In the kitchen corner

This is Lydia's new place to hang out. It works out nicely since we're in the kitchen a lot these days doing endless dishes and making sweets for the holidays. It's all fine and well until she learns how to crawl...for now, she's content to sit and chew on spatulas in the corner.

Sledding!

Today we went sledding for the first time with Lydia. There's a little hill outside the publishing company near the alley behind our garage. (Sounds really ghetto, but isn't in reality...the alley is just a little piece of land called an alley since the city owns it). She liked it from what we can gather. She didn't laugh, but smiled a lot and didn't cry. There was a thin sheet of ice on everything, so Sam pulled Lydia and I on the sled around the parking lot when we were finished, and she got a kick out of that too.

Half-Marathon

September 7th, 2007 - Right before we got pregnant last year, I had decided to run in the half marathon 06. Since it's not ideal to run that distance several months pregnant, I put it on hold until this year. This spring after Lydia was born, I decided to coerce my body into distance running...3 months of training later, my sister Sarah and I ran across the finish line! Training was actually pretty fun; joining a running club gave me the accountability and assistance for the long runs (and gatorade every 2 miles set out by the running club doesn't hurt either!) It was great now with a little one to get outside a few days a week and clear my head. Sam was awesome about being flexible - mostly I ran in the evenings after Lydia went to bed, but there were definitely other times where it wasn't quite as convenient. Thanks babe, for helping to make this goal possible for me! Here's a few pictures from raceday - Sarah and I crossing the finish line, tons of cups, and mommy and Lydia!

Porch done!

This has been done for a few months, but I kept forgetting to take a picture. Sam finished the porch and about 95% of the siding. There's a small piece in the back of the house that needs to be finished, but it's almost there, and it looks great! We went with a knock-off of hardiplank - concrete siding. It will last without maintenance for up to 25 years. Too bad we'll be long gone by then.

Cutie pie

Sam is having so much fun playing with Lydia these days. She loves it!

Lots going on!

Wow it's been a while since we've updated! Lydia has:
• Started eating rice cereal. Yum. When she doesn't want it she razzes it all over. Fun. Hmm.
• Learned to razz, see above.
• Discovered her toes. She looks like she's doing a funny yoga pose when she grabs just her big toe and hangs on with one finger. Super cute!
• Developed stranger anxiety. This is really tough when we have someone new babysit!
• Entertained us endlessly with her smiles and giggles. The funniest things make her smile and laugh!
• Had her first sickness. :( 2 weeks ago she had a fever for about 5 days followed by strange rashes. Dr's said it was just a virus so nothing we could do but treat the fever. It's so tough when you know they're not feeling well but they can't tell you what's going on. We're glad that's past and she's all better.

These photos are of: Lydia with Grandpa Horvath at our family reunion in NY in August, and me and Lydia spending some time together out in the field behind my parent's place - one of my favorite places on earth.

Overall, things are going well. Work is pretty busy right now as we have a client open house this Wednesday that we're busy preparing for. Of course, internal projects that have waited for a long time are now immediate action items! On top of that, we're doing a good cleaning-out of accumulated "stuff" in our basement, beginning to plan for the fall camp retreat, and I'm (Jess) finishing training for the half-marathon with my sister. Life is very full. However, we are trying to reclaim some of the sweet quiet family times together on the weekends especially. There's nothing like a walk together at the end of the day to knit our hearts as we talk over the day and goo gah over our sweet girl.

It's times like these that we want to remember to be just as thankful and close to God. I feel like there's always the tendency to run to Him during times of distress and discomfort, but we often fail to remember Him during the good times. We are truly so thankful for all He's done in our lives.

We hope this finds you all well, and ejoying the last bit of the summer! Soak it all in while you can...

Lydia playing with Daddy!

With Daddy

Growing Pains

Lydia will never be an "infant" again! She's outgrowing her newborn clothes, and well out of newborn diapers. Steve and Regan Thompson visited with their sweet 4 week old, and she seemed so tiny and floppy compared to Lydia! It hit us that the teeny tiny baby days are gone. While there's good parts (no longer have to worry that her head will fall off when it flops around, much easier to handle, and sleeping longer at night), I'm a wee bit sad that she's growing up so quickly...and this is just the beginning! We're loving the sweet smiles, coos, and giggles though! Couldn't get those a few weeks ago, and it makes our days bright and our hearts warm. Oh, and for those who were going to come out, her baby dedication has been postponed since the church ran out of room in the dedication on the 17th and Lydia got bumped to the next one, for which no date has been set yet. Bummer! We'll let you know when we get a new date!

Giggles

We got our first giggle ever last Wednesday! What a sweet mom's day gift she gave.

Thankful Hearts

As we look back over the past 2 years or so since we first thought about becoming parents, we're filled with gratitude that God has given us a baby and child to raise. It's such a gift and great responsibility, and our lives will never be the same.

Our small group leader gave me a little book of meditations for new moms, and the reading for today was beautiful:

" How can I repay the Lord
for all his goodness to me?
I wil lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people."

Psalm 116:12-14

Lydia's baby dedication will be on June 17th, for all who are interested in attending! It will be at our church, just a few minutes away, with a lunch back here at our house.

Smiles

New this week: responsive smiling! Lydia has started to give us little grins when we play with her! The best times are when she's naked on the changing table - she loves it and will dole out smiles most when she's free as a bird in her birthday suit...

She also decided this week to go on a nursing strike - she'd take a bottle fine, but refused to nurse. So...after a night of bottlefeeding, pumping, and trying to calm a hungry crying baby, she determined it was too hard on us and started nursing again, which was fantastic. Still trying to figure out what it was, but it might have something to do with the curried rice and chicken we had for dinner - great, we have a picky eater! ;)

Overall, things are going well here at the Baer house. We're learning lots each day and the more we learn, the more we realize we know nothing at all! I guess that's the way with parenting - we're thankful for grace each day.

With the Horvath cousins

All the Horvath grandgirlies in one shot!
Poor Ellie had her tonsils out a few days earlier and wasn't feeling well for this shot, so she gets a special separate shot uploaded from when she WAS feeling good the day before! Funny story: When we got to Seth and Mary's, the girls oohed and aahed over their new cousin, then Ellie looked at me and politely asked "where's the other baby?". We explained that we only had one baby, and she was disappointed - Mary explained that since her cousin recently had twins, the girls now think that they come in twos.

Proud grandparents

Here's Lydia with Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Steve when they came out to visit, and with Grandma and Grandpa Baer when we were down in Kentucky over Easter.

Heavyweight

Lydia has officially passed the 10lb mark - at her doctor's appointment over the weekend she weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs 4 oz. She now comes complete with rolls on her little legs and arms. It's funny how her fingers and toes seem a lot stubbier and shorter now that they have some meat on them! They looked so long and skinny when she was first born. She continues to be a great little baby, though she doesn't like napping on a schedule during the day. We tried the babywise every three hour schedule, and for feeding and sleeping through the night it works like a charm - she's sleeping from 10:30 through to 4:30AM, so we're happy...but for napping, it doesn't work as well for her. She likes to be up for a continuous 3 hours and then konk out after her next meal. We're trying to be flexible, yet have some sort of structure so things will transition smoothly once I head back to work.

Lydia survived her first babysitting experience! We had purchased tickets for a concert last fall, and had a babysitter lined up for about as long - I felt like a piece of me was missing, but it was good for us to get out for a bit without her. Babysitter reported that she was fine, though she tooted quite a bit for a princess. ;) I think she takes after her dad.

Baby Photos

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all!
We had a really great visit down to KY to first let Lydia meet Grandma and Grandpa Baer, then up to Louisville to spend a night with Seth and Mary and the girls. Lydia did great in the car - we had to stop quite a bit on the way back, but it was well worth it and she was a trooper!

Kentucky was cold! Our Easter photos don't display our little girlie's Easter dress very well since we had to bundle up to avoid the 30 something degree air. In April! Go figure!

Lydia loved meeting her grandparents and really had a great time with them. We went through baby pictures of Sam and compared them against the photos that my parents brought out when they visited, of me when I was a baby - we'll let you be the judge of who you think she looks most like, but we think you'll quickly arrive at the same conclusion we did!

I'm starting to show my personality!

Here's Lydia starting to show some spunk!

Video of Lydia's first bath

Firsts

We're experiencing lots of firsts in the Baer house these days.

First time waking up with an infant in the middle of the night.
First time taking a walk around the neigborhood with a baby in a stroller!
First time enjoying 80 degree days in March (hooray!)
First baby bath in a little blue bathtub!

Lydia absolutely loved her first bath (and subsequent ones since then). She did everything short of smiling - as soon as she felt the warm water, she calmed down, starting kicking her legs around, and just soaked it in. Either it was the lavender johnson and johnson bath soap...or she's a girl just like her mom - all grown up (well...sometimes!) and still loving baths.

Photo video of Lydia's first week

Lydia Ruth Baer

Lydia joined our world on Monday, March 5th, a little before 6AM. She's healthy and beautiful, and we're all doing great!

It worked, but it looks like we're missing the music...
I'll retry with new settings tomorrow!

Waiting on Baby.

So I'm whiling the time away, trying to stay busy with my mind occupied so I don't dwell on the fact that our baby is not yet here. Yes, these probably sound like the ramblings of a woman long overdue. Nope. Still two weeks shy, just impatient as usual! I decided that it's prime time to learn how to better use my mac for entertainment purposes. iphoto has a nifty little feature that lets me send slide shows as quicktime videos, which I can then upload to youtube, and embed in the blog. The one below is a "test" - little snippets of our vacation on the coast of Italy this past fall, but the grand plan is to make a baby video when our wee one shows its face.

Baby on the way.

Our time is ticking down to the arrival of our little person. We're going to try and be a little more commited to updating this as a way to stay in touch with family and friends, especially out of town! Becki, thanks for reminding me! Well, we've got 5-6 weeks left, if I go to the end of term, a little sooner if I take after my mom. There's still quite a bit we'd like to finish before baby, but we'll survive if it all doesn't get done!