Jillian's Dedication

This past Sunday was a very special Sunday for our family. We participated in baby dedication at our church. The service was a special time of praising God for the wonderful gift of our daughter as well as dedicating her back to the Lord and committing to raising her (and Brody) in a Christ-centered home.

Here is our precious girl dressed for church Sunday morning. I loved how sweet she looked in her smocked dress. Big smile!Jillian and me before the service began. Josh and Jillian The dedication service was prior to the start of the regular church service. Each child was introduced along with their parents. We were presented with a Bible for Jillian and then we were prayed over as a group. Brody was apart of the service with our family. I was a little nervous about how he would do, but he did great! I think there were around 20 children dedicated in our service. Here is our family on stage with our Pastor. The Bible that was given to Jillian. I love seeing her name on this. There was a short reception for the families following the dedication service. Our Pastor's wife came and spoke at the reception for a few minutes. She is always such an encouragement to parents, especially moms of young children. After the reception, they took some family photos. This was the best we could get of our family. I am just thankful everyone was looking in the direction of the camera and no one was having a meltdown! :) We are so thankful God gave us Jillian and Brody. We look forward to seeing the way He uses them in the future. What a joy it is to be their parents!

I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.

1 Samuel 1:27-28

Jillian's 2 Month Check-up

We had Jillian's 2 month check-up this past Tuesday! I was excited to see how much she had grown since her last appointment when she was 2 weeks old. Her stats this week:

• Weight: 12lbs 9oz- 75th percentile
• Height: 23 1/4 inches-75th percentile
• Head (I can't find the sheet with measurements but it was 50th pecentile)

She has gained 3lbs 9oz and grown 2 inches since she was born! She is a big, healthy girl!

She was so happy at her appointment. She jut cooed and smiled while her doctor checked her. Big Brother went with us and was so good! He did touch every single thing in the exam room and thought he needed to help the doctor with the check-up, but he was so sweet! My least favorite part of the appointments is shots. ;( Jillian got them in both legs...Poor girl! She was pretty upset about it. As soon as she started crying, Brody looked at the nurses and said, "Dat hurt her!" He was really concerned about his sister. He is such a sweet little guy! She would stop crying and then it was like she would think about it again and start crying again. Bless her heart! Once I got her dressed she stopped crying and seemed to be doing fine! I told her when she gets older we can go get ice cream after appointments. That always seems to be the magic medicine for Brody to feel better after shots and I think it's magic medicine for this momma's heart to feel better, too! :) We are so thankful for a healthy girl and thankful for a great appointment!

Sweet Moments

One of my college friends/sorority sisters, Meredith, offered to come take some pictures of our family several weeks ago. I have been wanting to share some of them but I used a few on Jillian's birth announcements and needed to send those out before I shared these pictures! :)

Meredith is an elementary school teacher by day, but does some photography on the side. She is so sweet and SO good with kids! She was able to get Brody stand still and smile which is almost impossible to get him to do at the same time! Ha! She stopped by our house one evening in September and got some sweet pictures of our family that I wanted to share. Meredith has a blog with tons of pictures that she has been taking lately of families, couples and children! Thank you, Meredith!! We love the precious pictures!

Our Long Weekend Away

Wednesday, we left to go to Benton to stay with Josh's parents. Josh was working in central Arkansas on Thursday and Friday so we all went down to stay. It was the first time for us to travel since July. It was also the first time for me to pack for 4 people...one being a baby with a ton of stuff! I thought Jillian looked cute Wednesday in her little sister onesie. She looked a little stressed though. This is kind of what I looked like after packing for 4 people to go away for 5 days and trying to remember all the little things we needed! :) We stayed in Benton from Wednesday until Josh was done with work on Friday afternoon and then we left there and all went to Branson to shop for the weekend.
Jillian was super sweet on the entire trip. She is a really good baby. This was her first time to sleep away from our house. She wasn't the best sleeper, poor girl. :) I remember Brody was a great sleeper at home and a bad sleeper away from home when he was her age, too. Jillian sleeps about 8 hours straight at night at home but was up every 2-3 hours on our trip. Brody and Jillian both slept in pack n' plays in the condo. It was funny to see two of these in our room! Brody never woke-up during the night when Jillian cried even though they were right next to each other. He did great!Jillian laid on Josh's chest and just talked and smiled at him at night before bed. She is such a happy baby. Brody loved getting a lot of attention from Josh's parents and it was nice to have a few extra hands through out the weekend, too! Love these two! I love the face that Jillian is making! Our little family...it may be years before we get another good family picture! Ha! Josh's parents with Brody and Jillian.

Thanks for a fun weekend! Hope you get some rest this week. We know you probably need it after 5 days with us! Sunday evening, we had our bi-weekly dinner with the Greens! It was a great night, as always, with our friends! These two cuties had a great time hanging out together while we ate. Hope you all have a great Monday! I am going to try and tackle the laundry from the last 5 day and try to unpack. It might take me all week. :) Thankfully, we don't have to travel this week so we can just relax and enjoy the week with family!

The Past Few Days

I decided to cover the past few days in one big post!

Friday night, we stayed home in our pajamas and had a fun family night. Josh went to pick-up pizza for dinner and cookie dough at the store. He came home and we ate and just hung out on the couch all night. It was nice to spend the night at home with no plans.

Brody and Josh played a lot that night. Josh can get Brody laughing so hard. I love when he belly laughs and can hardly catch his breath. It's so cute!Love those brown eyes! We had a lazy Saturday morning. Jillian had a growth spurt on Thursday and Friday and I was a little tired from not sleeping much and feeding her a lot so we just relaxed most of the day and watched a lot of football. Josh had this sweet girl to snuggle with while he watched a few games! :)That evening, Josh, Jillian and I went to the last home Razorback game while Brody stayed with Josh's parents. It's so crazy that I started the football season pregnant and ended it with a two month old! We only missed one home game the whole season and it was when Jillian was 10 days old. She went to all the other home games with us.

Here are two pictures from this season...The first is the night of the first home game, only 11 days before Jillian was born. I walked so far that night up huge hills to get to the stadium. How was she not born at the game? Ha! The second picture is at the last game this past weekend! It was such a fun season and one we will never forget! :) The game Saturday night was well attended but not sold out. There were a lot of empty seats in the area we sit in so we ended-up moving next to my parents for the 2nd half. It was fun to sit with them for a little while! Brandon's birthday was the 8th so we had his birthday lunch after church on Sunday at our house. I cooked enchiladas and of course, we had cake! Jill ordered Brandon a deer cake in honor of deer season. Brandon loves to deer hunt so this cake was perfect for him!For the past 3 years my mom has told Josh he was her favorite son-in-law, since he is the only son-in-law. After April, he will have some competition! Ha! Brody did a little construction work in the living room while we finished eating. The Soon-To-Be Shumards!The birthday boy turned 26! Brody helped Boo blow out the candles. I don't think I have told y'all that Brody started calling Brandon "Boo" several months ago so now we call him Boo. Ha! Brandon got a little cake smashing practice in before the big day! He said he would not be doing that at the wedding because Jill had threatened him already. Ha!Yesterday afternoon, I had gotten dressed and left our bedroom and bathroom doors opened. Brody went into our bathroom, got out some of my lip gloss and made himself comfy in Jillian's bouncy seat. I walked in and found this. Apparently lip gloss goes on your forehead. Who knew? :) He's a handful! Last night, we went to eat at the Harris' house. Rebekah has become a good friend over the past few months. I just love her! She is so sweet and so funny! She is one of those people that I feel like I have known forever. We had a great time eating with her and Flint. Brody and Cilla seemed to enjoy their meals, too! Thanks, Cilla, for letting Brody come play with you! He had so much fun!

Jillian Kate's Birth Announcements

I wanted to share Jillian's birth announcements with you all. My friend, Leslie, designed them. We have kept her so busy lately. I feel like she has become our personal graphic designer! Ha! She did a fantastic job on these, as always! We decided to do a double-sided announcement so that we could include pictures of Jillian with her big brother. I love they way these turned out and I was so happy to send these to our family and friends.

Happy 2 Month, Jillian!

Today, Jillian is 2 months old! It doesn't even seem possible that she can already be that old. These past two months have flown by so quickly.

Our precious, girl! We love those big. blue eyes!

Her turkey cake! I thought it was really cute!

Big girl with her cake!

She was looking at Jill in this picture. Jill told me that she thought Jillian noticed her poof for the first time tonight. Ha! I'm sure Jillian was wondering what that big thing on Jill's head was! :)

I love her little belly. It's starting to stick out of her clothes a little more. :) She was exhausted after posing for so many pictures. Sweet girl!

When we did monthly cake parties for Brody we never sang or made a big deal about the cake. We just took his picture with the cake and then we would eat it. Well, tonight I was about to start cutting pieces of cake and Brody said, "happy cake song...blow candle out." Sooo we sang happy birthday and let Brody blow out 3 candles! Ha! He is so funny!Jillian with her favorite guy. They are crazy about each other. :) I thought it would be fun to compare Brody's monthly pics with Jillian's pictures. Here they both are at 2 months. Josh and I think they look alike, but Jillian's face is rounder.

Here is what Jillian has been doing this month:

-You are wearing 0-3 and 3 month clothing

-You are wearing a size 1 or 1-2 diaper.

-I don't know exactly how much you weigh but I bet it's around 12lbs

-You are still nursing exclusively and nursing really well. You nurse every 3 hours during the day like clockwork.

-We have started giving you breastmilk bottles this month and you have done really well. You are a little picky and will only take the bottles if the milk is really, really warm.

-We moved you to your crib the day you turned a month old. You had been napping in your crib but you had still been sleeping in our room at night. You love your crib and you have done great in there at night this month.

-You have been sleeping from 10pm-6am for the past week or so. Sometimes you wake up at 5 instead of 6. We are really excited about the sleep we are getting. After I feed you at 5 or 6 you go back to sleep for 3 more hours.

-We swaddle you for naps and at night. You hate it for the first 3 minutes and then you stop crying and go straight to sleep. It's great!

-You have started smiling and cooing so much this past month. We love it! After you nurse, you are so happy. You will just coo and smile. It's my favorite time with you. You love to smile at your daddy, too.

-You are such a good baby. You are very easy unless you really want something and then you let us know!

-Brody LOVES you!! We always say he loves you a little too much because he always wants to be with you. Sometimes I have to hide you in your room or in our bedroom just so you get a break from the constant attention from him. :) You act a little high maintenance when Brody tries to get near you and you start screaming like he is annoying you. I think you are going to be a little tattle-tale when you two are old enough to play together. Ha!

-You like tummy time but you usually get so comfy on your belly that you just curl-up and fall asleep.

-Your getting so strong and can hold your head up really well now.

-Your dark hair is starting to fall out and it looks like it's growing in blond. You might be a blond hair, blue eyed girl!

-You still love your bouncy seat. You don't love the swing so much!

-You found your hands this month and you love to stare at them. It's so cute!

-You do really well riding in the car. You don't cry very often in your car seat which is nice because we can go places easily during the day.

-We love you like crazy!!!! You are such a beautiful and sweet baby girl! We are so thankful for you.