Halloween

Kate was very excited about Halloween this year. She chose to be a fairy princess (note the wings). I squeezed Jill into a 0-6 month frog costume because I thought it was so cute (and I got it for free), but the poor kid couldn't extend her legs so she kept falling over during the pictures. Kate helped me carve the pumpkin this year, and we gave it 6 teeth in honor of Jill. (For Kate's first Halloween, our pumpkin had 2 teeth.)

We trick or treated on our street with some neighbors for a while, then headed over to join some friends in their neighborhood. Here's Kate with her pals.

Jill has a cold and is teething pretty badly, but she was a trooper for the most part and enjoyed the walk in the stroller. The weather has been gorgeous, and we enjoyed the time outdoors with good friends.

Pumpkin Patch 2010

We attempted on two different occassions to take pumpkin patch pictures of the kids together, but Kate seems to be going through an anti-photo op phase. She has been a champion "smile and say cheese" kinda kid for most of her life, so I hope she grows out of this quickly. We did get some cute pics of Jill, though.

Here's Kate lookin' too cool for school...and pumpkin pictures.

On the move . . .

Our little Jillybilly is mobile! About ten days after she turned 9 months old, Jill started crawling. Kate didn't crawl until 11 months, so this is sort of catching me off guard. Jill has already mastered her walker and loves chasing Kate around the house. I think that having a big sister has greatly contributed to Jill's desire to move. She is just not happy being stationary anymore...the exersaucer might as well be a prison cell.

Here's Jill in the walker, which by the way is murder on your heels when she rams into you from behind.

Here she is playing with her musical table/standing toy.

And here she is standing in her crib. Josh helped her pull up, but once there she LOVED the view, as you can tell. She has tried and tried to pull up on her own, and I'm sure it won't be long until she does. (These pictures remind me of similar photos of Kate at this age.)

Here's some video of Jill crawling. This was several days ago--she's actually much faster now. I guess it's time to babyproof the house again . . .

Summer Recap

I haven't posted in about two months, so I'll try to recap some of our summer activities. In July I celebrated my 32nd birthday surrounded by my wonderful family.



My parents were in town so we decided to take advantage of Grandparents' Discount Day at Kiddie Acres. We arrived late in the day and had the entire place to ourselves. It was our first time there...interesting place. It has a bunch of old carnival rides like boats, airplanes, a ferris wheel, etc. Kate loved all of it. She especially loved riding a real pony and brought her cowgirl hat just for the occasion.



A good deal of our summer was spent indoors due to both the heat and to Jill's frequent napping. I'm looking forward to when she drops to two naps a day--it'll definitely make our schedule more flexible. So, this pictures chronicles one of Kate's favorite indoor activities--dress up, complete with "clip clop" shoes, earrings, and as many tiaras and necklaces as she can manage.

Jill's favorite activity is probably watching her big sister. It is so fun to see them interact. Here's an early morning shot (see Kate's major bed head) of them being goofy together.

Kate's friend Adelaide stayed with us for 4 days this summer while her mom visited her hubby who was working on a film in California. Kate absolutely loved having her first "sleep over." They dressed alike on this particular day. I thought they both looked so cute and grown up.

In August, we took a family vacation to Port Aransas. We rented a beach house along with my parents and my brother. It was a short get away, but we all had a great time--and Jill got her introduction to the ocean.

In September the girls and I spent a week in Elkhart visiting my parents and celebrating my mom's birthday. Time spent in the "country" is always full of adventures. Kate LOVES riding their four wheeler around and around the property, through the winding trails of very dense piney woods. She also enjoyed fishing in their pond and caught 3 fish while we were there! We also went to a cattle auction, to a horse barn, and got to see my aunt's chickens. Jill enjoyed grandma and grandpa's swingset and also taking baths in their big kitchen sink.

We had a fun summer, but I am ready for cooler weather and enjoying walks to the park without sweating bullets. We're also excited about our "school year" activities starting up, like Community Bible Study and MOPS.

(By way of a quick Jill update, she is now 8 months old and though she doesn't crawl, she does roll around like crazy in her crib. She has four teeth, all on the bottom. She babbles consonant sounds like "mamamamama" and "babababababa" which is fun for Kate to hear...she always exclaims, "Look Mom, Jill's talking!")

Jill's 6 Month Update

Jill turns 6 months old today. She continues to be such a smiley, social baby! The past two months have brought many "firsts" to her world: toys, food, a tooth (came in on June 28), sitting up, and rolling over. (Okay, she's only rolled over once but we figure it is no easy feat to flip that 95th percentile tummy over.)

She enjoys the exersaucer daily, though the teething ring seems to frustrate her just like it did Kate.


Her favorite pastime is definitely the doorway jumper.

She has literally jumped herself to sleep three times.


Here's Kate getting in on the jumping action with her little sis:

When Jill turned 5 months old, we tried rice cereal. She LOVED it. We've since tried some other first foods (sweet potatoes, pears, and peaches), none of which she even remotely liked. The girl definitely prefers bland mush to anything with flavor.

The day we fed Jill her first bowl of rice cereal, Kate was so interested that she requested a bowl for herself. She polished off two bowls of yucky, tasteless rice cereal--just mixed with tap water--and declared that it was delicious. I'm pretty sure she didn't actually think it was so great...she just wanted to be included in Jill's food adventure.

Kate has been a doting big sister from the very first day we brought Jill home, but now they are really starting to interact which is such fun to watch.

In the past few days, Jill started sitting up with the Boppy pillow for support. I think she enjoys the new point of view. I know she'll be mobile in the blink of an eye, so I want to savor this time when I put her down and she stays there. :) Congrats on your 6 month birthday, sweet Jilly billy!

Four Months

Jill turned four months old last week. At her check up, she weighed in at 16 lbs., 13 oz. and 25 1/2 inches long. Still quite the whopper. :) She's started regularly sleeping through the night without waking to feed. Aside from cradle cap and some serious teething, she is a healthy, smiley, happy bundle of joy.

Kate's Third Birthday!

Kate turned 3 years old on May 3rd. Our little girl is so grown up! That weekend, we invited a few friends from our Bible study over to celebrate. It was a Princess Party! We had little princesses and princes (and even a Buzz Lightyear) running like banshees all over the yard. It was a great time. Kate's birthday falls at such a wonderful time of year for outdoor parties. The jasmine on our back porch always blooms the week of Kate's birthday and makes for a nice backdrop.

Kate's party also included the grand opening of the new and improved tree house playscape in our backyard. For the past couple of weekends, Josh had been working on building a new lower platform for the slide, so that it's at an appropriate angle instead of the crazy steep death drop that the previous owners had it. He did a great job, and I'm much more comfortable with letting kids play out there. Now it is a safe, fun place for Kate and her friends.

We had a treasure hunt for the kids, with clues hidden throughout the yard. The final clue lead them to a sandpit where they dug for buried treasure.

The princesses found the treasure! Rings, necklaces, and--best of all--ring pops. Kate was pretty excited about this candy that combined her love for bling with her love for sugar.

Even Jill got in on the princess action.

Kate received several princess dress up outfits as presents, which means her friends know her well. :) She was thrilled, and now her dress up trunk is full to the brim!

Uncle Casey gave Kate a mixer for her play kitchen, and she was very excited. Ever since seeing her friend Ella's mixer, Kate had been requesting one for herself. :)

Happy birthday, Kate! We love you!

Sisters: Comparing at 3 Months

Here's Kate at about a week shy of 3 months (7/25/07)...



And Jill at about a week after 3 months (4/21/10)...