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.