Premature Balding!

Julie is thinning out on top(well, all over really), so sad! She really has been losing quite a bit of hair and has now got a little bald spot on the back of her head and on the sides. And I seem to find all these little hairs on my clothes and I can feel them around my mouth after I give her a kiss on her head. I find them on her face as well. I am a little nervous for the next time I wash her hair when I give her a bath. I will probably scrub her hair all off and her hair will be gone. (Not to worry, we have had a bath since writing this post and she still has hair left) I hope it grows back soon!
I am going to have to stick headbands on her more often so that it doesn't look as noticeable! Still just as cute!

She also rolled from tummy to back today. Purely by accident, she leaned and just fell over onto her back. Her Aunt helped some also.

Can't get enough!

I just can't get enough of this cute little face. I love her so much. So, again, here is some MORE pictures of my sweet little girl. This first picture shows her head kind of falling back, but she can now sit in the bumbo and not have her head fall back. She will just sit in there and look around from side to side for quite a while.

Maybe she just loves to look up at everything she sees around her. She has definitely filled out, and can sit very comfortably in the bumbo. HaHa Love it!

She loves her fingers, she will just lay there or sit with one or two fingers up by her mouth and she will just barely touch her tongue to her finger tips, like she is figuring what they are. She will also do this when she is falling asleep.

And more pictures of her doing so well holding that head up off the ground. I think she finally has it, and now can look up and around and all over.

Minestrone Soup

This soup is so amazingly delicious! My visiting teaching partner brought this over when we had Julie and I loved it. So, I asked for the recipe and got it the other day. She actually got it from her visiting teacher 20 years ago when she had a baby. It is good!

Minestrone Soup
1 1/2 lb ground sausage (Italian or Country) cook and break up the sausage before adding everything else
2 qts. water
4 beef boullion cubes
3 stalks celery, diced
2 small onions, diced
5 large carrots, sliced
2 8oz. cans tomato sauce
1 lg. can stewed tomatoes (15oz)
1 clove garlic, minced and pressed
1/2 tsp. sweet basil (I used plain basil and it tasted great)
1 tsp. oregano
1 T. parsley

Simmer all these ingredients together for 2-4 hours

Last 1/2 hour add:
1 can french cut green beans
1 can garbanzo beans (drained)
3 cups uncooked noodles (twists or shells)

Top with sour cream before serving.

3 months!

Three months old, time just seems to fly by.

I keep saying this, but she is getting stronger everyday and can hold her head off the ground pretty well now.

It seems like this past week she has just really started to jabber A LOT more and just talk up a storm to whoever wants to listen. My sister got her to laugh a few times which was so cute. She is grabbing at her toys and loves her little dolly, she will grab at it and pull it to her and wrap her arms around it and give her a big hug.

She has started to get fat sleeves, you can tell in the picture above, the little crease on her wrist.
She wasn't too excited when I took these pictures, she just looked so cute in her pink dress, she is growing so fast and her dresses are getting shorter and shorter. She does not wear them for very long before they are too little for her. She wears a new dress every week.

Dad got a little smile out of her.

This picture shows off her cute jeans, I have been waiting for these to fit, they are not quite snug around the waist so I was holding off but she will grow out of the length soon.

She is so much fun and I am so excited she is at the point where she is more interactive. I love this stage.

She laughed!

Oh my, Julie laughed today and it was the cutest thing ever!

She just makes me smile!

This girl just makes me smile, she is so much fun. Very random post, just had pictures that I love of this girl and wanted to share with everyone!

The stage she is in right now is just exciting, she is getting very interactive. She has started to reach and hold onto things, she loves to grab her doll and give her hugs and love her.

She is smiling and talking like crazy, blowing bubbles, licking her hands and so much more. Every time I look into her face, her eyes just pop out at me, they are beautiful. She lights up when she smiles.
Yesterday she has started to smile and talk while feeding her, which makes things interesting. It takes longer to feed her when she wants to just talk and gab halfway through. It is so funny, I just tell her that she needs to finish eating and then we can play, and she just smiles. Oh, I just love this kid. SO MUCH FUN!

This is my sister playing with Julie, she is staying with us for a little while and it is so much fun to have her here. Julie get a lot of love. In this picture she looks so grown up.

12 weeks

My little gal is 12 weeks old and we used my moms kitchen scale to see how much she weighs. I was thinking she would weigh around 13 lbs or so, I was wrong. She weighed between 14.5-15 lbs, whoa! She is growing so fast, everyday there is something new.

She is doing so much better at lifting her head up, she has started just face planting her head into the ground while she is licking and babbling. It is so funny.

She is getting more drooly, making lots of bubbles. The sounds she makes while she is blowing bubbles is so cute. She learned how to stick her tongue out on Saturday. So, we stick our tongue out at her and she will stick her tongue out after. So fun to watch her do this. I have not got a picture of her doing it but I will have to get one.
These next pictures show how well she is lifting her head, and she lifts it up a lot higher when she is laying on her daddy's belly.

When being held she likes to look out at everything, she doesn't really like to be cradle held. She loves to watch everything that is going on around her. She is also loving her walks every day. We have started walking earlier in the morning since it is heating up and it is too hot to walk in the afternoon.
I just love this last picture of Julie, her eyes just jump out at me and make me smile!

Sometimes she is just so tired, she usually wakes up when I change her diaper but she must have been super tired because she was just zonked out as I was changing her yesterday.

Electric Pressure Cooker

For Christmas I actually got two of these:

I love it, I have only used it twice so far and I made the same thing, but it was super easy and I am excited to use it a lot more.
The first recipe I tried was Rice Pilaf, to show you how easy this recipe was I will show you threw pictures.
First-butter, just plop 1 and a 1/2 Tbsp. butter in the pan and set the cooker to Saute. Let it melt and get hot for about 2 minutes.

Second: Add chopped celery, carrots, and onions. Stir and saute for another 2 minutes.

Third: Add 2 cups rice and stir for about 2 minutes until riced turns opaque.

Fourth: Add broth, and salt. Stir and put on lid and lock. Then you turn the pressure cooker to High Pressure and set for 3 minutes and push start. It builds up pressure and then the timer starts, once it beeps after 3 minutes, you will wait for another 3 minutes and then use the quick pressure release and it will release all the steam. The float valve will drop and the lid will unlock so you can lift the lid off.

Fluff the rice up and your ready to go.

So super quick and simple. You cannot open the lid until it is safe. Now all that is left is to enjoy the yummy goodness.

Comparisons!

Everyone asks me who Julie looks like, so here is a comparison. I think she looks a lot like me. Check out our eyes and our mouth and also our jaw line. I think it is funny that her hand is in the same place as mine in the photo and she does this a lot, she has her hand up by her face a lot and will fall asleep sometimes with her hand or fingers resting on her face. Her hair line which you can't see is also just like mine. It is crazy to see so many similarities between us. I still need to find a baby picture of Rob to compare her to also.
Sometimes I just look at Julie and she just seems so familiar to me.

Smiles!

I finally caught some really good smiles on camera! I love this little face!

To help with her neck strength, we borrowed this bumbo from our sister in law, as you can see she is not quite strong enough to keep herself up in it so we have to prop toys around her in the seat to help her stay straight and that doesn't always work either.

We had a fun weekend, we went down south for Julie's cousin's 1st birthday. Crazy how time flies! Well, it was going to be a 2 1/2 hour drive and Rob and I were both a little worried if Julie would last the trip. Well, I fed her and we left, she slept the whole way down, yeah! We had such a great time visiting with everyone that came. Then, when it was time to go I fed her and then we headed out, and again she slept all the way. We were so excited at how well she did! Hopefully all our long drives are just the same. She still is doing great at sleeping through the night and taking about 4 naps during the day.

Sweet Julie

At my parents house the other day, my mom took a picture of my Dad holding Julie and she got one of Julie smiling. Sitting with Grandpa!

Julie sleeps with her hands above her head, to me it just looks uncomfortable but when she is not bundled up this is how I find her when I sneak a peak at her.

And I had Rob take a picture of us together, Rob doesn't usually pick up the camera and take pictures, so I have to remind him to take some pictures so that I can be in them as well.

As of Easter Sunday, Julie lifted her head off the ground (although she was laying on Robs chest a little slanted). She is doing so well with her neck strength. She can hold it up really well while sitting up, but when she is flat on her stomach, she still is not quite strong enough yet. I lay her on the ground and she automatically turns to the right and so I just constantly move it to the left, she will not turn her head to the left by herself. Silly kid!She has a cute doll that her grandma Taylor gave her and every time we lay her down on her back and put that in front of her, she just goes crazy. She starts talking and wiggling like crazy. She looks like she just wants to grab at it, but can't figure out those arms quite yet. It is the cutest thing to watch how excited she gets.
And here is one with the doll and I also caught her smiling or right on the verge of smiling. I still think it is a cute smile.

She is getting better control of her arms but still hits herself in the face. Since she has been gaining arm strength, we now can tell when she is tired, when she rubs her eyes. She also finds her hand and just kind of rolls them all together up by her mouth while licking them. It is so funny and we got a good video of her doing it. Here are some pictures of her doing it!

Rubbing her eyes, telling me she was tired!

The other night she slept for her longest amount without waking up, which was 8 1/2 hours, which means I got about 8 hours straight, so nice. For the last week she has been a great sleeper and does not even wake up during the night anymore.
My favorite time is still right after I feed her and I am changing her diaper and she just is super happy and talkative. It is so fun to just play with her and make noises and sometimes it seems like she is trying to copy the noises that I make.