Creativity can be very useful

Lilia had a mystery fever that didn't go away for over a week. She didn't have any other symptoms so finally the doctor decided it could be a urinary tract infection. He decided this at 3pm on a Saturday which meant....oh hold on, Lilia is awake. Okay I'm back and it is now 6 hrs. later in the day...I don't know why but somehow life goes by very fast when you have an attention span of a 7 month-old. Anyway, my doctor told me I needed to get a urine sample but since it was Saturday they couldn't give me the baggy thing from their office to collect the urine and he doesn't like to do a catheter unless he has to. He told me if I can tell when she is going to go to try to catch it in a cup. I said "okay," but in my mind I thought "are you kidding me?"

The next day, Sunday I thought all morning about how I was going to do this because let's face it. She can't even stand on her own, how was I going to hold her up and hold a cup for an hour under her little who-who until she went pee? I decided to wash a casserole dish and sanitize it as best I could, I did the same with her little bum and I sat her in the dish on the floor and played toys with her (and said a little prayer) until she went! Now I know all of you medical people are saying in your head "now that's not a clean sample"...and yes, I agree. But according to the tests it was still more useful to have a sketchy sample than none at all.

Luckily she started medication on Monday and her fever of 8 days went away on Wednesday. We did however do a follow-up urine sample today, which was interesting...at one point she spit up in the dish so I had to start all over with the sanitizing. Oh I love being a mom.

This one is all blurry because my camera is a piece. But it caught the "motion" of the moment which I thought you would enjoy. And yes, that is her mouth open as wide as it will go.


On a happier note here are some great pictures my friend Tabitha took of Lilia. She is very talented as you can see!















Also, I thought I would do a little shout out for Bradley James and all of his hard work studying. He was feeling bad that Lilia was the only one I blogged about so I thought this would cheer him up :)
This is a picture of Brad with our cousin Zach (he is married to my cousin Emily) in front of the capitol building. He is applying for med school and we are all crossing our fingers that they end up as our neighbors.

half a year...we are really getting somewhere!

We are going to play a little game of catch up. Here are a few of Lilia's monthly pictures from the last two months that I have been meaning to post. Her personality has really started to blossom. She is very social, meaning she loves people who smile at her and give her compliments. She is a great sitter-upper and her favorite things to do besides sitting are bouncing in her door jumper and shoving anything she can get into her mouth. enjoy!

p.s. My sister Wendy took the 6 month pictures at the end...I think they turned out adorable!

Just for fun

Brad and I decided to take advantage of the leisurely Thanksgiving weekend and put up all of our Christmas decorations. Lilia decided she didn't want to be left out so I strapped her onto Brad and we had a party!

P.s. look at that awesome drool in the first picture


Here are our latest family pictures taken by Brad's sister Leslie. She did an amazing job and I have always loved fall pictures so happy day!
Lilia thinks she is hilarious
Here is a video of a few of her tricks :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13SNkEXvN64

Blessing Day!

Last weekend we had a wonderful time with family. Brad's Dad and my parents were able to fly out for Lilia's blessing. It was a fun packed weekend since my niece Naomi was baptized on Saturday. It was a wonderful experience after seeing so many of my nieces and nephews be blessed to have that experience myself...pretty surreal actually. Also, I will have you know that my mom made her dress and it is amazing. Seriously, not only is it beautiful in design but the quality of her work is flawless. I took some more pictures on Monday trying my best to pull the bib of and snap before she projectile vomited all over it. Unfortunately she did get a few dribbles on it but nothing oxyclean won't fix.




Brad's brother Jason and his wife Megan were a sweet surprise, they will be here in DC for a little bit between moves. It was awesome to have one more brother in the circle and so fun to see them and their cute kiddos.




My sister Jen and her husband Chris and their kids. Naomi the one in white was the one who was just baptized. I was so glad they could make it as well, they had to rush off to have naomi presented as a the newest member in their ward!






I took this pic at the end after I took her dress off, you can tell by her face that she doesn't like tummy time. We are working on it :)

The Illustrious White Coat Ceremony...and other tidbits

As I mentioned previously the Georgetown white coat ceremony was the day after Lilia was born so Brad was able to have his own personal ceremony in the Dean's office a month later. It was a unique experience. Dr. Knolan summarized the talk he gave at the actual ceremony for us and together Dean Mitchell and Brad recited the hippocratic oath. The oath was more powerful than I expected, I really enjoyed being able to be there to see it. Brad's mom was also in town so she was able to be there as well which was a special treat for all of us.








Also, here are few of the latest and greatest pictures of Lilia who...can you believe it...is two months old now.

Here are a few of her achievements:
-big grins, tongue included
-lifting her head off of the ground during tummy time
-seriously exploding out of a diaper (enough that it was easier just to hose her off with a bath)
-sleeping through the night...one day she went 8hrs, but most of the time it is more like 6-ish which I am told by baby books that counts!
-spitting up....still multiple times a day (we are working on the reflux issue and hoping it won't be an achievement for next month's list)
-she can now hold her head up when you she is vertical...it is pretty wobbly but hey!





Her face is so intense because she's just showing off her muscles...very impressive
her little "scoop" nose as we call it, don't know where it came from but it's sure cute.
I wasn't kidding when I said she sticks out her tongue a lot...here are a few examples :)


This is what we call our penguin baby. Our apartment was really cold for a couple of days because they haven't switched over to heat yet so we had to bundle up. That happened to be the night she slept for 8 hours so I took a picture to celebrate. If this were a video all of her limbs would be flailing around like crazy.
So here is a video of her playing in her crib....I was trying to get her to smile but she just ended up spitting up on me! Just ignore my high-pitched baby voice and watch until the end...yay reflux.