Jillian's 1st Birthday Party

Last night was the big night: Jillian's 1st Birthday Party!

It was a fabulous time. We had a dessert party at Granny Sam & Grandpa Paul's house. It was even more special, because Jilly got to share the honor with Auntie Katie and great Auntie Juliet!

The evening got kicked off when Auntie Katie got Jilly dressed in her fancy party dress (thanks Granny!). She was quite the little lady!


But she got tired of posing and wanted to crawl away. You can't keep that baby in one place for long!


Playing with toys with Grandpa was an much more exciting option, than posing for pictures.


But we made sure to get some cute shots of her with her Daddy, in her fancy dress.


Yaaaaaaay Jilly! What a pretty girl!


After some play, once everyone had arrived, it was time for presents. Jilly's first gift was this beautiful rocking chair from Granny & Grandpa. It's a tradition in Mama's family for the oldest child to get a rocking chair for their first birthday. Mama got one (Granny still has Mama's), and cousin Haylee too. Jilly's chair is a beautiful honey maple color, which will match her bedroom furniture fantastically!


As soon as we sat her in it, she went right to rocking. A couple times, she rocked too far forward and Auntie Juliet had to catch her. She'd get all serious, a little freaked out because she felt it, but then went back to rocking.


Next was the present from Mama & Daddy. This is what it looked like at the beginning.


The first thing she did was pull apart the ribbon. That was why I bought that one for her, so it's all good. Grandpa did help, though. ;-)


It took her a minute to get started, but once Grandpa Paul showed her how, she started ripping off that paper and getting to the good stuff.

Outta my way, paper!

Look Mama! I'm doing it!


What is it? It's a Burrito!! What a cute little donkey Jilly can cuddle!


Next, we opened Auntie Juliet's present. There were two awesome board books: Richard Scary's "Cars & Trucks A to Z", and Dr. Seuss' "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?". What fun! Jilly's been needing some books that are as rough and tumble (or rather, drool-resistant) as she is. Auntie Juliet also gave her a beautiful white dress with cherries on it and a cherry hair clip for next summer (provided she has hair by then), as well as some long sleeve onesies. They'll be great because it's gotten cold lately!


Auntie Katie got Jilly the movie Mary Poppins! Mama was probably more excited that Jilly because our whole family loves that movie! Not only was it the DVD, but it's a special anniversary edition. Oooooh. ;-) Jilly immediately marked her territory; her way of approving of the gift.


After presents, it was time for cake. While Mama was getting it ready, Jilly got some quality snuggles. First, with Auntie Katie.


Then next with Granny.


And then, the cake! This was the cake before we lit it up. There was a #1 for Jilly, a K for Katie and a J for Juliet.


Here are the birthday girls, blowing out their candles. Auntie Katie had to hold Jilly's hand, because she was fascinated by the fire. (And by fascinated, I mean insistent on touching it.)


Surprise! You thought it was just a normal cake, but in reality, it's a rainbow!! A rainbow cake, how neat is that!!! Mama was quite proud of herself for pulling it off.


Everyone loved it. Jilly really enjoyed her slice.


The colors were really interesting for her.


She ate the whole slice!


So it was a fabulous night for our little Jilly Bird. She had lots of fun, was thoroughly spoiled by everyone and was completely adorable. It's hard to believe a year has gone by already, but it's even harder to imagine life without her. Happy Birthday Jillian! We love you!

Checkered Flag

Back in September, Regan's family invited us to go out on their boat, Checkered Flag. It was a Sunday afternoon, and once Jilly had gotten her nap, we headed down to meet them in Bellevue. The marina is right out front from their condo; you can see the boat from their kitchen! We took all our gear (so much when you have a baby) and headed out.

Jilly enjoyed checking out all the interesting things on the boat. At one point, she crawled over to the case of beer, and sat herself down next to it, and banged on it for a bit. ;-) We all munched on some food while we motored around Lake Washington. Some of us preferred less plastic foods than others...

We checked out Bill Gates' home and beach. It was really neat! We then went under the SR-520 floating bride (not the floating part though) and headed west to Lake Union. Going through the Montlake Cut was really neat. There's tons of painting on the concrete sides, that you can't see from the road. Lots of Husky spirit!

The first part, we hung out inside the living area, where it was warm. But then we all started venturing up top to see the view from up there. It was awesome!

When we got to Lake Union, we went over to get the boat's holding tank pumped out. Can you say gross?! Ew. While we were docked, we all went on shore for a few minutes. This is Jilly getting some love from Daddy while on shore.


Once the tanks were clean and empty, we just tooled around Lake Union for a bit and ate dinner. We got some nice pictures of the Space Needle. I realized it was almost time for the Kenmore Air seaplanes to land at Lake Union, so I called the office and asked the agents when they were due in. Elaina was kind enough to let me know what plane was due in at what time and we got to watch them land and then take off. Some of them flew right over us! It was so neat!!!


It was starting to get dark by that time, so we headed back to Bellevue. We ended up being out there for a few hours. It was so much fun! Jilly really enjoyed herself and was well behaved the whole time! Well, except for when she was trying to steal our food (she's such a moocher!). ;-)

We had a great time and hope to do it again soon! Thanks Austins!!

Jillian's 1st Halloween!

As you may know, Halloween was last week. Well, Jilly didn't go trick-or-treating (something about not being able to walk or talk ;-)), but she did get dressed up for our church's "Boogly Nights" Halloween Extravaganza. It was Saturday, Oct 27th, and Jilly was 11 months exactly. She went as a very adorable Tigger. The costume was procured by Auntie Juliet (THANK YOU!) and fit great, except for that giant melon we call her head (thanks Halls). The hood couldn't be pulled up all the way, but it worked well enough. And she sat still and let me paint her face with a nose & whiskers.

Tiggers are wonderful things! Our friend Becky brought her little girl, Katie, to the events as well. Katie is almost 3 and spends an occasional Saturday with Steve and Jilly, while her parents have to work. She was quite the stunner as Cinderella!

To start out the evening, everyone met in the gym for the Chili cook off. The food was quite yummy. Jilly especially enjoyed the cornbread. I think it was more the feeding herself that she was so in love with, but either way, it made her happy! :-) Becky was very kind and held Jilly while Steve and I got some food. Katie then got a little shy with all the strangers, so she insisted on sitting with Mommy too. So Becky had a squiggly 11-month-old and a concerned 2 1/2 year old on her lap. Lucky girl!

Actually, she was happy to do it. :-) After the dinner, we went off to help run the Cupcake Walk (Mama's job). It was quite fun to see all the little kids come in with their awesome costumes on and try to win a cupcake. There were other booths in the church, like a Spook Alley, a catapult game, homemade root beer and a few other things for everyone to enjoy. I didn't get to see them really, because I was helping with the cupcakes, but everyone seemed to be having a ball. :-)

Once the booths had run for awhile and everyone was bored of them, it was time for the Trunk or Treat! (For anyone not familiar with Trunk or Treats, it's basically Trick or Treating within a parking lot, at people's car trunks, instead of their front doors. It goes faster and is generally safer, since you mostly know everyone there.) Of course, we parked next to this family that went all out decorating their trunk! We were totally upstaged. (Not that we had anything "staged". ;-)) Hehehe. It was pretty nippy by this point, but Jilly was quite content to sit in her stroller and watch everyone. Actually, she kept staring at the tail light on the car. The red light fascinated her. Granny, Grandpa Paul and Auntie Karen showed up to see Jilly the Tigger and took her inside while Mama and Daddy finished handing out candy. By this point, Jilly had messed with her make up so bad, that Mama wiped it off. In the end, lots of fun was had by all, Jilly was very pleasant the whole time (which had been doubtful because she was crazy grumpy right before we left), and was utterly adorable. She was a tired Tigger, but a still a cute one, at the end.

On Halloween night itself, Mama had to work, so Daddy stayed at home with Jilly. We thought about going to the costume contest for the apartment complex, but it was too late by the time Daddy remembered. Oh well! We'll have many more Halloweens to show her off. We ended up having NO trick or treaters! Not one single kiddo! It was a little disappointing, but that just means we got all the candy. Thus far, Jilly's been happy to just play with the wrappers. :-)

Please pray for Baby Scarlett

I know I promised pictures and posts about our family, but I've been sick all weekend, and this is more important.

I have a good friend, Stacey, who just gave birth to her little girl, Scarlett Lillian, 10 weeks early! Little Scarlett wasn't due until January 11th, 2008, but made her debut on November 1st, 2007! She was 2lbs 12oz and 15 1/4 inches long. She has been breathing on her own since birth (came out screaming, with Apgars of 8 & 9!) and doing pretty well. But she is still over 2 months early and quite small. She'll be in the NICU for a few weeks, depending on how well she does.





The reason I explain this all is to ask you to pray for Scarlett and her parents, Stacey and Tyson. They have quite a road ahead of them, and need any help they can get. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. I am sure with all these people praying for her, Scarlett will grow quickly and be totally healthy.



Thank you so much!

~Aimee~