10 Months!

Jillian is 10 months old today!

Her 9th month was filled with fun milestones!

~ Over the past few weeks Jillian learned to efficiently crawl, pull herself up, and how to get herself back down from standing. Now our big girl can explore new parts of the house, and she's loving it! Surprisingly so am I. Everyone said when they start crawling it gets crazy, but it's been so fun. I'm so proud of her and it's also so fun to see her little mind work and what she finds fascinating.

~ Now that's she races around the house crawling, Austin thinks she is so fun to play with! He gets his nose in between her legs, and nestles in like she's crawling for his enjoyment. Here are a couple pics I snapped with my Iphone of Austin creating an obstablce course for Jillian.

~ One of her new tricks is picking her nose. She loves to stick her index finger up her nose. Jeff couldn't be prouder.

~ Jillian is doing great with Sippy cups. She takes 2 of her 4 feedings from a cup. She also drinks water/juice from a cup. She loves to feed herself with the cup, and I love to let her :) This keeps her highly entertained on long walks and car rides.

~ Still a pretty good little napper. Some days are better than others. When she learned how to crawl and pull herself up, naps were non-existant for 3 days. Oh my was she a tired baby! She would crawl around her crib, pulling herself up, and that was so much more fun than napping. Thankfully we are past this novelty and she's napping again. whew.

~ Definitely a tummy sleeper. She gets into a corner of the crib and falls asleep, usually with her hiney straight up in the air. My mom says she's dreaming about crawling :)

~ Has started to push my hand away - she's getting more independent! If she wants to do something without my assistance, she brushes my hand out of the way, like 'I can do this on my own mom!'

~ A few weeks ago Jillian graduated out of the infant car seat. She loves her new one! Her infant one was getting so tight on her shoulders. Look how much she's grown!

~ All gums! No sign of teeth for this litte one yet!

~ Jillian loves that we live 5 minutes from the zoo! She's actually recognizing animals (especially the big ones). Here we are with Mariam and Leila. Friday my parents went with us. She loved the monorail ride with Unchie.

Now that Jill is crawling, taking pictures are hard! Sitting still and smiling is a thing of the past. Here are some of the best shots I could get to mark the start of her 10th month.

And we're on the move. Sat still for about 10 seconds.

I spot Mommy!

Here I come!

Oh.... HI!! She was about an inch away from my lens.

Playing in her room.... she wants to play with anything up high

I can't believe she is 10 months, and getting closer to a year old!! How can I slow down life?

Crawling

Here is a video of Jillian crawling.

Nothing too funny or crazy in the video - I'm really posting this for family that hasn't seen Jillian since she started crawling. Enjoy!

New Adventures

Jillian has been having a lot of fun lately! New adventures and new things....

As I noted in my Easter post, we can now sport bows without the headband! Sooo exciting to me. To Jeff, not so much :)

We've been going to the zoo quite a bit. Here's Jill with Jones and London. Kristen and I had a great time chatting and exercising. The babies enjoyed looking around.

Feeds herself most of the time. What a messy messy process mealtime is now!

She still lets me spoon feed her sometimes - mainly at night when she still happily eats things that would make me gag (for ex: sweet potato, kale, millet and ground walnuts. Yep, she scarfs it down. What a health nut)

Look at that gooey mess!

Look at this guy.... he hoovers around during mealtimes. Always the Opportunist.

A few days before Jillian finally mastered crawling, she loved to get in the push-up position.

So funny.

We're crawling! Let the fun begin!

(Now that she can get anywhere her little heart desires, I finally had to start yanking things out of her mouth. Like sticks and rocks. She does it lightening fast)

Just this morning look who I caught trying to pull themselves up?

She was so proud. She was supposed to be napping, but this is more fun!

She tried again in her playpen.

We got a swing for the backporch. Jillian loves it. Always gets a giggle.

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter Weekend! Last year my mom gave me a fantastic Easter basket full of baby items for Jillian, this year Jillian got her own Easter basket full of goodies!

We went over to my parents house Saturday afternoon so we could be near their church to minimize the craziness of getting ready Sunday morning. Jeff and I were also able to have a date, which is always a bonus! Here is our little bunny Saturday afternoon playing with Unchie.

**Her hair is finally long enough she can wear a bow! I have one in pretty much every moment she's awake now!**

Sunday morning Jillian woke up to this huge Easter basket from Bama! It was full of toys and clothes; it's sort of a challenge filling a basket for a 9 month old - no candy! She also set up an Easter Egg Hunt, but Jillian was way too tired by the end of the day to hunt for eggs with Jeff.

(I got Jillian an Easter Basket too, but it looked so small and boring compared to this one that I wont be posting it)

We all went to church at 9am. Jillian was a doll. She stayed with us during the service, not the nursery and was great, even through the preaching. After church Jillian came home, took a 2 hour nap while we ate lunch (my mom is a great cook - so yummy!), then we put Jill's dress back on and headed outside for pictures!

Here's our little Easter Bunny Sunday afternoon.

Now that she's crawling, she kept wanting to get away and go eat the grass.

Crawling around and exploring is a lot more fun that posing for pictures!

Airplane with dad!

This was seriously the last picture we took of her.... she was done with pictures!!

Jillian you are so deeply loved, not only by your mom and dad but your entire family, and especially God and Jesus.

As fun as the Easter gifts are, it really hit me this year how blessed we are to be loved by Jesus. To have his grace. Good Friday and Easter Sunday had a much deeper meaning this year, because I was so thankful that Jesus died for Jillian. Our hope and prayer as parents is we raise her to love God. Easter was a great reminder of the gift Jillian is, and how precious and loved she is.