All Smiles

I am not quite sure how we survived before Lily. There is just something so sweet and wonderful about having a baby at home, especially this baby. The kids absolutely love her and want to spend as much time as they can with her. That is especially nice since it feels like they can't go 15 min without fighting with each other.  It doesn't hurt that Lily almost never cries unless she's hungry or tired and that she smiles ALL the time. All she has to do is hear one of us talking and she'll start grinning. It' s sweet when I go in for the middle of the night feeding (which she's starting to phase out), as soon as I come in the room and turn on the light she'll start grinning at me. In fact, sometimes it's difficult to feed her because she won't stop smiling. If I knew that I could have more babies exactly like this, and that they would never grow into teenagers, I'd have 20 more kids.  I remember Paul being very similar. He was a sweet, sweet baby and then at around 7 months when he started teething he turned into a devil child. I guess the 7 months of sweetness was to make sure I really loved him before he became so difficult. Hopefully Lily doesn't follow the same pattern. Lily has also started cooing and likes to respond when you talk to her. I haven't taken too many pictures of her smiling, but I thought I'd share a few...

The First Real Snow of the Year

Last Wednesday we got about a foot of snow. The kids had a great time playing outside. Unfortunately we weren't quick enough on the snow blowing and the driveway ended up a sheet of ice. It was a royal pain getting out. Luckily it melted pretty quickly and we are now ready for the next storm.

A Witch, Spider-man, and a Cow

I love Halloween. I didn't used to like it at all...the creepy decorations, the spiders and skeletons, basically the whole idea of Halloween just wasn't my thing. Now that I have kids though, I love it. I still don't like the creepy aspect of the holiday, but I love seeing my kids in cute costumes having a great time with all the festivities. It also signifies the beginning of the holiday season. I know once we are getting close to Halloween that Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't too far behind.

This year Paul and Samantha both wanted to be spider-man. Then Samantha wanted to be a black cat, then a purple cat, then spider-man again, then...you get the idea. I found a witch costume at a garage sale so that's what she ended up being. I pushed her a little into it because otherwise I knew that on Halloween she would change her mind again and we'd be left without a costume. Luckily she was happy with it in the end. Paul never wavered from wanting to be spider-man and has already decided to be the same thing next year. We'll see. Lily  fit into the same cow costume that both Samantha and Paul used. She was darling and looked a lot like Samantha. Here are all three kids in the same costume...

Lily

Samantha 

 Paul

We also carved pumpkins on Sunday and went trick or treating around Kevin and Holly's neighborhood with the kids' cousins. 

The "boy team" 

Samantha drawing her face. I helped, but since I am taking the picture, I'm not in it.

When I asked Paul, "what does spider-man do?" This was what he showed me

This was after it was explained that he shoots webs from his wrists

Interviews

I've decided to "interview" the kids every so often so I can remember what they sound like at certain ages. I wish I had started sooner, it's fun to see how cute they are.

Great Granddad

We went down to have dinner with my grandfather earlier this week. He was excited to see Lily and it was fun to watch him with her. 

Granddad and Lily

The kids in a cool old barber's chair. I remember playing in this when I was little.

He's so OLD!

I am officially married to an old man, Adam turned 30! Okay, it's not old at all but I remember being in college and thinking that 30 sounded forever away and that when Adam and I got there we'd have life all figured out. HA! Little did I know Adam would still be in school we'd be living in my parents' house with my sister, and we would still be living on student loans. The only thing that's changed is we have 3 kids. Man, on paper our life doesn't look so hot. Adam's birthday was pretty low key, but it was nice. I think the kids were more excited than he was about celebrating. They wanted to make him a chocolate cake (he bought a key lime pie for himself) that they decorated. After we sang and had a piece of cake we put the kids to bed and had a couple good friends over for dinner. We are actually celebrating this weekend...Adam and I are leaving the kids while we go to an Avs game and stay up in Denver for the night. It will be great to get away, we haven't had a date without Lily since she came home from the hospital.

Just Life and Lily's Stats

I have had many requests to post some updated pictures of our little Lily bean. Samantha and I have taken to calling her bean more often than Lily, we'll see how long that lasts. These are just some fun pictures we've taken over the last few weeks. I also thought I'd post Lily's stats from her last two doctors appointments. 

1 month stats:

20 1/2 in (38th percentile)

8 lb 4 oz (23rd percentile)

2 month stats:

22 1/8 in (51st percentile)

10 lbs 3 oz (34th percentile)

We have the greatest kids. I am amazed at how easy the transition (so far) to three kids has been. Lily is wonderful and the other two are really helpful and wonderful with her. It isn't to say there hasn't been problems...I still get stressed when Lily wakes up in the middle of the night more than once and wonder if that is going to become a regular occurrence. It still bothers me that she takes her main nap in her swing every day (I wonder if she'll be able to transition to her crib okay) but I'm willing to let her because it means she'll sleep for a solid 2-3 hours at the same time as Paul. It was a rough decision to bottle feed because at two weeks she was only 6 lbs 10oz and wasn't getting enough to eat. It's also been a challenge finding a routine with both Samantha and Paul in school and Lily, but I think we've got it figured out. For the most part, these things have been minor and I've just been so happy to have Lily in our home. As you can tell from the pictures, Paul and Samantha are equally happy to have her here.

Paul showing Lily all the features of her baby gym

Paul was more excited than Lily to be so close

Just one Sunday after church

Samantha wants to hold/kiss/love Lily ALL the time. All the time. Luckily she does a pretty good job and is able to pick Lily up from the ground and put her back down safely. She's not allowed to stand up with her though.

Grammie with Lily