Recent Photos

Here are some photos of Julia from the past few weeks:

She often hands me her crib toys before I get her out of bed in the morning.

We've had a couple of coloring sessions. She made more marks on her page this time than she did the first time, but she still would rather chew on the crayon and peel the tape from the tray.

Aha! Mommy's purse is unzipped!

Somehow Julia always finds my purse when I have left it open and goes straight for the receipts. As soon as she is caught, she is very helpful in picking them up one by one and handing them back to me as I gather them all together.

We went to a Life Group social and a little girl was very kind to give Julia her ice cream bowl when she was finished eating. Julia was very interested, but didn't eat any. She did, however, help herself to a little boy's oreo pieces out of his ice cream dish.

Cool shades!

This is how she reaches for us when she wants to be in our arms - so precious!

We went to dinner with Richard and Kassy, who let Julia play music on her cell phone.

Julia puts all kinds of objects up to her ear to "talk on the phone". The remote, a flip flop, or like this picture shows, a toy.

Helping me in the garden.

Julia loves fruit, particularly cantaloupe, watermelon, and blueberries. She loved grapes for a while, but isn't into them as much any more.

Excited to go for a walk with the dogs.

Happy 1st Birthday, Julia!

Julia is a year old, which is hard to believe. We had a small group of our friends over for dinner to help us celebrate her birthday (her big party is later). It was a fun time for us all and Julia seemed to know the celebration was for her. Special thanks to our friend, Sarah, for taking all the pictures for us.

Showing off her ability to take a few steps.

Our friends, minus Sarah, who took the picture. Tiffany on the left, Travis and Megan on the right.

The first gift she opened...a ball! (actually two)

The next gift...a set of bracelets. She thought they looked pretty on her.

The moment she realized the big gift was a baby doll. Her reaction was great.

She was excited and could hardly wait for us to take the baby out of the packaging for her. She even panicked a little when she thought we weren't going to ever give it to her.

Awe...

She got upset when Daddy took the ball from her so she could have her cupcake. She didn't want anything to do with it because she wanted her ball back.

She was willing to taste the icing since we gave the ball back to her. She enjoyed the icing but didn't even want to try the cake.

What a fun party!

First Steps!

Julia is getting has started taking more steps lately! She still crawls if she really needs to get somewhere, and "walks" on her knees which is cute too. Here is a video from about a week ago.

Girls' Trip

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to spend a weekend away with my friends from college. We went back to Horseshoe Bay because we had such a nice time there last year. This has become a yearly tradition that I hope we can continue, since it is usually the only time each year that all 6 of us can be together. It was a great weekend to relax and catch up.

The first night we enjoyed a lovely, but very long, dinner at the Yacht Club restaurant.

Left to right: Courtney, Deborah, Melanie, Jill, Katherine, Marisa

At the "beach"

There are several wineries near Horseshoe Bay, so we went to one for a tasting.

We love to have breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Cafe on our way out of town.

Playtime

This video shows a glimpse of what Julia's playtime is like. She is all over the place, moving from one toy to another. This video captures her "talking" on the play telephone (something I had never seen her do before. I'm not sure how she realized it is a phone since it looks nothing like our modern phones, unless she saw her cousins play with it last weekend), singing to the "ABC" song on the music table, putting the ball into the large toy, and giving a teddy bear hugs and kisses.

Lake House Weekend

We had a great time at Lake Conroe last weekend with the White side of the family. It was the only time we could all be together this summer. We all stayed in a lake house on the water. Julia really enjoyed seeing her aunts and uncles, Gigi and Pop, great-Grandma and Grandpa, and especially her cousins, Shane and Madison.

Julia loved all of Shane's hot wheels - we're going to have to get her some - and he was very sweet to let her play with them. Here, he is showing her what to do with them and handing her one occasionally after he tells her what it is called.

Boy, this is fun!

The cousins all gathered around to watch some Sesame Street online.

"Butterfy Tookies"...delicious!

Just hangin' out with Gigi

All three kids in one frame. Forget trying to get them to smile or even look up at the same time.

Julia loved the pool slide!

One night we rode the boat across the cove to go to dinner. While we were waiting for our table, the hostess asked if Julia might want some sunglasses (she had a pair that had been left there many months ago). Julia thought she was such a big girl - and she knew she was cute!

Family pic

Julia: 11 Months

It has been fun to watch Julia's "vocabulary" expand in the past month, as well as her list of "tricks".

• She has changed the way she waves to people. We noticed her practicing opening and closing just her left hand while taking a bottle. So now when she waves, her left hand opens and closes and her right hand moves from side to side.
• She has started singing, which is so sweet. A couple of months ago we noticed her sort of hum when we sang to her before bed, but now she will look up and begin singing "yayaya..." along with us. We noticed she will also will press certain buttons on her musical toys and begin swaying and softly singing along to the songs.
• She sometimes says "night night" very clearly.
• She gives the sweetest open-mouth kisses.
• She now says, "go", when we ask her if she wants to go with us somewhere or if she hears us say it.
• She learned, "uh-oh," and says it in the appropriate situations - so cute!
• She will pat her head and her tummy when we ask her to.
• She is learning to blow kisses, but acts a little unsure of it - as if she's wondering why we would have her do such a thing.
• She can finally hold her own bottle, but chooses not to. If we assist her at all in getting the bottle in a good position, she lets go altogether.
• She can now put her plastic shape blocks into the shape sorter - not every time, but she is working on it.
• She has figured out cabinets (unfortunately). Her favorite is the cabinet beneath Daddy's bathroom sink - she stands up with half her body inside so she can get to everything and pull it all out while Mommy takes a shower.
• When we say, "bye, bye" she sometimes says "dye, dye".