December

This month has flown by! Matt and Jill celebrated their 3 year wedding anniversary on the 16th. What an amazing 3 years it has been. We have had so much fun together, learned a lot, and grown closer as a couple.

Lillian is one month old! She gained 3 pounds exactly since her last doctor appointment, weighing 10lb 4oz now!! She's our plumpy girl!

Christmas was fun this year. We spent Christmas day with Jill's family in Springdale.

Then Matt's family came up on Tuesday and Wednesday. Seeing Lilly's cousins was a highlight, her cousin Madelyn is just one month older!

We went out to eat for the first time since she's been born. Just down the road to Ruby Tuesday with Matt's mom.

Overall it went well, except she was fussy the entire time and Jill had to hold her to keep her quiet. We'll try again soon.

Back to work

Lillian is 2 and a half weeks old! Time is already starting to fly by. We had a great week together as a family before Matt started back to work on Monday. It will be hard to adjust to things with just the girls at home, but Jill is looking forward to getting into a routine and spending time with Lilly. Life with baby has been a lot harder than expected but it's so much fun. We just eat and hang out all day. Here she is sleeping and rocking her leg warmers.

Our girl is already outgrowing her newborn clothes!! It's great that she's healthy and growing but it's also kind of sad!! We thank God every day for our sweet girl and the blessing she is to us. Our hearts are so full.

We had more visitors this past week. Jill's grandmother and cousin stopped by on Monday. Lilly got her first jewelry gift, a beautiful birthstone ring that mommy gets to wear until Lilly is old enough to have it. Thanks, Meema!

Also, many thanks to our friends for bringing us meals last week. It has been a huge relief to know we don't have to worry about cooking!

Comment Changes

Hi everyone...just a really quick note to let you know that we updated the way comments work for this blog. Some of you had told us that you were having a difficult time posting comments. You can now post comments easier...just click the "# comments" hyperlink at the bottom of the post. Feel free to select "Name/URL" and just enter your name...the URL part can be left blank.

We would LOVE to hear your feedback! Thanks for keeping up with us!

-Jill, Matt, and Lilly

Our first week

Well our first week of life as a family has been amazing. After spending 2 days in the hospital, we ventured home and enjoyed hanging out with the Gunselman crew. Jill's mom, Cindy (aka GiGi), stayed with us for 3 nights to help out. Grandpa CD was a lifesaver on keeping us fed, always having bacon, eggs, and biscuits/gravy right when we "woke up"...I am learning that waking up is really a loose term when you have a newborn, but she is already getting a little better at making it through the night.

We've had some really fun times so far. So far, Jill's favorite is burping Lilly right after feeding. She's just so cuddly and sweet! Matt's favorite is tummy time with Daddy. She lays right on his chest and sometimes tries to look up and around just to see what's happening.

After the Gunselmans left, Grandpa Schilb and Nana were knocking at the door ready to help out and snuggle that little baby. They kept us fed with Sushi and helped out with our crying little baby in the middle of the night.

Lillian also had her first bath and she absolutely loved it! Now every time we take her back to our master bathroom she thinks she's going to get another spa treatment with a scalp massage and warm sponge bath :)

Matt's sure enjoying his time off work and so grateful to get to spend so much time with baby Lilly.

Lilly also had her first check up this week! We bundled her up and made our first trip out of the house. She still has some ounces to gain back but the doctor isn't concerned because she's eating so well. She measured 19 inches and weighed 7lb 4.5 ounces. And she loves her car seat and riding in the car! She's such a good baby!

We've had some delirious moments at 2am, but we're always thankful for our sweet girl. The funny moments just keep coming. Matt has been sleepy during diaper changes and left the dirty diaper in her pants with the clean one a few times. Jill has been a little slow with the diaper changes which gives Lilly the chance to pee on everything.

Thanks to all our friends for the meals! They're a huge help. Check back soon for more updates!

Lillian Brooke is here!!

Our precious girl is here! We are so excited! After several hours of contractions early Sunday morning, we went to the hospital. I was admitted around 6:30am and the fun began. Epidural first, then Pitocin to speed up the contractions. Pretty soon it was time to push! After 1.5 hours of pushing, Lillian came into the world screaming at 3:51pm. It was beautiful!

Our little Lilly was so observant, looking at Mommy and Daddy for the first time with big eyes. Our hearts immediately melted.

Lillian was 7 pounds and 13 ounces, and was 18.5 inches long! She was exactly what we had prayed for, and are so grateful to our family and friends that joined us in prayer for a happy and healthy baby.

Matt became a Daddy and rushed to her side, telling her how much we love her and watching as she got cleaned up and swaddled. We became a family and Matt and I already can't imagine our life without her. What an enormous blessing.

She had her first bath, screaming her little lungs out during the bath and absolutely loving getting her hair washed.

Our family was so supportive and great! Joy, relief, excitement, amazement, and love could not be measured.

The first nights in the hospital were great, but all those stories that people tell you about lack of sleep are finally realized and appreciated. We were a tired little family, but when we made it home safely with our little baby girl life was at its best.

We'll post more soon about our first week of life, but wanted to go ahead and post our birth story.

Books for baby

We had fun this weekend looking for books for Lillian. Our friend told us about this cute used bookstore in Rogers so we headed out on our mission. First we stopped at Starbucks and got some yummy drinks. Then we laughed as we traveled through a maze of 8 foot tall book shelves in this store until we found the children's section. It was a small space, but packed full of treasures. We found some great Christmas stories, a few Disney princess books, and some funny ones.

Here is Matt with a scratch-and-sniff book about camping! He almost dropped the book after getting a whiff of the skunk and the fish! Pardon the fuzzy picture, Jill was laughing hysterically as well. We left with $7 worth of great stories and Matt has already started reading them to baby Lilly. She'll be here in a few weeks!

Week 36!!

We are 36 weeks along! She'll be here so soon! Jill has been enjoying her first week of maternity leave. It has been nice to get some rest, work on stuff around the house, read about labor and delivery and pray about the upcoming events. Our doctor thinks that Lillian's head is down, which is great news! Let us know if you have any advice on labor and delivery! We love hearing about the experiences of our friends and families!!

Look at that belly!! It'll be enormous if she takes 4 more weeks to make her appearance!

Happy Halloween!

It's our favorite time of year! We had a small Halloween party with friends again this year. It was a lot of fun!! We made some apple cider and cake and played games. Matt's idea was to play games from the show Minute to Win It. It was a blast! We played several fun ones, Jill's favorite was the one where you put an Oreo on your forehead and have to move it to your mouth only using your face muscles! Hilarious!

Our friends had great costumes as always! We had Lois Lane, Lex Luther, and Superman. There was a princess with a pumpkin. A snuggie Zebra with her Razorback husband and baby, Benjamin Button. The best was Dane who dressed up as Matt's Fantasy Football league. He had on an item to represent everyone's team name... very creative.

We were cavemen! Handmade costumes are the best, and it was perfect because Jill's belly is so big it would have been hard to find anything else to fit!

Shower Pics!

Thank you all so much for the wonderful baby shower! We love all of our gifts! There will be many pictures to come of Lilly in her adorable outfits!! Can't wait! We love you guys!

Fall is here!

The leaves are starting to turn! They are so beautiful! It is a refreshing change from the long, hot summer. Jill has been growing that baby and is looking forward to maternity leave starting November 1st. We are at week 34 now and so thankful to have reached such a big milestone!!

Our friends had a wonderful baby shower for us! We got so many adorable things! Lilly will be cute as a bug in her new outfits and snuggly blankets. It makes it so much more real to have all these things that will be hers, sometimes we just stare at everything and try to imagine what she'll be like. We'll have some pictures soon to post from the shower!

Matt had the awesome opportunity to hike with his best friends and camp at Devil's Den. Big thanks to Dane for organizing the trip. It was a lot of hard work, but they did it and had a great experience, despite the blisters and bruises. They headed out Saturday morning, packed and rearing to go!

Their hike was about 14 miles, with a camp site around mile 7. Much relieved to see the 7, they stopped and set up camp to rest and relax. Even enjoying a "spa night" in the creek. After a hearty breakfast, they set out on their journey, only to discover the real campsite was at mile marker 8. If only they had kept going they would have been able to enjoy the luxury of stone recliners. Darn.

While the boys were in the woods, some of the wives got together for a fun night. We enjoyed dinner, yummy yogurt for desert and a movie! We are so thankful to have such awesome friends and look forward to many more adventures together!

It seems like the daily grind of working, eating and sleeping take a huge toll, but we have committed to enjoy each other and this life. To have hearts full of thankfulness and joy. And to know that we are greatly blessed to be able to work and provide for our growing family. We look forward to this new season and plan to enjoy every second of it!

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15