Wednesday, December 30, 2009

19 Months

Miss Jewels is 19 months old today! Here are some of the things that took place during this past month.

Julia's first snow day in early December. She was not too crazy about it, and certainly didn't understand why I thought it was a big deal. (However, when we took her out to play in the snow on Christmas Day, she had clearly had a change of heart as she tromped all through the snow blanket!)


Lunch at Jason's Deli for Great Gran's birthday. The other kiddos were at school and dads at work, so Julia and Jacob got more one-on-one time with each other:




Julia loves putting on hats! To say hat, she pats her head while saying "Tat. Tat." It cracks us up. Here's just a cute pic of her wearing daddy's hat:

Noah's turned 4 in November, and we celebrated in early December at his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. It was Julia's first time to go. She enjoyed most of the rides/games, but she wasn't sure about some of them. Daddy also taught her to go down a slide head first on her belly. Plus, she proved that there's really no reason to use hands when eating a cupcake - in fact, you really don't need to even pick it up. You just take your face down to it.













Aunt Erin, Gran (Bev), and I met up at Stonebriar mall one weekday to let Julia and Jacob have some fun cousin time together. It was Julia's first time at the Stonebriar playground and on the carousel:




All bundled up just to get a 10 minute break from being cooped up indoors. Here she's very happily waving to the school bus that was driving by:


We bought a growth chart for Julia and hung it her new playroom. It was a challenge to get her to stand still and straight, but we did it.

I absolutely love this picture of her big, blue eyes:

Here she's saying "cheese", which is a new trend of hers. It helps so that she's not frowning or just staring at the camera, but I'm not sure it's necessarily an improvement!


When we bought our new iMac, Julia discovered a new secret spot!


At the Watermark Family Christmas brunch, we explored the new parts of our church building. I snapped a pic of Julia and her daddy in the new chapel, just in case she ever happens to get married there. Then I can say, "Here was a picture of the first time your daddy walked you to the front of the chapel!" It's a very rare chance, I know.

Being up on our bed is one of Julia's favorite pastimes. Because it's so big and so soft, she'll throw herself all over the place and can be wild without ever hurting herself. This day, she got the added benefit of being naked. She was in heaven! While she was enjoying her naked freedom on our bed, Grammy and Papa came over for a visit:






Paige turned 2 in December and had her birthday party at Gymboree. Julia had lots of fun climbing on, over, and through the various toys when she was on her own, but she didn't participate as much during the group events as you can tell by the last two pics:







Julia didn't have school the week of Christmas, so I was looking for something new and different to help fill the time. I found a Pump It Up Jr. only a few miles from our house, and they have Pop In Playtimes on Wednesdays for kids ages 1-3. We took Haley with us, and it was great! Not only did the kids have a great time, but it was nice knowing there weren't giant kids running around who were going to run in to the little kids.







And last, but not least, Jarret got a new putter. Julia has had her own set of plastic clubs for a couple months now, and absolutely loves golf clubs and golf balls. So she was more than willing to be daddy's assistant as his golf ball returner. I'm pretty darn sure that her particular method of gathering the balls counts as a choking hazard though!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas Photos - Behind the Scenes

A few days ago, I took Julia to a photo studio in Frisco to have Christmas photos taken with her three cousins. We ended up with some fabulously cute shots, if I do say so myself. Enjoy the photos, as this is as close to Christmas cards as you'll be seeing from us this year! We simply haven't found a way to get a cute Christmasy photo of Jarret, myself, and Julia with all of us actually smiling and looking decent. So, here are the final results from our little Gymboree models, using my low-quality scanner:





And here are the behind-the-scenes videos of what it takes to keep the kids entertained during the outrageously long wait times, as well as a video of the picture taking in action. I think the photographers at these places can't possibly get paid enough for the high levels of energy and silliness they have to maintain to make all these kids smile!




Yes, that was Julia and Jacob kissing! Very cute now. I'm sure in 10 years they'll be totally grossed out. :-)

And here are some cute shots of Miss Julia Bean while we were waiting. Do you notice that her smiles are bigger throughout all the candid photos and videos, and no smiles during the times when she NEEDS to be? Little stinker!


Since we haven't sent out official Christmas cards this year, let us say this: Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Birthday Jesus! Thank you God for loving us so indescribably much that you would send your son to this earth, that we might learn from how He lived and be saved by His sacrifice on the cross. May everyone's 2010 be filled with seeing His love and goodness in everything surrounding them!

Jarret, Katie, and Jewels