5 Weeks and Counting

Over five weeks now, that's how long I've been sick. Lots and lots of coughing. Not fun at all. But I didn't do anything about it until Lily started coughing like me, and then I got us doctors appointments right away. Well, she's ok for now, just a normal virus and not much to do about it except wait it out. But my doctor told me I had pneumonia. Pneumonia! Isn't that bizarre? I thought only old people got that, and then only if you'd been out in the snow or something. So I'm on antibiotics and Tylenol with Codeine (which makes me so sleepy - I took some before I went to bed last night, then had to feed Lily about a half hour later, so I'm reading while I feed her and I cannot keep my eyes open and I kept dropping the book I was reading! It was funny).

Cute cute Lily! I just took this today - she really is being a good sport about being sick.

Other than that life has been pretty mellow around here lately. Ben has been back at work for a few weeks now, and it's been going great with Lily and I at home. She was super cute when Ben came home from being gone all day at work for the first time - when he picked her up she smiled for the first time. It was very sweet. She smiles every once in awhile now, but not very often yet. I can't wait until she's smiling all the time.

 

Non-pregnant Emily! Yeah!

So I've been trying to lose weight (of course) since I'm no longer pregnant and I'm allowed to now. So one way I've been exercising is by going on walks with Lily in a front carrier. It's been really nice. I could have her in her stroller, but she doesn't like that very much, plus this way it makes it a little more of a workout for me as I have to carry her weight as well (all 8 lbs 12 oz of her - she was weighed at the doctors yesterday). It's fun being outside with her in the sunshine - yes, it's actually been sunny in Washington lately. Lily mostly sleeps though, which is ok because I want her to sleep as much as possible right now so she can get better quicker.

 

Lily and I all ready to go on our walk

Lily in her super cute Chilean hat! Jan Pelletier got it for Lily when she went to Chile to pick up Kyle at the end of his mission. It's my favorite hat of Lily's. Thanks Jan!

Lily is getting better at bath time, which is nice. I'd much rather give a bath to a happy baby than one who is screaming and making me feel like I'm torturing her. It's still hit and miss, but generally if we give her a bath when she's fed and in a good mood, and make sure to give her her pacifier and not let the bath be too long, she'll be happy! Yeah, that's a lot of conditions, but we'll take what we can get!

 

Cute contented Lily taking a bath.

So in non-Lily related news, I am reading a non-fiction book for the first time in my life! Amazing huh? I mean by choice, anyway. I've read non-fiction for school before and a few church related books, but I've never picked up a non-fiction, non-religious book just for fun before. It's called "Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles." I'm really really liking it. I've always admired C.S. Lewis for the Narnia books, and then in college more so for his book "The Screwtape Letters," and so it's been fun to get to know the man behind the books a little better, as well as exploring some of the spiritual connections in his Narnia books. I'm really glad I decided to read it, and I have a feeling I'll probably be reading more non-fiction after this.

In the last few days I've talked to both Laura and Tessa, two of my roommates from college, and it was really nice to talk to them. They both got me thinking about how much things have changed for all of us, and how much fun we used to have together. I really miss them! Afterwards I started looking through old pictures and it brought back so many memories! I thought I'd share a few. :) Tess and Laura, don't hate me!

 

Gangsta Laura

Tessa and I for Halloween (we were lollipops)

And to end with, more pictures of Lily! (Hey, I'm a first-time Mom, I'm allowed to be obsessed for awhile!) :)

 

Look at me, I can walk!

Look at how buff I am! :) I love it when she sleeps with her arms above her head like this, it's so cute.

Lily Was Blessed

So today was the first sunday of the month, and so we were able to give Lily her blessing. It went really well. My parents came, and so did my grandparents, as well as Ben's brother Dan and his wife Andy and their little girl Rachel. Lily did really good and basically slept through the whole thing. It was really neat because the dress she wore was orginally made for my mom's blessing in '66. I was also blessed in it, as well as my sister and 5 of my cousins. All of our names are stitched on the inside of the slip that goes with the dress, so now I get to stitch Lily's in there too.

After the blessing everyone came over to our house for lunch, and stayed and played games too. It was the first time my grandparents have seen our condo, so it was nice that they were able to come up. Lily and Rachel seemed to get along well too. It was pretty cute - they're only about 8 weeks apart, and since we're living so close, it'll be nice for them to grow up together.

As far as other news goes, life has been pretty great. Ben has been home for the last 4 weeks, and he get one more week off before he has to go back to work. It's been really nice to have him here. I'm a little nervous for when he has to go back and I'm all alone, but that's life. Nights haven't been too horrible, though she still isn't sleeping regularly at all. Sometimes she sleeps well, only getting up to feed, and other times she's wide awake after feedings for an hour or more. Most of the time she sleeps in her Boppy in her crib, and she does pretty well there. She's slept with us in our bed a few times, but that doesn't happen very often. None of us sleep as well when she does because Ben and I are both very aware of the fact that she's right there and so little, and she gets disturbed by us moving around. But it's still kind of nice when she does. She's just so adorable, and it's nice to open your eyes and have her right next to you. She also sleeps very well in the car. She hates getting into her carseat, but once she's in the car while it's going, she gets lulled to sleep pretty fast.

We went out to dinner with her for the first time when she was almost 3 weeks old, and it went really well. It was actually pretty funny, because there's this place on the way to Woodinville if you go the back way called McCorry's on the Slough. Underneath the name it says "family dining." So we thought we'd try it, thinking it would be nice to go someplace new and what seemed like more "down-home cooking". Well, it was a bar. Essentially, anyway. They had a long bar as the main focus of the room, only about 5 tables, and lots of pool tables. But we'd already gotten Lily out of the car and calmed down and we were both hungry, so we just stayed. We really stuck out as the odd ones there! It might not have been that bad if the food had been at least good, but it was decent at best. So, we won't be going there again!

Ok, Lily is just so cute, so I'm going to put a whole bunch of random pictures here now.

P.S. We're refinancing our home tomorrow. 6% baby, yeah! And that's all, folks!