Happy First Birthday Jillian!

Today we had a great day celebrating Jillian's birthday! We started off the morning with a trip to Krispy Kreme for special birthday donuts - I had been promising Meredith we would go so she could see the donuts being made so she suggested we do it as a special treat for Jillian's birthday.

The birthday girl ready for her donuts!
Big sister was super excited to get to take part in the special birthday breakfast, of course!

After donuts, we visited Bubbie so she could wish Jillian a happy birthday before we headed to story time at the library. Everyone at story time even sang her Happy Birthday! Next, we headed home to wait for Daddy, who got home from a business trip just in time for us to all have lunch together.

Several weeks ago, Meredith decided she wanted to pick a book from her room to wrap up and give to Jillian - she combed through all of them and picked a Cookie Monster book and then very carefully insisted we wrap it in Christmas paper and put it into a birthday bag. She was very excited to give it to her today and "helped" her unwrap it. Then she handed it to her, to which Jillian said "Thank you!"

Jillian and Daddy playing

We had lots of fun playing and then headed out to Campo Verde, which is a Mexican restaurant near our house that has a train that go around the restaurant and is decorated with Christmas lights year-round - so it is always a fun place for kids. After dinner, we headed home, for birthday brownies. I wanted the chance to sing to our sweet little one year old, but wanted cake to wait for her party on Sunday.

Singing to our sweet girl

This past month Jillian is getting more and more vocal - she "talks" all the time but is starting to add words to her vocab - tonight she repeatedly told us about the "kitty" on her birthday card from Neal's grandma, she also clearly said "Thank you" on a couple of occassions - and I promise that others have heard this to prove it - could be a fluke, but still, I am pretty proud!, and she loves to see the "shif" (or fish) at church. She still holds out with only taking a couple of steps and only if you REALLY convince her. She is getting more and more daring, though - I have to chase her down every day when we are picking Meredith up as she tries to go play with the big kids in the playground.

This past year has been such an amazing time for us as a family - it is just surreal how much our lives have changed for the better! And as everyone says, it seems like there is no way that a year has already flown by, but at the same time, I can't even remember what life was like with out our Jillian. I feel like as soon as she entered our lives, we seemed like a complete family - almost like I knew she was missing the whole time and we were just waiting for her to join us to make all of the pieces fit. Happy Birthday, Sweet Jilly Bean.