Closing in on one year

Jilly-bean is just 6 days away from turning ONE! I can honestly say this has been one of the longest years of my life.
I love how people always say, "Wow! A year already??" I laugh and play along but truthfully I am thinking, "Thank GOD! Now it should start getting easier.....right???"

Here are some of the things that I have come to love (and love to loathe) about our little girl over the last 12 months:

**She loves to bump up and down to music. That is how she dances! If being held, she looks like a marionnete puppet with legs kicking wildly.
**She cries herself to sleep many days. No amount of rocking, stroking or singing will help with that. Period.
**I have finally found a calming spot for her: behind her ear! When I stroke her there she will stop, at least temporarily.
**She prefers to stand nowadays.
**When she smiles a truly happy smile, her nose crinkles and it is melt your heart adorable!!!
**When she cries a truly angry attention getting cry, it pierces your eardrum and gets all the dogs in the hood barking. (well, maybe that is an exaggeration)
**Her style leans away from the girly fru-fru and more toward a boho hippie. Think long, flowy dresses and tye dye. Groovy, man.
**She uses her new teeth for protection. She bites her brother and my shoulder and also will poke you in the eye if you annoy her.
**She has fallen in love with baby dolls and likes to poke them in the eye, too.
**She saves her best smiles for her bruh-bruh.
**She likes to wave at the birds out of our kitchen window.
**When she is excited her legs and arms kick and splay like she has lost all muscle control!
**Her favorite game (and his, I suspect) is "Catch the brother".
**She dislikes any solid food thicker than the consistency of applesauce and will reject anything you try to give her after that.
**She still wakes at least once during the night to nurse.
**Her favorite word thus far is "Ma-ma-ma-ma".
**She has the most beautiful eyes. Like a little deer.
**She absolutely LOVES to look at photos of herself. They crack her up. I was a little afraid that she had a vain streak until I tested her with a baby faces book and got the same reaction. Apparantly she just likes baby faces!!

This year for her birthday party we are doing a Neopolitan Bakery theme. I'll post pics, of course, but I'm really hoping all the fuss will turn into a fun party. Afterall, it is just for a one year old who will have NO recollection of any of it!

RAK: my Lenten journey

So.....it's been a while. Sorry.

I have been having a ball with my Lenten "sacrifice". There have been days when we have not left the house so those days I didn't get to RAK anything/one. I am not stressing about it as Lent isn't about me stressing out, it's about focusing on being more Christ-like. I'm sure Jesus didn't stress out if he didn't perform a miracle every single day, right?

I've done pretty well, despite our homebound days. Here's the list to date. I even left blank the days that we were not able to fulfill our obligation.

Feb 29- out closing day on our old house. We put a case of beer in the fridge along with a congratulations note to the new home owners. They emailed to thank us for the welcome!

March 1- I helped a lady carry in some of her items for a consignment sale.

March 2- I brought about 7 of Jillian's hats to a neighbor who just had a baby girl and posted a plea on FB asking for any old hats to use for photos.

March 3- Nothing today.

March 4- We welcomed the soldiers home today! What a GREAT way to start the week!!

March 5- We put individual servings of popcorn in snack size ziploc bags and included our RAK note. Then we taped them onto the Red Box machine outside the grocery store.

March 6- We went to the DMV as well as two different laundromats to drop off books. Children's as well as novels for the adults (not the x-rated kind).

March 7- Welcomed hubby home with a stay-at-home-date. We had FUN!

March 8- I had to drop off something for a lady in my playgroup and she had just had her second baby so I stopped at the store and grabbed some Biscoff cookies for her to enjoy.

March 9- Another lady in my playgroup is pregnant with her second and we went to lunch. She asked me where I found maternity clothes to fit my small frame and I told her to come by and take all my clothes away....and she did!!

March 10- Nothing.

March 11- served the refugee meal after Mass

March 12- Held a BUNCO night at my house with the proceeds going to my pre-eclampsia walk instead of a winning pot.

March 13- We did a Meals on Wheels delivery. It was awesome!

March 14- Hosted a playgroup at my home to make cards of appreciation to be sent to the troops overseas.

March 15- Signed up to bring a new mom a meal in my neighborhood.

March 16- Took my two nephews to the mall for a while so my MIL could rest.

March 17- Funneled charity information from my friend in the know to a friend who was wanting some information.

March 18- Attended a baby shower for a relative even though our schedule was totally hectic and we prepared them to think we were not going to be able to make it. It's a HAUL out there!

March 19- Made cookies for our new neighbors.

March 20- Nothing today.

March 21- Did another Meals on Wheels delivery. FUN!

March 22- Nothing today.

March 23- Gave the AT&T repairman a homemade cupcake and some juice as a thank you.

March 24-Nothing today.

March 25- Nothing today.

March 26- Had cooking camp for Dominic this week and gave the babysitters dinner and dessert as a special thanks!

March 27- Donated 24 filled eggs to fill refugee Easter baskets.

March 28- Donated to the Leukemia foundation.

March 29- Picked up Gammy and Gampy at the airport and made a large Welcome Home sign and gave Gammy a dozen tulips!

March 30- Organized a Couple's Date Night and had an awesome time.

March 31- Took a walk with Dominic this afternoon and stopped at a neighbor's home to let them know that their house is Dominic's favorite house in the hood. They were pleased as punch!

April 1- Donated TONS of bottles to the White Rose Center.

April 2- Gave a $5 donation to MS at the Toys R Us checkout counter.

April 3- Put $2 in quarters in snack size baggies along with the RAK notes and taped them to the Spiderman ride at the grocery store.

April 4- Had a prolonged conversation with Carol, a lady at the dollar store who admired my kiddos. A great-grandma herself, she wanted to talk about her own family and her life as a teacher and momma. She was reminiscing and while I would usually rush off before either kid could have a melt-down, I stayed and talked with her. Surprisingly, no melt-downs!

Wow! That's a LONG list!! Easter is this Sunday but I have a few days to make up for so I'll continue for about another week.

I'll have to post about cooking camp another time. Let's just say that the attention span was hit or miss for this theme! HA!

Two months later...

Has it really been TWO MONTHS since I last posted? Times have been so crazy here since we've made the move. I can't believe we've been in this house for 6 weeks already.

As you can guess, we've not done much in the way of playdates and such since the middle of January. Unless you count unpacking boxes, that is.

One thing that has gotten easier is Miss Jillian. She turned a corner behavior-wise late January. We've been loving her MANY smiles! Who knew this kid was so flirty?? My favorite is when she dons the "aw shucks" pose when someone smiles at her.

We've had unseasonably warm weather this winter and that's allowed us to play outside in our new backyard. That is perhaps my favorite part of this new house: being able to open the back door and boot Dominic outside to play and all the while I can see him from the huge wall of windows off the den! Superb!

Our new year's resolution this year is to volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. It's not easy to do with a 3 year old in tow, but I found 2 groups that revolve around volunteer projects appropriate for his age. YAY!! We are signed up to deliver meals for the Meals on Wheels program next week!

In a related note, last week we received our ashes for Ash Wednesday and we took some time to decide what our Lenten sacrifice would be. (Lent really snuck up on us this year!) Finally, at one of J's 4am nursing sessions it came to me: for the next 40 days Dominic and I will do one random act of kindness per day! So far we've only done two days so we'll have to make up for the 3 days we missed on the tail end of the 40 days.

Saturday we went through the drive-thru at Wendy's for lunch (long story) and I paid for the order behind me.

Today as I was leaving the grocery store there were 4 Girl Scouts selling cookies at a table. I noticed them walking in and made a note to buy each of them a candy bar. Since we bought 2 boxes just this morning after Mass, I told the girls that I wouldn't be buying cookies and that I just wanted to stop by and give them a little something for all the good they do for others. Their eyes lit up when they saw the candy bars and it made my heart smile as I walked away to their excited voices.

I'm loving the random-ness of it all. I even made some RAK cards to pass out as I do the good deeds to kind of explain what I'm up to. I suspect some folks will be a bit suspicious, sadly. I'll take a photo of the cards and post the pic later.

Any ideas for any good deeds that I can do? I'll make sure and post mine periodically so you all can participate with me, if you'd like.

So, the Longhorns really mussed it up big time for the OU game. Yuk! We are rebounding from the game and hubby has pretty much written them off for the next two seasons.

I've had a bit of time to reflect on our activities from last month up to now and it's more than I had thought it was. We've been so sick for so long that it really didn't seem like we'd done much of anything. So, in this post I'll post one photo from each playdate we've had recently. Here we go...

Our back to school neighborhood playdate. I made these stickers and put them on mini M&M packs.

The arboretum has their huge pumpkin patch open. We had a picnic.

My attempt at getting 2 kids in 1 photo.

Getting friendly at a hot air balloon festival.

We went to the international airport to an outdoors plaza to watch the incoming planes. VERY cool!

A make your own ice cream playdate. Yes, another one!

We were invited to a local high school football game. Dominic loved the noise and we stayed for the halftime show.

We checked out the zoo.

Did the Oktoberfest thing...

Visited the state fair.

And started soccer lessons!!!

All of these activities was with friends and/or playgroups. Pretty busy despite pneumonia, huh??

One year later...

Well, as of April 6th I have had a blog for one full year!! Can't believe I have kept it up as I have. It definitely helps that this helps keep the out of town family included in our happenings.

This post is a mish-mash of sorts. I want to start with a report card of sorts for my yearly progress at making friends. So, in true SAHM fashion I created a report card for myself to fill out.

In thinking back over the past year and all the cool playdates, events, and friendships we've made, I tried to find a way to document the coolest. So I ranked the top 10 highlights of the year. Here they are:

10. Fall camp


9. BUNCO nights

8. Mardi Gras parade


7. Van Gogh painting


6. Arboretum picnics


5. Halloween costume parade


4. Spring camp


3. Summer camp


2. Second baby booms!!


1. Yo Gabba Birthday Party


Each of these highlights was a super special time spent with friends. I am thinking of making a mini-scrapbook of photos from these special times. It'll make a great book to read at bedtime, don't you think??

I am so lucky to have wonderful mom friends to experience such great moments with!!

Anybody home???

I promise we are still alive and well. I'm going to try to keep up this month with our busy life. We've already had quite a bit going on!

I received a new Project Life kit for Christmas and have been plugging away, taking a photo each day to display in the album. My album from last year is only lacking 4 pictures! Not too bad for a busy mom, huh? If you want to see what the fuss is all about, check out the Project Life kit here: www.beckyhiggins.com

Today we don't have a scheduled playdate however O is coming over to play and enjoy a custom-made firetruck cookie. D asked for one earlier and I promised him we could make cookies after his nap.

We got a cool firetruck cookie cutter from Aunt Suge for Christmas so we put it to use today. I'll post pictures of the cookies later, they are in the oven, smelling the house up real nicely!!

Other big news?? We find out pink or blue in just 4 more days!!! I still can't believe that we are already almost halfway through this pregnancy! I am 19w, 2d today. Wow!!

I am planning on doing a cute photoshoot with D sometime tomorrow so I'll post pictures of what I'm able to capture.

Thanks for hanging in with me!!

Playing catch up!

I did it again...got behind on our activities.

Thursday we had our own version of S.H.I.T. night. What is S.H.I.T. night, you may ask? Well, for MANY MANY years the men in my husband's family have gotten together every Thursday night and made dinner and enjoyed some good wine. That's right, they COOK!! They enjoy getting together and seeing what they can come up with. It stands for Sure Happy It's Thursday.

Anyway, we S.H.I.T. night widows have been meaning to get together ourselves, but have never followed through on our plans. So Thursday night we did! It was so much fun!!! We had it at hubby's Aunt Katherine's house and she was prepared for kids. She has a whole room strictly for the kids with all kinds of cool stuff! D was in toy heaven!

He got to play with some of his second cousins whom he only sees at Thanksgiving. They were all so gentle with him, I didn't mind enjoying the family talk while he was in the other room. I managed to sneak a shot of him playing with a baby doll. CUTE!

**pic coming**

Friday was my hubby's birthday as well as our 5th wedding anniversary. D helped me bake Daddy a cake. Isn't he cute???



Saturday we had one of DH's college buddies over for a cook-out. Their birthdays are one week apart so we celebrated them both. He has two boys and D loved getting to check out their i-Touch. Why are kid's so into electronics???

Monday we took it easy. Grocery shopping and a nap. We had an impromptu playdate with R and G at their house. G is learning how to share. I know I am biased and all, but I think D is a wonderful playmate to learn how to share with. He is pretty patient and doesn't mind having to play with a different toy in lieu of fighting over one.

Today we played over at Nana and Papa's. D was asking for them yesterday so we made a date for this morning.

So, there you have it! We are all caught up now.

Tomorrow we have a pool playdate. Thursday and Friday I have to set up for my summer camp that starts next Monday. My neice will be here Thursday to help me get organized. Everyone is excited to begin!!