One Year Ago Today...It's a GIRL!

Last year, on my 28th birthday, I received the best news as a birthday present.  One year ago today, we found out that we were having a GIRL!

 Julian and I both thought that we were going to have a boy and so when the sonogram technician told us it was a girl, we were floored!  The first thing we did was go to Target to buy our DAUGHTER her very first outfit, because clearly, that is the most important part...

And the next day at work, I hosted a big cupcake reveal.  I told all my friends, colleagues, and students to come by to eat a cupcake.  The color of the cake would reveal the baby's gender.  So I made strawberry cupcakes and had lots of visitors come by to share in our big news. 

How quickly time flies because less than 6 months later, there was a little person wearing the little girl outfit we bought...

And today, on my 29th birthday, we are reflecting back on how this little piece of information would change our lives forever.  Forever, Julian and I will have a DAUGHTER.  We will live a life with bows and dresses, pink and frills, dolls and diaries.  Our home will be filled with sweet girly giggles, princess outfits, and girl talk.  We will see her through her first day of school, her first puppy love, her big college dreams...and one day, Julian will walk our daughter down the aisle as she marries her Prince Charming.  One day, I will see my daughter live the greatest experience as she becomes a mother to her own children.  Maybe on that day, she will know and understand how precious she is to us and how much we love our little girl!

We LOVE you, Jillian Annalise! And on my birthday, I will always be reminded of how God gave us the greatest present of all...a DAUGHTER!

3 Month Photos

Just wanted to share some more shots from Jilly's 3-month photo shoot with Sarah Giles of Butterfly Chaser Photography.  Aren't these fabulous??!!

Mommy's Little Girl

I love the face she's making in this picture...priceless!!!

Awww, Dad...not the big kisses again...

OK, I'll ham it up for the camera

Love Love LOVE those baby feet



And this is the exact face that Jillian makes when she is crying...

can't wait to show her this one when she's older haha!

Pretty baby girl in a pretty dressy

Mommy's lil' chunk

Ohhhhhh, so serious!

She has grown so much!

I think this girl is going to be a heartbreaker!!!

That's it for now.  A special thanks to our amazing photographer, Sarah Giles, for capturing our baby girl and our family so beautifully!

Bye Bye for now!
Love, Jillian

Happy 6 Months, Jillian!

Wow! I cannot believe that our Jilly Bear is HALF A YEAR OLD already! How time flies when you are having fun! It has been an exciting month for our little girl, and I think these pictures tell you all you need to know about what Jilly has been up to...

First of all, you will notice that her month pictures have changed locations and that's because Jillian got the best present of all for her 1/2 year birthday...a HOUSE!  I really did pray for us to be in the house by the time she turned 6 months old and God anwered my prayer!

Next you'll notice that Jilly is sitting up all on her own! She has always been a big, strong girl but she has done really well at sitting by herself. It is so cute to see her becoming the same size as her monkey.  I took her to the doctor for her well-baby check-up and she is 26 inches tall and 16 pounds, 5 ounces.  She is in the 60th percentile on both height and weight so she is evening out!

She is so curious now too. She loves to grab at everything, which has made Mommy and Daddy more aware of what she is near because she will grab anything she can get her hands on!  It made her 6-month photos a little more difficult as she kept grabbing for her sign.  Long since gone are the days where Jilly would just sit there!  It's ok though because it is so fun to watch her grow and change everyday.

Also, Jilly has been teething and so along with grabbing anything she can, she immediately sticks stuff into her mouth. Nothing is safe from this drooly monster...packing bubbles, toys, Mommy's phone.  But she's just so cute that you can't help but smile when she does this.

Six months down, six months to go till our baby girl turns 1!  I'm not sure we can top her 6 month gift of a house, but we sure will try to make her next 6 months just as healthy, happy, and fun as the past 6 have been!  Happy Half Birthday Jilly...Mommy and Daddy love you more than you will ever know!

Silly Jilly: Baby's First Food!

On Tuesday, Jillian ate her first solid food!  Well, "solid" is a relative term because usually the first food babies eat is rice cereal mixed with milk.  It's 1-part cereal to 5-parts milk, so it's pretty runny and not really "solid."  I wanted to feed her for the first time in her new house and here are a few pictures to document this momentous occasion!

Getting ready to eat from a spoon for the first time

I have been giving her spoons for the past 2 weeks so that she can get used to them.  She has loved playing with them, especially knawing on them and banging them.

Here's her first spoonful.  I love that little face!

Hey, I like this I think!

Mommy, can I have more please??!!

Messy food face!  I LOVE THIS FACE TOO!

Mommy and Jilly

Our whole family celebrating this milestone!

All Done!!!

She did so well for her first time! She kept opening her mouth in order to get more.  And I know it looks like she did not get much in her mouth, but she did such a good job at swallowing it and not pushing it out of her mouth.  I even made the cereal thicker because she was doing so well!

A couple of our friends were over to watch this fun event, including Adriana and Franco who were over to help us unpack.  And the King family also came by to welcome us to the 'hood (haha, thanks for that Katy). 

Adriana getting in on the fun!

Katy and Emmy as some of our first house guests

Overall it was a lot of fun and she was just the cutest baby ever! 

As great as the first experience was, when I fed her again on Wednesday, she decided to play with her food instead and she kept blowing raspberries as I would put the spoon to her mouth.  Oh well!  We have the rest of her life to feed her so I will just enjoy this precious little stage while it lasts!

Love you big girl, food-covered, Silly Jilly!

Life as a House: OFFICIALLY Homeowners!!!

It's OFFICIAL! At 3 PM on Monday, August 1st, Julian and I went to go sign the paperwork on our first home!  We wanted to share this occasion as a whole family so I picked up Jilly from school so she could come, too...after all, Julian bought this house for her!

It did take us about an hour and half to sign them all so we had to pass the baby back and forth and dance around to keep her entertained.  And of course, she wanted to suck on the pens so we let her.  I kept the pens because 1) I am sappy like that and 2) we paid a lot of money for that pen!

When we were all done, the title company handed over our keys to our new home.  That lady was not too happy to be on camera (as you can tell from her expression), but we were ecstatic!

Jillian was such a good baby and she was just as thrilled to have these keys, too (even if all she wanted to do was suck on them, too)!

Ohhhhh, pretty, shiny keys!

I had two very important things in my hands here.  My beautiful little girl and the keys to our new home!!!

Here we are, proud homeowners and a happy little family!  Julian, in case I have not told you enough, I love you so much for working so hard to make our dreams come true and for buying a home for our family.  Home is where the heart is and my heart is always with you!

Julian and I were so ready to make this move!  He started packing about 4 weeks ago and we just had to throw a few more things into boxes in order to move into our new house...

Like this precious cargo!!!

By 7:30 PM that night, we rented a UHaul and were ready to make our move.  With a little help from our friends (Justin, Jake, and Christen), we packed up the truck that night.  While we were doing that, Meredith and Jackson watched Jilly (to see their adventures, click here).  And then Franco came over and helped unload the truck till 3 AM!  A MILLION THANKS to all our friends who helped make this move possible!

And now, the fun part begins as we work to unpack everything, organize, decorate, and live life in our brand new home!

The Highs and Lows of this Roll-Acosta

What a week last week was!  If there was ever a time that the name of our blog was more apparent, last week was definitely one that showed us just what a Roll-Acosta life this is!!!

We were supposed to close on our house last week and so we have been packing and getting everything in order.  Our final walk-through was on Wednesday, and closing was supposed to happen on Thursday.  When we showed up to the walk-through, we were notified that closing was being postponed.  The loan company said they were waiting on the title company, the builder said they were waiting on the loan company...either way, all of our anticipation and eager waiting was quickly diminishing.  We were just SITTING, WAITING, WISHING that the stars align and so we could close on Monday. Our house looks great, the appliances are ready to go in, we are packed (mostly!), and the stage is set...

As if the process of closing on the house has not been stressful enough, we had another little snafu last week.  On Monday night/Tuesday morning, Julian's wheels got stolen off his truck...RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR DUPLEX!  There is no uglier feeling than having something stolen from you and Julian was L-I-V-I-D when he figured it out.  So on top of this already stressful time, we spent a good majority of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to get all of this resolved.  And this process was a whole lot of down with little bright spots here and there.

I guess most of all, we would just like to thank the people who have helped us out as we have been on this ride.

To the nice, hard-working people at Derek Scott's Auto Park, including Mike in Parts and the owner, we are forever indebted to you for working so diligently to get us new rims and tires so quickly.  These gentlemen truly went out of their way to help us in this bind. IF YOU EVER NEED TO BUY A NEW CAR, CHECK OUT DEREK SCOTT'S AUTO PARK in Hearne.  They mean it when they say that they take care of you while buying a car and after!

And THANKS to our friends, in particular Justin Malnar, for helping us through this process.  Justin, you always come through for us when we need you most.  It is friends like you that make Aggieland home and we are glad to have you in our lives!

Through this all, Julian and I have grown so much stronger, in our relationship and in our faith in one another and in God.  And I am happy to say that through the ups and downs of this Roll-Acosta Life, I know that there is no better person than Julian to have by my side as we ride the highs and embrace the lows.

But this is a brand new week...Julian's truck is fixed, we are all packed, and

we close on our house at 3 PM today!!!