Long Days of Summer

Oh the long HOT days of summer.  What do you do when your little one LOVES being outside and it's 106?  We still go.  We probably spend 2 hours outside, maybe longer.  Thank goodness for shade.  I still sweat.  I constantly shower Jillian with water, but her poor little face always gets red because she still gets hot.  

Our neighbors have a teenage daughter and they got toilet papered (remember those days?) and the next morning we had a little fun with Jillian.  She was a bandit?  Or maybe Rambo?

After Jillian's second nap (ya, she's still on 2 naps... I'm crossing my fingers it stays a little longer!) we always head outside.  She surprisingly loves her hat.  In fact, when I tried to take it off her today once we got back INSIDE, she freaked out!  She ran over, grabbed it, looked at me like I stole her orange slices, and placed it on her head.  Okay, point taken.  We'll leave it on.  Even indoors.  She does the same thing with bows.  If she finds one of her bows she walks to me and places it on her head.  Then patiently waits for me to clip it in.  This girl is trained!

While outside Jillian always has both hands full of something - bark, sticks, dirt, ect.  Austin usually comes over and steals whatever she has and chews it up.

My little gardener.

Diligently working.

She also loves my cheap sunglasses.  Why is it I think those look ok on me, but when Jillian wears them they look like glasses an 80 year old should wear?

Of course she wants them on top of her head.  Just like I usually do.

We also love our morning walks.  And Jillian loves her sunglasses!

Thankfully we have had an amazing break in the heat this week.  I'm hoping the 100+ days are over!

Working Girl

Jillian decided since she hadn't visited her dad at work since she was 3 months old we needed to go!!  So last week we took the 5 minute drive to downtown, met Jeff for lunch, and took Jill on a tour of the skyscrapers.  All the secretaries loved Jillian and she had her own little 'entourage' of sweet ladies following her as she walked around the offices.  She made fast friends with anyone that had a stuffed animal in their office.

Jill then decided she needed to get down business and work.  

"Dad, I'll start on this stack of papers.  Don't mind me"

"Lets call your boss and tell him you need to work shorter hours"

"Don't fire me dad, I just love to chew on pens."

"That's right, I'm taking a little break"

After Jillian put in a solid 10 minutes of work, I chauffeured her home.

Exhausted.  Working is hard.  Just ask Jillian.

Step by Step

Well Baby Girl has finally started walking!!!  Last Tuesday (Aug 10) she officially did it! She has been practicing and taking steps for weeks, but I was rather picky about when I'd finally call her 'walking'.  I wanted her to let go while standing and decide all on her own to take off and start walking without any prodding from Jeff or I.  Also I wanted her to learn how to get from sitting to standing without any assistance.   We've been coaxing her to walk between us for weeks and she'd be SO proud giggling from my lap to Jeff's.  But Tuesday she was in her favorite class - Kindermusik - when she finally did it all on her own.  Here she is with Ms Paula and Michael.  They were both practicing 'bom-boms'.

She let go and decided she needed to walk towards Michael!

I stopped taking pictures then because she walked all the way over to me and fell in my arms.  I never take photos during Kindermusik class but Ms Paula wanted pictures of her 2 fav students since it was the last day of the summer session.  What luck!

Two more of the 'musicians' after class

After her big morning we went to Borders because we had a gift card that was burning a whole in our pockets.   Jillian was all over the place walking around.  Granted she couldn't really walk more than 10-15 steps without falling, but she loved practicing!  Here she is deciding to let go and walk to me!

She was mesmerized by this; it was like her own giant playroom. 

Over the past week she has gotten so much more confident and it's so fun to see her walk!  To be honest, I was really getting tired of crawling; it's so dirty and she loved putting dead bugs and chunks of Austin hair in her mouth.  I'm hoping now that she's standing this won't happen quite as often :)

Like Mother Like Daughter

Like mother like daughter - times 2.  I sleep with a pillow between my legs.  So does my mother.  Why not?  It's the most comfortable way to sleep.  I'll pick to have a pillow between my legs than under my head any day of the week.
And guess what?  So does Jillian.

I've seen this on the monitor quite a bit lately - during naps and at night - and just had to snap a picture.  She got in this position all on her own.

I got her this pillow for her 1 year birthday and she has yet to sleep with her head on it - ha!

The Bear

Jillian has her new favorite stuffed animal - the bear!  And he's enormous too.

My sister was in town last week and we all went on a Costco run and look what Bama found!

Giving her famous kisses

Once we got the bear home, he sat on the floor and she'd walk over and just fall into him and hug and kiss him.   She loves this enormous bear!

On a different note, check out this belly!!!