Bath Time!

Now that we've started using the baby tub for Lily's baths, she has calmed down and actually seems to enjoy her bath time! Drying her off is another story :)

One Month Old

Lily is one month old this week! Time is flying by, and it's becoming harder to imagine a time when she wasn't here. It's true what they say...your life does in fact completely change with the arrival of a baby. Everything we do revolves around Lily and her schedule or whatever she decides her schedule is that day :)

Lily is gaining weight like a champ (at least I think so) and has finally started to fit into her NB size clothes over past week. Up to this point she had been exclusively sporting the white shirts we took home from the hospital and a couple of onsies that happened to run small. It's been fun to finally put her in some of her little outfits and jumpers.

It's so much fun to watch her grow and to see all her little features taking shape. We think she has my mouth, cheeks and legs/thighs and Kevin's ears, hair, eyebrows and lashes. Her nose, eyes and the rest of her face are still a bit of a mystery.

She is having even more alert/awake hours these days. She looks around and focuses on certain things that catch her eye especially the Christmas tree. We do a little tummy time every day, and she's getting a lot stronger - able to lift her head up for a few seconds at a time and sometimes turn it to the other side. She does frustrate us with her penchant for keeping her head turned to the right. We are constantly turning her head to the left so she doesn't get a flat spot!

She likes to kick her legs and swing her arms around as you can see below. Here she is! Lily at 1 Month.



We love our little girl so much <3

Sleepyhead

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Introducing....

Lillian Carys Wood
November 9, 2010 ~ 9:15 a.m.
6 lbs. 11 oz. ~ 19 inches


(Lillian, just minutes old ~ photo courtesy of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital)

She's here! She is two weeks old today, and I can hardly believe how fast these two weeks have gone. It's taken me some time to write this post...turns out babies are a lot of work :)

After six days of crazy-painful back labor at home, I had an awesome and fairly quick labor and delivery experience. Epidurals are amazing! I still think I could have gone without if it hadn't been for the week of torturous back pain prior to delivery. But by that point I need the epidural like I have never needed anything before. I was working on zero quality sleep and very little food by the time we checked into the hospital.

So far Lily has been a very content little girl. She rarely cries without a purpose, and as soon as we remedy her problem she usually calms right back down. She makes the funniest faces when she is fighting sleep or trying to wake up. Her little eyes roll around, her eyelids flicker open and shut and her eyebrows bob up and down.

Feeding has been our biggest challenge so far, but right around the one week mark Lily started to have more waking hours and a bigger appetite. So, we have made a lot of progress this week. She's still not on a solid schedule, but I've heard that by six weeks it usually goes like clockwork. Here's hoping!

In all, she is physically and emotionally exhausting and worth every single minute <3 She has definitely changed our lives forever, for better.

Lily's Pad

The nursery...






Some of the details...

Baby Shower for Lillian

Going on 34

As promised, I am posting my 33 week photo. It was taken over the weekend, so it's really 33 going on 34 weeks. I had an amazing shower thrown for me this past Saturday by my mom and sister :) Kevin, Lily and I are so blessed with the most generous family and friends.

Cynthia and Bruce, the best mother- and father-in-law a girl could ask for, bought us a beautiful new camera! So now I can actually post pictures. I will post a few from the shower soon along with photos of the nursery which is finally complete!

Happy October to everyone!

The LilyBelly

I haven't been very good about taking pictures of my growing belly, but here are a couple of shots taken since the last one I posted of me back in July at 21 weeks.

The first is me at around 25 weeks and the second is at 29 weeks. Basically, it has worked out to a picture each month instead of a picture each week. I'm between 31 and 32 weeks today, so the next picture will be in a week or so at around 33 weeks.





The 25 week shot looks a little funny since I'm not facing the camera. My mom wanted a profile picture to cut out a silhouette which turned out really cute. Here I am on the shelf :)

September is here!

September is finally here!
A lot of craziness happened for us in the month of August. Generally speaking, August isn't really my favorite month of the year. It's just a 31-day obstacle to the beginnings of the fall season...the best season ever. But August was particularly blah this year.

Here's a run-down on our August:

A high 1-hour blood glucose test level which lead to the 3-hour blood glucose test complete with the 3-day diet-from-hell prior to the four blood draws.
Bright-side: I do not have gestational diabetes afterall!!!!

A baby room furniture fiasco with JC Penney. Wrong dresser, damaged crib and a mistake with the re-ordered dresser all for an astronomical delivery charge!
Bright-side: But after all of that, I love, love, love the furniture; it's beautiful! A beautiful glider from my mom and Dee also arrived! The nursery is almost complete :)

Our laptop bit the dust...part of the reason I haven't posted anything in a month.
Bright-side: Brand new laptop arrived today!

Our camera died just a couple days before the laptop...no new camera yet, though.

I will give the month of August this much credit - Lillian began really moving around a lot, and it has been absolutely the most special feeling in the world to feel her kicking around everyday.

Welcome to September...back to school time, college football season, Candy Corn season!, cooler temperatures right around the corner, and the beginnings of fall - the best season of all :)

Happy September to everyone.

Updates

I haven't posted in a while. Here's what's new...

We can now feel from the outside and even see Lillian moving around and kicking. Kevin was able to feel a kick for the first time on my birthday back on July 17. Everything seemed to progress quickly after that. Her movements have become more frequent and she's packing a bigger punch these days. 

Seeing her move has been the most amazing thing ever. It happened all of a sudden a few weeks back towards the end of July. I was at a red light on the way to work one morning and she was kicking away, so I decided to stare down at my belly since I was wearing a fitted shirt and she was kicking pretty hard. And there it was! A little nudge. It looked like someone was poking me except from the inside, out. Ever since then I can look down at my stomach when she’s moving around and most times I can see the movement. It’s sort of mesmerizing. Sometimes it looks like a poke and sometimes, when she’s really moving, my belly kind of moves in waves like a massage chair…it’s crazy! 

I am bigger than ever as you might imagine. Officially in maternity pants. Although the Be Bands will still be used on a daily basis I'm sure (greatest things ever invented)!

Our baby girl is now 2 pounds and just over 9 inches long! She can hear the sounds around us and now her eyes are starting to open so it's possible for her to be sensitive to light and dark rooms. She and I seem to be on the same schedule with waking and sleeping....hope that lasts once she's born :)

I'll post more soon...off to work now. Happy Monday everyone!

21 Weeks

I'm 22 weeks along now, but not much has changed from these shots at 21 weeks.

I can feel her moving around off and on during the day, and I think I finally felt a kick from the outside last night! She seems to move around the most just after I eat a meal...I guess she enjoys food as much as I do :)

TigerLily

In addition to being a Scorpio, our little Lillian will be born in the year of the tiger. According to the Chinese zodiac, she will have quite the dynamic personality. I believe one of the words used is exasperating. It sounds like she's going to keep us on our toes! It also says she will be fascinating...she's already the most fascinating thing I ever encountered.

Lilypad

It's A Girl!!!

The doctor's visit went very well today. Our sonogram tech was awesome! Going in, I had no idea how much they look at and measure at the anatomy visits. It's an extremely in-depth look at the baby's stomach, kidneys, heart chambers and valves, blood flow, bone measurements, and on and on.

Besides being completely in awe of what I was seeing on the screen, I couldn't help but think about the movie Juno and how sonogram techs probably didn't really appreciate the film's portrayal of their career. Still love that movie, though. Like I said, our tech was awesome, extremely knowledgeable, very informative.

Without further ado, Lillian Carys Wood...

Anticipation

We have our 18 week visit, which they call the anatomy visit, tomorrow morning! Among other important measurements and tests for the health of the baby and me, we will find out if our baby is a boy or a girl. I'm also  really excited just to see our little one again. It's been 6 weeks since the last visit/sonogram.

Of course, whichever we are having will be an amazing blessing in our lives. I have been drawn to boy stuff, but I think that's mostly due to the fact that we have had a boy name picked out from the get go and have only recently decided on a girl name. Kevin keeps saying girl, but he's convinced he's fated to 3 or 4 daughters, since he knows nothing about girls (he's one of four boys).

Anyway, we'll see tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

Loss of an Austin Landmark

The Barr Mansion's Artisan Ballroom burned down this morning after a lightening strike. This is the place Kevin and I had our wedding reception. It's the place I knew I wanted to celebrate my marriage even before we were engaged and the place we called and booked minutes after Kevin popped the question. It holds some of my very best, most beautiful memories. There really was no other place like it.



I'm sad that it's gone and that so many couples who loved the place as much as Kevin and I did will not be able to celebrate their special day in that beautiful room. But the McAfees are such a wonderful family and such great business people, I know these couples will still have the most beautiful weddings on the Barr Mansion grounds and in the house.

Penny Wood

I thought I should introduce the whole family, so the cutie in the photos is Miss Penelope "Penny" Wood. The best cat ever. The first photo is of Penny as a baby on the first day we brought her home about a year and a half ago. The second is from this year.

3 Years and a Baby

Yesterday, Kevin and I celebrated 3 years of marriage. It's hard to believe it has been that long, but we have been incredibly blessed with 3 years of jam-packed, wonderful married life.




And now we are preparing for the arrival of our first baby! I am right around 15 weeks...due in mid-November. A little Thanksgiving sweet potato in the oven.

The first picture below is from our first doctors visit around 9 weeks. I think it looks like a 5 year-old's Crayola rendition of a baby...circle body, circle head, circle arms, circle legs : ) And the second photo is from our visit between 12 and 13 weeks. It's is amazing how much the baby changed in just 3 weeks!

First Post

I'm entering the world of blogging. This is sort of in the experimental stage right now...not sure if I'll be any good at it. I'd like for this to be a place to share stories and moments of my growing family. I have seen it done really well, so I have an idea of what I would like to accomplish. However, I have zero technical knowledge in this area. Oh well....here goes nothin'!