Look what I can do, Mom!

4 months

...and a half. I just can't keep up (with blogging or with Lillie)!

Lillie is developing by leaps and bounds. We try to enjoy every stage with her, yet can't wait for the next one to come along. Then we're sad when it's gone. Silly first time parents.

She had her 4 month checkup earlier this week. Her stats are:

15 lbs 5 ozs, 75th percentile

23 3/4 inches, 60th percentile

Lillie is:

smiling at everyone and everything

noticing her toys and interacting with them more

rolling over (back to tummy)

very amused by her daddy

becoming more aware of her hands each day

bearing weight on her legs

teething!! The first two came in a few weeks ago. Boy, were we surprised.

She is a very loving and sweet baby, but definitely has her feisty moments!

Rollin'

This is a month old, but I forgot to post it.

Multi-tasking

Daddy has to get work done somehow!



P.S. Lillie turned 4 months old last week. She's changing every single day. Since I didn't post when she turned 2 or 3 months old, I promise I'll try to do it soon...

Girl talk

She's very aware of the camera, but can still hold a great conversation!

Skype

I have an excuse for not blogging. I won't name any names but a certain someone has been dominating the computer to skype with her grandparents...

Jogger mama

Thanks for letting us borrow your jogging stroller, Margaret Anne!

If anyone has some helpful advice on shopping for a jogging stroller, Lil and I are all ears...

Hands

I'm slow to post and Lillie is quick to grow and change. As I sit here typing now, I hear two things...college football (John's obsession) and Lillie slurping on her fingers (her newest obsession).

The Onesie Alien

Restaurant.com

I finally tried this website out! You can enter in your zip code at Restaurant.com and browse through a list of "gift certificates" that you can purchase for restaurants in your area.

I just bought a certificate worth $25 at 7 Stars Bistro in Jenkintown and only paid $1 for it. It usually costs $10, but they are having a 90% sale today since the date is 9/9/09.

It can turn out to be a really great deal. Be careful, though. There is usually a catch to the certificate. For example, my $25 certificate stipulates "Valid with a minimum purchase of $35. 18% gratuity added to pre-discounted check amount. Dinner only." That still sounds like a decent deal to me! Others might not be so great. So read up before you buy it!

Bon appetit!

cute pictures!

***I corrected the website below. Oops!

While we were in North Carolina my mom had a coworker, who has a photography business on the side, to come by and take some newborn pictures of Lillie. They turned out really well.

http://www.imagemilestones.com/
Click on "client" at the bottom and enter password "ls081109"

Lillie and the pacifier

Lillie has a love/hate relationship with her pacifier. Occasionally she will accept it right away and she quickly soothes herself to sleep. Other times, well, see for yourself...

zonked out

This just can't be comfortable, but should I dare try to move her? To wake or not to wake is the question...

Thank heaven for grandmas

Time has just absolutely flown by. Lillie is now almost 7 weeks old and changed so much already. The first 2 weeks after Lillie was born, we had our moms in town to help and boy was I thankful. I felt like a baby myself (which, by the way, nobody told me would be so hard!). So it was wonderful to have some extra hands around.

Let me tell you, I don't think that they could love Lillie any less than we do and I'm almost sure that they love her more than they even love us! I've heard that's just how grandparents are and have decided to refer to them as Lil's "partners in crime". They are simply smitten with her and just smother her with attention. Now, if they can just decide what their grandma names will be...

Lillie's sidekicks...

Back from vacay...

and soooo sad about it. We love spending time in North Carolina with our family and in the place that we know as home.

Lillie must be even more sad about it. How do I know? Let's see, I ate dinner standing at the kitchen counter and rocking her last night and that was after I heated my food twice. Interestingly enough, when John came home from his meeting, I passed her off to him and she quickly fell asleep on his shoulder and slept for hours.

This morning, she let me put her in the swing just long enough to get my breakfast started and then cried long enough to let me burn it. And now the only place she'll sleep is in the sling.

I was a bit disappointed when I realized that she won't be a "Carolina girl" since she was born in Pennsylvania (it's okay, I'm still calling her one). Guess she's telling me she's disappointed too...

Watch out NC...

Lil is in town!


She's cheering here, can't you tell?

We're in North Carolina this week. We've been all over the state from Davie County to Durham to Greenville so that Lillie could meet her family (or is it the other way around) and now we're at the beach. You can't skip a summer trip to an NC beach! I hope to share some pictures soon. We've done a ton of stuff this week and Lillie is growing up so quickly (too quickly if you ask me).

Lil's music video debut

I hope you find this video as entertaining as we do. Click on the picture to watch the video.

Lillie loves...

...sleeping on mommy or daddy's chest.


...eating! She was 7 pounds 12 ounces when she was weighed almost two weeks ago.

...looking mommy and daddy in the eye.


...smiling even if she doesn't know what it's about.

...waking up and instantly screaming at the top of her lungs (which always seems to happen while in church).

..."creating" a dirty diaper before we can even take care of the previous one.


We love her so much!

Little Miss Piggy

I'm not talking about the character from the Muppet Babies. I'm talking about my little girl. Lillie had a doctor's visit yesterday where she was weighed. She has returned to her birth weight and then some...7 pounds 2.6 ounces. No worries about her eating for now.

The first week

We've had a lot of fun with Lillie this past week. In case you wanted to know, she is the most beautiful thing we have ever seen. She celebrated her "1 week birthday" yesterday by pooping on the changing table and topping it off with a little pee. Ahh, the joys of being naked.

I just know that everyone was thinking "we want to see pictures of the baby not her parents" after the last post. So here you are and get ready for more. As soon as I can figure out how to balance a newborn and the laptop you'll likely be getting a flood of them.

In her bassinet not sleeping:

Sleeping soundly while her grandma holds her. She just loves to be held while she sleeps. This has made for some long nights.

Lillie loves to have a pinky finger to suck on. I'm not sure what's up with the dramatic hands.

Our little firecracker

She's here! Our little girl, Lillie Katherine Sharpe, came into the world Saturday, July 4th at 8:40 am. She was 7 pounds even and 20.5 inches long.

As promised

Here's what I was referring to in my previous post about my hubby's style...

This is what I saw one morning when I walked into the kitchen recently.  What in the world?!  I hear there are a few (I repeat, few) WTS guys who have this same "style" and have encouraged him to try and pull off the whole long tube socks and shorts deal.  Boy are they fooled.

Ahhhhh!

This picture was taken at 36 weeks, so it's almost a week old.  Big girl, huh?!  Shame on you if you didn't guess that I was talking about the baby and not myself!

My feet (resembling some nice fluffy marshmallows) may have disappeared from view, but I didn't realize my belly was this big until I saw this picture. Maybe I should start giving some thought to those random and somewhat annoying comments from people that stop me everywhere I go to to give me their "wisdom."

From Sharpe Cheese

We wonder why...

men don't understand us. This cartoon depiction is a common occurrence for us. Thankfully John has some style...then again, wait until I show you the picture I snapped of him a few weeks ago. To be continued...

My Baby Daddy

Yes, the title of this post refers to the father of my child, but I chose to label it with some slang. I'm choosing to have a little humor in this whole hormonal roller coaster game that they call pregnancy. Now back to the reason I started this post...

I have subscribed to a few fun blogs that I've found or friends have alerted me to. I recently found this post and really wanted to order the item until I realized that the baby will probably grow out of it before I can even count out $26. And plus, that's just outrageous.

Check it out...
http://babble.com/CS/blogs/droolicious/archive/2009/05/18/my-dad-s-a-geek-onesie.aspx

It has been too long...

I just realized that I last posted a real belly picture in March.  You better get ready for this, because this little girl has been growing.  And she has hiccups as I'm posting this!

31 weeks

I haven't seen my feet in a while...

The Baker

With my little "bun in the oven" I haven't had much time or energy to bake, which is probably one of my favorite things to do.  This weekend, I needed to make a few different things so I opted for a "safe" recipe as I like to call them, meaning one that I had previously tested.  It was great because I was able to make two pies for two different events.

Here's me in action at 31 weeks!  The apron is covering my big belly, which by they way, is becoming quite a hindrance in getting close to the kitchen counter.  So I'll post some better pictures later.

And here's the yummy recipe that I tried.  Of course it's a Paula Deen recipe.  That southern lady knows how to make some dessert.

Shaver's Chocolate Pecan Pie

Serves 6-8

1/2 c butter 1/4 c all-purpose flour

2 squares (2 oz) semisweet chocolate 1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs, well beaten 1/8 tsp salt

1/2 c sugar 3/4 c chopped or whole pecans

1/2 c light corn syrup* One 9-inch unbaked pie crust

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler over hot water.  Pout this into a bowl and add the beaten eggs, then stir in the sugar, corn syrup, flour, vanilla, and salt.  Fold in the pecans.  Pour the filling into the crust and bake for about 30 minutes.  Watch carefully and do not take the pie out of the oven until the top looks dry.  You can make up to 4 pies at one time.  They freeze beautifully.  Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream on top, if you like.

*The first time I made this, I wasn't able to find light corn syrup in my grocery store (weird, I know).  Another cookbook said that I could substitute 1/2 c sugar and 1/8 c water and it seemed to work fine.

Baby is getting famous

A few weeks ago before we "cheated" and "found out", somebody started getting fan mail.  John's mom sent us this cute night gown set with a hat and cutie booties.  We decided to hang it inside the closet door, so each time we open it we get a smile and remember why our apartment is a complete mess.  

She also sent the new and improved GloWorm.  When I was a kid, we just had a little stuffed doll that had a light in it.  Now they light up and play nursery rhymes.  Pretty cool!  Hopefully we won't kill the batteries playing with it before the baby comes. :)

Tell me it isn't so!

I needed a second ultrasound that was scheduled for last Tuesday.  Thanks to my not-so-good-at-surprises hubby he talked (no, begged) me into finding out the gender of the baby.  Long story short...it's a GIRL!  

It's really hard to believe that we now have even a clue as to the gender.  I can't say that John was excited when the lady told us, in fact, he actually had to sit down for a few minutes.  Ha!  Honestly though, we are both very thankful for this little girl and can't wait to meet her.  Take a look at that little button nose (if you can find it on the blurry picture) and tell me you haven't already fallen in love with her!  We have. :)

You might laugh, you might not...

It just depends on how you look at it.

Friends forever

Thankfully, there's a baby on the way to save you all from getting continuous pictures of our cats.  But until then...

No worries, I gotcha

John was sick a few weeks ago.  Lucy made sure to stay by his side...

Pick your own farms

I'm ahead of the game for once. I found this great website that lists many "pick your own" farms...http://www.pickyourown.org/index.htm#states

Enjoy!

Where, oh where, has my belly button gone?

That's the question now. I know where Baby is though!

26 weeks and counting...

Take note that Littles (in the bottom left corner) has to be right there in the action. :)

peek-a-boo

Lucy is already preparing to play with Baby...

Who is Craig anyway?

Craigslist and I have developed a love-hate relationship recently.  We've been searching for a larger place to live basically since we found out I was pregnant, but have become more and more desperate as time passes.  

Well, as far as good ole' Craig goes.  He may be good for some people, but he's a as good as a fat liar to me at this point.  I knew that we shouldn't have trusted him.  Everyone said, "oh we found our place on Craigslist."  There are anywhere from 500-1000 listings a DAY for the Phila area, so how could we not find something.  Oh, I'll tell you why.  Every "lead" has turned into either someone else signing the lease right before us or some Rev. so-and-so scammer who is doing missionary work in Africa and will FedEx the house key to us as soon as we send them our "refundable" deposit.  The second scammer was pretty believable, but luckily I'm too cheap to give anybody money without getting something out of it.

Maybe John and I should just tape "Craigslist Losers" to our foreheads for the next place we see...   

Goodbye winter!

Here are some beautiful pictures that I took of the most recent snow. John and I took a nice walk that morning. I looked like a tourist in my own neighborhood because I had both of my cameras with me.  But hey, this apartment complex is beautiful when it snows and I've been saying that I wanted pictures since we moved here.


Creek...

John likes these trees...

This little stone bridge is so cool.  It's on the opposite side of the apt complex from our building.