Goooooo Cougars!

Good luck tonight!

Some Important Dates

Happy Monday! I hope your weekend was great.  The Gibsons were quite lazy Friday night and Saturday (other than grilling out for supper -- yum!).  Sunday was a great day at church, a visit with Grandmommy, and supper at Ninnie and Poppys.  So, how was your weekend???

I have always picked on my mother about Phillip having 2 baby books and I don't even have one complete book.  So, she asked where Lily Kate's baby book was, and my reply was easy -- it's my blog!  Hey, days are different now and instead of handwriting all of her memorable moments, I publish them for all to enjoy.  She did have a good comeback and say that I don't have everything on there, which is true.  So... here is a brief overview of Lily Kathleen Gibson's life.  Enjoy!

August 20, 2009 -- Taylor and I found out we were expecting!
August 21, 2009 -- Taylor and I told our families that we were expecting.

November 13, 2009 -- I felt "Baby Gibs" move for the first time.  So special!
November 21, 2009 -- I felt Baby Gibs move for the 2nd time.
November 24, 2009 -- We found out Baby Gibs is a girl!!!

December 12, 2009 -- Taylor felt Baby Girl Gibs move for the first time!

February 22, 2010 -- Baby Shower!  Given by my "sisters" at Sisters By Design.  We went to Mitchell's and had a blast!
Feb 28 -- Baby Shower at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church. (My mom's church and where I grew up)

March 6, 2010 -- Baby Shower in Clinton.  Given by Taylor's wonderful family.  It was great, and I got my car seat!!!
March 22, 2010 -- Baby Shower at our church, Fair River Baptist Church.

April 13, 2010 -- Lily Kathleen Gibson was born.  7 lbs 5 oz.  20" long.  4:35 pm
April 16, 2010 -- We left the hospital and Lily Kate weighed 6 lbs 9 oz.
April 18, 2010 -- We had our 2 day check up, and Lily Kate weighed 6 lbs 5 oz.

When Lily Kate was 2 weeks old, she was in the hospital overnight for having a reaction to the pain killer that I was taking.  It only happens rarely, but it happened to Miss Lily Kate.

June 17 - 19, at 2 months old, Lily Kate was in the hospital for G.I. problems.

On Father's Day, June 20, 2010 -- Lily Kate was dedicated at church.  She wore the gown that Poppy (my dad), Uncle Phillip (my brother), and Gage (my nephew) were dedicated in.  So special!

At 4 months old Lily Kate started sleeping in her crib, and all night!
At 4 1/2 months Lily Kate weighed 13 lbs, 10 oz and was 25 1/2" long.

August 4, 2010 -- Lily Kate got her ears pierced!
August 27, 2010 -- Lily Kate got her 1st tooth!

November 6, 2010 -- Lily Kate crawled for the 1st time!

February 20, 2011 -- Lily Kate took her 1st step!

Now there is much more than this.  Some I have recorded and some I don't.  Some of what I didn't get on video are...  Lily Kate saying "good, good, good" when she was eating something...  Lily Kate fake sneezing (it was toooo funny!).  And I know that there is even more!

Do you remember something cute/funny/memorable about Lily Kate?  If so, please comment and share it with me!  Thanks!

Our 1st Water Carnival!

Do you know what the Water Carnival is???  Well you might not, especially if you don't live around Brookhaven.  Let me give you a quick history and then I will get into how it involves us... Lily Kate!  The Lincoln County Lion's Club Water Carnival was started waaaaay back when, and it was originally a swim suit contest that was held at Brookhaven's public pool.  It is a fund raiser for our Lion's Club and is still a huge event even to this day.  Well as times have changed, so have some of the details of the Water Carnival.  Here are a few of the changes: 
1. It's no longer held at a pool, but now at our (indoor) Multi Purpose Building. 
2. It's no longer all swim suits.  Currently, ages 1 thru 12 wear swim suits, and ages 13 thru 20 wear evening gowns.  I am sure you can guess why the older ones no longer are allowed to wear swim suits...
3. It's no longer called the Water Carnival.  Boo hoo!  It's now called a Beauty Pageant.  This really makes me sad because the name Water Carnival sounded so much more fun and not such a competition.  I don't want anybody judging my baby's beauty -- I already know she is beautiful!

Anyway, enough with all of that.  This is the first year that Lily Kate has been able to participate -- yay!!!  I had to kinda talk Taylor into it.  He didn't quite understand why I thought it would be so much fun, and really didn't like the beauty pageant name either.  But he cooperated and ended up seeing how much Lily Kate and I enjoyed it. 

Well it all starts with trying on swim suits at the pageant shop.  Lily Kate, Gage, Ella, Haley (babysitter lifesaver!!!) and I went one day to take pics for the programs (Water Carnival Program and Brookhaven Academy Football program) and to try on suits.  The pics didn't go too bad.  I thought Gage would be a pill, but he was great.  And Ella and Lily Kate smiled so pictures didn't take that long either. 

Then it was off to try on suits.  We spent 3 1/2 hours trying them on... oh my.  Thank goodness for Haley, because I could not have handled it by myself!!!  Gage was actually good...  and we found Ella a swim suit... BUT not Lily Kate.  They were all waaaaaay to gaudy for her little body.  So, the sweet ladies helped me design one and they made it for her.  FUN!  I got to pick out every detail!  When we were finally through, we went and ate lunch and went to Janie's for a cookie.  Hey, as good as these kids were I thought they deserved that!

So now for the night of the Water Carnival (this is what it will always be called to me!).  Lily Kate was in the 1st division (must be 1, not yet 2 years old).  You will see for yourself in the video, but Little Miss Lily Kate was a natural!  She loved the stage!  She was having a melt down 2 seconds before we went on, but you would never be able to tell it by how happy she was when she was on stage!  I was so proud of her to have had such a good time.  Ok, take a minute to watch the video and then I will finish the story!

I told ya!  Wasn't she just oh-so-cute and happy!  Well the story continues!  After everybody got to model, they did the group review and Lily Kate loved that as well.  Then it was time for the winners:

4th Runner up -- Milly Ann Grice.  Yay Milly Ann!  This is one of Lily Kate's friends, and her grandmother works with us!

3rd Runner up -- Lanie Grace Smith.  Yay, she was so cute!

2nd Runner up -- Linley Reid.  Yay Linley!  Her mom and I have been friends for years!

1st Runner up -- Lily Kate Gibson!!!  YAY!!!

Winner -- Addyline Brown.  Yay!

And let me just add that Taylor had a huge grin on his face!  He was on the front row so I could see it from the stage!  All the girls in their group were soooo cute, I know it was hard to narrow it down!  Here are a few pics:

Sorry the pics and video aren't that good.  The lighting in there was horrible!!!  I ended up ordering some pics from the professional photog and will share those as soon as I get them!

And Ella was in the 5 & 6 year old division.  This is her 3rd year to participate.  She has never placed, but she looooooves getting out there on that stage.  This year was a bit different.  Haley and her sister worked with Ella on how to model and show some personality.  Ella walked out on that stage and she owned it!  She did such a good job.  I don't remember all of the winners for her group, but Ella got 1st Runner up!!!  Yay my Ella boo! 

I can't wait until next year.  I will not make Ella or Lily Kate participate, but I sure hope they want to!!!  Green Pea will be participating the following year, because she will miss next years deadline by about 2 weeks...

So congrats again to Lily Kate and Ella -- both won 1st runner up!!

  

The rest of vacation...

Ok, here is the end of our vacation.  It is 3 days put all together in this one post!  The highlight of this post will be the "boys" deep sea fishing trip.  It is always Gage's favorite thing on vacation, and this was Uncle Taylor's first time.  They all had a great time, even though they didn't catch many fish.  Guess what -- Taylor actually caught the most fish!  Yay Taylor!


Pics from the fishing trip: 

I think this is a red snapper???

And the last few from the beach:

And some from the pool...

And a video of Uncle Taylor catching one of his fish...  looks to me like it is hard work!

Until next vacation....

Fun at the County Fair!

Ever since I was a wee little one, I remember going to our fair.  It is tiny.  It is old.  But I loved it, just as all kids do.  Last year Lily Kate was too small to take, so we were excited about taking her this year for the first time to the Brookhaven fair!!!  Mimi and Aunt K K came down and to the fair we went!

It was soooo hot!!! 

Lily Kate was waiving to Aunt K K!

And now for some videos...  This one is of Lily Kate watching herself walk in her new shoes.  I told you she was obsessed with them!

And here is Lily Kate with Aunt K K, Daddy, and Mimi.

There wasn't very much that Lily Kate could do, but Aunt K K found something fun.  Here they are on the merry go round!

And here they are coming back from their train ride!  I think Lily Kate loved it...

  

We were only there for about 45 minutes (yay!!!).  And Lily Kate had a great time on her 2 rides, but do you know what was her very favorite of all....  walking by herself in her new shoes and saying hey to everyone!!!  Her favorite people to walk up to were 12 year old boys... her daddy told her that she was not to chase boys but to let them chase her!

Fun fun fun at the county fair!

15 month old Lily Kate

Hello everybody.  No, I didn't forget to finish blogging about vacation.  I did decide to combine the last two days in order to hurry it up a bit, and even started downloading the pics.  Just my luck the computer, or Internet, or something technical decided to lock up / freeze.  Needless to say I lost what I had been working on and have just been a bit too tired/lazy to redo it.  One day soon!

Lily Kate was 15 months old on July 13th (she will be 16 months next week...I am a little late!).  I don't have any pics to post because I am considering the beach pics as her 15 month.  She got shots at her check up with Dr. Shan and he said that she was doing good, and here is what we found out about her:

Lily Kate weighed 20lbs 13 oz, which is in the 20 percentile.  I started hyperventilating because I thought that sounded malnourished.  She had been really sick about 2 weeks prior, and had started walking full time since her last appointment.  Dr. Shan assured us that she was ok, and her height had alot to do with her being so thin.  I do feed her, I promise!!!

She was 32" long, which is in the 95 percentile... she is so tall, the average height of a 19 month old. And her head was 48 centimeters, which is in the 90 percentile.

She is just growing and is Miss Independent lately.  She wants to walk everywhere and by herself.  She got new shoes this past weekend so we could go to the fair (post coming soon) and has been obsessed with them!  They are simple little velcro Keds and she doesn't want to take them off in the afternoons.  I thought she was going to have to sleep in them the other night, and she woke up the next morning and said:  "Dada, bye bye, shoe".  Ninnie went with us to a store this week and Lily Kate loved trying on shoes.  She would walk and walk and look at the shoes and was just oh-so-happy.  I sure hope that she loves shoes as much as I do, and it looks like she is off to a good start!  This will make her Aunt Ann happy too!

Ok, enough for tonight.  Lily Kate went night night and I am ready to go night night myself!

Rebecca