LietzauFamily

Our little girl is now half a year old.  It’s amazing how fast time flies… not long ago she was just a wee little thing.

She now weighs 15 and half pounds (50%) and she’s 26 and a quarter inches long (50%).  That makes her perfectly proportional and right smack dab in the middle of the pack.  Which means there are some really chubby babies out there, and some really skinny babies (I’m looking at you, Gabe) stretching out the curve.  She seems like such a round little baby to me, but I think my perspective has been seriously shifted by memories of Gabe as a baby.  If she keeps this up, she’s going to pass him (and there’s a 7 year gap)!  Hahaha – no that won’t happen.  I expect she’s start stretching and getting thin once she’s upright and running around.  It’s amazing how babies do that.  One day they are your little chubby babies crawling around on the floor, the next day they are active toddlers running full throttle through the kitchen.

Lily has made quite a few changes over the last two months.  She can roll over from her back to her tummy, and sometimes the other way around.  She can sit up with minimal support, but will still fall over if she reaches for something or looks around.  Another month or two and I think she’ll be able to do it herself.  She’s making all kinds of noises (still more shrieking then I’d like) which by far her “mama” and “yum yum yum” noises are my favorites (although the low growling is very funny – it totally catches people off guard).  She’s eating two solid meals a day (lunch and dinner) and now she’s got some stinky diapers (sorry hon, but you do!).  She’s also sleeping through the night – 8pm to 7am roughly, give or take a half hour either way.  She would have been doing this from the get go, but I resisted cutting out that list middle of the night feeding because she had a tendency to want to get up at 5am then.  Now with the added weight and solid food she seems to be good till 7am and we’re all much happier and rested.  Also – she scoots everywhere.  Laying on her back, she arches her neck and back and kicks out with her feet, scooting up a few inches.  As long as she’s doing that – she’s going to have a bit of a bald spot on the back of her head from rubbing all her hair off.

You can see pictures of her scooting, plus many more.  I took way to many photos of her, but she’s just so adorable!  Enjoy:

Lily has a pretty small set of sounds she likes to make best at the moment.  She’s got a low growl, a high-pitched shriek, and a motor-boat noise (pbbbtttt).  Well, she just added a fourth sound to her set of favorites.  Watch this movie to find out what:

I’m pretty biased, but I think it’s my favorite so far.  She’s just too cute!

We are so antsy to get outside once the weather warms up in spring.  As soon as it does – out come the blankets – Yay!

Every chance we get to go outside, we take.  We drag out a blanket, lots of toys, and plop Lily down in the middle of the blanket.  She’s mobile now though, so every once and while you have to pull her back onto her blanket as she’s wiggled out into the grass.  She loves to scoot around – arching her back and kicking out with her feet, or rolling over onto her side and wiggling like a worm.  Silly girl!

Gabe has been enjoying the nice weather too.  He will play with Lily (he likes to blow bubbles or tell her a story – either one will thrill her to no end) and play exploring games in the backyard.

These are all the pictures I ended up taking when Katie and Tom were visiting the week before Easter.  Tom had business training in Minnesota and we were so glad we got to play host while they were both in state.  We had such a nice visit – we bought and installed a basket ball hoop, visited Stillwater and hit the antique stores, celebrated Tom’s birthday, hit the Mall of America and Underwater World, tackled the sorting out the garage, had a fire and roasted s’mores.  Such fun!

Here is a few odds and ends that happened in March.  First – Lily looks adorable:

Isn’t she sweet?  This outfit came from Kelly.  It would make an excellent birthday party outfit with all the darling cupcakes on it.  Love the polka-dot tights.  Now that it’s warming up you’re going to see Lily in dresses a lot more.  Speaking of warming up:

Bike riding season has begun!  Yippee!  We go on long walks now, Lily in her stroller and Gabe on his bike.   We plan on doing lots of bike riding this summer.  There are nice routes of both straight roads and hilly roads in this neighborhood, so we have a variety of fun biking paths!

This is a cute little bit of Gabe’s homework.  They were working on homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings).  This one is about flower/flour.  So funny!

We have been using the baby carrier facing out lately for Lily.  She isn’t much of a snuggler – no longer is she content to stay cuddled up against your chest (unless she’s sleepy).  She prefers to see the world all around her.  Unfortunately, she also like to grab at everything she sees.  Watch out!

Lily is now eating solids!  Yay!  We started her on solids just a couple weeks shy of six months.

She was a bit unsure at first – but has really starting to get the hang of it now.  She opens her mouth like a little baby bird when the spoon comes near, and seems to like just about everything we have tried – bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, corn, apples, pears, peaches, squash, peas, prunes, berries and green beans!  It did take a couple of times on the peas for her to get over her initial gag reflex to the taste – but now she can’t get enough.  She doesn’t seem to know that you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full either – the whole meal she goes “mmmm, mmmm, yum yum, mmmmm!”  It’s very cute.

Lily turned 4 months old on the Feb 12th (the day of the class Valentine’s Day party).  I took some pictures the next day, but haven’t had a chance to upload them till now.

So how big is she?  She’s 13 pounds, 4 ounces (that’s exactly 50th percentile) and she’s 25 and half inches tall (or long, depending how you want to look at it).  Her height puts her in the 90th percentile!  That’s two check ups in a row she’s been in the 90th for height.  I wonder if she’s slow down, or if we’re going to end up with a tall girl?  You better watch out Gabe, your sister may end up being taller then you!  Always funny when the older sibling is the shortest – I know it – of the 5 kids in my family, I (the oldest) ended up being the shortest!

Without further ado – here’s the pictures of Lily (20 of them!) in an album.  Go check it out!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

We are having a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend.  On Friday, we (Lily and I) went to Gabe’s school and volunteered for his Valentine’s Day party.  Mike made 48 gluten-free, nut-free, but super yummy heart-shaped sugar cookies.  They were a hit!  The kids played a version of pin-the-tail where it was a heart they had to stick on a life-sized picturethey drew of their helper teacher.  They made heart-shaped decorations, passed out Valentines (Gabe had cute home-made ones with a picture of him and Lily inside), and did a huge dance routine for the parents:

It was super cute, and that’s only a couple minutes – it went on for at least 6 minutes (it took me a while to get my camera out).  What a great way for the teacher to make the kids work off some steam.  Gabe’s in the back on the left side, in a red shirt.

Lily was a huge hit at the party – all the parents, kids, teachers had to look at her and pet her head (let’s hope she doesn’t get sick!) and just in general coo at her.  And she was her most charming self – smiling her biggest smiles and was such a good baby all party long.  Yay!  Here is her Valentine’s Day outfit:

She’s becoming a bit of a squirmer – hard to get a picture of her.  She’s starting to practice rolling over.  She can get close – on her side – but can’t quite get that arm tucked up so she rolls all the way over.  But she’s working hard so it won’t be long!  A close up of my little cutie:

Another Valentine’s Day outfit she wore this weekend was pajamas – Gabe’s old jammies that he wore in his first Valentine’s Day card.  So if you still have it – you can compare them.  Lily is 4 months old, and Gabe would be at least 8 months, maybe 9 months in his picture.  Here’s Lily: