My one-year old

Julia gulia is a year old, and I only cried a little...We have tons of pictures of her on my camera, and of course I can't find the camera cord to upload them, so the good pictures will have to wait. We had an eventful long birthday weekend and it was so much fun celebrating with her, even if she didn't know what was going on.

Here is our Julia at 1:
She loves trying new food, especially from our plate
She bumped up to size 4 diapers (she's got some chunky legs)
She "talks" a lot now, and she reminds me of a Pokemon when she does-- pikapikapikapika-- an example of her babble
She will wear sunglasses for longer than 5 seconds now
She can hold cups and drink all on her own
She is not quite ready to give up bottles, but she is warming up to sippy cups at bed and regular milk. I don't think it will be too hard since she gave up pacifiers cold turkey about 4-5 months ago
We will enunciate words and she will mouth them to us, but not say them out loud
We are working on signing/saying "more" "please" "thank you"
She learned (or rather we taught her) to stick out her tongue, and I know it's "bad" manners, but it is hilarious
Still no walking, but she will walk holding one of our hands or along the furniture still. She gets so excited that she loses her balance.
She understands and acts on commands/phrases like "where's your toys/books/monkey?" or "give it to doggy/daddy/mommy"
She points to what she wants and mumbles something until we figure out what she wants
Sometimes she lays in bed in the morning playing with her monkey instead of calling for mom to come get her
She has taken to tearing paper, any kind...
When she is tired she likes to squish her face up against ours, we call it squishy face and it cracks her up
She is now facing forward in her car seat and LOVES it

Here are some pics from my phone. I promise I will find a way to get the good pictures on to my computer.

  

Here is the first picture we took on her birthday, bright and early.

After breakfast and some quick errands, we went to 7 Peaks to celebrate. Taking a tired baby wasn't the best idea, but once she got in the water she had a great time. Later on we went and shared a frozen lemonade, walked the mall (grandma C bought her a few outfits) and then we went out to dinner.

Julia's first PB&J sandwich. She loved it.

She is a year old, which means Jackson will be here in 3-ish months. Yikes...

Thankful

I am thankful for my friends who stepped in this week in lieu of my family (who are opening a restaurant hecka far away) so that I could get my house ready for guests. Jessica was super amazing and came over and helped me organize our guest room, decorate Julia's room, and do some light cleaning. Then she took me to dinner. Such a great friend! And the ever wonderful (and happy belated birthday) Amberly watched Julia so I could run errands all over town. Last but not least, my wonderful husband who has helped all week with re-arranging furniture, cleaning, baby sitting, and organizing. He also did a great job helping me pick out our new sofa and he has, as he puts it, worked hard for free all week [literally :( ]. I am so excited for my family to come in to town and spend a whole week with us! I am one happy lady.

On a side note, Brenan felt Jackson kick for the first time!

My garden

World, I am trying to keep a garden this summer. I have only killed one plant so far, which is a HUGE success for me. I'm not done planting and I'm no pro, but we will have flowers, tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers (hopefully) in our little dirt patch in the back. I even intend on canning the tomatoes (which I have never done before, but that is a different story). Here is my garden...

http://emandrachdg.blogspot.com/2012/05/gardening-tips.html

11 months

Don't remind me she's 11 months old, because that means she'll be 1 soon. Too soon.

**She wasn't in the mood for pictures today, so here are some from the past couple of days.

 Julia and her friend at the park.

Julia and daddy.

New things about Julia:
She stands on her own. Sometimes she realizes and sometimes she doesn't. She also just started to step toward something (like the sofa or chair) without holding on to anything. Walking may be sooner than I thought.

She crawls up the stairs all the time and heads for her play room. If I weren't so afraid for her, I might think it's cuter.

She has started sleeping through the night (i.e. 12 straight hours) more often than she wakes up in the night, so about 4-5 nights a week. I LOVE this, especially since I'm pregnant, I want all the sleep I can get.

She does not like salmon. Or sitting still on her changing table.

She does like ice cream, veggie straws, chicken (chunks, not pureed), shopping and water. Boy does she love baths, fountains, sprinklers, hoses, the dogs bowl, etc...

She got 2 more teeth, totaling 8 in all.

Grass is the enemy (and still the swing set). For now...

The dog and her get along great and she now knows how to pet him and she tries to "throw" his toys for him. She also feeds him off of her tray.

We are also working on high fives and kisses (she is very stingy with her kisses).

She has started making "w" sounds, our favorite is "whoa!"

Attention Garage Salers

This morning we made it out nice and early (well, early with a baby) and hit up garage sales. We got lots of fun toys and clothes, but we are still on the search for the following:

Storage solutions

Like this one from IKEA (above) or Target (below). Something that we can put bins/books on/in to. Or if you just see the square cubes that would fit into the shelves, that works too. Toy boxes are just okay but I feel like these organize better.

A twin/full sized bed (mattress is priority over a frame) OR a convertible sofa sleeper-  We're willing to pay decent money for this for our guest/baby's room. Nothing questionable... 

The Hunger Games- I hear they are great but I don't know that I'm on board enough to pay full price...
A Convertible crib (baby >toddler >twin)  Not the end of the world if we don't find one.
A keyboard stand so I can steal back my keyboard from my brother.

Seriously, if you see any of these things, call me! Especially for storage solutions...
 

Stay at home mommy

Because I have the wonderful privilege to stay at home with Julia (and now that school is out for the summer) I have decided to take up some new hobbies to pass the time.

1. Gardening. I am in no way a green thumb. My mom and dad are very talented in this area and perhaps it will decide to run in the family. So far I have a mostly alive flower that I got over a month ago--quite the feat. Soon-ish I will plant seeds for some pretty wildflowers and vegetables in my back yard. I will of course document my success/failure on our domestic goddess blog.Wish me luck.
2. Family history- I have taken genealogy classes at BYU and so this isn't my first time around the block. Now that I kind of know what I'm doing, I just need to do it. I have the time, so no excuses.
3. Reading- This should not be a "new" hobby, but it feels like it is. I feel like reading history books for school is not leisurely at all and so I think that recreational reading will be good for me. I have a couple of books I bought at the Provo Library's sale, and I also think I want/need to read the Hunger Games. Any other suggestions? 

Updates of all varieties

Finally the lockout is over. I was locked out of my gmail for over a week, and it happens to be the week that was full of events!!

Julia :)
Baby girl is 10 months old! I can hardly believe how quickly time flies. Her 9-month appt (more like10-month appt) was great because we found out she is finally in the 50% percentile for height and weight! Our little chunky monkey is growing up!! She loves the sound "moo" but doesn't really know what a cow is...She crawls and stands/climbs everywhere and really is interested in door knobs and light switches. Recently she decided she wants to feed herself everything, which makes our morning cereal and baby food quite the challenge. She also chews on her crib railing, which drives me crazy because it usually makes her gag, requiring sheet, blanket, and pj changes. She "talks" all the time and knows who mom, dad, and doggy are, even if she says those words for anything. She has become quite the champ at drinking through straws, which is fun. She loves to see herself in the mirror and is always "kissing" and laughing at herself. She pretty much is the happiest baby and cracks us up all the time. That girl has the cheesiest/cutest grin ever and she makes my day.

Baby #2
The day finally arrived and we found out that baby #2 is a boy! We are super duper excited to have the little fella join our family. As previously posted (dibs) we have already picked out our name and after much debate over Brayden (which we decided was stronger than Aiden, and it's kind of like Brenan and Aiden put together...win win) or Jackson, we are 99% certain we are going with Jackson Theodore :) It was so precious to get to watch him move around in my belly and even though the tech thought he was moving a lot, he was not nearly as active as Julia was, our little gymnast.

 The three white dots are what indicates it is a boy. Girls show a flat white line.

 That wraps up all of the catching up! Oh, we were all sick and it was horrific. Every minute of it. Brenan ended up in the hospital because he was puking blood, but we're all okay now!