Talking, Running and a Little Surprise If You Read all of This Post!!

A lot has happened since December, so I'll try to give you the highlights!! 

We had a GREAT time celebrating Christmas with our families, and sadly had to miss Marc's dad's family celebrate the season.  Our least favorite day of 2010 was December 26!!  Marc and I BOTH got the stomach flu.  Thank goodness Frank and Connie came over and took Shiloh because neither Marc nor I could take care of her.  Marc and I were both so worried all day because we were supposed to leave on the 27 (THE NEXT DAY) to go to Mexico.  I was terrified we were going to have to miss the whole vacation because of the flu.  WE DIDN'T!!  I was completely fine the next day and Marc was okay!  Needless to say, we went to Mexico!

Uncle CJ and Shiloh on Christmas Day

My Grandmother, dad, me and Shiloh

All of the Smiths in Mexico!

This was our first travel experience with Shiloh.  Getting her to adjust to a new place was interesting, but she did it with some success!  This vacation was AMAZING!!  Everyone (Frank, Connie, Mike, Amanda and Zach) all took Shiloh shifts, which gave both Marc and I an occasional break!! 
Our favorite Mexico Moments:
- swimming with the dolphins
- getting to swim in the ocean right in front of our house
- me tackeling Marc after we took family photos :)
- introducing Shiloh to the sand, of which she was NOT a fan
- going out with Mike, Amanda and Zach (thanks Frank and Connie for watching Shiloh!)
Here are the pictures!!

Least favorite Mexico moment:
- When Shiloh got the stomach flu!!  Marc was alone with Shiloh and didn't know how to get a hold of anyone for hours.  She threw up on him for several hours before anyone was able to help :(  poor guy!  (no pictures)

We celebrated January 2011 while we were in Mexico and Shiloh had the flu.  Not exactly what we had in mind, but a new year none the less!

In January we celebrated my 26th birthday, and we found out we were EXPECTING another baby!!  Other than that, we've loved watching Shiloh's vocabulary grow and grow!! 

Marc was out of town on my birthday, so we had a GIRL'S NIGHT! 

Here's a video of Shiloh saying "Bye Om" or "Bye Mom"

In February Shiloh has learned to speak a few PHRASES.  That's right, she has upgraded from simple words to a few phrases!  She can say
"I'll be right back," which really sounds more like "I B Riiiii aCK." 
"More please," which really sounds like "more cheese"
"I need help," which really sounds like "I need elp"

She has also learned how to throw a temper tantrum. . . OH MY!  We've done a few things to try to mitigate these, and so far her tantrums are improving.  Her little will is very strong, which I know will be a blessing in some ways but a challenge in others.  I am praying that the Lord will direct her strong will to keep her steadfast and devoted to Him in the later years!

Shiloh also got to experience snow this year!! Last year she was only a few months old when it snowed, so she had no idea what was going on.  This year, she got to go out in it . . . NOT A FAN!!  She didn't like how difficult it was to walk on it! Here are some cute picture of the snow days.

Shiloh was fine if she wasn't walking in the snow!



About a week after the snow storms, we took a trip to the Dallas Arboretum on a 75 degree day!

Christmas Decorating and a few extras

This weekend we FINALLY finished decorating our house for Christmas!  Decorating our tree was filled with lots of smiles, "oh wows" from Shiloh and laughter from Marc and me!!  I think that my favorite moment was when Shiloh first saw the tree!  She was napping when we put the tree up and put lights on it, so when she saw it, the tree was already lit up with a few ornaments on it.  Right when she saw the tree she got a huge grin on her face and said "treeeeee!"  This was adorable to me for two reasons; one because Shiloh knows the word tree and secondly because  she was so excited about the tree being in our house!

I was very thankful that we have many plastic ornaments because Shiloh had a really good time playing with them and putting them in the tree. I love that we have many round ornaments because Shiloh thinks they are all balls to play with.  Just about everytime she looked at the tree she would say "ball" and get really excited about it!

Shortly after discovering the balls, or ornaments, Shiloh looked at the ground and said "uh, oh."  She knelt down and begin trying to clean up the pine needles that had fallen.  I just started laughing and taking pictures, of course!!

Shiloh is trying to clean up the fallen pine needles!

Shiloh is excitedly playing with the ornaments!

This past weekend Shiloh, Marc and I went to Waco to celebrate Mason's THIRD BIRTHDAY!!  We stopped by Baylor's campus and took a few pictures on Judge Baylor's lap!!!  Here they are!!!

I would like to end this blog entry by praising the Lord for such a beautiful day today!!!  75 degrees in December was AMAZING!!  I decided to go to the Dallas Arboretum with Shiloh, Sara and Rylie!!  Here are a few pictures!

I love this picture because the leaves in Sara's hands are almost the same size as Baby Rylie!

Shiloh wasn't really wanting to take pictures with me, so this is one of the best I got!

Pictures!

These pictures tell what else we've been up to lately!

Here's one of Shiloh's cute Christmas outfits!  She was playing outside while dad and I were finishing up cleaning out the garage and decorating our house for Chrismas!

 All bundled up!

 She decided that she wanted to help sweep our back porch

Grandma (Juno) and Shiloh on Thanksgiving!!  Shiloh and Juno were cooking!

Mommy and daughter!

Marc and I got to go to the Stars game with our good friends, the Marvins!!  Our seats were on the glass!!

My friends and I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter!!!

In November Shiloh had her first trip to the hospital. That little spot on her shirt is blood :(

 Playing at the park!

Daddy reading to Shiloh

 Walking down the sidewalk!

 Our little chef made homemade blackberry jam . . . on her face!



Shoes!

Thanksgiving just flew by and now here we are ready for Christmas!!  My last post was just after Halloween, so I'll fill you in before jumping into our more recent stuff!  November was quite the busy month for us as we celebrated Thanksgiving for about 10 days!  We started celebrating the weekend before (November 19-21), continued to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day, the Friday after and the Saturday after that!  On that Sunday, we partied with Mike and Amanda for their joint birthday party!!  Happy birthday to my wonderful sister in law and brother in law!

The Friday after Thanksgiving was our 3rd annual Friend Thanksgiving!!  This year we invited all of our church friends over and cooked a big Thanksgiving meal!  It is really special to because we get to spend some wonderful quality time with each other and we are all learning how to make the typical Thanksgiving food!  I'm proud to announce that this was my first year to cook a turkey by myself and I think it turned out GREAT!!  The past two years I've had some friends help me, but this year I flew solo!!

The week after Thanksgiving Marc and I wanted to rest, BUT CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE!!  We began taking out our Christmas lights and decorations, which as it turns out are pretty scarce.  I thought we had more decorative stuff, but the only things that survived were lights and stockings.  We had some candles and a few other things, but the candles melted and ruined a few small things we had.  We're going to start adding to our Christmas decorating as the years go on.  I guess that's the beauty of time you can also improve with it!

In the traditional Marc and Reci style, we got extremely distracted as we began putting lights up on our bushes.  It was a beautiful 75 degree day, and Marc and I were enjoying the outdoors!  We started testing the lights and laying them out on the grass.  As we did this, we noticed that our garage was in desperate need of reorganizing.  We paused our Christmas decorating and began reorganizing our garage.  Excitedly, we can now fit TWO cars in our two car garage, and this is a first since we've lived in our house!!  On the other hand, our bushes just barely got Christmas lights on them when Shiloh woke up from her nap and stopped us from working!

How can I mention Shiloh without talking about how much she's changed!!!  Shiloh has mastered walking and has moved onto running!!  Just recently she's tried to hop, and it's really cute because she cannot quite figure it out.  She'll jump up onto her toes and then lose her balance.  This is usually followed by a huge grin and a few giggles!  I love it! 

Shiloh has also started to grasp talking!!  It's been really exciting for Marc and I as we've seen Shiloh begin to understand that objects have names.  For example, being the girl that she is, she's learned the word "Shoes." 

Funny story about shoes:  When Shiloh was about 7 months old and teething, she would pick up our shoes and try to bite them ... eeewwwww.  We thought this was gross and began putting out shoes away and out of Shiloh's grasp.  Anytime she ever saw a shoe, we'd run and put it away.  Apparently, she has learned that shoes do not go in random places on the floor.  When she sees shoes that are not put away, she'll repeat the word "shoes" over and over.  She'll then pick them up and hand them to Marc and I so that we will put them away!!  I guess that Shiloh is taking her cleaning to a new level, and that's okay with me!

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving and some time with family!

Marc and I were riding with Shiloh on the paddle boat!! 

This is Marc's model picture! I cannot show pictures of our Thanksgiving at the lake without mentioning  our exciting motor cycle riding.  Marc and I both drove a motorcycle for the first time this weekend.  Marc turned out to be pretty good, and I almost died!

My dad and Marc walkingon the dock with Shiloh!

Shiloh running around

Daddy and daughter playing peek a boo with Mommy!

                                                                          Uncle CJ

 Everyone at the lake

It's been almost 3 weeks since Shiloh's first birthday, and I feel like I have so much to report!

I'm going to start this blog with pictures from our church's kids carnival for Halloween! Becuase I'm a beginning sewer, you can tell that Shiloh's costume is homemade. Overall, I was pretty happy with her costume though!

Prepare yourself because the rest of this blog post is full of silly Shiloh-isms and fun facts about her!

SHILOH FINALLY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!! Last night, I put her down at 7 and she didn't wake up until 5am! Of course, we are going to work on turning that 5 am to 7-8, but still it's a huge improvement! I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because she's only slept through the night one time so far. I am currently praying that it wasn't a case of exhaustion, but that it's a new habit!! Either case though, it's a step in the right direction!

On another fun note, Shiloh has developed a new hobby! When she was a few months younger I turned her hobby of pulling things out of drawers into a useful chore. That is how I get her to help me with the laundry. Well . . . she's developed another cleaning hobby, only this time she's actually somewhat aware of what she's doing!

The other week, she picked up a paper towel and started scrubbing the floor. She then wiped off the walls and continued trying to clean with it! I laughed so hard that she started giggling. I think my laughter has encouraged this clean behavior because she continues to LOVE trying to clean the house! Of course, I love it too!! Here's a video of her cleaning the floor! I think my favorite part of this video is the fact that she picks up a piece of dirt and places it in the paper towel, just like mom!

Shiloh now looks like a toddler as she toddles around the house! It's adorable! She also had her first pony tail the other day, which makes her look even more grown up!! Here's a picture!

Shiloh's walking is starting to turn into running. I knew when she started walking that it would only be a matter of time, but she's getting fast enough to make me pick up my pace a little! Here's a video of Shiloh playing with Daddy! She's having so much fun that she falls over :)

Shiloh loves to pretend to talk on the phone! Here's a short video of her pretending to talk on my phone! I would also like to add that at one years old, Shiloh can unlock an iphone and play songs on itunes.

Shiloh's always been so energetic that she's never really been a cuddler, which is why Marc and I love that she's learned how to hug! Her hugs are very special to us! Here's a video of Shiloh hugging Daddy!