Jillian is 7 months old

It is so hard to believe that another month has flown by! Jillian's newest trick is all of her babbling! She constantly says "DaDa" (not necessarily toward Neal, but he is always excited when she does say it in his direction!), and even though that is her favorite, I did hear "MaMa" a couple of times, too.

She is as busy as ever - a constant ball of wiggles and loving to creep all over the floor after any toy or scrap of paper she can find. We are definitely working on how to keep both Meredith and Jillian happy as Jillian may happen to reach out for something Meredith was interested in or vice versa. She is also loving to eat real food - we have added in fruits now, but anytime you pull one of those little containers out of the pantry, her little legs go crazy! She also has fallen in love with baby dolls and other babies in general. She basically attacks all of her "friends" (that all happen to be boys) with huge slobbery kisses and does the same to all of Meredith's baby dolls.

We are all loving having this little girl in our lives, she is such a perfect addition to our family!

Here are my sweet sisters sharing a music box at Gigi's.

Aren't these outfits too cute! It isn't too clear in the picture but Meredith's is monogrammed with a big M and Jillian's a big J, of course!

Go Dragons!

This Saturday night, the whole Geurin family headed out to support our favorite Dragon, PJ, as his team won a fantastic HS football game. The game was at the Cowboys stadium so that was so fun to check it out! Meredith loved getting to go back and forth with Landon between the four parents and Gigi and Papa who sat down by the Sook family. We dined on the most expensive hot dogs ever, but loved every minute of it!

Singing the anthem to the "Pledge Allegiance" flag
Jillian celebrating one of many touchdowns
All the kids showed their love for PJ with these cute stickers on their backs

Wagon Ride

Last week with lots of beautiful weather, Meredith and I decided it was time to introduce Miss Jillian to one of Meredith's favorite forms of transportation - the wagon!

Look at that grin! She had so much fun - especially trying to grab that bag of cookies out of sister's hands!

A pretty monumental occassion for the Hanks family - letting Jillian play on the lions! There is a house around the block from us that has 2 lions out front, which we must ALWAYS stop to ride as we take our walks. Pinky has always been the rider of the lion that Meredith was not on, but since before Jillian was even born, Meredith would say, "When Jillian gets bigger, Jillian will ride a lion!" And so we tested that out today. No pictures since I didn't quite trust Jillian's balance on it, but here is one to commemorate the day! I wonder if the people who live here know how much joy their lions bring to my little girls?

Holiday Magic

Saturday was Meredith's premier as a ballerina! Her dance class did a performance at Holiday Magic, an annual marketplace of little booths full of holiday gift-type items.

The first time I observed Meredith's dance class back in August, she hardly moved - she just seemed overwhelmed by all the parents watching. But each month, we have had another opportunity to observe again and she has gotten more and more animated. Last week they actually showed us this dance and she just lit up everytime she did the moves. So, I was hopeful that she would be excited to really perform, but who knows with a three-year-old, right? Luckily, she was all smiles the whole time and did a great job remembering the moves (or remembering to watch the teacher to tell her which moves to do!) I was so proud of how great she did! I didn't get many pictures of her performing really because I was working the video camera, so I am posting that too!

Meredith and Maddie being silly before they performed! We are so blessed because we were taking dance with sweet Maddie and then learned that they would be in the same preschool class together too! Meredith has loved having Maddie with her at school and dance.
Meredith lighting up the stage!

Holly Jolly Christmas performed by some really cute preschool girls - enjoy!

Love from San Francisco

We were so excited to see our good friends, Josh and Liz last week. Josh was one of Neal's college roommates, but I claim him first because I was friends with him even in High School. Josh has been a huge part of some really fun times - dinners at Jester dorms, helping me study for biology tests, playing intramural sports with us, lots of nights out with one or both of us throughout college, roadtrips, and on and on and on. Neal and Josh continued to bond the year before Neal and I got married when they were both living back in Arlington - they had weekly nights watching football or drinking beer. The next year, Josh headed to St. Louis to med school, where he met Liz - they got married and then headed to San Francisco for their residency, and now we just hope that someday Texas will call them back! Until then, we are always thrilled to see them when we can.

This was actually the first time Josh had seen Meredith since she was little bitty (except from a far at their wedding) and of course the first time we got to introduce Jillian to "Uncle Yosh" (nickname courtesy of Neal, Mike and Josh's Swedish roommate their Junior year). Meredith was a little apprehensive of the visit at first, but Daddy finally got her to come out from behind his legs to take Josh on a tour of the house. It was quite in-depth starting with her books, her lamp, where you go potty, where you wash your hands, Jillian's room, and then making sure that he knew that "it is hot in there" while pointing out the hot water heater.

So sweet!

Meredith was in a silly, silly mood! We could not convince her to not put her hand in front of her mouth, but oh well - she is still super cute! :)

Jillian's 6 month photos

I am considering adding a gallery onto our house just to display all the beautiful pictures of our girls from Adrien. I should at least take out stock in a frame company because I can't choose just one picture from all of these photo shoots to display in my house (or on here for that matter!) Here are some of my faves from Jillian's 6 month session and a little commentary because I love her and these so much...

Love those eyes

oh and that adorable face too...

And this one makes me think of her making her new favorite sound (kind of like a cute little growl)

And this one shows how joyful this little baby is - loving to giggle and smile at everyone around her.

But she can also be so content to just play and watch and learn

And try to make sure everyone sees her

and then just be super silly and make us all laugh!