2012 in Review and 6 Months Old

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Todd and I have had quite the year - probably our most eventful so far! Here's a little recap:

January
I finally turned 21! But, having already been married for 2 years and being 3 months pregnant made turning 21 feel kinda silly, but we still had fun.
Todd got a great job at H-Wire and started working part-time.

February
We went to the Jane Austen Regency Ball with our best friends, Kayla and Trevor. It was SO fun!

 

March

We went on an early BabyMoon - one last getaway before baby came. And boy am I glad we did! We haven't had a vacation since, and probably won't for a while. We stayed at the Red Lion hotel, browsed Downtown SLC, ate at the Melting Pot and other nummy palces, and I got a massage and facial. HEAVEN!

April

Todd started working full-time at H-wire. What a blessing! We knew that I'd be able to quit working after baby was born, and were so happy for it.

I had my first baby shower - thanks to Kayla and Stephanie who put it together, it was wonderful! 

 

May

Had my second baby shower, thrown by my wonderful sisters. So fun! I also stopped working at the end of the month. I'm so happy now that I had that time to rest and prepare for baby. It really was a blessing. Also, Todd turned 26 and decided that he was officially getting old. lol!

June

My due date came and went... can I say, depressing? On the bright side, we got maternity photos taken and had a blast!

 

July

The big day came... Miss Lily Fay was born on July 3 at 6:00 pm. The first day of the rest of our lives! It was a beautiful day, and we were so excited to finally have her with us.

 

August

Lily received her baby blessing by her Dad on August 5. It was such a beautiful experience, and we got a glimps into how amazing our little girl really is! We were so grateful for all the family and friends who came to share in this experience. Also, we moved into a new house with my mom and little sister at the beginning of the month. We are grateful everyday for them and all of their help and support! We love being with them!

 



 







 



September

A fairly uneventful month... Todd and I both decided that we needed more time off school, so we both took this semester off. I am so gald we did! We needed that time to really spend time with each other and our daughter before getting back to the "real world."

 

October

Lily had her 3 Month photos taken. So fun!! We had a fun and simple Halloween. Miss Lily was a lady bug :) We stayed home, ate WAY too much candy, and watched Clue!

 

November

Happy Thanksgiving! We had so much fun with our family, and enjoyed keeping the day simple. Great food + great company = a great day!

 

December

My favorite time of year - Christmas! We had a great months celebrating the holidays, and had our family pictures taken. It was FREEZING, but they turned out great :)



 

Now that it's a new year - we're ready for new adventures! Lily just turned 6 months, and I can't beleive she's that old already. Only another 6 more months until we hit the 1 year mark. Nuts! She's started teething (bummer...) and is therefore not sleeping so great. But we're hanging in there and having so much fun playing with her everyday!

 

Some of our New Years goals include:

 

-I want to be finished with my degree by December of this year! Only 3 semesters to go :) Todd wants to only have 1 semester to go by the end of the year.

-We want to sell our Maxima so that we don't have to make payments on it. We don't need 2 cars, so why not use that extra money elsewhere?



-Be better at our personal scripture and prayer time. We've already made our spreadsheet and are ready to go!



-Attend the Tempke regularly

-Take at least one weekend vacation as a family!

 

Here's to a great year!!



5 Months Old!

Our little girl is already 5 months old! We've had quite the adventures this last month, but have had a lot of fun.

Getting taller every day!

Still has that double chin... :)

She makes us laugh all the time!

LOVES her feet!

And loves licking EVERYTHING within reach!

 

So, here are some of the things that have happened this month:

• Started rolling over. She finally really got the hang of it last night and can roll over both ways without too much difficulty. It cracks us up - and she officially never stops moving now.
• She slept though the night for two nights...then it stopped. Her sleep schedule is pretty out of whack from being sick all week, so hopefully when she's all better she'll sleep better too.
• Really has the hang of those hands. She can grab just about everything in reach. We nearly had a disaster in church yesterday with the sacrament tray... time to be more aware of what's in her reach!
• Tried a couple new solid foods (attempting to fill her tummy more so she sleeps better). Liked yams but they gave her a rash around her mouth. Tolerated sweet potatoes but she started getting sick so we just went back to breastmilk. We tried some rice cereal in a bottle at night and that just seemed to wake her up more! Her favorite thing is still egg yolk, but she doesn't seem to like it as much hard-boiled. But obviously she's chunky enough without real food, so we'll probably just stick with nursing again for a while longer.
• We thought she might be teething, but can't see any signs of a tooth. My sister thought she felt one, but we can't. (We also don't have any experience in this area...so who knows!). She's been cranky off and on for the last couple of months, seems to be chewing on things more, and has had a lot of congestion. She also has been grinding her gums. So I guess we'll find out soon if she's cutting a tooth!
• Her "stranger danger" is starting to fade a little. She's letting more people hold her without crying now.

We sure love this little girl! It's been pretty tough here an there, but we are so happy to be her parents. It's so exciting to watch her grow and develop, and realize more and more what an amazing and powerful person she is!

 

4 Months Old!

I say this every time, but time flies! I can't believe our little baby is already 4 months old. I also can't believe it's been a month since I posted last... whoops. Well here's some pictures and an update!

I think Todd wished this girl loved to cuddle more... unfortunately she likes to move WAY too much to settle down and cuddle for more than a few minutes.

 

4 months old!

Miss bright eyes :)

Here's the update for the month:
- She is 25.5" long (90th percentile, size of a 6 month old!) and is 14lbs 15oz (80th percentile, size of a 5 month old). We've got a tall girl!
- Lily is still not rolling over, but can sure get up on her side easily! She just needs to learn how to kick over.
- She found her feet :) She can grab and play with them now.
- She got up to sleeping 7 hours a night...then everything went kaputz. It started out with a cold; she was sick for about a week before the cold really blossomed. Even after those symptoms went away she was still cranky and not sleeping. It got worse and worse until we were only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep each night. Let me just say, I was on the verge of a meltdown. We finally figured out that she is...
- Sensitive to dairy! Like mother like daughter. I went off of dairy on Friday, and we're already seeing improvement. She slept better the last two nights, and we're hoping she will continue improving.
- Started on solids. Rather than starting her on rice cereal which can be hard to digest, I'm giving her a little bit of soft-boiled egg. Babies don't have enough of the digestive enzyme Amylase to digest grains, so the rice cereal ends up sitting and rotting in the baby's intestines! This leads to allergies, eczema, you name it. So we're trying the egg instead to see how she does. So far so good! She still nurses full time, and just has some egg on top of that once a day.
- She NEVER stops moving and/or talking :) This little girl is quite active and loves to move. Once she starts crawling we're never going to have a moment's peace. But it will be so fun!
- She loooves her bath time. When she's starting to get cranky but it's not quite naptime, we just put her in the tub and let her play. I think she's going to be a swimmer, she loves the water. Can't wait for next summer to take her swimming!

Well that's all the updates I can think of at the moment. We've been on an adventure of discovery and healing with Lily, and I'd love to share our journey with you as soon as I get the gumption to type it :)

Lily's 3 month photo shoot!

Once again, thank you Amanda Gibbs for the FABULOUS job you did on Lily's 3 month pictures. This amazing lady has done our maternity photos, newborn, and now 3 month photos. We plan on doing 6, 9, and 12 month shots with her too! We're hooked on her great style :)

So, without further ado, may I show of my awesome baby?! Brace yourself...there's a lot...

The classic Merrill "Walnut Cracker" look..check out those eyebrows!

She loved grabbing those feathers with her monkey toes.

Love this one!

Num.. blanket!

Those spit bubbles never stop!

Those feet never stop either!

More spit bubbles...lol

Serious little girl!

The only little grin of the whole shoot! Normally she smiles all the time...but not that day.

lol! "Hmmmm?"

Those little hands are always grabbing something!

 

Thanks for letting me show off our little Lily :) 

3 Months already? No way...

I know I say this in every post, but time is flying! I can't beleive our little girl is 3 months old already.

 

Trying on headbands :)

Here's some of the things that she's doing now:

- Smiling like crazy! It's really easy to coax a grin out of her now.
- Laughing! Although they're still little just chuckles, they are so fun!
- Holding her head up. She gets the bobble-head once in a while, but she can almost hold her head steady.
- Still waking up once a night. We're getting her on a nice routine of bed at 10pm, eating at 2am and waking at 6am. Some days she can go back to sleep until 9am. But I can't wait until she drops that night meal!
- Eating every 2.5-3 hours. I don't like to stretch it farther than that or she's up more in the night.
- Size 2 diapers! Luckily we hadn't bought any more 1's, so we were able to use up what we had and switch her to the next size. This girl is groooowing!
- In size 3-6 month clothes. Although even some of those are snug...especially if they have to fit around her chunky thighs :)
- Still trying to roll over. She's not to interested in rolling from back to tummy, but will try to roll over when down for tummy time.
- Sleeping un-swaddled! (Most of the time). This is HUGE. She has never been able to sleep with her arms out because she's just wake herself up. Todd asked last week if she was ready to switch, and I thought it was worth a shot. We've had to help her learn how to sleep unswaddled, but she is doing much better. It also means that she doesn't use her binky much anymore because she pulls it out of her mouth when her arms are free.
- Is OK in her carseat. She'll still fuss, but overall she tollerates being in the car. For those of you who have driven with us while she was screaming... you know why that's an improvement :)
- Still sleeping in our bedroom. I really enjoyed having her in our room, but it's getting to a point where Todd's not sleeping very well. We're just saving up to buy a crib so she can be in her own room now. I think I'm finally ready for the change, but it's going to be a hard adjustment.
- Grabbing things. She has been able to grab things for a couple of weeks, but is starting to develop some hand-eye coordination and tries to grab things she's looking at. SO fun to watch.

We had her 3 month pictures taken yesterday. I'll post them as soon as we get them back! Can't wait for you all to see this chunky little girl :)  You can see a sneak previews HERE.