Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Today is my grandmother's birthday. Do you know what we got her for her birthday? A web cam! Yes, Grandma is a techie granny (I guess that's where Lilly Anna gets it from)! She's so excited about her web cam. She had the opportunity to see Lilly Anna get her bath last night. I'm so thankful our family is able to see Lilly Anna do the daily things even though we're 1,500 miles away. So Grandma, I hope you have a wonderfully special day and I look forward to all the memories this upcoming year will bring!

We love you!

Fun at 4 Months!

Lilly Anna is 4 months old today. Time has flown by so fast-it's amazing how much she has changed and grown in just a few short months. We love the little person she's become. I feel like she discovers new things every day. I can't imagine our life without this sweet little girl. Here are her stats:
13 lbs 14 ounces (50th percentile)
26.5 inches (99th percentile)
The love that her mommy and daddy have for her (off the charts!)

Happy 1st Birthday, Cason

Today is our nephew's 1st birthday. We wish we were there to help you celebrate! Hugs and kisses, sweet boy!

Techie Baby

Lilly Anna is enjoying her web cam conversations with her grandparents. Lilly Anna is so entertained by her grandmothers! It's so nice to be able to see each other and fills the void of being so far away!

Lilly Anna the Ballerina!

Josh and I had a photo shoot of Lilly Anna the other morning. I wanted to get a good picture of her to send to the grandparents and aunts and uncles for Valentine's day. How cute is our little girl?! She's at such a fun age - smiling, laughing and talking! We are just so in LOVE with her.

So even though it's after Valentine's Day, we're sending you a little love from our little Valentine.

Christmas Break (December 19 - Jan. 16)

Yes, the title of this post is "Christmas Break", one of the nice things about being a student and on maternity leave is that we got to spend a month at home over the holidays. It was wonderful - we enjoyed being with our family and friends and the warm weather was also appreciated!

We really packed it in in a month - we visited family, had a party for Lilly Anna, spent Christmas Eve with my family in Fort Worth, Christmas Day with Josh's family, New Year's Eve with friends, New Year's day stopping at multiple friends' houses to watch football, Josh went duck hunting in Arkansas, we made a trip down to San Antonio and then celebrated my 30th birthday. Like I said, we really packed it in!

While we were gone Lilly Anna laughed for the first time on New Year's day.

It was so much fun and the only time we will ever have the opportunity to stay for so long!

Since I am only able to post a few pictures, please click here to see some of my favorite pictures from the month.

Thanksgiving 2008

My brother and his family (wife Catherine and 2 1/2 year old son Hunter), my mom and grandmother came up to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was wonderful to have everyone together. Josh and I were the cat sitters for three of our couple friends who live in our apartment complex, so it worked out nicely that one of the couples allowed my family to stay in their apartment. We didn't cook, we had Thanksgiving catered by the best grocery store on earth - Wegmans. It was delicious!

Our nephew Hunter is one of the cutest kids I've ever met. He's so smart and funny. We had a great time being with him and he was the best big cousin to Lilly Anna - he was constantly showering her with hugs and kisses! One thing that we didn't have a chance to do last year was make Christmas cookies with Hunter. We had so much fun! He allowed us to dress him as a chef - Lilly Anna's massive flower headband held up a papertowel to make it look like a chef's hat. He wore our apron and really got into the baking of the cookies! They were surprisingly delicious after all the kneading. Great job, Hunter!

One exciting thing that happened over the weekend: Lilly Anna rolled over from her stomach to back! Yes, at 5 1/2 weeks she amazed us. Aunt Catherine and Hunter witnessed it with me! It was amazing and we were so proud!

Here are a few pictures from the Thanksgiving weekend.

Mimi Ambort (Nov. 11, 1918 - Nov. 23, 2008)

Mimi Ambort was Josh's dear grandmother. She had been ill most of the summer and all of the fall. We thankfully got to see her this August and had a wonderful visit with her before she passed away the Sunday before Thanksgiving. There were a couple of "close calls" before Lilly Anna was born where we didn't think she would make it. Fortunately she lived to see a lot of pictures of Lilly Anna and had the opportunity to hear all about her through us. We miss her like crazy and wish she was able to meet her in person, but we know she's healthy and happy in Heaven and looking down and seeing Lilly Anna grow!

We love and miss you, sweet Mimi!

Aunt Heather and Granddaddy's Visit (November 8-10)

My due date was October 26 so we had our families make their travel plans early based on my due date. Josh's sister and dad were going to come the weekend his mom was here, but his mom ended up changing her flight so she could be here earlier. Since Josh's sweet sister Heather is the busy mom of two - a 2 year old and a nine month old, she had to make arrangements in advance so she and his dad stuck to their original plans. She decided early on that she wanted to spend a long weekend helping us (what mother of 2 little ones wants to do that?! She should have spent a long weekend by herself with nothing to do) She was so sweet to come up and helped us more than I ever imagined! She cooked the most unbelievably tasty Tex-Mex dish, helped us discover that Lilly Anna had horrible gas and what to do about it, she assisted us when we gave Lilly Anna her first real bath and just plain encouraged us the entire weekend! Since then, I've grown even closer to her and am so thankful for her support, encouragement and friendship. I think I call her daily and she continues to encourage me and lifts my spirits after each conversation. Like I said, she's a busy mom of two little ones - how does she have time to do it all?!

Josh's dad was wonderful, too. He managed to find several things around the house that needed to be fixed and he helped Josh put Lilly Anna's crib together. It's a long story, but basically we couldn't put the crib together before she was born because the crib was damaged and the replacement piece was sent after she arrived! It actually worked out great though because Josh and his dad enjoy doing those types of things together.

All of these visits made us realize how much we love our families and miss them! Thank you for spending the weekend with us and for all you did to care for not only Lilly Anna, but for Josh and me.

Grandmommy's Visit

Aren't Grandmothers the best?! After we said our goodbyes to Grammy, Josh's mom, a.k.a. Grandmommy, came to visit and arrived on Lilly Anna's 1 week birthday. It was so wonderful to have more help. By this time we were still sleep deprived, but had figured out that Lilly Anna would sleep when she was cuddled (as evident when my mom was here). So Grandmommy got the late night shift. She would stay up and hold her until she would need to eat. What a blessing!

While Grandmommy was here we managed to go on a quick date. We had burgers at this local pub and we worried and talked about LA the whole time. I think we were only gone for an hour and a half! We also went to Syracuse (an hour and 15 minute drive) to do a little shopping. Syracuse has a Babies R Us so we stopped there to buy a few necessities -i.e. swaddles, more newborn outfits, etc. While we were in Babies R Us Lilly Anna had a huge blow out and needed to be changed. Being the germaphobe I am, why would I change her on a changing table that thousands of babies have used? Instead I used one of the displays in the store. One women exclaimed from afar, "Look, I real life demonstration!" I'm glad we were able to show the expectant parents how pros handled the situation. It required a new outfit and fortunately I had packed like we were going away for a week, so we were prepared! It was a really nice day. We went to Dinosaur BBQ and to the mall! It was wonderful getting out of the house and use the stroller for the first time!

Grandmommy made some wonderful meals (I ended up gaining 5 pounds while she was with us!) and got to know her way around Ithaca because she ran our errands and did all of our shopping! We sure miss our moms and wish they could be live in nannies!

We love you, Grandmommy, and thank you for spending the week with us!

The First Week

After spending a couple of sleepless days and nights at the hospital we were released Thursday afternoon, October 23. Josh and I didn't understand how they could just release us from the hospital - like we were expert parents at that point?! Unfortunately we had read all there was to read for the labor, not after you have the baby! We were clueless.

Luckily my mom was here and with us. Once we were home it took us a few days to figure out a system. My mom graciously got up to rock and watch Lilly Anna early each morning - like 5:30 or 6:00am! It gave us a couple of uninterupted hours of sleep - something we desperately needed those first few days. She also cooked, did laundry, cleaned and ran errands! Mom, thank you for everything. We love you, Grammy!

D-Day - October 21, 2008

3:30am, October 21, 2008
The car is packed and we're on the way to the hospital. It was a bumpy drive - my contractions had definitely started and they were close together - like 2 minutes apart.

3:45am, October 21, 2008
Josh, being completely calm, cool and collected, pulls up to the Emergency door (not where the ambulances park, but the other door) As I'm getting out and walking to the admissions desk I remind Josh to go to the car to get the papers. Of course someone was being admitted at that very second so I decide to rest my head on the counter and the admissions person sees me and asks me what I'm in for. When I tell her LABOR, she tells me to go straight to the 3rd floor. At this point I'm not thinking about Josh, so I find the elevator and press 3 only to see Josh running and grabbing for the closing elevator door. The nurse on the elevator catches it in time so luckily Josh is with me as we WALK to the maternity wing (yes, thanks for not offering a wheel chair to the woman in labor!)

I think I started taking off my clothes before I even got into our room. I would consider myself a very modest person and remember people saying that all modesty goes out the window when you have a child. That is definitely TRUE. I could have cared less who saw me. I just wanted to get the show on the road!

My contractions continued to be intense and only 2 minutes apart. Luckily Josh and I had taken Lamaze classes in preparation for a natural delivery. I'm so thankful we took those classes because Josh coached me on my breathing and helped keep me as focused and calm as possible. He was amazing!! I was definitely not the type that wanted to sit on the ball or in bed. I could not sit still. The pressure was just too great.

After a few breakdowns and declarations that I couldn't do it, where were the drugs, etc., somehow I didn't give in (I think it's because it was so quick, I didn't have time to give in!) At some point Josh remembered that our car was parked in the emergency drive way and the security guard came to our room to retrieve our keys. Can you imagine that happening in Dallas? Our bags, the cameras, the Texas soil from our grandmothers' gardens (we were going to throw it under the bed so she would be born on Texas soil), everything that we had packed for the delivery was in our car. If we had been in Dallas I guarantee you that it would have been towed and all of our possessions stolen.

In the meantime, Josh called my mom to let her know that I was in labor (my mom's flight was at 6:15 central time so we knew she was on her way to the airport).

Before I knew it my doctor was there and it was time to push. I pushed for 45 minutes and after 3 hours and forty-nine minutes of labor we welcomed our precious baby girl! I remember thinking how surreal it all was. I was holding my baby in my arms! She was absolutely the most beautiful baby I had ever seen! What a miracle!

Here are the first pictures of our new family. The pictures were taken by our wonderful Labor & Delivery nurse on HER camera!

The Last Day of Just the Two of Us

In an effort to document this for our purposes, please forgive me for this old post!

Monday, October 20, 2008
My 39 week doctor appointment was Monday morning. This Monday was the beginning of Josh's 2nd quarter of classes. He had said over the weekend how it would be perfect for Lilly Anna to come any time after Thursday (October 23) because he was about to start new classes, his TAship, etc, and didn't have class on Thursdays. I had not felt any different so we were pretty confident that this was going to be a normal check-up.

We were in shock when the doctor checked me and told us that I was 5cm and 90% effaced. He then left the room and came back with a few options. Option A: go directly to the hospital to induce labor. Option B: go home and wait it out, but as soon as I have a contraction or feel any pressure to immediately get in the car and head to the hospital and call him on the way. Option C: induce labor the next morning (October 21).

We were in shock and a little giddy. We called our families to let them know the news. We weren't sure what we were going to do until we talked to our families and decided to let labor naturally progress. My mom decided to take a chance and rescheduled her flight for the next morning.

So we went home and packed our bags, cleaned the house and got ready to go into labor at any second. I drank Raspberry tea, Josh tried the whole ankle "trigger point", we were anxious to induce labor naturally, but nothing seemed to work!

We ended up having a wonderful day - we went to a nice lunch and hung out at home and spent the whole day together. That night we decided to watch some Office episodes on DVD and ended up calling it a night around 12:15am. Unfortunately that was a very bad idea - I had to get up every hour to go to the bathroom - 1:00am, 2:00am and then at 3:00am I decided that I felt a little different...I woke Josh up and we decided it would be best to go to the hospital just to be on the safe side...

Here are a few pictures from that evening - the last pictures taken of my pregnant belly!

FINALLY, an Update!

We finally figured out what was wrong with our blog, and now Lilly Anna is 2 and a half years old, or almost. Actually she's 15 weeks old today, and we couldn't be happier or more blessed. She is an amazing gift from God, and she is so sweet and smiles so often it breaks our hearts.

She's cooing quite a bit, giggling some, and gets really excited when she gets a bath these days. The bumbo seat is the greatest invention - she's the cutest little thing sitting in her big girl seat! So we're back and we promise to post more often. It's amazing how much this little girl has changed in 15 short weeks. From here on out, we'll document all her milestones and our thoughts on parenthood.