Easter 2012

I love celebrating Easter every year, but its even more dear to my heart since getting to bring our precious Lydia home on Easter 2011. Althought not the same day each year, it will always be a special memory for us.

We celebrated Easter this year with my family at First Baptist Woodstock and then afterwards with a cookout and egg hunt at my sister's house.

What a difference a year can make! Here is Lydia on the day we brought her home - Easter Sunday, April 24th, 2011 at 9 weeks and then her at 13 months this year on Easter Sunday, April 8th 2012.

14lbs and 4 teeth later, the only thing that has stayed the same is the amount of hair on her head! Maybe by next Easter we'll have some longer locks.

We had a blast hanging out with family and cousins. Lydia seemed excited to hunt eggs - even though she's not walking independently quite yet.

All Dressed Up:

Egg Hunt Time:



Cousin Photo shoot

While we were in FL for Kyle's birthday, we took the opportunity to have a little photo shoot in the cute matching outfits Bella got for Lydia and Noah. I took about 100 shots and tried to narrow down to some of my favorites.

PS - I'm loving the collage feature on Picasa so I can do a photo bomb without all the scrolling and looks pretty cute too, if I do say so myself.

THREE- OH!!

We are finally done with family birthdays...phew!! The year starts off with a bang... my birthday in January, Lydia's in February and Kyle's in March. My birthday was easy! All I had to do was show up and be surprised and eat cake, but the last two took more planning on my part.

After we finished the 1st birthday extravangza for Lydia, I started planning Kyle's 30th birthday surprise. My original plan was to surprise him and take him on a trip, but things didn't go quite as planned.

Kyle's birthday was in the middle of the week and I wanted to surprise him with a trip to see his family as well as do a fun activity that weekend. I had come up with the idea of going to a golf tournament that was taking place in his home town the same weekend as his birthday. Win-Win for seeing family and fun activity.

I ended up caving and telling him ahead of time due to work issues that came up and didn't want to purchase airfare, tickets, etc... if it wasn't going to work out. So, I was a little bummed it wasn't a total surprise, but at least he didn't have to plan anything!

I'm so glad we are finally both 30, so he can stop giving me a hard time about it!!

Here are some of the pics from his birthday morning. I got him the grown up gift of sports coats... haha! Nothing says old man like a sports coat, but seriously, he needs these so BADLY!

 

 Kyle's fav - cookie cake!

  

 

 Opening the Sports Coat

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 My girlie showing off her new teeth
(Excuse the blurriness. She's always too busy to sit still these days)

 Here is a little collage from Kyle's party at his parents house.

We had a fantastic time celebrating Kyle's birthday with friends and family. Also glad we survived our first plane ride with a baby. She did great and was amazed by everything to look at along the way.

As she grows... Month 12

Think this is my last birthday related post for all those (mom) who are awaiting her birthday blogs with anticipation. A few days after her birthday we headed off to the doctor for her 12 mo well visit, so I have official stats this time.

The Dr overall assessment is she's the size of a 9 month old, but like a 12-15 mo. developmentally. That truly warms this preemie mama's heart! It would be fantastic for her to be at 9 month developmental level, but to even exceed that and hear she's on track for her actual age is just AMAZING!! He said this when talking about her "words" so I know we're going to have a talker on our hands before we know it.

12 Month (9.5 mo.) Stats:

• 17 lbs (ok so she was 16 lbs 15 oz at the Dr, but weighed 17 lbs 4 oz on our home scale) 2%
• 27 inches (3%)
• 17.25% Head circumference (16%)

This girl has a big head! The funny thing to me is her head size hasn't changed much she she was discharged from the hospital and I guess what they say is true - preemie's heads grow faster than the rest of their bodies. Poor girl still has TINY feet!

Activities/Interests

• Crawling is still her favorite activity because it can get her to what she really wants to do:
• Play in the dog food
• Eat the dog food
• Play in the dog's water
• Pull out lamp cords, computer cords...really any sort of cord
• She's also really been working on her words. While most still comes out gibberish, sometimes she'll sit and have a whole conversation where she's practicing different sounds. Her favorite words are:
• Dada (by FAR)
• Baba - sometimes also comes out like ball, but not sure
• Mama (usually only get this one when she's upset)
• Whoa
• Wow
• She has pulled up a few times in the past month on shorter things -- the dishwasher, a storage ottoman, inside a box, but hasn't been able to pull up on taller things quite yet. Just this past week she has been trying to pull up on our legs, but don't try and help her - she doesn't like that!
• A few weeks ago I had a box in the den (aren't I a fun mom to give her boxes to play with?? haha) and she kept pushing it out and then shuffling her feet up to it. So she got a walker from my parents for her birthday; which she loves, but the wheels move too fast for her, so she ends up in some yoga like stretch before letting go.
• Speaking of yoga, I am starting to think babies were the real originators of it. Lydia loves to stick her hiney up in the air and do a downward dog pose. It's quite hilarious. Think she's trying to stand up, but doesn't know to do after straightening her legs.
• Lastly, food continues to be one of her favorite pasttimes. I'm starting to get sick of buying purees, but still is the best way for her to get all her nutrients. She loves finger foods and being able to feed herself, but really only likes to feed herself puffs, meat, beans, grilled cheese, pasta and yogurt bites. She spits out small pieces of fruit and veggies, so I guess the purees are here to stay for awhile.

Here are her 12 month shots with Mr Bear! She is celebrating with her hot pink tutu!

Just had to add this outtake of what happens when she pushes the walker too far out

Lydia's First Year Video

As part of Lydia's first birthday festivities, we put together a video slideshow of her first year to share at the party. I'm not going to lie, you'll probably cry. You should have seen me trying to put together the video -- looking back at her first months of life in the NICU and then coupling that with emo music... lets just say there were several times I had to take a break and have a good cry.

Even when we played it at the party, I was a teary mess and I was the one person who knew what was coming next.

She is truly a miracle and is such a blessing from God. Reflecting back on Lydia's first year, you realize just how fragile life really is and how all you can do is rest in knowing God will take care of your little girl.

I found the first song we used in the slide show from a friends blog, who had a child born with a heart defect and needed open heart surgery. Matt Hammitt wrote "All of Me" as well as many other songs on his "Every Falling Tear" CD when his son was also born with a heart defect. While Lydia never had to undergo any surgeries, the fear and uncertainty he shares in his songs lines up pretty well with our experience in the NICU and all the questions and unknowns we faced.

The second song, "Safe and Sound" by Matthew West is a sweet song about bringing your baby home and just love the lyrics with this one as well. I was familiar with some of Matthew West's other songs on the radio, but had never heard this one before. It really is so sweet!

Lastly, I had to end with something upbeat and happy -- especially since I have such an upbeat and happy little girl. Who doesn't love "Isn't She Lovely"?? Especially when its sung by the cast of Glee!!

Here is the video we made of our little girl's 1st year! Enjoy!

(Sorry its a little grainy on here for some reason, but hopefully it's not too bad to view)

BTW - this is my 100th post! What better way to celebrate than with memories of my baby's 1st year!

Sugar and Spice

Our sweet baby girl is ONE! I just can't get over it. Our little 2 lb miracle is now a speed-crawling, into everything (including the dog food), smiley, funny, giggling little girl!

We had a blast celebrating her first birthday with family and friends last Saturday. Lydia was quite the hostess greeting all her guests at the door with a HUGE smile and a little wave. She already has such a social personality. She doesn't get grumpy or anything in large groups - even if its past her nap time. She just turns on her mega watt smile and goes with the flow. Think we have a little social butterfly on our hands for sure.

Her party theme was SUGAR & SPICE (and everything nice) and we decided to have a sugar and sweets table with cupcakes, cookies, candies, and some pink lemonade. The Spice table held jalapeno poppers, buffalo chicken fingers, chips, salsa and cheese for dipping. We served what I like to call "Chicken Crack" to go with the Spicy/Mexican dinner theme. It's also VERY easy to prepare and quite yummy. You may remember it from when I blogged about it a few months ago - here.

 I went a little crazy with making decorations with the help of Pinterest of course! I made a few banners for her highchair and table displays. I also made a month by month banner (see fireplace pic above) which was a neat way to see her grow each month with her little pink bear.

After reviewing our pictures from the night, I realized I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted of all the guests and festivities, so I'm hoping some of Lydia's aunties and grandmas captured more memories than I did.

Here are a few from her getting ready, greeting the guests, cake and of course her two grandpas (Papa and Poppy). Not sure why we didn't do the same with the grandmas. Probably because the papas were hovering around the food before the party started, waiting for me to tell them to dig in :) Guess I know where she gets her good appetite from, huh?!

Happy Birthday sweet Lydia! We are so blessed to be your parents and love getting to watch you grow and mature each day. You have brought so much joy into our lives and its hard to even remember what life was like before you were born. We love you so very much!


I still have a few more birthday posts coming, so stay tuned....

As she grows... month 11

Wow! So here we are! 1 month away from Lydia's FIRST birthday! I am still some what in denial that the year is quickly coming to an end. I am starting to plan her birthday extravaganza and can't wait to see her reaction to cake for the first time.

11 Month (8.5 mo.) Stats:

• Around 16.5/17 lbs (according to my own bathroom scale)

Activities/Interests

• CRAWLING! She is a busy girl these days as she explores every cord, electronic device or remote in sight. She has moved from army crawling to "standard" crawling and is getting faster by the day.
• She is working on pulling up, but will play happily in a standing position for a short time.
• Think we might also have a mini-phi mu in training as she now smiles any time the camera comes out. I see many "sorority poses" in our future.
• Eating continues to be one of her favorite activities and has started to eat small bites of table food. Some of her new favorites are:
• black or pinto beans
• corn... sometimes
• spaghetti with meat sauce
• She also will eat green veggies if mama didn't make them! I guess my home food processor can't get the green beans and peas fine enough to her liking, but does better on the store bought versions; which is fine with me!
• "Bababa" is one of her new favorite words and will babble to herself and us all day long. If she's done with dinner or wants more food, she will now shriek/scream quite loudly. This also goes if we take one of her favorites toys away; such as my phone. She's not shy to share her feelings.
• Sitting up on her own is also a new skill she mastered this month and now takes twice as long for her to fall asleep; since she HAS to sit up after I lay her down for a nap and then eventually lay down on her own. At least she's quiet and plays in her crib, but is funny to watch on the monitor. We lowered her mattress in case she masters her standing up skills in bed.
• Music class has now resumed after Christmas and New Years. After being out for about 3 weeks it seems Lydia has mastered her shaking skills with the instruments, but of course, still end up in her mouth by the end of the song. It has been fun watching her interact with the others in the class and develop new skills week after week.

Here is our monthly shot with Mr Bear: