29 years, 7 months, 134 days

There they are.

My now 29 year old husband Seth (happy birthday!)

My 7mo old baby girl Lilly Jo (who's 7mo picture I've yet to take)

And my 134 day old (in the womb) baby boy, Jack Apple (stand-in)

:)

Continuing the tradition we started last year with Lilly Jo, we celebrated Seth's birthday by going to the doctor to find out the sex of our baby. Man, Seth's had a couple years of FANTASTIC birthdays I must say...

And if you didn't read closely enough, meet, Jack Lewis Apple!

He's growing just as expected and looks to be a handsome, healthy little boy... Praise God! We were quite excited to find out that Lilly Jo is going to have a little brother come January!

We then continued our tradition of celebration by going to the Alumni Hall store at Crabtree to buy Jack Lewis his first NC STATE outfit. We didn't quite find something we liked, so we didn't actually get anything yesterday, but don't worry - the hunt is still on!

Jack did, however, still get his first few boy outfits yesterday. My sister came into town to do a little shopping for baby Apple and had a gift all prepared for us when we got to Crabtree!

I forgot to take pictures of all the cute outfits, but I'll post those later...let's just say he's going to be super handsome and well dressed! Thanks Aunt Natalie!!!

This time last year....

I looked like this... (picture taken on 7/31/09)

Now I look like this (picture taken on 8/9/10)

With this...

Baby Apple #1 (aka Lilly Jo) born 1/18/10

Baby Apple #2 due 1/19/11

We can't wait!

6 Months

july 18th lilly jo turned 6 months old. i've stopped saying "i can't believe she's growing up so fast..." because the truth is i can actually believe it. i've watched her grow with my own two eyes. i watch her learn on a daily basis. and i love it. and seth loves it. we love it.

to give you a quick run down on her stats...

weight - 17 lb 12 oz (~75th%)

height - 26.25 in (~70th%)

head - 44.2 cm (~90th%)

she is in such a fun stage of life i must say! she's quite interactive and responsive to the world around her...she loves to sit up now and play with toys, books, remote controls, teething rings, cell phones, necklaces, toothbrushes, anything that lights up or plays music. and she is absolutely captivated by Baby Einstein's video of MacDonald on the Farm.

she is still a great sleeper, although now that she's able to scoot herself around she's a bit more fussy in the crib when we first put her down. she gets herself all squished up against the crib railings and then gets mad. but once she's out, she sleeps for about 10 or 11 hours at night. i'm so thankful she's always been a good sleeper!

she loves bathtime now and is quite the splasher. just last night seth was watching her and she sat in the bath for 30 min! i hear she was nice and pruned:) it's been fun to watch her learn things like - if she puts a toy in the water, it gets wet. and she can lick the water off the toy, dip it back in the water, and lick the toy some more to get more water. i love watching the learning process!

she's started eating baby food now - veggies first. so she's had green beans, squash and carrots thus far. we'll move on to sweet potatoes and peas before we get to the fruits next week. she seems to really enjoy the food, and also loves spitting while the food is in her mouth. makes for a fun mess! she continues to be such a joy and blessing in our lives...we contstantly tell her how much we love her:) God has been so good to us and we are so thankful!

kisses from dad are soooo sweet. especially when he's freshly shaven:)

17 pounds of sugar, please

Love, love, love my sweet niece, Milana. She is all sugar:)

Pearly Whites

So we let Lilly Jo brush her teeth for the first time yesterday. She decided one brush wasn't enough...she needed one for each tooth. However, she definitely favored one brush over the other...

Shout out to Seth

Seth consistently hand washes ALL bottles/parts (and if you have Dr. Browns, the parts add up!), teething rings, toys, bowls, spoons, etc - in addition to cleaning up the dishes for us after dinner. It has been such a huge help to me, and I know it's no small/quick task. Washing all these baby parts can take at least a solid 20-30 minutes, depending on how many there are to wash. He prefers to hand wash Lilly's stuff so he knows they get sqeaky clean, so kudos to him:) Lilly, you've got a fantastic father!!

Teefies

Yep. 5 months and 2 teefies have popped through already - front and center on the bottom gums.