Girls Weekend!!!



Millie and her cousins: Michaela (10 mths), Millie (4 mths), Rylee and Reghan (6 mths)

I cannot ever thank God enough for blessing me with the most amazing, loving family.  Spending time with them is so much fun and I am always happy when we are together.  The great thing about my family is that we have soooo many girls!  We are all so close and my mom, Godmother, aunts and cousins are all my best friends.  We just had a girls weekend at my Godmother's lake house on Lake McQueeny this past weekend.  It was such a blast!  All the girls were there:  my mom, my Godmother Missy, Aunt Viki with the twins, Aunt Dede, Cousin Mindy, Cousin Berenice with her baby Michaela and Cousin Cristl.  We have tons more girls in the family but not all could join.  My sister wasn't there which would have made us feel complete but the great news is that she just moved to New Braunfels!!!!!  My sister and I have always been close but now we will be so much closer.  I'm so thankful for her!

As you can see by the precious picture that looks like an Anne Geddes photograph, we dressed all the baby cousins in a matching tutu outfit (special thanks to Berenice for buying these precious ballerina outfits!) and took pictures.  I seriously think this picture could be a Mud Pie advertisement.  I get so happy thinking about how these girls will all get to grow up together.  Being so close in age is such a blessing.  Colbie Jane, my cousin's Holly and Craig's baby girl, wasn't there but she is almost two and is definitely the leader of the pack when it comes to these girls.  And on Trevor's side of the family, Millie has ANOTHER set of twin girl cousins that were just born in December, Isabelle and Sophia.  They are so precious and small!  It's so wonderful that Millie will be surrounded by family all her age to grow up with.

I think we should have girl's weekend way more often! 

Playing at the lake

Four Months Old!

I can't believe it's already time for me to post about Millie's four month milestone.  It feels like yesterday she was just an infant.  Seriously, time needs to stand still just for a while. 

I can't express into word how much my heart leaps for joy when I see my baby girl's eyes light up when she sees me from across the room.  She knows I'm her mommy and it gives her peace.  Her peace is my peace.  My favorite part of the day is first thing in the morning when she's lying in her crib and I walk in to greet her.  As soon as I peer over the side, I get this precious look...


Melt my heart!

Now at four months, Millie weighs 15 pounds and 8 ounces (86%), is 25 1/4 inches (84%), and her head circumference is 16.1 inches (47%).  She is still a healthy girl!  She is starting to really giggle and laugh a lot now and is so incredibly interested in her surroundings.  She stares at everything and really studies it.  she loves for me to read books to her.  She hasn't rolled over yet but we're working on it!  She's got some weight to carry so I'm sure that makes it a little harder.  She's able to put herself to sleep for naps and bedtime which is AWESOME!  She isn't sleeping that well but I can tell the sleep training is working.  She is officially wearing six month clothing.  Her head control is excellent and she loves to stand up.  I'm going to try to start weaning her off of her swaddle soon.  I'm not excited about that.  We also started rice cereal on Wednesday.  Day one didn't go so well... 

...she fussed most of the time but by the third day she was loving it and begging for more.  The cereal hasn't affected her sleeping though (unfortunately).  I was hoping it would help her sleep better but no such luck.

Rachel and Griffin came by last week to visit.  We had another great day together and another great photo opp with the babies.  I love these two!

2011 is here. Happy New Year!!

I realize that we are already six days into the new year and that means I'm six days late in writing this post.  But hey, at least I'm finally writing it!  We kicked off the new year with an amazing weekend that I must share with you.  Since New Year's Eve landed on a Friday this year, we were able to celebrate the whole weekend!  My mom and Mike drove up from Houston to babysit Millie Friday night so Trevor and I could be grown-ups.  We met my cousins Jason and Berenice at Myron's steakhouse in New Braunfels for a delicious New Year's eve dinner.  We had scrumptious steak, jalapeno mac and cheese, mushrooms, and asparagus for dinner and I cannot forget to tell you that we had some amazing wine as well!  Dinner lasted about three hours and then all four of us headed back to our casa to ring in the New Year with champagne.  When we arrived home, mom and Mike were already in bed but we were able to get mom up to ring in 2011 with us.  I have a picture of her but she would shoot me if I posted it.  Don't worry mom!  She did, however, snap some great photos of the four of us just after the ball dropped.

We had such a great time!  It was the perfect way to welcome 2011. The next day, Trevor and I packed our bags and left the house at 11:00 for our very first 24 hours without our little princess.  Trevor's parents gave us a gift card for a night away for Christmas and my mom and Mike gave us the gift of staying with Millie for 24 hours sans mom and dad.  I can't tell you how awesome it was to have some quality time with my husband.  Especially in the atmosphere we were in!  We headed over to the new JW Marriott Hill Country resort in San Antonio.  It's only one year old and it's the most beautiful place I've been to in a long time.  The resort also has a PGA golf course which is very nice.  When Trevor and I checked in, we had no idea at the time but his friend who works for Marriott, set us up in the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE!!!  Holy moly this room was huge!  It had two fireplaces (one in the living room and one in the master bedroom), four flat screens, two living rooms, a huge dining room table, kitchen, and a study.  It was magical.  The view was something out of a painting.  Very romantic.  I have pictures but they're on my iPhone and I haven't uploaded them yet.  Anyway, I was more excited about getting a full night's sleep without waking up for feedings every few hours more than anything.  I also got an amazing 80 minute deep tissue massage at the Hotel Spa which was, well...AMAZING!

So far 2011 has been a blessed year.  I hope and pray that only more joy and blessings come to our family and yours in this new year.  God bless!

Christmas

Christmas this year was purely magical. We are so blessed to have so much family to share the Holidays with and though it can be exhausting traveling here and there, we wouldn't change it for the world!

The weekend before Christmas was Goliad Christmas.  That includes everyone on my father's side of the family.  We all met at my Mimi and Papa's house and shared a great weekend together.  It was special this year because my cousin, Jaqui, and I both have new babies and this was their first Christmas so it was so much fun with both Ryan and Millie.  Here's a picture of the new baby cousins hanging out....

Ryan Paul Rubio (6 mths.) and Millie Grace Bird (3 mths.)



Millie and Ryan with their great-grandparents.

After a great weekend with the Pillow's in Goliad, we went home and began preparing for Craig family Christmas (my mom's side).  It's been tradition in our family since before I was born to all gather at my grandparents' house on Christmas eve and enjoy fellowship with the WHOLE family.  I'm talking aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts and uncles, third cousins once removed, etc.  I mean ALL the family comes together.  It's so awesome.  We all play chinese Christmas and exchange gifts.  Here's a couple pics from Christmas Eve:

When Christmas morning came, we dressed all the babies in matching Christmas pajamas and took pictures.  These girls are so close in age and we are all just giddy thinking about them growing up together.  I'm sure they will all be very close.  Not only family, friends!



From left: Millie, Colbie, Reghan and Rylee

 It was so wonderful to FINALLY meet my baby twin cousins Reghan and Rylee.  If you remember, my aunt and uncle have been living in Singapore the past year and they had the babies over there.  Christmas was our first time meeting them and they are oh so precious!  They are six months old now (two months older than Millie).  I had so much fun watching all three of them interacting and playing.  It makes me so happy to know that these girls will grow up together.  Also, my sister-in-law Paige just gave birth to identical twin girls right before Christmas!  Isabelle Cecilia and Sophia Elizabeth.  They are so beautiful and precious and It's exciting to think that Millie has TWO sets of identical twin girl cousins to grow up with all her age.  I just hope Millie doesn't get confused and start asking us where her other half is.  Ha!

I hope you all had a magical Christmas!