Happy New Year One Month Old!

Lila Elizabeth I can't believe that you are already a month old! You have changed so much since we first met you. You are developing such a sweet personality. We love watching you grow. You can recognize our voices now and smile at us. You are holding your head up on your own and trying to touch things with your hands. Your beautiful, crazy hair is changing colors on your head. We can't wait to see what it turns out looking like.
2008 has been one of the best years of my life. God gave us you!! I can't wait to see what all 2009 has in store for us! Happy New Year to all!

"First Time Parents"

Here is Lila in her sweet ballerina socks (Thanks Honey)! Notice how much bigger she looks! Let me explain....
As I have mentioned in past posts, Lila has had issues with her weight. Last week we went to the Dr. and they said she was doing great and could stop waking her up every 3 hours. It has been so nice to let her skip a feeding at night and get almost 4-5 hours of straight sleep! We also quit supplementing with 2 extra ounces after feedings. It has made feedings so much easier, but being a new mom, I worry now she isn't getting enough.
All that said, the Dr. said we could stop by and use their scale anytime if we wanted to check up on her. I called today and "stopping by" still means sitting in the waiting room with all the sick kids while we wait to get called back. We decided that was not worth it.
So...we took our baby to the post office and weighed her on the self service scale. Yes, that's right. My sweet baby girl got stripped down to her diaper and placed on a scale for MAIL! Only one other person walked through and she got a kick out of it. Must be first time parents! We were thrilled to see that she is 8lbs and 8 ozs. Now that we know breast feeding is working I will relax. No more post office stops!

Warren Family Christmas

This year was our year to go to Lubbock with Josh's family. We have driven that distance 2 times and said never again. So, yes this 3 1/2 week old baby had her first plane ride! She did so good. She ate a bottle on the way up so her ears would pop and then she slept the entire time. I don't think we will ever have such an easy trip again!

This is Lila meeting her cousins Mia and Presley for the first time. The girls loved having a "real" baby doll to play with.

Here is the whole clan watching Lila's sink bath tub. We learned this girl loves a bath no matter where it is or who is watching:)

The next day we went to Crosbyton to Granny's house to see the Self side of Josh's family. This is the same couch I blogged about on Thanksgiving. Where I "fell in love" with Josh. How cool is it to have the same picture with our little girl in it now!

Here are all the cousins on Christmas eve. Mia is 4 and the twins Presley and Blaine will be 2 in a couple months.

This is Mia posing next to her Santa letter and cookies. She was very curious about all things Santa this year. Josh got on the computer and saw that Santa was flying over South America. As soon as he said that Mia shouted "I HAVE TO GO" and bolted into the bedroom. When Roxann ran after her and asked what was wrong, Mia explained that she needed to be asleep NOW so that Santa would come. I think we had stressed that he would only come if we were all asleep a little to hard! (This is the summer dress that she insists on wearing every night! She has more wardrobe changes than Beyonce).

On Christmas day Grumps took us to his new athletic facility. It has field turf covering the entire floor! They loved riding around on the clean up cart.

What a great place to run off all those Christmas goodies!

This is Lila in her beautiful Christmas dress!

Santa was SO good this year. He had so much to put together! He must have had some good help:)

Sweet Mia and Lila with Grumps.

After our week long Christmas to waco and then Lubbock Lila is pretty worn out, but what a GREAT first Christmas!!

Purdy Family Christmas

This year we had our Purdy side Christmas early. We do every other year with either side of our families. My nephew Ryan named the off year "Fake Christmas". It is always a little weird opening presents on a random Saturday with no Christmas eve service and no real Christmas morning with Santa. We still have a blast all being together and the kids don't seem to notice while they tear into their ridiculous ammounts of presents. I love my family and am so glad that we get to celebrate every year together. Sadly, this is the only picture I have of this year's Purdy Christmas. Our camera wouldn't work. My sister's Angie and Caryn both have more pics on their blogs for those of you who just have to see more:)
Every year my mom buys us matching PJ's to wear for Christmas morning and every year we take this big family picture. Also, every year the kids all magically look at the camera and smile while my husband, Josh thinks it's hysterical to make crazy faces. We will work on that before next Christmas:)

First Trip to Santa!

This weekend Josh and I took Lila to Waco for the Purdy family Christmas (many pictures to come)! We took the kids bright and early Saturday morning to the Richland Mall to take a picture with santa. Planning and organizing 5 kids is not as easy as we always think. We got off to a late start and I am thinking there is no way we can get to the mall and wait in line and take our picture all before I need to feed Lila again in only 1 hour.
That is one of the great things about Waco. We got it all done and had some time to spare. Once we got there the kids wer playing, everyone is happy and I am pumping Josh up that Lila can withstand the germs that are on Santa's lap! The line moved quickly and it was our turn.
The boys put their sweaters on and then the crazy started. It was literally like watching a bad Santa picture happen in a movie. Ryan, the oldest, walked right up there and got in place (keeping the eye roll look on his face the whole time.) Stacey, the second oldest, jumped in his lap and plastered on his "Cheese" smile. So far so good. Then Ally (newly 2) and Wyatt (almost 2) took one look at Santa and fell apart. Ally was screaming and looking like we were the meanist family ever making Ryan hold her up there and Wyatt was flopping around on the floor. Sweet Cary stayed so calm and finally got him in Santa's lap long enough to snap the camera. Lila was asleep the whole time.
Needless to say, when we were finally done the peolpe waiting in line were clapping and laughing along with us. What a priceless photo! And yes, asap we got the sweet baby out of her "germy clothes".

Thanks Cha Cha!

Last Wednesday when my mom left, Josh's mom flew in from Lubbock. It was such a relief for us to have someone else coming to help us out! She was so great doing the laundry, cleaning, staying up all night with Lila, and doing everything else we needed her to do.

After a couple of days with just Gwen, Granny flew in from Crosbyton to come and meet her 6th great-grandchild! This is right when she got there. If you look closely, you can see Lila smiling at Granny.

I feel so blessed to have not only a mother in law that I get along with, but also one who I enjoy spending time with. Lila has two of the greatest grandmas a girl could ask for!

Last night was our first night alone, just the three of us. We are very sleepy, but we are getting into our routine. Thank you so much Gwen for helping get us ready to do that!

Two Weeks Old!

Lila is 2 weeks old today! I can't believe it! Sometimes it seems like she was born yesterday and sometimes it seems like she should be much older. She is doing great! We had a photo shoot for our Christmas cards. My sweet friend Kaki came and took some pics. This is one of my favorites.

We went to the Dr. for our 2 week checkup and she is doing good. Her coloring is way better and she is in the clear for her jaundice. She is in the 90th% in height (go volleyball) and the 50th% in weight. She lost a lot of weight last week and is still not back up to her birth weight. The doctor wants us to feed her more by adding a couple of bottles a day. This is so frustrating to me because I feel like all I do is eat, sleep and breath feedings. I really hope she starts to pack on the pounds soon!

She is sleeping so good. She will go down anywhere. One of her favorite places to nap is in her swing. How precious are those lamb ears!

Everywhere we go (basically the dr's office) everyone comments on how much hair she has. It is so funny. No matter what we do to it, it sticks straight up. I love that she can already wear a bow. My friend Julie bought this onesie for her. We LOVE all that hair!

Josh and I are both so in love with Lila. We have loved the past two weeks. Josh is back at work and calls pretty often to check in with his ladies. His mom and Granny are going home tomorrow and we will be on our own! We are really looking forward to the holidays with all the cousins and family. Starting Friday Josh is off for 4 weeks! We can't wait to have all that time at home with this little sweetheart!!!

Thank you Honey!

My mom is SO WONDERFUL! She has been here with us the past week helping take care of Lila. She is the administrator of First Woodway Christian School in Waco and as anyone who is involved in education knows, this is the craziest time of the year. Needless to say she did not need to take off seven days and come stay in Houston, but of course for her 5th grandchild she wouldn't miss it.

She is such a great source of information for me during this time. She knows all about nursing, bath time, sleep patterns, burping, swaddling and everything else that is so new to me. She is very calm and makes everything seem like that's how it is for everyone. She did all the laundry, dishes, cleaning and food prep on top of taking all the nights inbetween feedings. I literally would wake up feed Lila and hand her off to Honey for 2 hours.

I hope that one day I can be the kind of mother to Lila that she is to me. I will say prayers with her every night and let her sleep with me when she has bad dreams. I will build tents with her in the living room and go to all of her gymnastic meets. I will take her to church every Sunday and to the movies every Friday. I will teach her to make Wanda's almond cookies and to be a good friend. I will encourage her to be independent and always let her know how much I love her.

I love you mom and I really appreciate your help and your prayers for baby Lila

Happy One Week Birthday!

Lila is one week old today! I can't imagine my life without her now. Here are some pictures of some of the things she loves.

She loves pink and she loves to sleep.

She loves her daddy. (So do I. I can't think of anything more amazing than to see your husband holding your daughter)!

She loves her new best buddy Cooper. He loves protecting her too!

She loves eating and we love her milk drunk faces.

She does NOT love posing for pictures! (The stocking was a little too tight).

Ahh! Much better!

She loves her bath time.

She loves laying on mommy's chest. What an amazing week Lila. We are so excited that God choose us to be your parents!

Day 6 stinks!

Little Lila has been a little jaundice since leaving the hospital. Every baby on both sides of our family has been and so we know it isn't really a huge worry. Friday we went in to Dr. Ally's ofice and got her bilirubin level checked. She was at a 17. That is right on the border of getting the photo therapy. We were sent home and told to check back the next day. Now, the next day was Saturday and apparently in the hospital world that means everything is shut down.

I woke up for her 6:00 feeding and had no idea that I would be awake until midnight dealing with this. We went to the Dr.'s office and saw the on call doc. She said we had to get another heel prick done. (that is not fun to watch when your baby is 6 days old). They sent us to the lab which is across the street in the main hospital. I realize that this is very typical and probably most mom's have to deal with this, but I feel the need to vent. What in the world are they thinking? I have this newborn baby, who I can't even lift in her carrier because it is too heavy and might tear the stitches in my body. My milk has just come in and I feel like I might fall forward because of the two huge rocks that are now attached to my chest. On top of all that, I am on no sleep and pain meds (a GREAT combo for making important decisions)!!!

All that said thank the Lord my mom and Josh are here with me. I can't imagine doing all that by myself.

So, we walked all the way over to the lab to find it closed. We called the Dr. and were sent to a second location that was also closed. I am trying to find a place to sit and feed this baby who did awesome during all of this. About 2 hours later we finally get to a lab across town that is open. We got there and got her tested. Unfortunately they closed 10 min after we got there. The dr.'s office also closed at noon. We were on the phone all afternoon trying to find out what the reading said thinking if the level is high shouldn't we be doing something about it?

My sweet friend Jill came over to bring us dinner. While we were visiting the Dr. called and said the level was up and we needed to go to the hospital for photo therapy. I wasn't as concerned about the treatment as I was about taking a newborn to the emergency room. When we got there, there were several feverish, hacking, sickly children. I know several people who had taken their babies in for something simple and caught something worse while there.

Thankfully we were taken to a private room where she got all sorts of tests done. (3rd heel prick in 2 days) After 4 hours of waiting my impatient husband who works in this same hospital used his knowledge about the computer system to look up her results himself. She had dropped since that morning! Yay! About 11:00 the ER doc came and told us that since she was now 6 days old she need to be at a 21 to be admitted. We were back to a 17. Needless to say we were so thankful and relieved to be going home, but very frustrated to have sat around all night to have nothing done. After an entire day of trying to help this poor yellow baby, the only one who actually did anything to help her was us! We fed her and put her in the sunshine. Now, couldn't that have been done at home??? What a wasted day.

Here is our yellow baby.

Sunbathing beauty.

A delirious Daddy and Honey at the ER.

Bumpy day

Rough day today....Lila was a little yellow when we left on Wednesday, and it just got gradually worse until this morning, so we visited our new pediatrician a little early. Have a follow-up in the morning to follow her bilirubin levels. She also has been a little fussy(understatement of decade) around feeding time lately. It's a good thing she has such a patient, loving mother. I wish everyone could see how good Kacey is with her!

Lila and daddy.

Lila and mommy. My sweet girls....

Lila;s toes in daddy's hand. I mean, c'mon. Somebody check my blood sugar, cause I think I'm getting diabetes here.

Lila and Honey

Coming Home!!

We finally got to bring this precious baby home from the hospital! This was our first full day at home and things are going very smooth! Here is a little look at our leaving the hospital and coming home.

What a blessing. God is so good! Josh and I are head over heels in love with our little lady. This is us getting ready to leave the hospital.

Here she is in her beautiful dress ready to come home.

Here is one proud mama wheeling out of the hospital with all our stuff.

Here is Josh driving more carefully than ever!

Our first car ride together!

I love riding in the car! (And my double chin really shows in my car seat).

The complete Warren family makes it home!

Inside the house for the first time.

Lila makes the nursery complete.

She was tired from all the excitement.

My sisters were awesome this whole week. Thanks for all your help!

Ally and Wyatt were a big help too. They love "La-la."

Coming home is hard work!

Josh and I want to thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes throughout this experience. We have never been so happy or so tired. Lila Elizabeth is doing great and changing every day. We will post pictures as often as we can.