Pear Eater

About once a day Julia gets her hands on some sort of food meant for those of us with teeth. And when she does, look out. Oh, and don't dare try to take it from her. This particular day it was a pear that Dan was finishing up for breakfast. Other favorites are carrot sticks and apples. Yum yum!

Getting to Know You

Welcome to the latest issue of getting to know you!

What is your name: Julia Claire

How old are you: 7 months old, yipee!

Do you have a nickname: Yes it's Jitterbug. J Bug. But sometimes Mom calls me Jolly Julia.

What is your favorite thing to do: Hm. It's a toss up between eating, or smiling, or removing my sox and eating them. I also like to watch my big sister and laugh at anything she does.

What's your favorite food: Mom's sweet potatoes.

What's your least favorite food: Mom's bananas.

Do you have any siblings: I have a big sister that is the coolest thing since booby milk.

How would your sibling(s) describe you: Widdle with no hair

What color is your hair/eyes: My hair is red and my eyes are blue

Other interesting facts: Yes. My mom said to tell everyone that I am sitting up very well, that I am sleeping in my crib in the playroom, I almost weigh 17 pounds (and am 50% for height & weigh), I am now wearing 6-9 month clothing, I am a delayed spit upper and lose whatever I ate about 30 minutes after eating it, and I can make my daddy do a little dance if I'll give him a smile.

Tent City

So what's a girl to do when her daddy is working at nights (and sleeping during play hours) for an entire week? Oh, and it's raining outside and you have spent the previous few days enjoying the spring-ish weather? Make a tent, of course!

Carrots and Daddy

One of Julia's favorite things is to chew on a carrot. Another one of her favorite things is her daddy. So this must have been a perfect moment for her... chewing on a carrot with Dad.

Daddy Dates

Ellie has school every Wednesday - which she loves, and I love... and Julia probably loves it too. :) Sometimes Julia and I can catch Dan on a good day at work and pick him up for lunch. J and I like having Daddy all to ourselves sometimes. This particular time we were at Atlanta Bread, yum yum.

Sweet Sisters

Ellie administering a "razzleberry" on Julia's belly.

Watching a bit of a movie in the morning after breakfast together (before I rescued Juila who isn't supposed to be watching any tv until she's 2. Hah).

Julia absolutely adores Ellie. Any time Ellie isn't around, Julia is on the lookout for her. Ellie particularly likes making Julia laugh and the two of them have been creating their very own in-car entertainment lately. It's difficult to drive when there is so much ruckus going on in the back seat. I realize that one day this will change... but I chose not to think about that.

Buds

For the past several months, Ellie's little buddy has been a little boy named Caleb. Recently, however, the differences between the sexes have been creating some issues between the two of them. For example; Caleb likes dinosaur paraphernalia and Ellie is terrified of anything of the sort. At some point while the two are playing together, Ellie can be found saying "dat skea me, dat skea me" and running away from Caleb who is holding a dinosaur and making growling noises. You know, stuff like that. It's an interesting change in friendship to watch take place. But the two of them are willing to set these differences aside and enjoy playing together anyway. Which is a fabulous lesson to learn at this age because... can't we all just get along? I think the fact that Caleb got a bouncy house for his birthday helps the situation from Ellie's perspective. And it appears that Julia and Caleb's little brother Noah enjoy looking at one another. I think anyway. We were at the park last week (still a bit chilly out) and they behaved quite nicely sitting on the stairs.

Oh it's lovely to be outside...

Look at it, turn it over, look at it some more...

Taste it!

Ellie disappeared inside for a few minutes and returned with what's pictured above. It's almost all of the tupperware lids she could find for Julia (so when Julia lost her grip on a lid and it fell to the ground, we could just pull out another - who says almost 3 year olds aren't innovative?)

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend (as previously posted about swinging), and the great weather even extended into most of this week. Of course it's Friday now and has just started raining one of those Spring rains that's supposed to bring all of the new green life... only it's been cloudy for the past 5 months and I'm quite tired of clouds. Oh well, Mother Nature didn't ask me before she brought on more clouds. She probably has a master plan anyway. :) So... Back to earlier this week, because it makes me happy to think about how much sunshine we experienced, and because I have a few pictures to share with you. Which is the sole purpose of this blog... pictures. I doubt anyone actually reads the mumbo-jumbo that I write anyway (they don't leave comments if they do...).

Something happened to her over the Winter and Ellie has now mastered blowing bubbles. Prior to the winter and being confined to the indoors, Ellie mostly stuck the wand (full of bubble juice, mind you) to her lips and then tried to make bubbles. Obviously no bubbles were created by Ellie using that method. But as of this week, she is holding the wand away from her lips and making beautiful bubbles. She's pretty pleased with herself, too.

Julia was delighted to experience the sun and wind (whilst gnawing on something, of course). In fact, Ellie was in such good spirits that she went inside and gathered all of the tops out of the tupperware drawer for Julia to chose from.

Measurements

I've been doing a lot of Spring/Summer sewing for Ellie lately and I realized that I'd been doing a lot of guessing on her size. So I brought out my tape measure and went to work getting Ellie's digits. It was quite the easy task this time around, as opposed to in the past where she has fought me as though I was inflicting severe pain.

Ellie decided that if she had to be measured, anyone who was moving about the living room needed to be measured as well. Dan, Levi, and I were all her subjects.

Now if she would just try on what I make her while I'm in mid process... that would be nice.

First Swinging!

I need some sunglasses please

Thanks but no thanks

Ok fine, I'll leave them on

We had had a series of beautiful days this past weekend and we spent as much time as we possibly could outdoors. It was awesome. The sun was even out for more than one day, and we didn't even wear sunscreen (gasp). After this dreary winter we all needed a good dose of vitamin D. Anywho. Much to Ellie's chagrin (my brother's word), we put Julia in the baby swing. Because of the swingsets position in regard to the sun, poor Julia's eyes were watering at first. But that's nothing a pair of sunglasses can't cure. She was grin grin grinning from ear to ear - unlike her sister.

Ellie's Pictures

While Julia was eating her first sweet potatoes a few days ago, I took some pictures with my little camera. The moment I set it down, Ellie decided to practice her skilz. I was impressed that she managed to get faces in the frame. In the middle of Julia's dinner Dan called to say he was on his way home (which is why I'm on the phone, feeding Julia, taking pictures and talking to Ellie all at once. Mom; The ultimate multi-tasker.).