Birthday Weekend

Jarret's home! Nothing else mattered very much about my birthday weekend, other than the fact that the 3 of us were back together again. Friday was a rough day for me, and Julia and I were both so ready to have him home.

For the family time portion of my birthday, I tried to think of something fun and different we could all enjoy. So we took our first trip to Hawaiian Falls. We only got a few pictures, but for the most part, Julia had a great time. However, she didn't enjoy getting water splashed in her face and she absolutely hated the giant bucket of water that dumped out over the playground every few minutes. As for me, the pools were nice and cool so I was happy!





On Sunday (my actual birthday), we slept in and had a relaxing morning at home. Julia was so sweet to me all morning and all evening, saying "Happy Birthday Mommy!" and singing happy birthday to me over and over and over. We skipped church service, but I'd say we still had our own church. Julia was flipping through my Bible, so I asked her what the Bible said. We've only tried one memory verse so far, but look how good she is doing! This was the first time she'd done it completely on her own without any prompting AND in the right order!

Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Later, we ate lunch with Jarret's parents at Maggianos. Julia was a bit cranky at lunch and didn't want to be in the picture with us.

Then, his parents kept Julia for the rest of the afternoon so we could shop and go see a movie together. It was wonderful to have "us" time after having so little of that this month.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and there's still more celebration to come since we haven't had a chance to do dinner with my parents yet. Mom twisted her ankle on Saturday, so we were giving her a couple days to recover a bit. Plus they saw how sad I was on Friday and were trying to give me as much time with Jarret as possible over the weekend.

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to share life with, on my birthday and everyday!

First Painting Experience

This post was primarily for Jarret to watch while he was away, but Vimeo took so long to process the video that he's already home now (thank goodness, and all 3 of us are SO excited!). Anyway, since I went through the trouble of uploading the video, I figured I'd go ahead and publish the post.

Video of Julia painting

I think it's particularly funny how animated she talks about the "lellow" color. And it's obvious that I'm a mom who is too concerned with keeping everything picked up and clean, since my child never really got into the idea of painting with her fingers. She kept asking for a paper towel to wipe off her hands when they got messy...kinda defeats the point of FINGER painting. :-)

Swimming with Cousins

Wednesday evening, Julia and I went up to Frisco to eat dinner and go swimming with her cousins at their community pool. We had a blast! Julia and Kendall were particularly cute in their matching swimsuits. However, it was not the same without daddy. We miss you - please hurry home.



Julia was initially freaked out by the concept of floating by herself in the ring, but after a little while she got more warmed up to it.








Caden and Kendall both had these cool boards that you can balance on by sitting or standing on them in the water.


Julia chose to use their boards on land though. She placed it on the ground and stood up in this exact position all on her own. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "I surfboarding!" Amazingly, she has a pretty great surfing position: her knees are slightly bent, arms in the right posture, and both her face and feet are pointing in the right direction. Maybe she'll be a natural someday on the wakeboard, too?

Visit to Graham

Though it's taken me a while to get the pictures organized, I didn't want to leave this summer event off our blog. At the beginning of June, Julia and I took a quick overnight trip to Graham to visit Katie and the girls (and Lee, too!).

We met at the park to let the girls play a little. Here's a fun pic of me with Lily and Grace.


Of course, playing in the rocks is more fun than playing on the actual playground equipment.


As you can see in this picture and others to come, Lily and Grace are both lovers - very huggy, snuggly kiddos. Julia, unfortunately, is not. Poor Grace and Lily couldn't understand why Julia pushed them away when they tried to love on her, and poor Julia couldn't understand the lack of personal space. Grace and Lily, in a few months you'll get another try with baby #2. Maybe he will appreciate your affection more?!


At the McDonald's playground the next morning...

Thanks for letting us come stay and play with you guys. We love you!!

3 1sts on the 4th

Over the course of July 4th weekend, Julia experienced three big firsts.

First #1: Big Girl Bed!

Saturday, Julia took a giant leap away from babyhood toward being a big girl! After coming home from Colorado Wednesday evening, we gave her a couple of days in her crib to get caught up on some much needed sleep. Then it was time to make the switch to her new toddler bed.

She really enjoyed helping Daddy assemble her new bed. Here they are after putting together the main part of the bed (before our Colorado trip):



And here they are Saturday putting on the side rails:





She seemed really excited about her new bed and loved to pretend to go night-night in it:

...But we weren't sure how things would actually go when the time came for sleeping. For months, I've been convinced that the transition would be rough because of her new freedom to get out of her bed and play with toys (since she often plays around in her crib for a good 30 minutes or more before finally falling asleep).

Saturday Nap:
She did great! She stayed in bed for the first 5 minutes, but then I saw the slow progression of her sit up, inch down to the edge of the bed, put her feet down, and then stand up. With each progression, she looked around the room almost as though she was checking to see if there was anyone who was going to tell her not to get out of bed. Anyway, I thought we'd lost her at that point. Little did I know, one of her animals had fallen out of bed and she was simply retrieving it. She got her dolphin off the floor and climbed right back up into bed and laid down. I was so shocked and so proud! 20 minutes later or so, she was asleep!

When she woke up, I watched her on the video monitor as she quietly tossed and turned for about 15 minutes. Then she started softly calling "Daddy", so he went up to get her. When he opened the door, she said, "I ready get out" which is exactly what she said when she was ready to get out of her crib. I couldn't believe that she didn't get down herself! Yea baby girl for staying in bed!

Saturday Night:

No problems whatsoever. She moved from one end of the bed to the other, just as she always does, but she stayed in her bed beautifully. In the morning when she was finally read to get up, we watched her on the monitor as she stood up in her bed, walked toward the video monitor camera and said "Help", and then sat on the edge of her bed. By the time Jarret walked up the stairs to get her, she'd just stood up on the floor.

Sunday Nap & Sunday Night:

Fantastic! Maybe the time will come when the freedom of her big girl bed becomes an issue, but it's going perfectly for right now. I couldn't be more surprised or more thrilled.

First #2: Movie Theater!

On July 4th morning, we took Julia to her first movie at the theater - Toy Story 3. Gran, Poppy, and the Finseths joined us, and we all had coupons for $1 any size popcorn and $1 any size drink. She loves her family, loves popcorn, and loves Buzz and Woody, so we expected this experience to go reasonably well. What we did not predict was that Julia would talk unceasingly. There were a few 60-second periods of silence, but otherwise she was constantly either (1) narrating what she saw on screen, or (2) questioning, "What happened to ______?". She made it about 1/2 way through the movie, but then hopped down from her chair, fell, and started crying so Jarret took her out for the remainder of the movie. They watched some of the remainder from the little hallway. We probably won't try that again for a while, but at least she had a great time!



Some pics during the closing credits...

First #3: Fireworks!

At first she was frightened by the loud noises of the fireworks and clung closely to me in my arms. She asked me to close her ears, too.


Then she went to see daddy. She was still snuggly at first...


But then she went totally chill...


She was so funny because she kept saying "Fire is working!" or "I hear more fire is working!" (Makes sense that if you hear your mom and dad say "fire works" that the fire would be working). One time after a big firework lit up the sky, she said, "That's a big fireplace!"

My parents came over to watch the fireworks and for a belated celebration in honor of my dad's birthday (which occurred while we were in Colorado). Happy Birthday Dad!...