "eeewww, pee pee, pee pee" I will ask her if she wants to pee pee on the potty and she will nod vigorously. I will then pull the potty out and put her on it to witness what is to be a long sit with no success in the pee pee department. So, on Thursday when Lily came to Josh and I begging to get the potty we pulled it out, took her diaper off and let her sit on it EXCEPT this time she actually pee peed on the potty!!!! We were so shocked that I pretty much forgot the part about teaching her how to wipe. We just started doing the pee pee dance and congratulating her on her success. We also gave her a piece of chocolate which of course is a rarity in her life as a reward. YAY Lily. All arrows point to her wanting to potty train herself because I certainly have not been helping her effort.

The Bad:

Josh is finishing up grad school and today he had class in TN for the day which left Lily, Davis and I to fend for ourselves. My mom had agreed to meet up with me at the Yellow River Game Ranch which is an elaborate "petting zoo" kind of place. It has all sorts of animals: buffalo, deer, ducks, roosters, peacocks, cougars, coyotes, bobcats, donkeys, cows, goats, etc..... The deer, squirrels, chipmunks, ducks, peacocks, goats will walk up to you and pester you to feed them (some a little forcefully). Lily was not super fond of the deer and preferred to spend much of the time in the stroller where she felt safe, either that or she was being held by my mom or myself. Well, we had pretty much been through the whole place and Lily was finally starting to warm up to the animals. She was even walking holding our hands. One of the last areas on the trail is the bunny area. This area is enclosed but the bunnies are loose and you can go in and pet them and feed them. This whole "ranch" is in the woods and the bunny part is on hill with scattered large rocks. My mom and Lily went into the bunny area together to feed them and while they were in there Lily basically lost her balance and fell on her butt where she rolled down the hill slightly and was abruptly stopped by a large rock and her head meeting forcefully. I was watching and it did look like she hit pretty hard. She, of course started crying and my mom picked her up comforted her and brought her to me where I held her and tried to calm her down. A guy who had seen it happen yelled to us, "her head is bleeding." This shocked me because I was no expecting her to have a cut. Sure enough when I looked at the back of her head her hair was all matted with blood. After stopping at an urgent care center that turned us away because she was too little and the finally ending up at an Egleston Urgent Care center about 30 minutes away Lily was fixed up with 3 stitches, 2 stickers and a popsicle. The gash in her head thankfully did not bleed for long on the way to urgent care and she stopped crying about 5-10 minutes after she fell. She was not really happy about being pinned down on her belly wrapped in a bedsheet to keep her from flailing her arms but she did very well getting the stitches. I hope that this isn't the beginning of a myriad of ER visits and injuries in her future. But for now I must say that I have one tough little girl with a nice scar to show for it!

The Ugly: I will be posting a picture of the battle wound with the Yellow River Game Ranch here......(hopefully tomorrow)