LietzauFamily

Lily really likes her thumb, and 9 times out of 10 it’s her left thumb (Is that a preference? Will I have a lefty?).  She soothes herself to sleep, or tries to eat it when she’s hungry.  It’s a nice little trick she’s learned.  I took a little video of her sucking her thumb in her swing – she’s pretty much asleep.  But it’s cute!

Lily sucking her thumb.

I also took another video of Gabe and Lily cuddling.  I was sitting with her on the couch and Gabe asked if he could hold and cuddle her (how cute!).  So I handed her to him and he talked to her and patted her head.  He really liked it.  I snapped a small video of it, but it’s a bit dark.  Also, it made me realize how squeaky both Gabe and I get when talking to babies!

Gabe and Lily Cuddle

Seeing this made me decide to get a little Flip.  I like our camcorder we have, but it’s as old as Gabe, and not as easy to take around and whip out at a moments notice.  It’s also quite the process to get the videos off it and “webify” them.  I tried using the built in movie camera bits with my regular still camera, but I wasn’t to happy with how the videos turned out.  So hopefully the Flip will work for us.  Stay tuned!

Here’s a little video of Lily at bath time:

Bath time for Lily!

It’s kind of long (one minute) and I gave her a wash cloth for modesty (so she doesn’t get mad at me when she’s older and finds out I shared bath time videos of her – hehehe).  It’s neat to contrast how much bigger she has got since her last bath time photos I shared with you.  Enjoy!

Today we had a very fun sledding and skating adventure!  We bought skates today (it took us 4 stores till we found some – most of the stores were out of kid skates this time of year!) and decided to test them out.  So we loaded up Lily in her little sled, grabbed the skates, and headed out to the park.

Gabe and Lily head to the park.

Lily was kind enough to let Gabe put his skates in the sled he didn’t have to carry them (plus she’s so small she still had lots of room in the sled).  Gabe was very excited to pull Lily to the park.

Lily likes her sled.

We had just barely enough snow on the roads to use the sled.  The last few days have been very warm so the roads have mostly melted off.  But there was just enough along the edges, except for crossing intersections (SCRAPE across the bottom – ah well!)  Lily is wearing the bunny snowsuit Angie got her for Christmas.  Between that, and the tiny sled, everyone we passed went, “Awwwwwww!”

Have fun at the park!

Once at the park, I took over pulling Lily to the skating rink while Gabe took a few runs down the sledding hill on his sled.  By the time I’d walked to the rink, he was ready to go.  It went well – Gabe only fell down a couple of times.  I wiped out on the first step on my skates (the slush from the warming house to the rink was SLIPPERY).  After that, we both skated very nicely, Gabe shuffle skating, with me pulling Lily on her sled.  I didn’t get pictures of the skating on account of having my hands full (and trying not to fall down).  Next time!

I was playing around with our camera and taking short little movie clips.  It works pretty good, but I had to find some video software to edit and create movies that I could share.  After a while, I got it working and I’m glad because it’s pretty cute!  I’m going to have to take more of these “action shots” of Gabe and Lily.

Here is a movie of Gabe on his Ezy Roller.  He got this from Grammy K. for Christmas and has really got the hang of it now.  He zooms around so quick, and doesn’t crash into things that often…

Ezy Roller Movie

This movie is of Lily playing on her play mat.  She really likes to kick the windchimes, and bat at the little parrot.  The super cute kimono sleepsack is from Katie (she always manages to find the most unique and sweetest clothes!) and is one of our favorite bed time outfits for Lily.  Sleep sacks are just so cute!

Playtime Movie

Tell me what you think of these little movies.  Should I make more?  Any suggestions of what you want to see?

Today Lily is 3 Months old!  Happy Birthday Lily!

Lily at 3 Months Old

She’s changed a lot in the last month.  She’s bigger (over 11 pounds now, not sure how tall).  More hair is coming in, and she’s losing some her long, dark newborn hair.  The newer hair is so fuzzy and a lighter shade of brown.  Her eyes are brighter blue, less of that newborn navy blue.

She’s also much more aware of her surroundings.  She’s very good at tracking things – if she hears Gabe or Mike in the room, even if he’s behind her, she’ll look around and smile at him.  She discovered she has hands and feet – and she can make them do things.  She bats at toys, kicks in the tubby.  And not just randomly – she’ll look right at something and hit it with her hands or feet.  She was very funny in the bath yesterday – she kept kicking her bottle of shampoo over.  I’d right it, and she’d knock it over again with a smile.  “Look what my feet can do!”

You can also put something in her hand and she will hold it and turn it this way and that; all while staring at it with a look of concentration on her face.  She’ll taste it, and then look at again … and then shake it like mad.  So silly.

And now that she’s 3 months, I’m putting away all her 0-3 month clothes and getting out the 3-6 ones.  As I was doing this, I noticed I had not yet taken a picture of her in her Thanksgiving outfit, so I snapped one of those today too, before I boxed it up:

Lily's Thanksgiving Outfit

Such a sweetie!  The outfit is from her Aunt Katie.  Lily was so darling at Thanksgiving, all though then we had to roll up the cuffs more!

Gabe was building a fort (Cranium Fort – one of coolest toys, but they don’t make it anymore).  He was having so much fun, but he wanted company – so he went and found some!

Who is in your fort, Gabe?

View the Fort Adventure photo gallery below to see who joined Gabe in his playtime fun!

Fort Adventure

Gabe finds a friend for his fort adventure!

6 Photos

 

Happy New Year everyone!  Here’s another reason why my neighborhood rocks:

New Year Fireworks

Yep – that’s right outside our window.  Our neighborhood launches fireworks off every New Year’s Eve at midnight.  Not just a couple – I’m talking a proffesional city-style, nearly 15 minute long display.

New Year Fireworks

So cool – and great that we could watch them from the comfort of Lily’s nusery.  We were all nice and warm while it was below zero outside, and watching the amazing display just a few houses down.  I just love where we live!

New Year Fireworks

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  We had a  crazy-busy one.  Wednesday (23rd) we went to Indiana – we were planning on going down the 26th, but Snowmageddon came to town and the roads were suppose to be terrible Thursday-Sunday, so we left early.  We had good driving conditions until just after the Illinois line but before Portage, when everything go slick and snow was blowing mixed with sleet.

We saw snow blowing up in the median and thought it was a plow truck on the opposite bound lanes, but then realized it was a truck and trailer barrel rolling (side over side) through the median right towards us!  We slow downed carefully (not wanting to start spinning uncontrollably) and thank goodness the truck stopped about 20 feet from us.  Talk about heart pounding.  The truck landed right side up, and didn’t look damaged, so hopefully the person was okay, although pretty shaken up I bet.  A snow plow came up and stopped so I know they were going to help the driver.  So scary!

We made it in one peice, and after that it was a fun whirlwind of party after party – we had short ribs one night, beef tenderloin the next, then ham, then turkeys – with all the trimmings.  So much good food I think I came home 5-10lbs heavier.  Good visits with everyone.  Only thing I really regret is not being able to go and see Angie and Dad’s place (as they both live in the same housing development).  I really wish we could have done that.  Next time.

These are the only pictures I took while in Indiana:

Aren’t they cute?  That’s Elianna – my cousin Travis’ little girl who is 3.  It was nice she was there, because otherwise there isn’t anyone near Gabe’s age in my family.  On Mike’s side there are 5 cousins all pretty near his age, but usually when he goes to Indy – no kids!  Kelly’s little Shelby is just a year old, and that’s all the cousins right now.  Someday there will be more, but he’s going to be so much older then them.  Now I know how Travis must have felt with all his little cousins.

All in all it was a great visit.  The only downside is we all got sick!  Boo!  It was inevitable though – all the people, all the places, all the germs running around.  Poor Lily got her first cold:

Poor thing!  It just breaks your heart when itty bitty ones get sick.  They look so pitiful!  Get better soon (and the rest of us too)!

I want to hear your best Timberwolves howl, and let’s howl at the moon:

That’s the moon at the Target Center where we saw a Timberwolves game.  SO MUCH FUN!  Gabe and Mike had gone earlier as a father/son evening when our neighbors gave us tickets (they had a recital to go to instead, so they gave them to us – how cool are our neighbors?).  They had so much fun, we decided to go again, and when Gabe got a free ticket through school, and reduced tickets for adults, we just had to go!

We had a blast – we had excellent seats (they upgraded us to really good seats for free, even though we already had reduced tickets – such a nice ticket agent).  Gabe loves all the atmosphere and drama.  When the game starts, all the lights go off, and the moon lights up, then everyone starts howling (very neat) and then the announcer introduces the players.  Once the game starts, there is also a howl-o-meter, which comes up whenever the opposing team shoots a free-throw.  So we all howl like mad, I guess to throw them off their shot, but even if we don’t, it’s pretty hilarious.  Gabe gets so into it – I’m surprised his voice isn’t hoarse by the end of the night.

The Timberwolves won too, and they won the last time Gabe went – but have lost pretty much every other game this year.  So if they want to win more – maybe they should give Gabe tickets to the games – he seems to be pretty lucky!  Gabe knows most of the starting players, but at this age, his favorite “person” is Crunch – the mascot.  He got to sit on “Christmas” Crunch’s lap and Mike snapped a picture, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out:

Too bad it’s blurry – it’s a funny photo.  The Timberwolves Dancers would hop out of the photos when little kids posed with Crunch, and hop back in for the adults and teens.  I guess they thought Gabe was big enough because they stayed in his photo – hah!

Such a great night – and thank you to Jacquie and Carol who were nice enough to watch Lily!

Not to leave Gabe out, I took a few pictures of him in a similar get up to Lily’s 2 month photos.  I going to use them to make a little photo montage of Gabe and Lily for Christmas.  This is the best one of Gabe:

He’s such a cute kid!