here are a few pictures of lily's first christmas


merry christmas, lily!

lily laughing with her dad

batting her eyelashes and flashing her big smile

charlie thinks lily looks like a tasty candy cane

tiny elves

charlie takes after his dad- tormenting the girls already

tasty wrapping paper

i was giving lily a bath tonight and kevin was about to head to the airport to go on a 4 day ski trip and he came in to say goodbye to us and right at that very moment lily figured out how to really laugh.

the huge, biggest smile ever, so proud of herself for figuring it out, deep belly laugh.

kevin and i were laughing AT her laugh and she was laughing AT us laughing until both kevin and i were crying and my cheeks hurt from laughing.

then we all still laughed some more.

he was late leaving for the airport because he just couldn't tear himself away from that laugh. i am SO glad she learned how to do it at that exact moment. i will never forget that sound.

anyone thinking about getting a new tatoo? here's a great design that i think would look very klassy when you are 80...

walkin in a not very wintry wonderland...

its not beginning to look a lot like christmas...

the weather outside is not very frightful, and the fire isn't so delightful...

christmas tunes made appropriate for 80 degree weather aren't quite as fun. come ye, oh come ye cold front!

lily and i are headed outside to enjoy this gorgeous weather at town lake, but before we leave i wanted to share two of her new tricks!

i can sit up!

and i can suck my thumb!

only little kids truly know the unique torture of being dressed up, told to be on your best behavior, and made to stand in line for hours at the mall only to be forced onto a strange old man's lap with a big scary white beard while your mom and dad stand behind a stranger with a camera saying "smile!! its SANTA!!"

sweet lucy and charlie were not fans of this tradition:

amy and ame came to town again this weekend to love on sweet ava trull. they just can't get enough! ava is the newest addition to what i'm referring to as "spring pledge class 2026". it seems like all of my friends having babies this year are all having girls, so of course they will all be roommates at baylor :)

amy brought her 4 month-old, anna kate and it was so fun to see her with lily again. they are a mere 9 days apart in age and have been friends since they were about a month old!

oh how much they've changed in the 3 short months since their first picture together... from this awkwardness:

to this total cuteness:

here are more pics from the visit:

introducing sweet ava

lily can't believe how tiny ava is!

lindsey and lily

amy with ava & lily

anna kate and ame

i might have to stop talking crap about lily on here. i have the sinking suspicion that she reads this blog...

my morning in pictures:

it all started innocently on the play mat...

then she rolled over to show me what she did...

so i changed her clothes and made her help with the laundry...

we had a good time...

(click above for larger view)

i'm finally fumbling my way around photoshop to make things other than just playing with pictures and removing blemishes, etc. i asked so many questions to kevin last night that he had to politely leave the room to get some peace and quiet. i guess i should get myself a photoshop book for christmas :)

i just scared the bejeezus out of my child.

i am sitting here next to her on her playmat and she has been trying so hard for about 30 minutes to roll from her back onto her belly (she mastered stomach to back a few weeks ago).

and she did it!! and i yelled " YOU DID IT LILY!!!!" and she started crying laying on her belly with her arms pinned beneath her. ooooops! :)

a few pics from a lazy saturday morning:

oh the excitement!

lily tries to play a chord

casey and bea harmonize

i'm sure you've heard the very classy phrase "opinions are like assholes... everyone has one". (hey, i warned you that it was classy!) but i have never found that to be more true than with a baby.

i've heard opinions on pretty much everything i have done or planned to do- from the natural birth to when to start her on solid food everyone suddenly feels like you are open game for their thoughts on how they think things should be done.

i just read this article and while i'm not convinced, it does make me even more comfortable with our goal to not incorporate television into lily's daily life until she is 2. (as recommended by the AAP)

the basic jist is that a connection has been found between television watching and autism. again, i didn't say its gospel, i just think its interesting.

the funny part to me is that people have an opinion on the fact that we have made it our goal to not watch tv regularly with our child. even if we change our minds in the future i will never regret not watching more television with her.

then again, this is just my asshole... i mean opinion. :)

how could you be in a bad mood when this smile is waiting for you every morning?

i think i'm in love.

i didn't plan it and i never thought i'd feel this way, but i have developed serious deep feelings for dr. richard ferber, author of 'solve your child's sleep problems'.

after only 2 nights of following the plan in his book, lily woke up just once last night for the first time in over 2 months. i'd say on average i was getting up 6-8x a night with her while she cried for her pacifier and had to put it in her mouth 2-3x to get her to go back to sleep. let's do the math, shall we? that would be me out of bed putting a pacifier in her mouth 24x a night.

last night was the first time i've slept comfortably in my own bed (rather than the guest bed upstairs by her room at least half the night) and i don't feel like a zombie this morning either.

so you can see why my heart flutters a little bit when i think about the good doctor. bless that man. bless him.

lily (and i) met santa today!

i asked him for a full night's sleep for christmas ;)

so far being a mom is at the same time the most unifying and the most divisive title i've had in my life. somehow you have something instantly in common with every other mom you meet and you could talk about diapers or spit-up for an hour with a perfect stranger.

at the same time you have a whole new life full of complications that becomes to hard to relate to everyone else. the importance of things like nap schedules seem impossible to explain when your scheduling difficulties in the past related to which happy hour to go to on friday.

there's something lonely about having more in common with strangers than you do with friends. having your sense of community change in the blink of an eye is a bizarre feeling!

i can't believe 4 months has passed since lily came along and changed everything. today she had her shots and weighed in at a whopping 13 pounds, 2 ounces- landing herself smack dab in the 50th percentile yet again. she continues to be a great little eater and is growing perfectly right before our eyes.

photoshop: 1 lily: 0

chalk one up for photoshop! man this program is addicting. i just managed to make one of my favorite pics of lily into a G-rated version :)

before: (naughty lily!)


after: (cute lily!)

i was going through my cell phone last night deleting many of the gazillion random pictures i have taken and came across the saddest picture from when lily was sick. i don't know why i didn't post it at the time, but just seeing it made me so sad for her!

poor sick thing!



thankfully we're back to her usual silly self:

TGIF!!! in honor of friday:

before happy hour.....

and after happy hour......

heehee! have a great friday!

for those of you who don't have the unique torture of being on my kodak email list, here are the latest pictures of the tiny one: CLICK HERE

ok, i admit it. i'm a slacker. no new posts in a week... what was i thinking?!

i have finally gotten into more of a 'schedule' with lily, if you can call it that. she takes about 4 or 5 naps a day but at least i have figured out how to fit in a trip to the gym at least 3 times a week!

i am a big fan of the lifetime fitness that just opened near me- i'm sad to say its a mega gym, which i thought i'd never join (along the same lines as a mega church, only less people carrying bibles in quilted carrying cases and more sweat).

the only negative so far is the selection of daytime television shows available when i am there (generally between the hours of 12 and 3pm), which isn't really their fault i guess. i just wonder what it says about me as a person that when presented with the options of every cable news network, divorce court, and various soap operas that i have become a regular watcher of a crime solving show on the oxygen network called 'snapped'.

i guess kevin should have fair warning that i'm brushing up on my knowledge of how to conceal evidence. haha.

lily thought she did a good job of explaining her feelings about pat robertson, but as usual jim wallis out-did her a little:

Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for president is simply astonishing. Robertson - the television preacher who founded the 700 Club and once ran for president himself - has made opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage his political north star and has been a relentless champion of traditional marriage and family values.

Remember Robertson's merciless attacks on President Bill Clinton's lapses of sexual morality with Monica Lewinsky? Or his comments about how the 9/11 attacks were the result of America's tolerance for homosexuals and abortion?

Now Robertson is for Rudy, a thrice-married adulterous husband, who is estranged from his own children and is both pro-choice and pro-gay rights. According to Robertson's twisted moral logic, forgiving the social conservative shortcomings of Republicans is a Christian virtue, so long as the same virtue is never applied to Democrats. But Pat thinks Rudy can beat Hillary, and Pat really cares about winning for the Republicans.

What exactly goes on in Pat Robertson's head has puzzled many of us for a long time. This endorsement ranks as one of the most unprincipled in recent political memory. Maybe principles never mattered much to Pat Robertson after all. Perhaps the pro-business economic conservatism of the Republican Party was always more important to the televangelist than saving unborn lives. Robertson's long-standing support of murderous Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, and his diamond investments thanks to Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko speak louder than words when it comes to Robertson's ethic of life. And that's not to mention the more than $400 million Robertson's empire made when he sold his International Family Network to Rupert Murdoch, after building it on tax-deductible contributions of thousands of CBN donors, many of modest means. He has been putting profits over principles for years.

Pat Robertson clearly has taken another position. His endorsement of Rudy Giuliani will seem to many to be unprincipled hypocrisy.

in other news, i am slowly becoming more and more intrigued by this ron paul character... more on that to come!

in honor of katy turning 30, i give you lily's reaction to pat robertson endorsing rudy giuliani:

i've decided to invoke the seldom used "bea scale" to show you how much lily has grown in the past 3 months.

the following is my evidence:

exibit a: august 3

exhibit b: september 13

exhibit c: november 6

it looks like someone is tired of not being the center of attention anymore...

sweet casey!

what a bunch of jerks. click here if you want your day ruined too. :(

lily's first halloween was a good one!