Walking In A Winter Wonderland

I asked her to wait until Christmas - and she basically did. Jillian has been taking 4-6 steps for awhile and then pitching herself forward, sitting down or grabbing on to whatever was near. On Christmas Day we were at my parents' house and Jillian was the only kid there. She got sole possession of the Leap Frog Train, and pushed it all over the place. It was like walking boot camp in a way because soon she took 8 steps and then 10 and so on. Here's a short video from yesterday.

Christmas Morning At Home

This year was again filled with travelling to different locations for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We are very lucky to have our family so close and so even all the travelling we do isn't that bad. We still felt fortunate to carve out a few hours to ourselves on Christmas morning. I made pancakes and we settled down to open some gifts. We got Jillian five gifts this year (that's up from the 0 we got her last year). She got blocks, a pull telephone, a Little People mini van (that she still hasn't opened - it's under the tree right now) and two Roxy dresses that dad picked out. Jillian still doesn't quite get the opening of gifts. She liked to rip one or two pieces of paper, then she stopped. If she found a piece of tape it was all over - her attention could not be returned to the gift inside the wrapping. Maybe next year...

Jillian At {Almost} 13 months

I haven't really done a check-in post lately (or any posts as several people have pointed out - sorry!). Here is a little bit about Jillian JoAnn Lewko:

• At her 1 year appointment she weighed 19 lbs, 11 oz. (25% percentile). She is in the 50th percentile for height (enjoy it while you can, sweetheart) and the 25th-50th for head circumference.
• She still isn't walking. She can take 3-4 steps but then stops and sits down or pitches herself forward and falls. Mama is still not in a rush.
• She says and signs so many things! She likes to repeat words once you say them and so it is hard to tell the words she knows. I try to only allow them to the "list" when she will say them without prompting. Signs she knows/does: More, Eat, Milk. Words she knows/says: More, Mama, Dada, Balloon, Up, Cheese, Hi. She is practicing more and more everyday.
• Her beautiful, glorious, wonderful habit of sleeping through the night has been interrupted for the past 2 weeks or so and she has had frequent night wakings. Bummer for her and for us. She usually only requires our attention once during these wakings. Often she'll toss and turn for a bit and then fall back asleep. I really want her to go back to the wonder of 10+ hours of continuous sleep!
• She is learning to climb. First the stairs. Now she is working on her little chair, the couch and the dishwasher, which as you can see, she has mastered. I actually took this when I was at home by myself with her one weekend. I was doing dishes at the sink while she was playing with the detergent tray of the dishwasher. I look down at her and she had climbed up onto the door. So funny. Jason came home at that moment and I called him in right away to look at our silly girl.
• 8 (?) teeth and counting. We can't really tell how many teeth our girl has. As far as I know it is 8 but about a month ago she was pretty fussy and drooling and we thought for sure new teeth were coming. Not that we've seen or felt. But you do risk amputation by putting your fingers in that cute little mouth.
• We are still having so much fun with her. I am struggling to be the best mom that I can be while balancing work, my marriage and life in general. It doesn't always (or often...) work out the way I imagine or idealize but I am working on accepting the joys life brings and not trying to make myself and others something we are not.

Riding on Her Car

Jillian loves her new ride-on car. She can even make a car noise, though in this video it turns into raspberries. She is so inquisitive and it is amazing to watch how her mind works.

Jillian's First Birthday Party

Jillian shares her toys with her guests.

We held Jillian's 1st birthday party about a week ago at my parents' house.

We invited some of her friends. Here she is with Ava Yates.

Emma Stephens, Jillian and Ava play with giant legos. All three girls played great together.

Mama and her baby girl.

Sarah made all the desserts.

Yes, all the desserts.

She is very talented. Jillian is very lucky to have such a loving aunt!

Contemplating her cake while we serenade her.

Really digging in.

Jillian Turns One

Our baby girl turned one today. Can you believe it?

She tried her first cake (and probably her first refined sugar). She was very ladylike but started shoveling it in as she got the hang of it. She actually didn't dig into it like we thought. We broke it apart so she could taste some of the cake. She was eating all of that pink frosting.

I can't believe that one year ago I was giving birth to this sweet baby. Our lives have changed so much over the past year. Jason and I can't imagine our world without her. Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

Jillian Loves Balloons

Jillian loves balloons. She gets super excited when she sees them and she loves to play with them. Here's proof!

More, Please

Jillian has been "talking" on and off for awhile. And yes, a "Dada" and "Mama" has come out. I was denying that she was actually referring to us until she did it in front of a third party who said,"Oh look, Jillian can say Dada." This was a couple months ago. Then she had a brief period where she was saying "uh oh" when she dropped something or knocked something over. That wasn't consistent and so I still had my doubts. But now, there is a new one. MORE. We have been working with Jillian on sign language and have been doing the sign for "more" and saying it at the same time. Well knock me over with a feather she started signing it back and saying it! I have been trying to capture it on video and I finally did!

And a special thank you to my loving husband who bought me my brand new computer that I am typing on! It is gorgeous and I am so excited to have a laptop that doesn't die the second I unplug it!!!

A Slightly Different Halloween

Many of you know that I ordered this Alice in Wonderland costume online and was disappointed by it. Well, overall, I think my daughter is adorable and she rocked this uber polyester thing. We debuted it last week at the Peregrine company picnic with the headband and tights but yesterday I was in a fog and didn't get it all together. Plus, it was too hot for tights.

We made a trip to the Canfield house for pumpkin carving. Jillian loved the feeling of the pumpkin guts. She carried around a chunk of pumpkin as we finished up.

An expensive knife is no match for a strong pumpkin. The secret is to use a drywall knife.

I took longer than the others to complete my pumpkin. I thought the pattern I used was too intricate and took forever! It was only rated two pumpkins out of four but my spiderweb had so many cuts!

Here are our pumpkins. From L-R: Dad, the scary clown; Mom, howling at the moon; Jason, laughing skull; Kristyn, spider and web.

We ended up going home after pumpkin carving, putting Jillian to bed and watching Nightmare Before Christmas. Next year we'll take the 'bean trick or treating.

The Stairs!

Here's the story
of a lovely lady
who was climbing up
three very lovely stairs

Only With Grandparents

We spent the night at my parent's house last weekend after the party. Jason got up with Jillian and then at some point came back to bed telling me that my dad took her. So when I finally dragged my butt out of bed and went looking for my daughter I found her sleeping with my mom and dad (they were awake reading the paper). She never does this with us! Sometimes I'll put her in bed with Jason while I get ready in the morning and she crawls all over. If she is really tired she may sit close and still but not fall asleep! Grandma Pam had her fall asleep on her recently too. It must be the grandparents' magic touch.

Dinner Club Halloween Party

On October 17th we headed over to Bonnie's house for our Dinner Club's Halloween party. This is the party and costume search I mentioned in the last post. First of all, the decorations at Bonnie's house are awesome. It looks so cute and I wish I would have thought to take photos of the decor. Way to go Bonnie! Even though we were exhausted we had a great time. And Bonnie's Chicken Enchilada Soup was so yummy!

Pictured, Back Row L-R: Kristen and Mike as Betty and Fred (we didn't realize they didn't "match" the entire night), Michelle and Sam as trailer trash Queen and King, Jason and I as a bag of groceries and a Trader Joe's bagger.
Front Row L-R: Bonnie as Strawberry Shortcake, Michelle and Sam's daughter Callie as Ariel and Kim and Ben as a butterfly (with cat ear's) and a hockey player.

Pumpkins, Pictures & Pouting

The Canfields invited us to some pumpkin hunting and picture taking at Bates Nut Farm last weekend. We squeezed the trip in between the Mud Run at Camp Pendleton (Jason) & hunting for a Halloween costume (Kristyn & Jillian) in the morning and our Dinner Club Halloween Party in the evening. It was a very loooooong day and it didn't go 100% smoothly (does anything?). I forgot my inhaler that I waited 45 minutes for at CVS and we got a flat tire a minute away from the pumpkin patch. I'm sure some of you may have already seen some photos up on the Canfield Blog but here are mine.

My adorable nephew Adam. He was wearing a jack-o-lantern shirt.

My older nephew Ethan. He was the only kid that might understand picking out a pumpkin and he was asleep for the first half!

Ron got a better shot than this but we certainly didn't have cooperative babies. I think Grandma and Grandpa loved being around all the grandkids!

Jillian checked out the pumpkins with Daddy's help.

She was more interested in the hay. I am so hopeful she does not develop the allergies her dad or I have to hay and grass and dust and ...

The Two Js. Big J and little j.

My little j is getting SO big. We ended up with a baby pumpkin for her.

Opening Cabinets

Jillian finally figured out how to open the cabinets. We went straight out to buy cabinet locks... that didn't fit. So a few more days of this...

Ready For A Dog Of Your Own?

Jillian is trying to show us how responsible she is by taking Brody for a walk. Let me show you how to hold a pooper scooper.

The Canfied Family {Minus Ron - We Miss You!}

Ron is off in Texas shootin' armadillos or something like that... and Sarah is playing super mom with Ethan and Adam. What a cute family. We miss you Ronnie.

Adam - almost 3 months old.

{Mmm} What'd you say?

Fact: Kids don't like sugar.

So dang cute. Ethan has so much personality. He made friends with a grandfather at the party and shared his cup with him and sat on his lap. Such a funny guy!

Brooklyn's Birthday

My cousin Megan's daughter Brooklyn is about to turn 1 year old. We celebrated today at a park near her house.

There was a bouncy castle. {Tell me someone thought of "Safety Training"?! Doug?!} We brought Jillian inside to investigate. She was a little unsure at first but then enjoyed crawling all over. We tried to get a photo of our girls but they didn't cooperate. I have 3 other photos like this.

Ethan hung out with Aunt Kristyn and Uncle Jason in the bouncy castle and at the playground.

Ethan and Uncle Jason tandem sliding.

Jillian discovers wood chips. I was so proud.

It was such a fun party! Thanks McKinney family! Now, I really need to start planning Jillian's birthday bash.

Belly Laughs

Jillian has this awesome fake sounding laugh that explodes from her occasionally. A couple nights ago she was on a roll. I love when she sees us laughing and tries to keep us going.

Waking Up

Jillian will often wake up gently, just talking softly. It's so cute to go in and get her when she is all smiles after a nap or when she wakes up in the morning. I thought I would share the experience with you.

Can I Get A Push?

A couple weekends ago Jason and I went out on a wild goose chase for a park with some swings. We found several without swings. Kim told me how to get to Hilltop Park which is only a couple minutes away and I tried to find it on my lunch hour today. Jillian has already been there with Grandma Pam and Aunt Abbi but she had trouble telling me how to get there. Thankfully Penasquitos does a good job with signage.

This is a great park with a gorgeous view. Unfortunately, Jillian only tolerated the swings for a few minutes. She kept pointing at the different pieces of playground equipment and there were a few kids around that she was enthralled with. I swear, she was so mesmerized by them I wouldn't have been surprised if she took her first steps and then started running after them.

Jillian Lewko: So You Think You Can Dance?

Jillian can shake her groove thang! It is really cute and we can't wait for her to do it some more. I hope she has her daddy's rhythm and not her Mama's. Her cousin Ethan loves to dance and is so dang adorable doing it. I can't wait to get a Canfield-Lewko Dance Party going.

The Office Season 5

It came out today. I went on my lunch hour to buy it. Yay, yay, yay! It came with a magnet, mouse pad, t-shirt, stress ball and door hanger. Sooooo awesome. I am an Office geek and I love it!

Repurposing Computer Accessories

We were cleaning out our coffee table and came across Jason's old computer keyboard. Jillian LOVES to strike the keys on my keyboard and on all the laptops but several times she has gotten some key stuck and then I can't select anything or everything comes up highlighted. So we simply cut the cord off of this keyboard and voila, a great baby toy!