It's almost 2011!

It's been one of those days. The kind where you just want to snuggle with your family and think back at just how ridiculously blessed you are.

2010 has been the best year of my life. We've been lucky enough to manage through this horrible economy, staying afloat and keeping our jobs. We finished our dream of building a house. I started 2010 30 weeks pregnant, but most importantly (obviously!), I gave birth to this perfect little stranger who has completely consumed our worlds. Life as we knew it drastically changed this year... my heart became full, my world... hers.

I hope everyone has a very safe, fun New Years. Here's to resolutions, prosperity, happiness, and health in 2011. It's going to be another big year!

2010 began with high anticipation

...and ended with a high on life, counting my lucky stars kind of mentality.

Oh, and a new name. She calls me "Mama'. :)

A Christmas Lookback

I hope everyone had a very blessed, merry Christmas! Ours was fantastic! We started on Christmas Eve by letting each of us open one of our gifts. (Okay, Jack and I got a little carried away and opened all of ours to each other... hehe)

Lily's first Christmas present on Christmas Eve - She did so good opening the paper:



Christmas morning was perfect. We enjoyed a delicious home cooked big breakfast (even Lily enjoyed!) while we watched A Christmas Story, overcome with the reality that our little girl was experiencing her very first Christmas. The whole day was absolutely surreal.

Then it was time to open Santa's presents:







Jack was going for a "No shave December". It lasted until last night... ha!




...and a picture of our Georgia tree.




After Santa's presents were open, we got all dressed and ready to go and headed to Nanny's (my mom's) for more presents and our traditional Christmas lunch. (My mom cooks the best Christmas ham your taste buds will ever encounter.. promise)



"I seriously have to open all of these??"



We visited Papa's house after lunch, and finished up Christmas day with a visit to Lily's other grandparents. I wish I had pictures to post from there too, because she had a blast!

The obligatory Santa pictures

You all know by now that our sweet little girl isn't really a big "people person" lately. Needless to say, we were dreading these photos. But what's a baby's first Christmas without the obligatory Santa's lap pictures?

The mall wanted something like $35 for ONE 5x7... um, no. We found our own Santa at the local Harley Davidson store (hardcore, right?) and it cost us nothing but sweet time and energy. :)

I thought she'd go crazy, but check this out!! This must be her alter ego... either that or she had one hell of a great nap.

When we first sat her on his lap


"Let me check out whose lap I'm sitting on"


"Mama... he's kinda cute!"

I heart faces - Pets

9 Months

I'm late... again. This semester in school finished up yesterday with my Biology final (yay...) so I finally feel like I can somewhat breathe again.

Lily's developing leaps and bounds again this month. It's all happening so fast, it really is unbelievable. Jack and I just sit and watch our independent little girl play and sing and crawl around everywhere all by herself. She has her 9 month appointment next week, so I'll have to update her weight and height then. You sure don't need a scale to tell this child is chubby!

This month's stats:

• She's started waving bye bye all.the.time. She sees the dogs walk in the room, she waves to them. She sees someone on TV, she waves to them too. Jack says her wave looks like "the wave" people do at football games. It starts in her fingers and "waves" up her arm. It's hilarious to see, but so sweet!
• She shakes her head no when she doesn't want something. If you're not looking at her while she's doing it, she puts her little face right in front of yours to make sure you're paying attention.. haha!
• She's pulling up on everything! The second she wakes up in the morning, she's immediately standing in her crib.
• She's still eating solids twice a day. I'm debating starting her on lunch, but she's not really eating a whole lot at breakfast and dinner so I'm waiting on her cues.
• She officially has two little bottom chompers. :) And yes, she bites...
• Stranger Danger is absolutely horrible! Still! She's okay (by okay I mean won't scream bloody murder) if she warms up to someone first, but it's still bad.  
• She's already outgrowing some of her 12 month clothes! :( I was wrapping some outfits we bought her for Christmas the other day, and realized if she didn't wear them NOW, she might not be able to fit in them by Christmas. I just bought them! She's a little weed!

It was FREEZING when we took these, and she's still not interested in the camera. :)









Check out this crazy hair! I can't do anything with it right now.

There's nothing like daddy-daughter love.

"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to their wives there is desire; to their sons, ambition; but to their daughters there is something which there are no words to express."

-Joseph Addison

Wordless Wednesday

We have a new theme for the Christmas tree... :)

She's on the move

As promised, here's the video of Lily crawling. She is officially on the move! She crawls everywhere.
I've never worried so much about clean floors in my life.

*Check out the face plant in the beginning of the video. Didn't phase her. Haha!

And the winner is...

The winner of the $35 CSN gift code, as drawn by random.org, is:

::drumroll::

#5! LetsMakeADifference

Congratulations! I've emailed you directions to redeem.

8 Months

Eight sweet, breathtaking months. So much has happened this past month, so many new developments. Every month... hell, every day, a new layer of her personality shines through...and we're loving every second of it.

It's unreal to think that Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away, then her very first Christmas! Jack and I have already gone a bit overboard with buying her Christmas gifts, but what can you do? She's getting to the stage where she can figure out what her toys do, so it's amazing to sit and watch her learn and master these things.

I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I've been throwing around ideas regarding her 1st birthday party. :) I have pages and pages of decor, favors, party ideas, etc. and this is only the beginning!

On to the stats:

• Probably my favorite!: She's giving kisses!! It has to be the absolute sweetest thing I've ever seen. You say, "Give me a kiss", and she opens her mouth and leans over to kiss you! She LOVES giving Jack kisses, and I'll manage to get lucky every once in a while. :)
• Her vocabulary list has expanded to include: dada, mama, bye bye, and nana. She's still a little confused with bye bye, she just babbles it randomly for now.
• She's crawling like she's been doing it her whole life! (I'll post a video soon) I'm sure you know what this means... she is into EVERYTHING!
• Since she's hitting a new "stage" in her solids chart, it's opened up a whole new list of yummy foods to try. We've been making her purees a lot thicker, and soon we'll start giving her baby chunks instead of mashing everything. She's still eating solids twice a day for breakfast and dinner.
• Chunky can fit into 12 month and some 18 month clothes. No more 9 month's... her arms and calves are too thick! Ha!
• I've already announced, but her first tooth popped through about a week ago. The bottom left is *this* close to coming through... but she's actually handling this one much better than the first.
• She's pulling herself up to a kneeling position. If I stand her up at her little table, she's stand there without falling until I plop her back down. She's also going from crawling to sitting... sitting to crawling. We've had to drop the crib mattress down because she's so close to pulling herself up to stand.
• We're on and off with the severe "stranger danger" phase. One day she'll let Jack hold her, let strangers talk to her without breaking down in a flood of tears, the next day? Don't even try looking at her. That's all it takes. She wants to be on my hips at.all.times. Or else... haha.

These are the result of a crawling baby who wanted nothing to do with having her picture taken... she was WAY more concerned with eating the grass and leaves. :)







I just love this squishy face...hehehe

What? A Giveaway? That's right.

While I was pregnant and going crazy buying baby items, I ran across tons of adorable, price friendly things at some of CSN's 200+ online websites. They literally have a website for everything you can imagine! Do you remember the baby food cube tray I mentioned in my baby food post? They have it. My favorite little cow print Britax carseat? They have that too. Not just baby items though, they have websites for everything from shoes to school supplies, wine refrigerators to bathroom furniture. I told you! Everything.

So you want to do some shopping? How about a $35 gift code redeemable at any of their 200+ sites? That's going to come in handy with Christmas around the corner. :)

Here's how to enter:
(Please leave a seperate comment for each entry... if you blog about the giveaway (worth 2 entries) leave 2 seperate comments telling me you did. Make sure you leave your email so I can contact you if you win!)

Mandatory

• Check out CSN's bathroom furniture website and comment telling me one of your favorite items from this site. (1 entry)

Extra Entries

• Follow my blog or tell me if you're already a follower. (1 entry)
• Blog about this giveaway & link back to me. (2 entries)

This giveaway begins today, November 3rd, and will close 1 week from today, November 10th. One winner will be chosen by random.org. You must respond within 48 hours to claim or another winner will be chosen. Good luck!

This is all for you. :). I was not compensated in any way.

Meet Lily... the Lily.

I hope you all had a great Halloween! We didn't go Trick-or-treating, but we did get Lily all dressed up for a few pictures.

Oh, and in some SUPER EXCITING other news: Lily's first tooth broke through on Friday! It's the bottom right one, and the bottom left is struggling it's way out now too. If you look carefully in this first picture you may be able to see that little white razor blade, er... tooth. :)