There's a Hole!

I have had a hole in my knee of my pants for a while now that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. When it was fairly small, Julie would point to my knee and I would tell her "mommy has a hole in her pants" and she would keep pointing and start to cry. It was so traumatic for her, it made us laugh, but she would full out cry. I would have to cross my legs so that she couldn't see it, although she would most likely try to uncross my legs. She doesn't cry anymore when she sees my hole, but will point and say "hole". This is how she learned the word knee.

I really do need to patch it before it gets any bigger!

16 Months

Julie is now 16 months old, she is about 26.6lbs.(according to our scale), and about 33 in. tall. She is such a joy! Her personality is so fun to watch come through, she is getting a little temper also.

There was one night right after we went to bed that she woke up, and kept crying so I went in to sit with her and rock her but she kept crying/screaming and pointing to the door. I didn't want to bug Rob, but he eventually came in and she instantly calmed down as he took her and rocked her. She has been favoring her daddy more lately, and I know he likes that. I don't mind at all.

 She is always doing this gesture with her arm below, "Where did it go." she does this all the time, but usually with both arms. Whenever Rob leaves the room where she is in or goes outside, she will instantly do this with a cute little high pitched "huhh", and then she will look at me and I will tell her that he just went outside and he will be back. She also does this when he leaves for work in the morning, I will have to explain that he is going to work and he will be back later. She doesn't usually wave bye either until the garage door goes down.

She also does this when something has fallen off her tray and she can't see it or if she has lost something.

 This is her basket that she now loves to carry all her Easter eggs in, she carries this all over the house all the time. So funny!

 She was in the kitchen with me the other day while I was cooking dinner before Rob came home, and she loves the lid drawer. She found a new way of drinking from her sippy without using her hands, so clever. I had forgotten about it and went looking for her sippy that night, then remembered where it was.

 She loves standing in the doorway and looking outside. This was in the evening right before bed, and it was such a nice evening, that I let her stand there for awhile and watch the world outside. She will pear out bending halfway while leaving her feet in the house and look all around, while talking and signing, leaves, bird(if she hears a bird), tree. It is so cute, and sometimes she leans so far out that I am afraid she is going to fall out.

 She loves the outdoors!

She has been doing better at coloring and knowing what paper is and that we only color on paper. She will still carry the crayons with her all over the house.

Some of the foods she really is liking right now are, grapes(she signs for grapes all day long), tomatoes, strawberries(I have bought tons of strawberries in the last couple weeks, so we always have strawberries until yesterday when there wasn't any at the store I get them at, so we had none and she kept signing for some, and I would keep saying no, no strawberries. Now she signs for strawberries and then signs "no" afterwords), and kiwi. She really loves her fruit.

And she still really loves her books, I didn't know you could ruin a board book, but she has. She likes to bend them backwards, I am always catching her doing this and have to tell her that we need to treat the books nicely so they will last a long time. 

And her phase right now is sticking her fingers up her nose. It started after she got a runny nose, and sometimes she will stick her finger in her nose and push hard. Ahhh, I hate this, I am constantly pulling her fingers out. There are sometimes when I just have to ignore her and try not to laugh, because I know she is just doing it to see what I will do. Man, hopefully she grows out of this one quick.

She loves to point at all her body parts and say what they are. She is really good with pointing out her ears, head, hair, eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, knee, feet, toes, belly, and belly button.

We love her so much!

1st Molar!

Julie's first molar is coming in, I noticed something the other day but didn't check any further and yesterday at church Rob saw it and showed me. She hasn't been complaining much, other than a little more whiny at bedtime, and waking up crying Saturday night. Last night we gave her some tylenol before bed and she slept really well. This molar is on the bottom left side(her left side)

Cold Recovery!

The second day of our cold, we were both doing much better. Julie and my nose were still really quite runny, but no more aches, no more fever, and no more chills and just a slight sore throat. I also realized that I could take medicine for my cold since I am not pregnant or nursing, yeah! We did some more of this though, since we had no where we needed to go, why not!

 Had to have her stash of books as well!

 And, today after not getting my exercising in for 3 days from having no energy, I exercised this morning, but only could exercise for 10 minutes, after that I just had no energy to finish. This cold sure wore me out. The first day of it was awful(stinks to have a cold and feel yucky while still having to take care of Julie), the second was just runny and then the third day was the losing my voice day(where your voice sounds like a frog), and then today I feel pretty normal other than a dry cough and stuffy/drying up nose/and flaky outer nostrils from blowing my nose so much. Julie only got the runny nose and she is already clearing up, didn't even have to wipe her nose today, other than using the nose sucker. She never really complained and she was really good at not wiping her nose either, if her nose started to run she would look at me and kind of whine a little bit and put her hand up to her nose without touching it. I would run and grab and tissue and wipe and she was back to playing as usual. Didn't seem to faze her too much. In all, it was no biggy, and after 4 days are feeling like normal. I love it when a cold doesn't last forever.  And so far, we managed not to get Rob sick, now that is truly a miracle. And today was a beautiful day

Things to Remember

-We went to Robs parents house on Sunday and had a good time. Julie found a basket like the one she used for Easter, she was pointing to the door with basket in hand, like she was ready to go hunt for Easter eggs, she would just stand there. It was so funny. It was also SUPER windy all night and all day. Even with it being windy, we took Julie outside to play. She ran and ran all over and had so much fun, her Grandpa Taylor even brought out the bubble gun, and she liked watching the bubbles blow all over like crazy.

-She signs everything while she is saying the word as well, I just love the Baby Signing Time DVD's, and the Signing Time DVD's. Some of the words she signs are, all done, milk, water, bean, strawberry, carrot, peach, apple, tomato, noodle, rain, wind, bubble, hot, cold, go, dog, bird, and many others that I am not sure what they are yet or rather how she is interpreting them. Some of them she doesn't get her hand in quite the right place, but I know what she is trying to do, so I will always sign it the right way to show her. She can also pick up new signs pretty quick. It is nice that she is able to tell me what she wants. Lately, she always want to go outside to blow bubbles, she will sign bubbles and then sign go(always while saying the word as well), so we usually go outside every morning to blow bubbles and pick up rocks. She will carry the rocks all around the yard and always have to carry at least one inside with her, which then I will take it away. 

 Can you see a rock in each hand!

 Helping Dad get all the big rock out of the garden so we can till!

 -She knows the letter M, she has a touch and feel book about Farm animals and on the front of the book, is FARM in big letters, she pointed to the M, and says "M"mmmm. Took me by surprise that she knew that. 

-She really is a very good eater, and she hates it when she gets food on the back of her hand, I usually have to wipe it off before she can resume eating. She is generally pretty clean while eating as well, which I am grateful for, usually always keeping her food on the tray. She also has a sippy with a straw, the only think I hate about it is that when the sippy has been in the fridge with milk and I take it out, the milk will slowly come up the straw and come out, she notices this also, and kind of freaks out when it even barely starts coming.

She also has been learning how to use a fork!

-Her new thing right now is sitting on the couches, she loves to sit or run/walk across them(which I keep telling her she needs to sit down, but will not), she just loves to be able to get herself up onto them herself and is so proud of herself when she accomplishes this. She can occasionally pull herself onto our couches, but usually we will hoist her up there. 

-She has been LOVING books right now, more than her toys, so I went to the Book Table and purchased a few more board books that she could flip through easier herself. If I am sitting on the couch she will load up some books on there and then want me to lift her up, once she is up there she will turn herself around and plop herself onto my lap. Can I just say that I LOVE this, it wasn't long ago where she would not hardly even sit with us and we would have to read the books so fast. Now, she will let us read books all the time. It kind of started when we changed her night time ritual around.

 (This picture is actually from in the morning when she woke up)

 Instead of nursing her right before bed, we will give her some milk, and brush teeth/change diaper/ jammies, and then we will sit in the chair in her room and read her a couple books before bed. Usually the same three books, one of them I got at the Borders closing sale, called "Bear Snores On" love this book and Julie does to. I can read the whole thing without even looking at it. Rob was holding Julie in the chair, and I was on the floor saying the words while Rob and Julie were turning the pages. Then I have the words stuck in my head for the rest of the night. The three stories we usually read are "Go, Train, Go", "Goodnight Moon", and "Bear Snores On", with Goodnight Moon always being the last one by her choice.

 She loves poking her finger in the holes as we count the fruit.

 Heard a truck drive by!

 So, the books I got at the Book Table are, "Ten Little Ladybugs", "The Very Busy Spider"(got this one from the library first and she loved it), "Freight Train", and "The Napping House", and they were all board books. She loves all of them. Yesterday, since it was rainy outside, and I have a runny nose/aches/fever/chills/feeling crappy sickness, and Julie has a runny nose, we read a lot today. We colored in the morning(which she usually doesn't last too long with, but was loving it this time), and then she had a nap and I tried to rest on the couch. When she woke up, I basically sat on the couch the rest of the afternoon until Rob came home feeling awful, while reading to Julie all of these books over and over and over. She was having a great time and I love seeing her so happy to read. She was also loving it because she was on the couch. Good times, minus the feeling cruddy part. I seriously don't remember the last time I have felt like this, it was definitely before I got pregnant with Julie. It seriously drained me today! It wasn't until right before we got into bed that Rob checked my temperature to see if maybe I did have a fever and sure enough, I did, 100.1, so I took a tylenol and went to bed. I felt so much better this morning, no more aches, I could breathe through my nose for the moment, and I slept really well.

-Julie is into EVERYTHING, man alive this girl loves to open every drawer in sight. If I let her into the kitchen while I am cooking, the whole contents of our pantry cupboard is on the floor. It definitely keeps her busy while I am fixing dinner. She also loves the bathroom drawers, and if I don't put up the gate while I am getting ready or just in there, she will get things out, put things back in, and when she finds what she wants she will close the drawer and go on her merry way. Most of the time I am just constantly telling her "no" and shutting the drawers. And I hate saying that word all the time. She is really good at always closing the drawer when she is done, and rarely ever pinches her fingers. 

  She also found the croutons, and was able to get them open. She was loving eating those before dinner.

 She just cracks me up!

She also loves to pull out cutips from the drawer and I will find them all over the house.

 Here she is after seeing me clean out my ears, monkey see, monkey do!

 We have been going on a lot of wagon rides, usually every night before bed if it is not raining(darn rain, I am so done with it). She loves to ride in the wagon.

 Does anyone have any good ideas on vacations for the whole family. We seriously need to do something this summer and whenever we talk about where we want to go or what we want to do, we don't know what we want to do. We hate to travel, it would be nice if we could bypass the part of getting to our destination. And we don't want to go very far, but we need to do something!

Soo Tired after Church!

Julie has been starting to have just one nap during the day, her afternoon nap which is usually a good 3 hours long. Sunday seems to be the only day where she falls asleep while eating. We had barely given her some tomatoes to eat, I went around the counter to finish our lunches, and looked up and Julie was out. One minute she was eating, and the next she was asleep. So off to bed she went!

Go, Go, Go!

Julie loves to go outside, for the past two mornings, after I somewhat get ready, she will say "jacket" and go and get it and then proceed to try and put it on. Then she will say, go go go, and head for the door. I always say, Julie, where are we going to go. So, I will go get finished getting dressed and then we will go outside to the backyard. We were outside the other night and I would pull some grass and then throw it in her direction, she loved this. So, now she will pull out the grass(probably not good teaching her how to pull the grass out, but all kids do it, right) and throw it on the ground herself. She also likes to pick up rocks and hold onto them. She will put it to her mouth real close and look like she is going to stick it in but never does. 

She also likes to go up and touch our tree, she will walk up to it and say "touch it" and then touch it. A while ago, I was holding her and I walked her up to the tree and told her to touch it, she very cautiously reached her hand out to touch it and then would bring it back in to her chest. She did this a few times before she finally touched the tree. We are going to have a lot of outdoor time this summer!

Picnic at the Park

We had our first picnic tonight. I went and got Subway sandwiches so we could head out when Rob got off work and get back home in time to mow the lawn(our first time). I fed Julie before we left since she was hungry and it was just a little easier that way. We stuck her in the stroller and put the cooler underneath her feet(she didn't mind), and off we went. It took about 10 minutes to walk to the Park and soccer games were in full swing. We found a table and ate our dinner while Julie walked around.

It was her first time at the park and I think she liked it. She went down the slide, and the tube slide(can't think of the actual name), and she swung on the swing with Rob. She seemed to like the slides. We had fun, I didn't take any pictures though. Darn it! It got kind of cool when we were there, but other than that it was a great little picnic with each other.

Easter with Robs Family

Here are all the kiddos minus Owen. Had to get a picture before they headed out to find some eggs.

Julie got into it more this time and carried a big basket for her eggs. I think she had fun picking up eggs and putting them into her basket or just holding onto them.

Family Shot, it was a gorgeous day, there were some clouds that moved in right around the time we were doing our Easter egg hunt, and it got a little chilly(leave it to me to leave my jacket at home). We were able to do the Easter Egg Hunt and play a little outside before it got a little to windy and started to rain. It rained for a little bit and then the sun came back out and was a gorgeous day again.

She loved to carry the basket straight in front of her, she likes to carry a lot of her big toys like this.

Picking up those eggs!

The boys were told to go hide the eggs, and they just started chucking them out into the yard. Although, it ended in chucking them at each other(go figure, they sure have fun when they are together).

Basket full of eggs.

Jackson and Ethan had fun playing with the little car and tractor, and Julie basically watched them and sat on this little car.

Can you see these faces, it is trouble when they get together, especially those middle two, haha!

No Naps=Not Good! (End of Nursing)

So, we spent today with Robs family, starting at 10:40 with a baby blessing of baby Owen. Then we went back to our house and got Julie changed and packed up the salad and then headed over to Robs parents for lunch and for Easter with Robs side of the family(more on that later). It was a fun filled day and I knew from the beginning that Julie was not going to get her nap in. She was a happy little girl and had fun playing. We left around 6:30p.m. to go home and put Julie down early since having no nap. We put her in the car and no less than 3 minutes later, she was out. We got her home and fed her a little food since she didn't eat too much during the day. Halfway through her meal she was eating a banana and I don't know if she bit her lip or was annoyed with the string on her lip from the banana, but she started crying and was not happy. I sang "Popcorn Popping" and got her to laugh and smile, but once I ended she went right back to not being happy. So, we got her out cleaned her up and gave her a bath, which she usually enjoys. She cried and cried and cried through the whole process. We dried her off and got her dressed for bed. Said prayers. Then I nurse her right before bed. For the last two days I have cut her morning feeding out, and so I only nurse her at night. And well, tonight she wanted nothing to do with me, she would cry and blow out her lips(like we were giving her something that she didn't want) over and over. Nursing usually calms her down. So, I read her some books to calm her down and try again. After she was calmed down, I tried again and she still wanted none of it.

I have been meaning to totally wean her, but these last two feedings were the hardest to let go(for my sake), and I didn't want the evening one to end so quickly after I cut the morning one out. 

I think she was just overly tired and didn't know quite how to handle it, so we just gave her loves, and put her in bed. She cried for a few minutes, settled down and fell asleep.

Makes me sad to think that I won't have that cuddle time with her anymore, where she is just content to lay in my arms for 10-20 minutes. Oh, how I am going to miss this!
She definitely needs that afternoon nap, and oh how I love that time I have to myself to do whatever!

(Taylor Easter Festivity Pictures to come)