I guess it was inevitable...

Tonight, Jillian was not too happy with my decision to not rock her until the morning. Even though I rocked her for even longer than normal, she was upset when I went to put her down. Really upset. I tried to walk out of the room, but turned around to see....

And soon after, the other leg made it over and she was only slightly hesitant to jump. Neal and I took her down before that could happen, then quickly removed the side and added a railing to keep her from rolling out in the middle of the night. I kept saying that I was surprised she had made it this long without trying to do this, but at the same time - I WAS NOT PREPARED! Needless to say, even after the bed adjustments, she was still not interested in going to bed. So she decided to jump the railing (even though there is an opening at the end that she could easily crawl out of!) so we took that down too and just left her in her room to try to let her know we were serious about going to sleep (since it was 2 hours past bed time after we got to this point.) There was lots of putting her back in her room and many times where I had to sit on my hands to not just go in and scoop her up. Not surprisingly, we went in after the tears had quieted down to find this...

After tucking her in, we added the railing back on to keep her from rolling out, just hoping she doesn't try to jump before I can get to her in the morning!

Around Christmas, but after all presents were purchased and Santa's sack was packed, Meredith saw an ad for the Imagination Movers Live tour and was so excited. Luckily, I have a friend that occasionally happens upon tickets to things like this and she was very good to us to find a set of four amazing seats!

When we told Meredith last week that we were going, this girl was leaping in the air excited!! We didn't even know she liked the Imagination Movers this much! In the days leading up to the concert, she told us she couldn't sleep because she was thinking about how they would be getting to the concert and worrying about Warehouse Mouse, who they showed walking instead of riding the bus on the commercial. She also had dreams about the Movers! Silly girl!

Ready for the Movers!

The opening act was Choo Choo Soul - it was lots of fun!
Lots of dancing!
Then the Imagination Movers finally made it to the stage!
Two of Meredith's favorites - Dave (in the red hat) and Nina who taught them a hula number
Meredith did a pretty good hula with Nina
Even if Warehouse Mouse had to walk, he got there safely!
By this point, it was time to dance in the aisles!
And being silly in the aisles, too!
We saw lots of Jillian snuggling with Ruffles since the concert interfered with nap just a bit, but she still had lots of fun!
I snapped a little too late, but here is Rich right after giving Meredith a high-five!
And Smitty right before the high five!

What fun!!

Love is in the Air

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We did lots of celebrating for Valentine's Day. We started off with some cookie baking and Valentine making on our 5th ice day. Then the next day after the ice had melted, we were able to enjoy Meredith's Valentine's Party at school.

Jillian likes the eat immediately philosophy of cookie decorating!
Working together
Meredith taste-tested some too!

Yummy cupcakes and cute craft for her school party
And a little pin the nose on the heart

The following Sunday we had dinner with my family to celebrate and then had a playgroup party on Monday (and I took zero pictures at either - but both were lots of fun!)

So happy to have my sweet little Valentines in my life!

Ook a Meeee

One of Jillian's new favorite sayings is "Mama! Ook a Meeee!" Usually accompanied by the cutest giggle as she is hoping I will "look at her" doing something she thinks is super-silly. The other day, I was folding laundry and heard her moving some of her play furniture, then heard "Mama, ook a meee! Nigh-nigh!" So I peeked into the kitchen to see her going "nigh nigh" on the baby bed and on top of a baby to boot!

Snow Much Fun!

After three days of being stuck in with ice, we were really excited that if we had another day at home, at least there was now snow to play in! And lots of it! We, of course, had gotten out for a bit on Tuesday, but the ice is just only so much fun...and this was oh-so-pretty!

The snow still wasn't quite sticky enough for snowballs, but Meredith had lots of fun trying!
Against my better judgment, I let Jillian join our excursion - she has a pretty nasty cough, but I knew she would hate watching Sissy and Daddy playing without her.
An attempt at a one-sided snowball fight. Luckily for Jillian, I called her off-limits.
Coki was actually happy to be the main target of the snow balls - she loves snow!
Snow angel time!

My little snow Bear!

We watched some big kids try to sled down our street after breakfast, so Meredith was anxious to try out the Bilibos we got for Christmas (that have lots of uses - most of which are user-imagined, but one that they suggest is a sled-ish thing). We have a pretty steep driveway, so we were excited to give it a try!

Scoping out our sled hill

Meredith was first up and was excited to try it over and over!

Jillian thought she wanted to try, but then wasn't so excited when she got into her Bilibo
Daddy helped her down anyway
And scooped her up when she was done!
Daddy's turn! He tried this way and also by sitting in one and putting his feet in the other.
Jillian's look explains it all - "Daddy, you are crazy!"
And now I think there is a hint of "I tried to tell you" in that look.
Meredith still insisted that she try out the street like the big kids... we tried to tell her that our driveway was steeper, so better, but she knew those kids must have been on to something.

Even though her look doesn't really seem to show it, she had a blast!
Jillian and Mommy are ready to go in to the warm!

First, Daddy found a new use for the Bilibo - a huge snow fight!
Before going in for hot chocolate, Meredith made sure that we cleaned off Daddy's car.

Now let's see some sun and some warmer weather! I have always said I love snow but I only want it once a year. So I am set until next year!

Cabin Fever

As probably everyone knows, the weather here has been pretty bad - and so we have all 4 been at home pretty much constantly for 4 days. We were blessed to have Neal's work not open each day so that we didn't have to worry about him on the icy roads and so we had him around to play with us too! So when you are home for 4 days, you pretty much use up all of your entertainment resources: NetFlix streaming, art projects galore (including all the fun art stuff we got from Christmas), tents, a cardboard color-it-yourself playhouse, and just about every toy from the playroom! I took a few pictures of some of the most fun we had - although now I am not 100% sure what day this was...they all run together!

We built a whole Zhu Zhu Pet city which allowed us to find the long-lost Pinkalicious (seen in Meredith's hands above) and Meredith and I even sewed a bed for her big hamsters and one for her baby ones. It was supposed to be a project I did for her right after I got my sewing machine, but I kept getting side-tracked. This week seemed like the perfect time to make sure it happened!

Jillian loved reading books as much as possible but also insisted that, although we pretty much stayed in PJs all week, that she needed a bow! She did a pretty good job of picking one out that matched her jammies!

Then an impromptu PJ marching band broke out.

As you can see, everyone took turns on the singing in the mic, playing the drum (a coffee can with a toy whisk), and leading the band with Meredith's toy violin bow