Home for the Holidays

We are very excited to be home for the holidays, because there really is no place like home!  Since it is Jillian's first Christmas, we decided that we wanted for her to wake up Christmas morning in her own home out of her own bed.  So we will be spending the holidays here in College Station. 

We are so blessed because some of our family has decided to come spend Jilly's first Christmas with us.  Julian's parents and little sister are already here so we will enjoy so good quality time with the Acostas!  And then my mom, little brother, and little sister will be joining us tomorrow too.  I am excited to warm our home with loving family, yule tide blessings, and Christmas cheer!  

What I am really excited about is getting to start out Christmas traditions!  The other day, Julian and I talked about all our favorite holiday traditions from when we were children and decided which ones we would pass on to our own family.  And thanks to amazing internet sites, like Pinterest, I was able to look up some new holiday traditions that we will start with our Jilly Bear.

Here are some of the traditions we hope to start for our family this year:

1. Write a letter to Santa (but for now, we'll write it for Jilly!)

2. Buy a new Christmas book every year.  Wrap the books and let our child(ren) pick which book to read each day leading up to the new book on Christmas Eve.

3. Set out Reindoor food for the Reindeer to find our home.

4.  And cookies for Santa for each person in the house (and carrots for the Reindeer of course)

5. Sleep one night under the Christmas tree as a family.

6. Drive around to go see Christmas lights

7. Attend Christmas mass, of course

8.  Bake lots of Christmas cookies and goodies

9. Give back to someone in need

And of course, the most important tradition of all...

10.  Fill our child(ren)'s heart with love and the Christmas spirit!

What traditions do you and your family have that will make this holiday merry and bright?  I'd love to hear some of yours, too!

So happy to be home for the holidays!  Happy Holidays to you all!

Wish BIG This Holiday Season

Silly Jilly: Crazy Hair!

Since the day Jillian was born, she has had a head full of hair.  In fact, it's the thing that people comment on the most (other than how cute she is, of course).  I often have family and friends, and even strangers at the store, stop to comment on how much hair she has and how they (or their child) did not have that much hair until they were ___ months/years old.

I have had a lot of fun with Jillian's flowing locks.  Not too many babies can wear their hair in a full ponytail or even pig tails until they are much older.  But since Jilly's hair is so long, she was able to do both of these things by the time she was 8 months old.

Often times, I can tame the hair and stick a bow in it so it looks cute.

 

But other times, mainly when Jillian wakes up in the morning, she looks more like...

A daredevil who went through a wind tunnel...or like Johnny Bravo, the cartoon character!

Or like a baby lion (complete with a little roar)

Or like a Who from Whoville...

And best of all, sometimes she looks like she belongs in an '80s hair band (complete with a mullet)!

Oh Silly Jilly and your crazy hair...never a dull day with hair like yours! =)

P.S. Please know that I did not play with her hair to make it look funny in any of these pictures.  This was ALL NATURAL.  You can't make this stuff up, people! =)

Rivals!

On Wednesday night, the Acostas went to a Fightin' Texas Aggie Men's Basketball game!  I got the tickets for free for contributing to the State Employees Charitable Campaign.  The tickets were 2 general admission tickets and there were several game options, but we choose to go to watch the Aggie men take on Sam Houston State University.  Since Julian got his degree from SHSU, that made us a house divided for the night and we were RIVALS on the basketball court!

Of course, Jillian was pulling for the Aggies, since she looks so cute in maroon!  She was really into the game and she loved watching the dance team perform or the yell leaders and crowd doing the yells.

The Aggies won by a landslide and overall, we had a great time at the game!  I think Jilly has shown us that she does really well at sporting events and so we will definitely try to go to more games whenever possible!

Happy because the Aggies won!

Gooooooo Aggies!  Way to BTHO SHSU!  Whoop!

'Tis the Season to be Jolly

'Tis the Season to be Jolly

It's here, it's finally here!  It's Jillian's first Christmas season.  Now, I have never been a Christmas person, but because of my Jolly Jilly and my Jolly Julian, I cannot help but be in the Christmas spirit!  So I could not have been more excited when we put up our Christmas tree...

And we had this little elf to help!

This little elf kept crawling everywhere, but she stopped long enough to take a picture with me, before crawling off to play with the tree box!

Last year we bought a pre-lit tree and is still gorgeous!  Jolly Jilly's face lit up when we plugged this in for the first time

We wanted to get Jolly Jilly's tree up before it was her bedtime so we took a break from the main tree to put up her 3 foot rendition.

Jilly loved getting her little ornaments and licking them and putting them in her mouth.  But what else is new?!  This is what she does with any new thing she encounters.  Silly Jolly Jilly!

Is that my very own tree?!

 Julian and I found the cutest little ornaments at Target that matched Jilly's room perfectly.  So we placed each one with care on our baby girl's little tree... 

And put a star on top to make it perfect!

That night, I rocked Jilly to sleep by the light of her own little Christmas tree.  To be honest, I shed a tear because of how happy I was at this exact moment to have the best gift of all in my arms!

After putting Jolly Sleepy Jilly down, we finished decorating the rest of the house, like hanging the stocking up on our beautiful fireplace. 

And placing all the delicate snowmen ornaments on our big tree, with a big snowman right on top. 

The next day, we couldn't wait to show Jilly her new home all decked out for the season.  And what a little Jolly Jilly she was indeed!

Fa La La La La

La La La La!

Happy 10 Months, Jillian!

Happy 10 months to our beautiful baby girl, Jilly!  10 months already...that's double digits in months!  Our baby girl is becoming a big girl more and more everyday!

So what has Jillian been up to this month?  Well, she is still crawling everywhere and she has gotten really good at pulling herself up into a standing position.  She climbs all over mommy or daddy and she is so daring, so we definitely have to watch her carefully!

Wait, does that say 10 months?!?!?!

Jilly talks more and more everyday and we love her baby babble.  She has been saying mama and dada for months, though we aren't sure if she realizes what she is saying.  But over the Thanksgiving weekend, as Granny Julie, Auntie Shell, and Uncle Joseph were driving away, we told her to say bye bye.  Normally she would just wave but it definitely sounded like she said bah bye to them! 

Jillian is still such a good eater, eating basically anything we put in front of her.  But her favorite are yogurt, applesauce, and puffs.  She would eat that for every meal if we'd let her.  As for sleeping...well, we are still working on that.  She does not sleep all the way through the night, but she is sleeping in her crib a whole lot more.  Still a work in progress!

She surprises us more and more each day with how smart she is.  We have been working to teach her baby sign so that she can communicate more with us.  She still tries to tell you what she wants first, but when we can't understand her, instead she'll sign "more" or "all done."  She does this not only when we feed her, but when she is all done getting her diaper changed too!

As much as she is becoming her own little independent girl everyday, there are still some big signs of our little baby.  For one thing, Jilly still does not have any teeth.  I still don't even see signs of them.  She also still lets us rock her to sleep or cuddle, all things that I know will end someday, but I am not in any hurry for that day to come.

Jillian has gotten better about letting others tend to her needs.  For awhile there, no matter who was holding her. she would fuss until she was back with mommy.  And though she is still a B-I-G mama's girl, she is doing better with daddy or with grandparents or with our babysitter, Cary.  I think she knows that all these people really do love her...but no one quite like mommy!!!

Oh, Jilly Bear Baby, you have graced this world with your presence for 10 months now, officially spending more time in this world than in mommy's belly.  We love your little smile, your little face, and your little personality.  We could not imagine our lives without you!  Just 2 more months till the big 1...I really need to get on that party planning!!!

See you later, I am outta here!

Shave November

We all know that it is "No Shave November," a time when men forgo shaving for a cause.  Sometimes that cause is legitimate, like "changing the face of men's health" and sometimes it's to compete to see who can get the scraggliest, ugliest beard and 'stache going.
But what would a man who never shaves anyway do during this month?  Clearly the only thing to do is to shave it all off...and that's exactly what Julian did!!!
We were both so nervous before he started.  I mean, he had a full goatee since the day we met.  I had never seen Julian without facial hair and he could hardly remember a time with no facial hair.  He first grew in his goatee 8 years ago!

This is Julian's "I'm not too sure about this" face

Lathering up, thinking "Am I really going to do this?!"

Once he started buzzing it, there was no turning back...

We decided to have a little fun and take funny pictures along the way.  Here is once he shaved off the bottom portion of the goatee.  Doesn't he look like an '80s pro wrestler in this pic??!!

"Ohhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhh"

 And then he shaved off the sides, leaving just a moustache.  I've seen old pictures of Julian's dad from the '90s and he looks just like him.  Or he looks like Tom Selek or Ron Burgandy... =)

"I'm Ron Burgandy?"

And last, the moment of truth, the point where it all came off. Up until this point, Julian still looked like himself to me.  But once it all came off, man did he look different!!!  It was at this point that I freaked out.  Who was this man standing in front of me?!  He sounds like my Juli-Bear and acts like my Juli-Bear.  But he looks soooooooo different.   And, well, it's been over 7 years since I kissed a clean-shaven man so that was wild, too!

It's all gone!

We did this after the baby was asleep for the night.  When she saw him this morning, she kept looking at him, as if to say, "Hey, is that my daddy?!"  And I wish I could be a fly on the wall as our family, friends, and co-workers see this picture or see Julian in the flesh! 
Here's to a NO Shave November.  The jury is still out on whether his goatee will be back by month's end. =)

Jillian's 6 month pictures

Back in August, we took photos with our amazing photographer, Miss Sarah Giles.  She is so amazing at what she does and I could not be any more grateful to have such a sweet person capturing our life as a family of 3.  Here are some of the great photos from Jilly's 6 month shoot. 

This first one is of sweet Jilly in her baptism dress.  Isn't she such a doll?!

Jillian is definitely in a mommy phase.  She just loves being with her mommy and her mommy loves being with her.  I love my little girl!!!

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that one year ago, there were only 2 of us and we were renting a place in Bryan...



And in one year, here is Julian and I standing on the front porch of our brand new home and we are now a little family of 3!

And here is Jillian in her blue room.  We took more pictures in her nursery and I can't wait to see how those turned out.

Jilly got a little fussy during photos so we put her down for a nap.  And then we went back outside with Sarah for a little fun.  Since we had just bought our house, we wanted to show our excitement...

And here's Jillian and her daddy.  Don't they look stunning in yellow?!

These pictures were taken after Jillian's nap so she was much happier!

Jilly Bear is our little monkey girl!  It is crazy how much bigger she's getting and pretty soon, she'll be bigger than her monkey friend!

And this last one is one of my absolute favorite pictures of Jillian of all time.  I just love her little face sooooooo much!  I wish I could keep her this small forever!

Once again, a million thanks to you, Sarah, for taking such amazing photos that we will cherish forever!