Thursday, July 7, 2011

Fourth of July

We had a great July 4th weekend, the highlight of which was our Hometown neighborhood parade and festival.

Such a quaint, wholesome little neighborhood...just ignore the man on the curb with his kids drinking a beer at 8 a.m.

We decked out the sit & stand stroller for the parade, but sadly lost the "most patriotic toddler" contest to some stinkin identical twin girls wearing giant red white and blue bows. Next year we are taking Uncle Todd's suggestion and sending the kids on a tour of Iraq and bringing them back wearing purple hearts. Eat that you star-spangled twinnies.  (Plan B is to adopt some triplets in time for next year's contest.)

After the parade we had a festival and they asked all of the veterans in the neighborhood to come forward. Rob went up there even though he missed the memo that all veterans should wear goofy hats. 
Tate played on the water slides and then had some shaved ice. 
Lily Jane observed from her patriotic chariot and plotted her  "most patriotic toddler" getup for next year.  That new tricycle WILL be ours!
Happy Fourth! 

Friday, July 1, 2011

Splitting Hairs

Tate has always been known for his signature haircut which has been described as "anchorman hair" or "church hair." We get his hair cut at Cool Cuts 4 Kids because it has a train table and he can sit in a fire engine and watch Dora and not scream bloody murder like he does at any other salon that does not have the above-mentioned amenities.

The problem with Cool Cuts is that the turnover is high and we always have a different stylist. But I always give the same instructions: "clippers set to '4' on the sides and scissor cut on the top, leaving it long enough for me to brush the bangs to the side." (aka: anchorman hair)

The result has been decent, usually:



But EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to get his haircut right before a visit to Mississippi -- where he will be seeing relatives he only sees maybe once per year -- the result has been consistently off. Mississippi is the land of shaggy frat-boy haircuts and yet Tate has been there sporting...


The Bowl Cut
Mississippi 2009

The Army Cut
Mississippi 2010


 The Hairstylist Was Drunk or Standing On A Rocking Boat When She Cut The Front Cut
Mississippi 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

Sip & See

A few pics from the super sweet sip & see hosted for Lily Jane by my high school friends this past weekend...

Kellie and Kim -- good friends and FedEx colleagues

Lily Jane has grown so much already that she was too big for the daygown I originally planned for her to wear!   This sweet smocked gown was just perfect, though. 

Sarah, Valerie and Kasey -- the hostesses and my best friends from high school
I wish I had a picture of the spread...they set up an ice cream sundae bar that was adorable. And although LJ has been really, really fussy lately, she was a dream at the party. (whew) Thanks to my family and friends who came out on a hot Sunday afternoon to honor Miss Lily Jane! 

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Ole Miss Reunion Weekend

We took our first trip as a family of four this past weekend to Oxford, Mississippi. We rented a minivan  (or "money-van"as Tate called it) for the occasion and drove 1200 miles with a 3-year-old and 6-week-old. Amazingly, we lived to tell about it...

We were there for the 100th Anniversary of The Daily Mississippian, the student paper of Ole Miss. Rob, his father, and I all served as editor of The DM when we were students. Rob's mother was managing editor. The family distinction was referenced several times during the weekend.
Charles Overby recognizes Jimmy, Rob and me at one of the events.
(Why did I even bother straightening my hair in Mississippi??) 

Several of our colleagues/dearest friends from The DM also came back for the reunion and we had a fun night out with them remembering some of the crazier moments from our newspaper days. It had been 13 years since we had all been together but it felt like nothing had changed.
Emily Boling Giffen, me, Natashia Gregoire

Rob, Chris Shaw, John Scanlon

One thing that DID change was that we were all up early at breakfast together after a night out...not because we had stayed out all night, but because we all have toddlers:



In addition to the DM Reunion being a family affair for us, it was a grandparents affair for Tate and Lily Jane. My parents graciously came to Oxford to be our "traveling nannies" so we could enjoy the events without worrying about finding a babysitter out of town. This meant that Tate and LJ got to spend time with all THREE sets of grandparents in the same town at one time. We don't think that will happen again until graduations or weddings...and we can't take any more visits like that anyway because of how supremely spoiled they were the whole weekend!

There was Big Guy and Mia (not pictured) taking them for a walk around campus:



There was Poppy and Linda (not pictured) giving zerberts:


And there was Nanny-sippi offering ice cream:

It was also the first time Nanny-sippi had seen Lily Jane:


Tate was soaking up the attention (and presents) while Lily Jane just chilled most of the weekend...

And after a weekend of celebrating the fact we worked for the paper, we actually made it in the paper via news story and not via byline:

Such a great weekend of family, friends and college memories!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

LJ Words

We had fun coming up with "Tate Words" for the blog such as Levitate, Meditate, Regurgitate, etc, etc.  Click here to see all of them.  I'm reviving that theme for Lily Jane and doing "LJ Words."  And our first installment of LJ Words is....

Little Jenny

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Summertime

Tate loves his swimming pool. The best $30 I ever spent...










UPDATE: I just realized that this posting means Tate will never be able to run for Congress...men with shirtless pictures on the Web don't fare well there...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

1 Month


Lily Jane turned one month on June 2...hard to believe it's already been a month, but in a month's time she has ...

  • weighed in at 9 lbs and measured 21.5 inches at her two week check-up
  • had a ganglion cyst on her hand and a blocked tear duct disappear
  • gone through multiple outfit changes a day due to lots of spit up (I think she's just trying to make sure she wears all of the fabulous clothes from friends and family)
  • brushed up on her knowledge of V6 engines...

become a colicky baby...


(note: the blue headpiece was just there for a photo op while we watched the hats at the Kentucky Derby)


spent a lot of time curled up on her mom's shoulder...


had visits from several friends and family (including Linda who was not allowed to move from this position for four hours because LJ was finally calm)...




become very alert and curious....





and stolen all our hearts!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Huggums

Lily Jane has a doppelganger in Huggums, my childhood doll:





Huggums was given to me by my aunt Trisha when I was a newborn, and somewhere there exists a picture very similar to this one of me with Huggums. Linda made the adorable matching gowns for the two (and there are matching caps as well, but then we'd miss the fabulous hair!), and I love how similar they look in them -- from the round cheeks to the rosebud mouths to the monkey hair.  So sweet!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Lillian Jane Robertson

Lillian Jane Robertson arrived on May 2, 2011 at 7:22 a.m.  She weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. As she was being delivered, I heard the nurse say "she's got a lot of hair" and then, even louder, "and look at those cheeks!" ... and I knew instantly, before I had even seen her, that this child was mine.




Tate gets his first peek at LJ 

We had a lot of family and friends visit at the hospital. Click here to see pictures of LJ's visitors.

Tate passes out pink bubble gum cigars and says "It's a Girl!" 
We have been home a week now with Lily Jane, and although my recovery has been more difficult this time around, everything else has been easier. She is very laid-back and easy-going. At one point I told Rob I was concerned something was wrong because she so rarely cried. He said something was wrong with my head.

Getting ready to go home
Tate adores his baby sister and asks to hold her frequently. He runs straight to her every afternoon when he gets home from preschool.  Watching him with her makes everything seem right in the world.


In fact, everything IS right and we already can't imagine our life without sweet Lily Jane!





Some Frequently Asked Questions: 

What exactly are you calling her? 
Her full name is Lillian Jane, and while she is young we are calling her Lily Jane -- a double name. We also shorten it to Lily or just LJ, so really anything goes. We anticipate that the 'Jane' will be dropped eventually, much like my sister Nancy Beth eventually became known as just Nancy to everyone but me. Texas is not as accustomed to double names as the Deep South is, and we had one woman poke her head into my hospital room after seeing our "Lily Jane" door hanging and ask if she could see "the twins Lily and Jane."

The name comes from both her grandmothers -- Lillian Janette (Rob's mom) and Janet Lillian (my mom) who both were named after their grandmothers named Lillian.

Who does she look like? 
I'm told by my family that she looks exactly as I did as a newborn, but I had even more hair. (She was born at 39 weeks and I was born at 42.5 weeks so who knows what kind of crazy monkey hair she might have had if she had baked as long as I did!). Tate looked like Rob as a newborn, so we are even. We think her eyes may turn brown like Rob's and can't wait to find out!

Will she have her own blog like Tate does? 
No, I have changed the url for the blog to "www.tateandlily.com" and will post about both children there. The old address (taterobertson.blogspot.com) will still get you there, though. Figuring out how to make all that happen only took me about 10 hours of screaming at the Interwebs.

Are you getting any sleep?
No.

Do you have any other pictures? 
Well since you asked...


The Nursery

Getting acquainted with her crib for the first time

First Bath


After the bath...baby duck  hair!

Off to her first doctor's appointment
A few other memorable notes about Lily Jane's arrival that I want to document for posterity...the night before she was born, Poppy and Linda were at our house. Linda was finishing up the nursery, Poppy (Rob's dad) was working on his laptop, Rob was watching TV and I was posting pictures of her nursery to Facebook when Poppy saw on the Web that a "big announcement" was coming. We quickly changed the channel to CNN and learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed. We stayed up late watching the news, which made our 5 a.m. "showtime" at the hospital more difficult, but at least we arrived knowing Lily Jane would be coming into a world free of bin Laden.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

End of an era

From the Bunny outfit of Easter 2008...

To the eton suit and knee socks for Easter 2009...

To the smocked longall of Easter 2010...

....I knew I was pushing my luck with the boutique Easter clothes. This year, Tate's face told me I had pushed it one year too far. He has achieved self awareness. (sadly, we are still waiting on his father to achieve that milestone)

But his timing couldn't be better...I get to start all over with Lily Jane in one week!