Spring Break

Spring break has come and gone and it was a nice relaxing break from the busy work week. Jillian, Bandit, and I enjoyed a weekend in Hallettsville for the 1st weekend of the break. Jillian loved being outside and walking around. She loved going up and down the step to the porch (with no hands I might add.)She played with the rocks and put them in the bucket...
and then attempted to carry the bucket around
On Sunday after church of course Granny had to have a fashion show. She put Jillian in the dress that I wore for my 1 year pictures. She had even put new elastic in all of the waistbands. I bet I was just as cute as she is today!
Jillian also enjoyed swinging outside - she giggled every time she went back and forth
Bandit also enjoyed Hallettsville - look no rope! He went the entire weekend without being tied on the rope. He even spent some time outside by himself without being tied up. He made a trip to the pasture with dad and rode on top of the toolbox on dad's truck. He is a totally different dog when he is in Hallettsville. I think he will make a great farm dog one day!
Jillian also enjoyed playing with Willa. We really thought we were going to have a fight on our hands when Jillian realized she could push this baby stroller. They worked it out thought and just started pushing the stroller together. This time they were actually pushing it the same way instead of fighting against each other.
The 2nd weekend of Spring break we had planned a camping trip to Lake Somerville with Kevin, Kelly, Klayton, and Kenzie. We knew that the weather did not look promising but we were willing to risk it. We got there Friday, which was beautiful and we were able to get in a quick boat ride and some fishing before it got completely dark. Jillian didn't really know what to think about her 1st boat ride but she did fairly well with the help of some food bribery.

Saturday morning we thought we were prepared for the weather. We had out pop up tents sent up over the picnic table and cooking equipment and we had a tarp blocking the north side of our shelter. We thought we would be good when the rain started and the wind started to blow. What we didn't anticipate was the sideways rain! Needless to say after a while we were all wet but Kevin and James were very wet because they were trying to secure another tarp to block the rain. After we quickly ate breakfast, we thought it was best to load everyone into the car (including Bandit, who was filthy), grab some dry clothes, and head into town for a while. Jillian was happy to be dry and warm and was able to take a nice nap. We spent some time at the Laundromat and Walmart and by the time we headed back to camp, it was no longer raining but...
It was cold! We had a good set up and made a fire close to our tents. We made it through the day and still had fun. Although some people will say that we were crazy - well many have - we survived and stayed mostly warm.
We kept Jillian warm with as many layers as possible and she had a heater directly on her throughout the night. She had warm cheeks, ears, and nose when she woke up in the morning.
Even though she made it through all right - she was happiest when we were on our way home!

1 Year Pictures

We took Jillian's 1 Year pictures yesterday at JC Penny. Jillian did great and it was very hard to decide on the pictures b/c they all looked great! We had all the pictures emailed to us so here are a few of our favorites!

Look out - Here I come

Jillian is Walking!!!

When I picked Jillian up from school on Thursday her teacher, Ms. Laura was so excited to tell me that "Jilli is walking!" I didn't know what to think. I questioned if it was just a few steps or if she was really walking and she said that even on the playground with nothing to hold on to she was walking. I brought her home and told James and we tried desperately to get her to walk and get it on video but to no avail - she just wouldn't do it.

Later that night, I went over to a friend's house and I was surprised to see that she really was walking! She was going everywhere! I got a quick video on my phone to prove it to Daddy. On Friday we were determined to get a video and pictures and she didn't let us down. She tries to walk a lot more now then crawling and she is really getting the hang of it. It is amazing how all of a sudden they decide they can do it.

She gets really excited when she walks and often falls down but she is doing very good! Here are a few videos from some of her first attempts.

One year stats: Jillian went for her 1 year well check last week and weighed 23 pounds and was 30 1/2 inches long. She can say mama, dada, and u-huh, but dada is definitely her favorite word. I'm pretty sure that dog will be her next word b/c she often looks at Bandit and says "do." Jillian is really starting to get into playing and loves to put things in containers and then cover them up with some sort of lid. I was also really impressed the other day when I was holding one of her toy tea cups and she took the tea pot and poured me some tea! Jillian is also a really good eater but Mac N Cheese and chicken nuggets are some of her favorites. We are trying to branch her out into more foods but right now she is not too sure. She loves all fruits, which is definitely different from her Mommy. She is developing her little personality and can really throw a fit when she doesn't get her way. She has also learned that she is really cute when she bats her eyelashes at you so she tries to do that to get her way. It is more like a slow deliberate blinking but she gets her point across. Jillian loves going to school and playing with her friend and I have even had her cry a few times when I've tried to take her from her teacher. She is really at a fun age and we are enjoying every minute of her.

1st Birthday Party

We celebrated Jillian's birthday last Saturday with a party at the house. We had a wonderful time and had a great turn out of our wonderful friends and family. Unfortunately Jillian did not take a good nap and she was a little cranky but she did well considering.

I was really proud of my cake creating skills.


Jillian enjoyed playing with some of her friends around
She opened a few gifts but for the most part she just sat on my lap with her pacifier b/c she was getting really tired. Here's her big girl dump truck from Aunt Karin and Uncle Donnie

And her princess camping chair from Grandma and Papa
Jillian cried her way through the cake and singing
Had a few bites of cake and went straight down for a nap!

Happy Birthday, Jillian!

Jillian had a great 1st birthday. Yesterday at school, all the kids made her a big birthday card (poster). They even all scribbled by their names.
Mommy made mini cupcakes for a little party at school. 7 children ate all 24 cupcakes so they must have been good! I was not able to go to the party b/c I had a meeting but her teachers were nice enough to take some pictures for me. Jillian waiting patiently for her cupcake.
Notice the bulletin board for Jillian as well.
Avery liked eating her hat instead of wearing it. Who needs a cupcake when you have a party hat to eat.

No cupcake for Gabe since he's too small but he sure does look cute in his party hat!

Finally! She apparently ate 2 cupcakes!
We also did a little cake for her at home with her 1st candle and we sang happy birthday. This was my practice run cake for the party and needless to say it did not turn out so we will go to plan B for the party. Jillian liked her candle and actually tried to grab it off the cake lit. It was in her way of getting to her cake. She was pretty fussy all night up until the point that we put the cake in front of her.
She immediately dug in!



I don't know what happened to my pictures but hopefully everyone else is able to see them b/c I cannot. Jillian also opened her present - we got her a storage shelf for all of her toys so we let her open the bins that go in the shelf. She has had a lot of practice with cake so she should be a pro by her party on Saturday.

Happy Valentine's Day

When we got home from school on Friday, Daddy had brought a rose "for both of his girls." Jillian enjoyed planning with hers for a while before Mommy put it in a vase.Jillian had a Valentine's party at school on Friday and one of her "Valentine's were these heart sunglasses. I tried very hard to get a pictures of her with them on but it was very difficult - they all turned out cute though.



Someone brought cupcakes to their party and we took ours home. This was Jillian's first experience with cake but I figured we might as well practice for her birthday. She wasn't to sure about it at first...

But then she got the hang of it.
The cute frog balloon is from her teacher
Then she was just being plain silly!

And by the end of it, of course we had to have a bath and wash the high chair cover! She is definitely like her Daddy though - she had to drink a lot of milk with her cake. James can't eat any sweets without having a big glass of milk with it. I guess if all else fails and she continues to have difficulty drinking milk out of a cup, I'll just give her cake every day.
We hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!

January Update

Has anyone wondered where we have been or missed us? I have been without a computer since the beginning of January and finally got it back or rather a brand new computer, which is so much faster, all thanks to James' brother, Bradley! Our computer had been really slow and we had tried to get Bradley to help us with it and he basically said that we were going to have to get a new one and that it could pretty much crash at any time. I was very scared that I was going to loose all the pictures and videos on it from Jillian's 1st year! I frantically began backing up the pictures but we were not able to get the videos off b/c we did not have the capability to burn them to DVDs. One day I turned the computer on and it said it had like 35 viruses or something crazy. Needless to say I quickly turned it off and called Bradley. He was able to transfer all of our stuff off the old computer on to this new one so all of Jillian's memories from her 1st year are safe!

We started off the month with a birthday celebration for James. He turned 35 on the 8th and we had dinner at his parents house. As you can see Jillian was not very interested in the cake but I will say she was tired and ready for bed.
Our month then got very interesting the following week. I came down with the stomach virus on Friday morning and was in bed, well and in the bathroom all day. The daycare called early that afternoon and said that we had to come get Jillian because she had fever. The weekend was pretty rough as we were all sick but Jillian was by far the worse. We went to the doctor on Monday and they told me that she had RSV and of course that there was nothing that they could do for her. She was miserable! All she did was lay in our arms with her head on our chests and occasionally she would lift her head up to look at us and lay her head back down. She had a terrible cough that sounded like she was choking or not breathing so needless to say we took turns sleeping with her in the guest bedroom. James was off on Tuesday so he was able to stay at home with her while I worked but after that we were out of options. We had to send our poor, sick child to Granny's house for a few days so that we could continue to go to work. This was Jillian's first time away from us and we missed her terribly. I went to get her on Thursday and she was better but not great. We sent her to school on Monday but she got sent home again shortly after lunch. Luckily she started feeling better on Saturday and we were able to grab some lunch and run some errands. While at lunch, Jillian was being a total clown and we were so happy because we literally had not seen her smile the entire week!
She was still all smiles for her bath so we couldn't resist taking more pictures.
I was so excited to update the blog today so I had to try to get a few more pictures since our month was so uneventful. Today was pajama day at school so Jillian got to wear PJs all day. Here she is being silly with Daddy.
One of her new things is that she likes to give hugs. I told her to give Mommy hugs and she laid her head on my legs. It just breaks my heart - I can't wait until she learns to give kisses!
Now that it was safe to remove the videos from my camera and upload them to the computer, I could not resist including a few of my favorites. Jillian loves walking with her toy she got for Christmas! She will not walk at all without it - not even holding our hands. We often have to walk around in circles around our living room furniture but a few times it has been nice enough to go walk outside. She does really well and we can walk about three houses down before we have to turn around and come back home. I just think she looks like such a big girl in this video with her tennis shoes. She likes being outside and looking at things but she always continues walking.

Jillian also has a new word - she now says uh-huh.

That's all for now - I'm sure there will be lots of updates in February as our little girl will already be turning one! Time really does fly!