a night alone

Matt is up in D.C. at the Washington Nationals baseball game. They usually take the kids at work to a baseball game up there in the summer. That always means a long day/night without him. He usually doesn't get home until like 3 or 4 in the morning when they go on this trip. So it was just me and Lily today. We both miss him when he's not here with us! Lily decided she wanted to get daddy a present to let him know she missed him today. I won't say what it is yet just in case he reads this before we give it to him... so you'll just have to wait to find out..

This morning I had a reactivation training session for substitute teaching. I had signed up last year to substitute teach although I never did last school year. But this year I think I really am going to have to at least do it a day or two a month to make up the extra money we need to cover us. Alicia was nice enough to watch Lily for me while I went to that this morning. Lily took her morning nap there and she did great. Her and Andi both woke up around the same time from their nap so they got to have some playtime together in the pack'n'play. Alicia took a picture so hopefully I'll get that posted once she puts them up on facebook! They were so cute playing together.

I hung out there for awhile and then headed home to feed Lily her lunch and because she was really fussy. I think her second bottom tooth will come in shortly. Usually the bottom two come in close together and her first one popped through about a week or two ago.

After her afternoon nap, we went out to some stores to look around. On the "nap" topic... she's still taking two naps a day now and they're a little bit longer now too!! There was one day the past week where her afternoon one was short (30 minutes) so she needed a 3rd nap - but that was it. So her nap schedule now is 9:30am and 1:30pm - the first one about 45 minutes and the second one about 1 to 2 hours.

Tonight is Last Comic Standing. Tomorrow is cleaning day and then Matt's parents will be getting here tomorrow night to visit for the weekend. Have a happy weekend everybody!

singing

Just had to share this cute Lily story before bed and before I forget! Tonight Lily was playing with her shapes cookie jar. Every time you stick your hand in it plays this song. Well Lily kept sticking her hand in and every time the song played she would start making noise like she was singing with it. And she would stop when the music stopped. It was SOOO cute!!!

3rd Nap

Here is what I found when I went in to get Lily from her nap:

She had stood up in her crib on her own! She did it for her third nap too... Yes, you heard correctly. We're not officially over the 3rd nap thing. She didn't take a long afternoon nap today so she needed a 3rd one to get her through to bedtime.

And here is what I heard almost all day today: "dada." Yes - it is definitely Lily's favorite new word (and her first). She is constantly saying it now. It's so cute because she says it in varying vocal tones - soft, loud, drawn out, fast, etc. As I'm writing this I think I might have blogged about this yesterday. If I did... oh well. It's just that memorable though seeing her say an actual word! You can go check it out on our video website (http://www.youtube.com/bruns924).

no 3rd nap and kids cove

I decided this past week that I wanted to try and adjust Lily's feeding schedule because I felt like what we were doing wasn't meeting her needs. Not that she wasn't getting enough food - just in how it was spaced out throughout the day. So yesterday was my first day trying the new schedule out. It went really well and Lily ended up taking only 2 naps. I put her down for her final nap as usual and she stayed awake the whole time (a half hour). And the same thing happened today although I didn't put her down for the 3rd one because she seemed fine. I'm thinking we might finally be down to 2 naps for good but one can never be sure. I feel like the new schedule is fitting her needs much better too. We'll see what the next week brings!

Today we went to lunch at the mall (Hickory Farms - YUM YUM) and then headed down to the Community Market downtown. I was hoping to get some good fresh veggies/fruits but there wasn't much there. Either we were too late or that market just isn't very good!

Then this afternoon we went down to TRBC to take Lily to Kids Cove. She obviously can't really play yet but she got to swing on my lap and go down the slides with me. It was really fun and a nice change of pace. So today was a great day overall.

I'm getting ready to go eat some delicious fried pork chops my hubby made for dinner and then watch the saturday HBO movie premiere. This week it's "License to Wed." OH - and our good friends from college, Jared and Becky, had their baby girl today!!! Congratulations you two!! Parenthood is hard work but WONDERFUL!! I will leave you with a pic from the other day of Lily and Andi hanging out. As you can see... Lily looks a lot older and bigger than Andi even though Andi is 3 weeks older! Andi's SO tiny for her age - it's not just Lily. :)

smart Lily and a night out

Just had to share some exciting Lily news!! The past few days Lily has been babbling the "d" sound a lot. It's so cute hearing her say "dada", especially when she says it really softly sometimes. SO adorable. Just have to get her to say mama now!

This morning I went in to get her after her morning nap and she was standing up in her crib! Yeah Lily!! She can officially stand up on her own!

And I just have to say how much I LOVE her laughs now. She has multiple laughs depending on the funniness of the situation. It just melts my heart when I hear her giggling about something now - especially when she's playing with her daddy. They have a new game that they play with Matt's body pillow and she thinks it's hilarious!!

We finally got to hang out with Alicia and Andi the other day - it had been a long time due to various reasons. Our little girls had started crawling since we last hung out! We were trying to get a picture of the two of them together and Lily was fascinated with Alicia's keys. Well - then Andi saw what Lily had and she grabbed them from her. So of course that started their first fight. :) It was so funny watching them go back and forth with the keys.

And finally.. Tuesday night was scheduled to be a girls night out for some of my friends from church. Well everybody except for Tina had to cancel but we decided to go anyways! It was great getting out and enjoying some adult time. We went to see Made of Honor and I *think* that was the first time I've seen a movie in the theater since Lily was born!

This weekend is actually our first at home weekend in awhile so that will be VERY nice. I think we're gonna go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday - Yeah!!!

Celebrating 8 Months of Lily!

Wow... there has been so much that's happened the past few days I don't know where to begin. I hate when I have a ton of things that I want to remember to write down on here and then probably forget half of them when I don't get to blog.

I'll start with our trip down to Dawn's for the weekend. Cecilia and Owen are ADORABLE but a LOT of work. I volunteered to help out during the night with feeding them, etc. And man... it really made me cherish that Lily can sleep through the night now!! Having one to feed, diaper, soothe is one story... but adding another one in at the same time is crazy! I have a new found respect for my sister even though she doesn't think she's doing that great since she has help. But with twins and a 4 year old in the house.. you NEED help! I have to say that I can't believe that Sunday morning Matt and I took care of all 4 kids (Lily, Ava, Cecilia, and Owen) while Dawn and Chris slept in a little bit. I definitely don't want anymore kids yet at this point - it was my good dose of birth control for awhile! Ava is so funny because for every one thing she does that's not so nice, she also does something hilarious. There was a few really funny things she did/said this weekend but of course I'm not going to remember most of them. The one that does stick out in my mind is... I was talking to Dawn about something regarding Ava and didn't want her to know what I was saying. So I spelled Ava's name in the conversation with Dawn. Ava looks at me and says..... "I hear you talking about A-V-A. Why are you talking about me?" Haha... she's a smart little cookie. Now that Lily can crawl, Ava thought it was fun to get Lily to chase her. :) They were so cute crawling around. Of course if Lily got near anything that was Ava's.... Ava didn't like that! Overall.... I think the weekend went well with 4 adults and 4 children in the house!

While we were at Dawn's, we went to Rita's to get some italian ice. They just opened the store up and were giving away free ones. We LOVE Rita's!!! So I got Lily a Georgia Peach one to try and she LOVED it!!! How could she not though... that's the sweetest thing she's ever had.

Lily is getting more and more mobile now... She pulled herself up onto her knees this past weekend and almost got herself to standing. She also almost sat herself up from her tummy. She got halfway up and was propped up on her arms and then just rolled back over.

Last night before Lily went to bed after we had gotten back home, she had a major freakout. It was about 6:30 a half hour before bedtime and she was watching her baby einstein like usual before bed. She is always SO content watching that but she just started crying and it got worse and worse until she was just screaming her head off. Definitely not her normal crying. She didn't have a temperature so I called my mom and she confirmed what I thought... Lily is probably about to break a tooth through finally. I can't feel anything yet but that is the only thing I can think that it would be. She also keeps pulling at her ear which is another sign and today I took a flashlight and tried to look in there and I think I see like a little hole on the gumline where the tooth might be getting ready to pop through. So I guess I'll see... I gave her some tylenol last night which I think calmed her down and then had to give her some motrin this afternoon and she seemed to be in pain again.

Well... I think that covers mostly everything. I'm sure I'll think of more later. Lily is 8 months old today!!! Where is the time going?!

finger foods and a tiger

Our little Lily has reached another milestone...

she fed herself!! Well, only with a biter biscuit though. :) They taste like animal crackers and are big enough for her to hold on to while gumming it. They melt as she gums it and she LOVED it! I'm also trying to work on other "table foods" now too besides just pureed veggies/fruits. This past week she has really seemed to get the hang of having to chew/gum food. So far she has eaten the gerber puffs, pieces of my french fry, and pieces of a whole wheat waffle. She can't pick up small pieces of food yet since she hasn't developed the "pincer" grasp. I think that emerges somewhere around 9-10 months. She does try to grab it though with her hand. It usually gets stuck in her palm and then she can't find it! I also tried pieces of banana but she didn't like it... go figure, cause she LOVES pureed/mashed banana.

I also keep trying a sippy cup but she has yet to figure that out. She doesn't want to have to suck that hard. Bottles are much easier to get the liquid out. Lily does know how to hold her bottle but won't hold it to drink out of. She obviously doesn't get that you have to tip it up for something to come out.

And remember that story I wrote about the other day how Lily turned around to get the tiger stuffed toy to take with her? Well... I think she is definitely starting to show a preference for that thing and it may be her chosen "lovey." The past few days she keeps going to that thing and dragging it around with her. It's really cute... just wish she had chosen a cuter stuffed toy that mommy likes. :) Instead she goes for the $1 stuffed toy that her dad won her out of a claw machine! Oh well... she loves it and that's all that matters.

Today is packing day as we are leaving tomorrow to go to see my sister's family!! I'm so excited to see Ava, Cecilia, and Owen. I'm sure C&O (as my sister lovingly refers to them as) will have grown a lot since I saw them last even though it's only been like 6 weeks. And Ava actually told me on the phone the other day that it was okay for Lily to come with us too - haha. Ava goes back and forth between liking and not liking her depending upon what Lily is doing at the moment! Don't worry - I know they'll love each other when Lily gets a bit older and can play with Ava. They're going to be best friends - they just don't it yet. :)

And just a cute pic I took of Lily... look at that ADORABLE face. Yes - Matt and I make the most beautiful children! :)

Maryland and Lily achievements

I feel like we've been on the go non-stop the past few weeks! This past weekend we went to Maryland with my parents for my cousin's baby shower. We were able to leave Friday since Matt didn't have to work. Friday was crazy - had lunch at my favorite place up there: Lintini's. Then we started to head to the hotel. My dad had requested adjoining rooms so we could put Lily to bed and then be able to stay up next door. Well.... they were doing major renovations to the hotel and told my dad they didn't have any adjoining rooms. If you know my dad, he can get what he wants a lot of times. :) Well - he did. Somehow he ended up seeing the owner of all the marriott resorts there in Frederick and got like everybody working on this for us. They gave us one room for the afternoon so we could go ahead and put Lily to sleep for her nap. While that was happening, they rushed to get two of the newly renovated rooms completed for us that were adjoining. So by 5PM they had the new rooms done. They made us homemade cookies, offered to get us pizza, and kept asking us all the time if everything was okay. The new rooms were VERY nice - almost like suites and had not one, but TWO flat screen tv's. The owner also gave my dad the rooms for free for the weekend and all of his marriot rewards points back. Crazy! We got the royal treatment.

Lily stayed with Matt and grandpa at the hotel while my mom and I went to the shower that morning. I won the "match the celebrity with their baby name" game. I know my celebrities! :) That afternoon/evening we just hung out at my Aunt Darlene and Uncle Tom's house. Lily loved Uncle Tom. She kept crawling over to him for him to pick her up - it was really cute. My cousin's little girl Rachael loved Lily. She was so sweet with her! I don't really have many pics from the weekend cause my mom took most of them with her camera.

Then Sunday we headed for home but took a stop in Leesburg where there's a big outlet mall. :) Grandma bought Lily a bunch of new clothes for the fall/winter from Carter's!! Yeah!! Lily is going to be styling. While we were at the outlets, Matt was feeding Lily her lunch in the food court while I was shopping some. Lily took a dump in her diaper so Matt had to change it since he couldn't find me. So that was the first time he had to take Lily into a men's public bathroom to change her. :) He tries to avoid that at all costs!

Finally a cute story about Lily... The other night Lily had been playing with this stuffed toy tiger. Matt started playing peekaboo around the corner with her. So of course Lily starts to take off to go and get him but then turns around, grabs the tiger, and then continues to proceed towards Matt. It was SO cute how she wanted to take the tiger with her! Lily is trying hard to crawl up on all 4's. She takes like one crawl forward on her knees but then decides that it's just easier to do the army crawl and goes back down. Here's a cute pic of her playing dress up in our closet the other day:

This coming weekend will be yet another busy one. We're headed to NC to visit my sister's family. I'm so excited to see Cecilia and Owen cause I haven't seen them since they were born! And, of course, Ava too! :) Here's some cute pics of the twins - they're growing so fast.

Cecilia sending her Aunt Amanda hugs:

"MOM, Owen's touching me!!!!"

maryland and my big sis

We're in Maryland this weekend for my cousin's baby shower. It was a heck of a day - very long and tiring with driving up here and then a whole big mess with our hotel room reservations. But I don't want to take the time to tell that story right now.

I actually just had to say how proud I am of my big sister who is now a mother of 3! Today was her first day completely on her own with Ava, Cecilia, and Owen since the twins were born. My parents left early this week to come to Maryland with us for the baby shower. I talked to her on the phone for a few minutes this evening - which hey that's an accomplishment in itself! She not only survived the day on her own and took care of 2 newborns and one 4 year old... but she took them all to Target!! Yeah for Dawn!! Anyways... just wanted her and everyone else to know what a great mom she is and proud I am of her. She's my best friend and my sister and I hope that I can be as great a mom to Lily as she is to her kids! Go Dawn!

New Videos

Check out the fun new videos of Lily on our youtube page (http://www.youtube.com/bruns924) including:

Lily eating my apple
Lily laughing silly
Lily laughing at me licking her roller

fourth of july and God's love

So we ended up going to Virginia Beach to visit our parents for the holiday weekend since Cecilia (my niece) was sick. The past few road trips have not gone so well with Lily. She doesn't just sleep in the car the whole way like she use to so she is awake for a good portion of the time. And since she is so active she does NOT like to be confined in the car seat for extended periods of time - making travelling much more difficult. If you're familiar with Lily, you know that she LOVES Baby Einstein dvd's. They have always worked like a charm when she was fussy since she was probably 2 or 3 months old! So we decided to go ahead and purchase a portable DVD player for the car since we would be getting one at some point in time for her. It was truly a Godsend!! Played it once on the way there and two times on the way back. :) No - she doesn't usually watch that much baby einstein (I try to limit it to one a day - which means only a half hour). But when she was just fussy and upset about being in there I turned it on and it worked great!

This weekend was my parents turn to have us at their house (we trade off). So after we got there and unpacked we headed over to Matt's parents house (with my parents in tow) to have a cookout and a dip in their pool. The cookout food was GREAT since we can't have a grill at our apartment. Lily's cousin Aaron LOVES her to death and just wants to squeeze her like a teddy bear. They were really cute together!

At bedtime that night, Lily did not do so well. She usually goes right down after her bottle without any crying. Well she started screaming her head off. We couldn't get her calmed down so I finally made some more milk and she took 4 more ounces and konked out. I don't know if it was just a really odd night and she was still hungry (never has done that) or if it was just a new place and the bottle finally calmed her back down. She does always have a hard time going to bed/napping when we are in a new place. After Lily went to bed we watched some fireworks on tv.

Saturday we just chilled at the house for awhile. Lily loved playing on Grandma's piano!! She thought she was hot stuff...

Then we took a trip to Babies'R'Us and of course Grandma bought Lily a bunch of new things - two books, a new sippy cup, two new toys, and an inflatable bathtub for grandma's house (one less thing we have to content with when we visit). I know I've said it before but I hate that we don't have a Babies'r'Us here. I LOVE that store - it is baby heaven! Then my dad treated us all to a delicious expensive meal at Longhorne Steakhouse. We had the most delicious steak there (besides Ruth's Chris steakhouse)! And then for dessert we shared this HUGE chocolate cake thing. It was amazing! Then it was back to the house and Lily got to swing for the first time. She wasn't a big fan of it but that could also have been due to the fact that she was a little fussy at the time anyways. As you can also see - Lily found a new favorite "toy" at grandma's house. She LOVED chewing on a coaster they have! What crazy things amaze babies.

Sunday morning was church and then we got on the road. On our way home we made a pit stop. Matt LOVES those claw machines. Well.. they had one there so when I came out of the bathroom he was winning Lily a stuffed toy:

It was a busy weekend to say the least! This month is gearing up to be very busy weekends for us. Next weekend we are headed to Maryland for my cousin's baby shower. The following weekend we are headed to NC to visit my sister's family. Then we're hoping that we'll be back for a visit to virginia beach the end of this month or beginning of next one for Matt....

On a final note... In church on Sunday, Pastor Todd was talking about how God's love for us FAR surpasses the love that we have for our children. He dwelt on that for awhile and it really got me thinking. I, of course, knew this already. But it really hit me yesterday. I can't imagine how much love that must be because I know how much love I have for Lily. And the great thing he pointed out for us is that no one is for us as much as God our Father is. Just like as parents we are the biggest supporters of our children, God is our biggest supporter. That doesn't mean we won't face hardships or experience discipline - but it's all for our best. For those of you that are parents... take a minute to really think about the fact that God loves us SO much more than even we love our children. WOW!

P.S. - I posted all the pics from the weekend on our shutterfly picture site if you want to see more (http://bruns924.shutterfly.com)

not too much

I don't think I have too much to say but just wanted to blog before we left for the weekend since I probably won't while I'm gone. We were originally planning to go down to my sister's this weekend to spend time with their family and of course my new beautiful niece and nephew!! It feels like forever since I have gotten to hold them. Unfortunately though little Cecilia is sick (caught it from Ava who was sick last week). If it was just Matt and I we would go anyways, but I don't want Lily to get sick. So we'll be going there in two weeks (18th) instead. Matt and I decided after much deliberation to go to virginia beach to spend the weekend with our parents. I kind of wanted to stay here just cause it would be a nice relaxing weekend at home since the next few will be occupied and I would get to see Tara. But I knew Matt kinda wanted to do something this weekend besides just be here so I figured I'd go.

Nothing much new going on around here besides that. Yesterday the three of us went to the pool in the afternoon and then had dinner out at McDonald's. My friend Alicia had posted a picture that day of her and Andi at McDonald's and I saw chicken mcnuggets on the table. They looked so good and I just had to have some!

Today was a busy day of packing, doing laundry, a quick trip down to the pool for a bit, and now getting ready to go to bed! Hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!

saying no and mommies network

How come I already feel like I say no a lot now with my child? It's crazy, she's only 7 months old but she is in to everything that she's not supposed to be of course. Those are the enticing things. As I was just writing, I had to go get up and get her out of our room cause she crawled in there to get the fan on the floor. I'm trying to not use the "no" word with her cause even though she's young I don't want her to hear that all the time. Something I read said you should be more specific with your no's so they don't think that they can do something in general - so say "we cant play with cords" instead of just "no." I just had to go get up again cause she crawled to the tv and was trying to get the cord from the outlet. Yes... it is that often sometimes that I'm going after her! :) Even though it's more work keeping up with her - I love that she's a little crawler. Seeing her achieve new milestones like she should is very rewarding.

Some of you know that I'm a member of Triangle Mommies. (just got up to move Lily again) There is a big online community called Mommies Networks. They have them only for certain areas in the US and you have to live within that community to be able to join. It's a GREAT resource for moms - the forums are great. You can ask all kinds of questions on there and get tons of help and responses. The Triangle network (Raleigh area) is really big. I illegally joined by listing my address as my sister's so I could be a part. There wasn't one for this area. Well.. they FINALLY have gotten one set up - Central Virginia Mommies. It's VERY new so there's not a lot of members yet which doesn't make it as exciting cause the forums aren't very active. But I'm trying to get the word out so more people will join. So if you're a Lynchburg or surrounding area mom - go join and participate!!

And finally just wanted to share a cute recent pic of my sister with her 3 CHILDREN! Yes - I can hardly believe she now has 3 children instead of just 1! I can't wait to see them again and hold them. They're SO cute!! Us "sittig" girls only make beautiful babies though. :)

Lily update

I got my pictures today of Lily eating her apple and my apple. She wanted to share my apple so of course I let her!!

Today Lily found the kitchen. She crawled in there while I was making some of her food this morning. It was so cute cause all of a sudden I saw her head peaking around the corner. :) Last night she also must have pulled so hard on her bumper that one of the ties came off! So today I had to sew that back on and I reinforced some of the other ones as well since our little monkey is so active!

I think that's about all for today! Going to go eat dinner and watch our shows.