My Little Ponytail

Today was a milestone that is big for all little girls - Jillian's first ponytail! And to commemorate her cute little Pebbles-esqe tuft and to show off how great of a sitter she is, we headed out on this beautiful afternoon to snap a couple of pictures.

What do you think?

Taking a picture was a little hard because she was so enthralled with her new view - watching Meredith and her two friends play on the swing set - then suddenly, she realized what she was sitting on felt a little funny. So then I lost her to exploration in the grass. She even tried to taste a little - luckily I caught her before it got into her mouth.

Texas Fight!

To complete a football weekend, we headed to Plano to watch the Texas OU game with Marc, Julie, Anna and Joseph. This is a long-standing tradition to watch this game together and we were excited to get to introduce the two newest members of our families to the fun!

Daddy and the girls ready to cheer on the Longhorns!

Never saw two cuter cheerleaders

Meredith and Anna always have so much fun playing - especially in Anna's fun playhouse

Jillian and Joseph seemed to enjoy having each other around - here Super-baby Joseph, who is a few days younger than Jillian, is showing her his crawling skills

I think Jillian was impressed - it is true love indeed.

Always a highlight of going to see Anna - playing Uncle Marc's drums.

Friday Night Lights

Small town Texas loves to spend their Friday nights at football games, so we took a cue from them and headed out to see the Arlington High School Colts this weekend. AHS is Neal's alma mater and my HS rival, luckily I wasn't into too much of that, so throwing on some green and routing for them wasn't too tough! Plus, as of now, two future Colts living at my house, so I figure better get used to it now!

Both girls had a blast! Meredith loved getting to wear green (her favorite color) and cheering for the guys in green, she thought the band (especially the drums) were great, she was enamored with the cheerleaders and studied them all night to perfect one of their cheers (complete with a kick at the end), and she was so excited to see the "horsey" mascot (she even got to go onto the sidelines to meet him thanks to a friend we ran into who is a student and escorted her down!)

We had so much fun we are hoping maybe they make it to playoffs so we can go check them out in the new stadium!

AHS classes of 1997, 2025 and 2027

Jillian is 6 months old

How am I already writing that Jillian is half way through her first year? This has been an amazing 6 months with an amazing little girl. We have had lots of fun this month introducing her to new foods - peas and beans are huge favorites but she has seemed to like all the veggies that I have introduced so far - on to fruits next month!

As long as I am not far away, we have been doing some great sitting practice. And the big news is she is on the move with lots of creeping and rolling. She has such determination to get to whatever toy (typically something Meredith left behind) happens to be close. Meredith isn't quite too sure about this new accomplishment yet, but Jillian is pretty proud of herself!

So excited to have made it across the room to grab sister's glasses!

We have had some victories with sleep this month by getting her to sleep swaddle-free. But she is now waking up a little earlier all the time - she just eats and goes right back to sleep until the rest of the family is getting up, but I do long for those earlier months when she was sleeping through the night. I keep thinking that it was great for her to choose to sleep better when I was working and would not have been able to function on such fragmented sleep, so I am thankful for that and I know this is just a period of time that I will miss someday too (I think!)

Jillian and I are enjoying our days with just us two when Meredith is off at school - we love to just cuddle and take naps together and of course play! But Jillian's favorite time of the day seems to be our nightly bedtime routine - after stories, Meredith rides on Daddy's back like a horse and then insists Jillian and I be bunnies. She giggles and talks with every bunny hop. Then we head to Meredith's bed for songs and neither girl can wait for "Rock-a-bye Baby" where we act out the song with motions and lots and lots of laughter. We are such a blessed family!