Merry Christmas

Because I couldn't pick a favorite, enjoy these holiday photos of Jillian, by CRWstudio.

Mamarazzi Monday: A Tree in the House

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago, but so cute I couldn't resist sharing!

Picking out our Christmas tree - Jillian is wondering why we took her out in such cold weather

Jillian wondering why there is a tree in the house.

Mamarazzi Monday: Snow

It was too cold to go out in the snow, so I brought it inside. She wasn't impressed.

However, I did make her a snow man.

Look who's on the move!

Who does she look like more?

Daddy, Jillian and Mommy, all around 6 months old

Jillian Dancing

Mamarazzi Monday: swings!

enjoying the last warm day of the year at the park

7 months old

Monthly pic with Mr. Bear

• Went on her first car trip to Chicago and Peoria Illinois to visit mommy's extended family (we switched her to the convertible car seat before we left so she'd be more comfortable in the car)
• Her 2 bottom teeth came in!
• Started prunes, chicken, blueberries, cherries, beef and puffs
• Likes to watch ceiling fans
• Loves the frog puppet that sings
• Went to the playgroup fall festival and to the pumpkin patch with the playgroup (and one with Mommy and Daddy)
• Makes kissing noises
• Met our Parents as Teachers educator
• Visited the local elementary school (already)
• goes from laying to sitting
• gets up on all fours but doesn't crawl yet
• pulled up to standing on her toybox
• Went to Boo at the Zoo and went trick-or-treating as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
• Likes to pick out her clothes for the day from the closet

picking out her clothes

First Halloween

Just a quick blog post to share some halloween photos of my little sweetie! We had a fun weekend - carved pumpkins on Friday night, went to Boo at the Zoo on Saturday and Trick-or-Treating on Sunday.

Checking out the pumpkin guts

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

All dressed up in my Dorothy costume that Mommy made, and ready to trick-or-treat.

Double fisting the candy - she was content to chew on the candy in the wrappers - it's a good thing she doesn't know what is inside the wrappers!

Half a year old

6 months old

• Weighed 17lbs, 15oz and was 25.5 inches long at her doctor visit at the beginning of the month month doctor visit
• Says mamamama
• Started sweet potatoes, squash (didn't agree with her), apples, bananas, peaches, pears and mum-mums
• passes toys from one hand to the other
• Finally rolled over from her back to stomach
• Pet the goats at the zoo
  

  

  petting the goats at the zoo

  
  
• Bangs the high chair toys on the tray
• Scoots around on her butt
• Pulled herself up from sitting to her knees
  
  

  

  My little camera ham showing off
  (we have lowered the crib mattress now)

5th Month Memories

5 months with Mr. Bear

This blog entry is WAY late as she turns 6 months next Tuesday. At any rate, here's a recap of Jillian's 5th month:

• Sleeps in her crib at night
• Kicks her legs and waves her arms around (we call it restless baby leg)
• Loves to splash in the bath
• Sits in highchairs at restaurants and the shopping cart at stores
  
  
  
  
• Started checking out board books from the library with Mommy
• Looks for dropped toys
• Sits upright in the stroller
• Sits unassisted for several minutes at a time
• Started green beans, peas and carrots this month
• Reached out and felt the rain
• Loves the jumperoo

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 2

1. This morning I had to change Jillian's diaper when she woke up at 6:45 - I usually wait until we get out of bed around 8:30 to change her, as changing her diaper signals that it's morning and she won't go back to sleep after she nurses if I change her diaper first. Anyway, I didn't bother to put clothes back on her since we were going to be under the covers in my bed. The little stinker started opening the tabs on her diaper! Guess we won't be going around in just a diaper much anymore!
   
   
2. So what do you think about the Katy Perry/Sesame Street debate? We don't watch Sesame Street yet (she doesn't show any interest - but she loves the Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba on NickJr), but I watched the video and to be honest, I probably wouldn't have thought much of her outfit. Kind of sad as I'm so used to seeing this kind of stuff on regular TV that I don't think it would have jumped out at me.
   
   
3. Jillian loves touching things and has recently shown an interest in touching animals - this week we pet a dog during a walk one morning, and she has pet Chili the chinchilla a couple times now. Of course as luck would have it, the inlaws 70 lb golden retriever is scared of her! I am anxious to take her to the zoo and see if she shows interest in the animals there.
   
   
4. I just read yesterday that our trash collection company, Veolia has sold off all their equipment, trucks, etc, as of Oct. 1 to a different local company. Problem is that Veolia has contracted with the county, and the county won't switch the contract to the new company without bidding out the collection service which takes 60 days. I just want to know who is going to be collecting the trash for us next Friday (Oct. 1).
   
   
5. We tried the mesh feeder this week for the first time - Jillian loves feeding herself. We've done apples and bananas in the feeder so far. Check out the video below of Jillian eating an apple slice.
   
   
   
   
6. She's also really into Baby Mum Mum's (rice crackers that dissolve in her mouth) now, as evidence from the picture below. I have found these at Walgreens and Walmart.
   
   
   
   
7. Lastly, our kitchen has ants in it again. This usually happens in the spring but the huge rain we had a few days ago brought them in and it's driving me crazy!

PS - I know I haven't posted the 5 month update yet - it's coming, eventually!

Growing Up Fast

This past week Jillian has done several new things...

• She is sitting (unassisted) really well now, and can move from sitting to laying on her stomach. She has even gotten her knees under her trunk a few times but hasn't actually started to move yet. I'm pretty sure she'll be crawling in the next month though.
• During the day whenever I fill a glass with water from the fridge dispenser, I let Jillian feel the cold glass and recently I have been letting her taste the water. Well we were at a restaurant for lunch on Friday and the waitress sat Tom's glass of iced tea in front of him. He was holding Jillian and she immediately put both hands on the glass and started pulling it toward her mouth. Not only did she taste the tea but she started licking the lime stuck on the top of the glass!
• Today we were sitting on the couch eating our dinner (Chipolte) and I had sat Jillian on the floor in front of me while we were eating. She looked up at me and crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her bottom lip! I've never seen her cross her arms before.

Mamarazzi Monday: Jillian and Friends

Crinkle King
(can you tell this one is her favorite?)

Green Bug

Frog Legs

Crinkle Kitty

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Mamarazzi Monday: Green Beans

This past week Jillian got to try green beans for the first time, her first food other than the rice cereal.

At least as much got in her as is on her face!

She stole the spoon from daddy and tried to feed herself

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Fourth Month Recap

Monthly Mr. Bear Picture - She looks so grown up!

Recap of Jillian's Fourth Month:

• At her 4 month checkup today she weighed 14 lb 11.5 oz and was 25" long
• Loves playing with all her toys (look for a blog entry next week introducing them all to you!) She even convinced daddy to buy her a new toy that she picked out at Target.
• Went swimming at the Chesterfield Family Aquatic Center and the Maryland Heights Aquaport
• Checked out the sprayground at Millennium Park in Creve Coeur
• Attended her first playgroup with mommies and kiddos from the St. Louis Mommies Group.
• Found her toes - and likes to play with them!
• Enjoys exploring different textures - soft and silky on Twinkle Froggie, and a cold soda can for example.
• Learned she can scoot down in the bathtub and drink the water. Giving her sips of water from a sippy cup helps keep her from drinking the bath water.
• Took her first long car trip (2.5 hours) to Boonville, MO for the first annual Boonslick Art and Music Crawl. She did pretty good in the car, considering she can't see anything from her rear facing car seat, so riding in the car while awake is extremely boring for her!
• Started rice cereal! She seems to like it and understands the concept of opening her mouth for the spoon. She also likes to stick her hands in the bowl though.
• She also started taking baby zantac this month to help with her reflux problems. It hasn't totally alleviated the problem, but her spit ups have decreased dramatically. We still have to give her mylanta after she eats once a day or so too.
• All three of us visited the Butterfly House in Faust park last weekend, and even though it was REALLY hot inside, Jillian watched all the butterflies.
• She started making the Razz sound and blowing bubbles and sticking out her tongue this past week and thinks it's hilarious to do so.

With our buddy Andy at the Maryland Heights Aquaport

Yummy Rice Cereal!

Playing with my dress and sticking out my tongue

What it costs to have a baby

I finally got around to adding up the total cost of the delivery and hospital stay. Remember, this was a medicated, but not complicated vaginal birth, with 2 days, eight hours total time spent in the hospital.

Total billed to the insurance: $14,097.66
Provider discount: $6,385.03
Total paid bt the insurance: $6,155.57
Total paid by us: $1,556.40

Mamarazzi Monday: The Sprayground

We took little Jillian to the sprayground at a local park for the first time yesterday. She loved it and didn't want to leave...mostly because she was trying to drink the water in the fountains (her latest obsession).

 Our friend Andy sprinkling water on Jillian's head

Trying to drink the water

Where'd the water go?

(it shuts off every 10 minutes or so and you have to go press a button to start it back up)

All done - such fun!

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7 Quick Takes

1. In an effort to blog more, I decided to try out a "7 quick takes Friday" blog post. I first saw this on the blog "So Much to Say, So Little Time."
   
   
2. I found a neat website today, www.stlexercise.com, which lists places to exercise in the St. Louis area. Turns out a lot of the pools near our house have "tot time" in the mornings at a discounted rate for an hour or two where they open the pool up for just kids under 5. Jillian is too young this summer but I could see weekly trips to the pool happening next summer. I also discovered that Ballwin's Vlasis Park has a splash ground which I'm sure we'll make lots of trips to as well.
   
   
3. I also read yesterday about a new organization - St. Louis Coworking, where you can rent space to do your freelancing. It's downtown, so I have no interest in participating, but it's a neat opportunity to have available in town.
   
   
4. I tried the new pretzel M&Ms. I wasn't real excited about the concept of pretzels and M&Ms, but CVS had them free (with $1 back reward bucks) so I figured it was worth a try. They were pretty good!
   
   
5. Moms will enjoy this one - Ridiculous Parenting Products. My favorite is the Plush Pee and Poo Duo. Seriously...who would buy a stuffed toy shaped like poop?
   
   
6. Jillian grabbed her toes today when daddy was changing her diaper!
   
   
7. Jillian is always doing silly things - and a couple days ago while we were at wal-mart, I unbuckled her carseat straps so she'd be more comfortable while riding around in the cart. A few minutes later I look down and see that she's found herself a new "toy" to suck on - the plastic clip on the carseat.
   

3 Months and Growing!

Monthly Mr. Bear Picture
(notice how she can sit supported now instead of laying on the bear?)

So much growing, so many new things this month...

• No doctor check-up this month, but her "unofficial" weight taken at home was 14 lbs
• Started off the 3rd month with her baptism
• She hates bottles now and screams VERY loudly if you attempt to offer her one
• Seems to live by the motto, "Daddy is for talking, Mommy is for eating" as she talks and plays with Daddy but if she's hungry or needs to be comforted, she needs Mommy.
• She's very attached to blankets, thanks to Daddy using them to distract her during diaper changes. She likes to grab onto the blankets and chew on them, and also play "where's the baby" where you cover her head with the blanket and she kicks and pulls it off.
• She finally seems to like the baby swings, and tolerates being put in them for short periods of time.
• She still won't sleep in the crib, but she likes to lay in the crib and watch the mobile
• She LOVES to watch TV (and anything that resembles a TV - including Daddy's cell phone, the ipad and the laptops). She especially likes to watch Cardinal baseball games with Daddy.
• She lifts her head 90 degrees on her stomach and can hold her head up for very long periods of time now. We sit her in her bumbo in the middle of the table during meals now so she can feel a part of the meals. 
• She babbles and coos a lot, and she has conversations with Daddy. She has also invented the "get louder game" where she gets louder and louder with each babble back and forth with Daddy until they are shouting at each other. She also talks to her blanket, and Grandma and Grandpa's golden retriever Daisy.
• She likes to play, especially with the toys in the bath (she has picked up the ducky in the bath a couple times), and also with "crinkle birdie," a toy that Grandma got her that makes a crinkle noise when you grasp it. Another game we play is the "up and down game" where you grab her hands and pull her to a sitting position and then gently lay her back down again.
• She recognizes her name - even when strangers say it. When we got her 3 month pictures taken at JCPenney, the photographer said her name and she lifted her head high to look at her.
• She got to ride in the stroller without a carseat a few times, but she doesn't quite have the trunk control to sit up in the stroller.
• She rolled from her tummy to her back
• Daddy let her lick a tater tot and she found it quite tasty!
• We watched fireworks on July 3, and she wasn't frightened of them, after Daddy lifted her from the stroller and pointed to the pretty lights in the sky she watched them in amazement.
• On the night before she turned 3 months old she slept through the night (8 hours!)
• She grew out of most of the 0-3 and 3 month clothes this month and is now wearing 3-6 or 6 month clothes.

 Holding up my head

Sitting in my bumbo chair, watching TV with Daddy
(one of my favorite activities)

Playing with my toy "crinkle birdie" that my Grandma gave me.

My baptism