Julie is 11 months old!

Julie turned 11 months old on Christmas, I cannot believe it!

-She points, she loves to point at the pictures of her we have on our refrigerator.  We point to each one really fast while saying, Julie, Julie, Julie, Julie. . . and she loves it!

-My mom taught her how to turn around and go downstairs on her tummy when we were over there visiting, and now she can go up and down stairs(with supervision).

-She still hates the vacuum, so I can only vacuum when Rob is home and they are downstairs.

-She loves to follow me around and loves to be in the kitchen with me whenever possible. Even if she is content playing with her toys, if she sees me try to sneek into the kitchen, she instantly stops what she is doing and heads in my direction.
-If she knows I am in the bathroom, she will lay flat on the floor like she is trying to look underneath the door. She waits there until I come out.

-She got her first cold(started as just a runny nose, and then she got croup on top of that), woke up Sunday night breathing really heavy and raspy. I fed her and she settled down and slept until morning, and then we went to the doctor at 3:00. Gave us a steroid to use in case she was having a hard time breathing and panicky. We haven't had to use it, and she really hasn't been coughing and is sleeping good. I think we got lucky this time. I am pretty sure I gave it to her, sorry babe!
-She is our happy little girl, even while sick she is one happy kid.
-She has really started to be more snugly, she will come up to us if we are on the floor and rest her head on us for awhile, or if I am on the couch she will walk over and rest her head on my leg. It is so cute and I am loving this. 
-She is starting to get more ticklish, and she giggles when I blow on her neck or tickle her under her arms and on her knees and feet. Can't get enough of those laughs, along with her cute smile.
-She always seems to have something in her hands that she is carrying around either crawling or walking. She is into exploring right now, and she has found a few spot that mommy needs to clean. Probably that have never been cleaned before because you would have never thought to look there. The house stays much cleaner with her around!
-I was giving her a bath while Rob was out snowplowing the driveway and sidewalks and she reminded me of washing my parents dog "Buster", she kept rolling over and getting up on her knees to get out. I kept having to lay her back down in the water so I could clean her off. Much easier with Rob there.
-She has learned how to roll a ball, and thinks it is great fun!
She is just a busy little girl, always moving!

Christmas

This was my sister and her husbands year to spend with us.  And we decided to spend Christmas Eve at my parents house for one more year. Here is my Brother in Law showing Julie there fish they brought with them, she loved the fishy.

Julie is definitely walking more than crawling, she is such a cute little walker. We have to watch out for her, she can get in your way or show up behind you.

Christmas Eve dinner was amazing, lots of yummy food!

Julie loved the dinner as well, she didn't eat very much, but she loved playing with  this spoon.

Christmas morning, Julie was the first one out to see the presents and still didn't know what to think of everything!

Robert on Christmas morning.

Passing out the presents!

Julie was liking my sisters grapefruit she got in her stocking, what a fun ball to play with!

Julie got a new phone from Grandma, she loves my moms phone(she loves all phones) and she had fun playing with this for a good part of the morning.

Our family Christmas morning, Julie slept super well at my parents. They set up there crib that my dad made for us kids and we brought our bumper pad from home. Even with us moving a mattress out of the room and moving it back in again, she stayed asleep the whole time. She woke up at her usual time in the morning. And my sister was nice enough to let Rob and I use her bed, while she slept on a blowup mattress in Julie's room. What a nice sister, thanks! Although once my head hit the pillow I was not tired and kept looking at the clock every hour. I think I really fell asleep around 3:00a.m., and woke up around 6:00. I must have been excited about Christmas or something. Next year I am going to enjoy sleeping in my own bed on Christmas!

She Strikes Again!

This time it was my turn to witness her tissue skills! Rob had called to talk, so he could hear Julie before she went down for her nap. She was playing on the floor by me, and then moved to the coffee table where I thought she was just playing with the stack of magazines we keep for her to rip to pieces. After sitting there for a little while longer, I decided to get up off the floor and see what Julie was up to, and to my surprise this is what she was doing:

 She was definitely not playing with the magazines. I had forgotten that I moved the tissues on top of the magazines earlier when I was cleaning off the couch. Whoops! So she  went to town, and she was pulling them out fast! I was laughing trying to tell Rob what she was doing. Too funny!

Work Christmas Party

Robs Work Christmas Party is always a highlight of our Christmas. The party is held at the Coppermill, and I always love the food. And then there is visiting, seeing Santa and sitting on his lap, and presents. Julie was having fun just exploring and walking everywhere.

This was Julies first time sitting on Santa's lap, and she just stared up at him. She wouldn't look at us for a picture. She was just captivated by Santa, no tears. Santa and Mrs. Claus were so kind! Julie got her presents and we headed off to the side to open them up.

Julie didn't care at all about her presents, so we got to open her presents for her. She was to busy walking everywhere.

One of her presents was "My Pal Violet" which she was not to thrilled about. She is just a busy girl, she will figure it out soon enough.

So EXCITED to sit on her Uncle's lap! Haha

And our annual family picture while we waited for Julie's name to be called to go see Santa!

Miscellanious!

 -I keep a bag of clothes in Julies closet that she doesn't quite fit into yet, there are boy clothes included in there since I just loved buying cute outfits before we knew what we were having. Anyways, I was looking through it the other day and started pulling all the clothes out. All the rest of the girls clothes that were in there were 12-18 month size, which is what she is wearing right now, I couldn't believe I had missed all these clothes. There were like 13 pairs of pants, 8 dresses/skirts, and like 5 shirts. I was set on 12-18 months clothes before I found all these, so we are prepared. Julie had fun helping me sort through the clothes, she just liked to mess up the piles that I was making.

Julie loved helping mommy!

 -We got her a new Britax Boulevard 70 car seat, which we installed and it doesn't really fit very well rear-facing in our car, so we took it out. Guess we need a new car, right ;) anyways, I got it because we would be able to keep Julie rear facing until she reached 40 pounds which I love. So much safer that way. We are still going to keep the car seat, even though it doesn't fit in our car right now(don't have a hook for the versa tether), her infant car seat will go rear facing until she is 35 pounds, so we can still use that for now, and there is still one more spot above her shoulders so she has now outgrown that yet. This new car seat is amazing though, and I am excited when we are finally able to use it. Even if we have to wait until we move Julie forward facing. 

 Whenever I come home after grocery shopping and I set the milk down in front of the fridge. Julie comes crawling over and loves to play with the milk.

 This next picture is an awful picture of Julie, this is after she has been crying, and she is also tired. Her face turns splotchy red. So sad!

 -Daddy was having fun with Julie before church, and she was actually wearing one of the hats I made. She usually takes them off right after I put them on.

-Loves to grab stuff from a pile and put it behind her, and does this until the pile is gone. She loves doing this with her books, or her toy bin. Sure makes a huge mess, and then mommy and daddy clean it all up, so that she can have fun doing the same thing again. Love this girl!

-Lately she has been swaying her body back and forth as she is crawling along, the music is going and she is just cruises and get her head and shoulders involved.

-Julie is definitely now a walker, she walks everywhere and loves it. For a while there, she was like a little pinball, walking from furniture piece to furniture piece. She loves her new found freedom.
-Julie is afraid of our vacuums, she was afraid before, but now she is scared. If I get the vacuum out, she will start to whimper and head in the opposite direction or into another room. Then, she will venture out and peek around the corner to see if the vacuum is still out. She is okay if I hold her and vacuum, but that is not the easiest to do. So, Rob has to take her downstairs to play while I vacuum upstairs. I had the vacuum still out upstairs because I needed to dump the contents of dust and yuck that it had sucked up, and she hadn't noticed. She was walking in the direction of where the vacuum was and stopped in her tracks with a worried look on her face, and then turned and went in the other direction. I didn't realize what she was so worried about until I looked in the direction she was walking.
-She loves her stuffed animals and knows each one by name when I ask her about them. There is Pooh Bear, Minnie Mouse, and Monkey. She loves to give them hugs and kisses. I'll say,"Where is Minnie Mouse, or Give Minnie Mouse a hug" and she will hug her or go and find her. So fun to see her act so sweet to her stuffed animals. She still has yet to give us kisses, although when I ask for a kiss she will lean her head into my face, so I can give her a kiss.
-She can say "pitty" for pretty, when she combs her hair, or sees the Christmas Tree lights. She also has "no" down very well, she will say it all the time "no, no, no" If she is headed or doing something we have told her not to do, she will say no, no, no, to herself. I love watching her discover her world around her!

Bath Time and Tissues!

 It is so funny to watch her pull all her books and toys off the shelf. I know I posted some pictures like this already, but she is just so funny.

  Julie loves her bath time, she has started to splash more now. Up until now, she wouldn't kick her legs in the water or splash around. We are thinking it is because she didn't want to get water in her eyes. But, she now loves to splash and has a great time. Rob was checking out how long her hair was and giving her a fun Mohawk. 

 Sunday, Rob had a cold, and Julie had a little runny nose, and so we stayed home from church. I had to teach in Young Women's, so when I left, Julie was still asleep. I told Rob he should probably move the tissue box off the floor, but he informed me that she didn't bother them earlier, so anyways I left and when I came back Rob said that I needed to look at the picture he took on my camera. This is what I saw:

 Haha! She had fun pulling those tissues out, while Rob was not paying attention!

First Cold, another tooth. . .

  Julie is getting another tooth on top(3rd to the right of the middle on top), still not bothering her. This picture kind of shows her sore runny nose from her first cold.

She has had it for about 3 days now, and the constant runny nose is awful. Rob was just getting over his cold and I kind of had a little cold, so we pretty much knew she was going to get something. Other than she hates it when we wipe her nose, she doesn't seem fazed by it. It looks like it is clearing up already, so we are doing well. 

How do you teach a child to drink out of a straw or sippy cup, she just chews and chews. She drinks from a bottle just fine, but sippy cups, not so much. We have to squeeze the bottle for her so she can get what is inside. I will make the sucking sound whenever she has the sippy and she just hasn't gotten it yet. 

She has started talking more, where she will repeat words that you say to her. She can say "mama, and dada" really well now. She will also say "Buster"(my parents dog), and "nana" for banana, she says "pretty" when she combs her hair or if we say pretty she will use whatever she has in her hand at the time and use it to comb her hair. She says "no" and other words that I cannot think of right now.

She is so fun to play with, tonight as she was pulling everything out of her bin, I kept throwing everything back in at the same time. She just kept doing this until I gave up and she emptied out the contents and proceeded to move onto her pile of books. We had a mess when she was done, but she had fun.

She is getting a little more cuddly which I love, she will stop playing and come over to me and rest her head on my lap for a few seconds and then go back to playing. I will ask her for a kiss and she will lean her head in and while I kiss her on the forehead, she will make the sound "ma", long m sound, short a. So cute, and I am loving it. She will also give her stuffed animals loves and kisses also. 

She signs for food and water all the time now, she is a thirsty girl. Whenever we go into any room, she first will look up at the light and raise her hand up. If there is a fan, she wants you to spin it, if not, I just tell her, "no fan" and she goes back to playing, and she does this periodically throughout the day.

Christmas is finally up!

  Well, our tree has been up for about a week, and it already had lights and some ribbon on it, we just needed to decorate. The decorating happened tonight and lets just say it lasted about 10 minutes. All we did was put the ornaments on and walla, BEAUTIFUL. 

I made this tree when we were first married and I love it, but I really do want a bigger, fuller tree. But, this will do for now!

I don't know how much other stuff I will put out, we shall see!

Does it look like Julie is excited, I don't think we will put the Tree skirt on until Christmas Eve, since she likes to just pull it out from under the tree.