Julia at 3 years + 4 months

Julia,

You are such a delight to us!  You give us giant hugs and kisses, often tell us "I love you" voluntarily and just because, sometimes ask to snuggle us while watching a video, scream with delight and run to daddy when he comes home, give us compliments, show compassion when we're sick, show excitement when one of us does something worthy of praise ("great coloring Mommy", "good job Jackson"), get the cutest closed-mouth grin on your face when you're proud of yourself, and generally have a joy for life.

Of course you struggle with many of the common toddler things:  a love for the word "No!" spoken with attitude and defiance, sometimes ignoring us when we ask you to do things even though we know you heard us, getting totally distracted by three different things while on your way to accomplish the one task we asked you to do, sometimes playing tug-of-war with a friend who wants the same toy as you, arguing, etc.  But oh my goodness...If I were getting told what to do all day long, I'm pretty sure I'd struggle severely with all those things too.

Overwhelmingly though, you really try to show love, obey with a good attitude, use your manners and share with others.  You memorized the Fruits of the Spirit and we try to praise you when you show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  This has been a great tool to teach you the type of traits we want you to show.  You get very proud of yourself when you willingly display a Fruit of the Spirit.  But even when you show a bad attitude, you often do a good job of correcting yourself when we ask you to "try again."

Some other things about Julia over these past four months...

SLEEPING

• Almost never takes a nap.  When she does, you can count on her being up til 10 o'clock.
• When she does sleep, she still sucks her thumb.  She also loosens the fitted bed sheet enough that she can wrap her fingers around it and hold on to it.
• July 26th: Julia has been fearing the dark more these past couple of months, and so she was always asking to keep her closet light on. We felt this disrupted her sleep because of how bright it was, so we finally convinced her on this particular night to try a nightlight instead. After going through our typical bedtime routine, Mommy, Daddy and Julia stayed in her room after the lights were out to let our eyes adjust to the dark and show Julia how the nightlight had a glow to it. I coached her that, if she still got scared, she could talk to Jesus and I prayed an example prayer of what she might say if that happened. She didn't say anything at the time, but a few minutes later when Jarret and I were leaving her room and closing the door , I heard her say "Dear Jesus" and she continued talking for a good minute. It absolutely warmed our heart to hear her talking to Jesus on her own initiative all by herself!!
• Her bedtime routine: 
• Currently has no book readings because she chooses to play games instead, such I Spy and The-Three-Bunnies-Run-Away-From-The-Big-Bad-Cat game.  Every night either daddy or I take 3 of her stuffed bunnies and pretend to have a quiet picnic in the middle of her floor.  Julia is in charge of Precious, her Build-A-Bear cat turned evil who proceeds to attack the bunnies as they try to run and hide. Eventually, they all become friends.  
• Sometimes she still gets scared of the dark.  We sing her the "I will not be afraid of the darkness" song by Phil Joel.
• As dictated by Julia, we always pray in order of mommy, daddy, and then Julia.  Her bedtime prayer is the same every night currently:  "Dear Jesus, Thank you for the world and the sky, and Mommy and Daddy and Julia and Jackson, and for peace and welcome. Amen, God."  (We taught her the Fruits of the Spirit, which includes "peace".  The Fruits of the Spirit used to be part of her prayer and then she somehow shortened it to "peace and welcome".  We tell her that "welcome" is not a Fruit of the Spirit, so now after she says "Amen, God" she tells us "welcome isn't a Fruit of the Spirit."  Good to know, so stop praying for it!)

PLAYTIME

Things she loves to play and do:

• Since turning three years old, the newest thing she enjoys doing is coloring.  She used to color for a couple minutes here and there, but now she desires to color all the time and it holds her attention for a while.  And she's gotten extremely good at staying in the lines!
• She also enjoys pretending to be the baby.  She'll pretend cry, get her diaper changed, talk like a baby...and as Jackson has begun trying to walk, she now tries to walk like a baby too, which really looks more like a waddle.  She still enjoys all other forms of pretend, too.
• She has learned the game I Spy.  She's finally getting better at giving clues, but in the beginning it went something like this, "Mommy. Daddy.  I spy something white with pink ears.  Can you find the bunny on my bed?"
• She took swim lessons in June, and she now enjoys putting her face under the water either in the pool or even in just the bathtub.
• Upon getting out of our bathtub, she wraps up in her pink hooded butterfly towel and pretends to be a butterfly.  She creeps along the floor like a caterpiller, then she curls up into a ball with the towel covering her, and then after a long while of us waiting patiently she finally emerges as a beautiful butterfly and flies around the room. 
• She has become very brave going to church and school, and she seems to genuinely enjoy both.
• She loves learning.  The child will sit down with us and a Preschool Workbook and she can easily spend 30 minutes with us going through different lessons.
• She's a little OCD about some of the things she does:  socks and shoes must always go on the left foot first, toilet paper needs to touch the white baseboard before she'll rip it off the roll to use, 
• She also insists sometimes on doing things herself, though what she chooses to do isn't consistent so you never really know if it's okay to do for her or not.  Examples:  turning on the lights, getting her clothes off the hanger, opening doors, getting out her silverware/plate/food, and on and on.  If it happens to be an instance in which we did something for her but she wanted to do it herself, she will purpose to undo our action (even if it requires significant time/effort on her part) so she can redo it herself.  

FAVORITES

Current favorites that differ slightly from her 3 Year Post:

• Loveys - "Old Bunny" is still the clear favorite.
• Songs - We have a Napster account that allows us to play full-length songs without having to buy them.  We've used it to play the soundtracks to all her favorite movies and TV videos, and she absolutely loves it!
• Videos - Jake & The Neverland Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Tangled, and Tinkerbell movies.

FUNNY SAYINGS

• "That's ridiculous!" - A line she got from Mickey Mouse
• "Oh yes!  I forgot." - She says this all the time, even when it doesn't apply in any way to something she forgot.  It could perhaps be that mommy or daddy come up with a fun idea of something to do, and she says, "Oh yes! I forgot!" 
• August 8: While entering a Whataburger, a man with a bandana on his head held the door open for us.  After he'd left, Julia said, "Mommy! That man was a pirate!"
• August 8:
  Me: "Julia, I'm pooped."
  Julia: "You pooped in your panties?!"
  Me: "No!"
  Julia: "Jackson pooped in his diaper?"
  Me: "No. When people say they're pooped, it means they're tired."
  Julia: "Well, I didn't poop and I'm not tired."
  

  
  

  Some photo highlights, in order from June thru September:

  

  Dress-up time with Haley and Shae

  
  

  

  1st time to ride a bus (on our way to Allen's USA Celebration)

  
  

  

  Giddy to ride the train

  
  

  

  Showing off her Sand Art cross necklace

  
  

  

  Making a frisbee with Daddy

  
  

  

  Too tired to watch the Allen USA fireworks show.  She first fell asleep while watching them, which meant she had the bright lights of the fireworks going off right in front of her and she still conked out!

  
  

  

  Daddy hadn't gotten to hold a sleeping Julia in a very long time

  
  

  

  Hanging with friends Grace and Lily

  
  

  

  Lake Texoma July 4th celebration

  
  

  

  Loving the beach

  
  

  

  Wet sand is loads of fun

  
  

  

  "Talking" with Jackson

  
  

  

  Playdoh crafts with Jakey

  
  

  

  Playdoh crafts with Kendall

  
  

  

  Shooting nerf guns with all the cousins

  
  

  

  Her first time to Sweet n Sassy, for Haley's 4th BD party

  
  

  

  Loving getting all dolled up

  
  

  

  Paige, Haley, and Julia fell down laughing at the end of the party

  
  

  

  Sporting her new ponytail

  
  

  

  Aggie Girl

  
  

  

  First haircut.  She found mommy's razor and did the haircut herself.  Super sad and scary.

  
  

  

  Dollar Theater movies with cousins to see Rio.  Only her 2nd time in a movie theater, and she did MUCH better than last year!

  
  

  

  Group shot (minus Bev) after the movie

  
  

Julia turns Three!

Note:  This post is four months overdue.  I am still working on putting together a photo/video slideshow, and it clearly is taking more time than I have.  So I give up for now and am publishing her 3 Yr Post without photos.

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All about Julia at THREE YEARS OLD!!!!

• Stats: Weighs 30 pounds (50%), and is 37 1/4 inches tall (50%)

SLEEPING

• She has dropped her nap for the most part, though she plays happily in her room for some "quiet time". We can only get her to nap a couple times a week. But she wakes up fairly late for her age (anywhere from 8:30-9:30). Even without a nap, she almost never acts tired. We'd like to run an experiment some day to see what time she would like to naturally go to bed at night if we let her choose. We're pretty sure she could stay awake a LONG time without acting tired or asking to go to bed.
• When she does sleep, she still sucks her thumb.
• Her bedtime routine is a little ridiculous as she tries to stall: 
• Potty and PJs
• Read a couple of books
• Sometimes "tell me a story", in which we make up a story about Princess or Ballerina Julia
• Cover her up with her Dora blanket Gran made her (she still doesn't sleep with sheets or a comforter)
• Turn off her lamp
• Sometimes "I want to feel things" (giving her comfort in the dark that we can still feel things like our noses, eyes, mouths, etc. even though she can't see them)
• Say bedtime prayers (for MONTHS we had to "lay on her heart" while we prayed)
• Make sure she has a slew of her favorite animals in bed
• Turn on her mobile "1 time.  Not 2 times." (Mobile went back up when Jackson got his mobile)
• Sometimes a "One more hug!" or "One more kiss!" as we're about to leave her room 
• Multiple iterations of "good night", "sweet dreams", and "love you" as we're walking out her door 
• WHEW!
• Her adorable prayers typically go like this, "Dear Jesus, thank you for the world, and the sunshine, and the rainbows, and mommy and daddy and Jackson, and help us get good rest, and thank you for {insert any fun activities we did or gifts she got that day}."

NOTEWORTHY

Here are our most favorite notes written by her Mother's Day Out teachers over the past year:

• September 21 - "Crying was less today. She's getting really pushy and hitting - that means she is getting comfortable - good. Very smart. Answers correctly to many of my questions." I asked her teacher about this the day this note was written. Me: "So she's pushing and hitting???" Ms. Jackie, laughing out loud: "Oh, yeah! But she is so smart." Since when did brains compensate for being mean?!
• Toward end of first semester - Background: Nolan is a kid in her class who began the year by pushing Julia and being mean to her. It scared and bothered Julia and she really didn't like him. So for many months, he was bullying her even though Ms. Jackie said it was because Nolan wanted Julia to be his girlfriend. Then we got this note one day, "Nolan is no match for her anymore. She would floor him in a minute if he messes with her."
• March 31 - "She has learned not to give her friends the answer when I ask a question unless I ask her to help. Took ALL of her clothes off during rest time." Yep, I talked to her teacher afterward and she truly meant "all" of her clothes. Julia was stark naked.
• April (Easter week) - "She was the only one who knew Jesus died on the cross. Good job mom and dad." :-)
• April 26 - "Doing great. She knew what letter 'fish' begins with. Blew me away. I still can't believe she is one of my younger ones."
• May 5 - "After we had circle time today she took the book and 'read' the classmates a story - they actually sat around her and listened attentively. It was a joy to see."

PLAYTIME

Things she loves to play and do:

• Pretend ALL THE TIME (pretend people, pretend animals, pretend places, pretend phone conversations, pretend trips, pretend meals, pretend ANYTHING)
• Dress up. She loves putting on her leotard with attached tutu and ballet shoes so she can be "Ballerina Julia". She uses her two drawer-fulls of tiaras, gloves, princess shoes, necklaces, and princess dresses multiple times per week (thank you Kendall for the hand-me-downs!).
• Jumping on the beds
• Play-doh
• Ring Around the Rosie
• Hide and Go Seek
• "Teacher". She praises mommy and daddy when we get the right answers.
• Manis/pedis. She loves getting her nails painted.

LEARNING

• Can count to twenty and recognizes all 20 numbers
• Can count from 10 backwards to 1
• Has known her lowercase and uppercase alphabet for a long time, and is really enjoying practicing writing them by herself. She's gotten fairly good with her own name.
• If given a sound that a consonant makes, she can usually name the letter that makes that sound
• Draws smiley faces very well and is starting to do better with her attempts to color in the lines

FAVORITES

These are a few of her favorite things:

• Loveys - Bunny and Sammie the Lambie
• Animal - bunny rabbits
• Song - Alphabet (ABC) for singing, Monkeys Jumping on the Bed when jumping
• Videos - Dora, Diego, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Strawberry Shortcake movie, Beauty and the Beast (but only the happy scenes with fun songs), The Little Mermaid,
• Foods - Chocolate chip muffins by Entemann's, yogurt, PB&J sandwiches, chicken nuggets, fruit, and pretty much any sort of chip, cracker, or dessert

OTHER

• Adores her baby brother and is a wonderful big sister. She is his biggest cheerleader and copies what she hears us say: "Good job bud!," "Way to go buddy!", "Come here buster", "Hi Pookie Jackson," and when we're in the car, "Jackie-poo! No sleeping, Jackie-poo!" When he was younger, she talked to him with "Goos" and "Oohs". She loves to be my helper by grabbing a burp cloth, toy, or diaper. She absolutely loves laying down beside him and playing with him in his crib, her bed, the floor, you get the idea.
• later gator juice = Gatorade
• calepitter = Caterpiller
• "Hey! What's the big idea?!" = a line she got from Mickey Mouse
• Thinks it's funny to call her bottom "bo fanny" and "tushy" while shaking it back and forth or looking at it in the mirror.
• Is still maddening to feed
• Has the most delightful laugh when she's happy, and the most awful screaming when she's having a tantrum
• Loves to play with all sorts of animals
• Adores her cousins immensely

Jackson at 11 months

Some things about Jackson's past month:

• Walking!!  
• He wants to walk ALL THE TIME with holding just one of your hands. On Saturday, Sept. 24th he finally got the steadiness and confidence to WANT to walk on his own.  He would go back and forth between two people, and he walked a good 10 feet and looked pretty darn steady doing it.  Just two days later, he easily walked the length of our living room.  For those that care, here's a video of him walking throughout the month.
• He loves to walk in circles.  He loves to walk up stairs and then try to "walk" down them (which looks more like falling a few inches and landing on the next step with me holding him up by the hand).  He combines these two loves by walking up our first 3 steps, u-turns on the landing, goes down 3 steps, u-turns on the tile floor of the foyer, and repeats this process until I can take no more. 
• Doesn't want to walk with a walker, and doesn't want to cruise on furniture.  He only wants to walk either on his own or with the assistance of a person's hand holding his.  We have a video of him crying out of frustration when we dared to test his ability to cruise along our padded ottoman!
• He also can get very frustrated when he gets sat down, laid down, or picked up by me rather than allowing him to walk.  This can happen with other people, but it most especially happens with me.
• Definitely drinking from a sippy cup again.  Yay!  That took him a lot of practice to figure out how to drink.
• He is a BIG momma's boy.  He was playing happily with daddy in the living room a few weeks ago when I happened to walk from one room to another, in which I crossed his path but didn't touch him or pick him up but rather kept walking.  He started crying even though daddy and the toys they'd been playing with were still right there with him.  He wants to be with me all the time.  I do my best to sneak out of the room from time to time and force him to learn to play contentedly by himself.  Sometimes this works; often it does not.
• Has no issues being on his belly anymore whatsoever.  He still army crawls though, and has yet to crawl ever on his hands and knees.
• He loves to play with any toys, books, or puzzles that have flaps, doors, sliding windows, etc.  His motor skills have become pretty good in this area and he really likes to study these things to figure out how they work.
• He gives Julia big smiles and laughs when she makes funny faces at him.
• He's learned how to play his first game on the iPhone: Peek-a-boo Barn.
• He continues to show a love for animals and seems to have no fear of them.
• Sometimes he took only one nap a day, othertimes two.  He seems to be in that transitional phase where two naps is sometimes difficult to get from him, but one nap often seems insufficient.
• He loves bath time, loves his sister, and is starting to learn how to give kisses.  Here's a video with all three things:

Julia's First Day of School

Julia finally had her first day of school today!  We switched her to a Monday/Wednesday program, but last Monday was Labor Day and then Wednesday she was recovering from a stomach bug.  So on Thursday once she felt better, we created a post-it note count down of days to build up some anticipation and she finally got to peel off the last sticky note today!

Jarret stayed home long enough to attend the drop-off with us.  We were both amazed at her bravery!!! For the past two years, we watched Julia approach the drop-off with tears, fearfulness, shyness, and clinging to us (even though she always ended up having a great time, but still...no parents wants to watch their child go through that.)  This morning instead we watched our beautiful, maturing 3-year-old daughter walk in with smiles and boldness this morning.  

Daddy walking his kiddos into school.
Julia loves to ask to ride "the special way" on the stroller.

She wanted to only make silly faces, but when I kept
telling her "Don't you smile at me!" then she finally complied.

I was trying to give instructions to Julia to smile, and
instead it resulted in a goofy picture of me.

It seemed like her reaction was, "O.K. I'll take
a picture with you people, but WHO are you again?!"
I also love that out of all the backgrounds we could have taken
this picture in front of, we managed to take their picture with
the toilet behind them.  Great scenery.

Her new teachers for the year, Ms. Jan and Ms. Melissa!

She gave us joyful hugs and kisses bye, and then had no concern about walking away from us.  THESE are the years I want to savor!  What a wonderful balance and blessing of a child who still enjoys and needs the bear hugs and kisses from mommy and daddy, yet enters school with boldness and excitement.  What a great start to the school year!!!

Jackson at 10 months

Photo Shoot
Here are the results from Jackson's 9-month photo shoot attempts #3 & #4. I'm still not thrilled with any of them, especially with the effort that went in to trying to capture any decent shots. Some of the shots & poses had such potential, but my kids were just not up for smiling much.

Here are the ones we felt were decent, but not in love with:








And here are the big time losers:

Milestones, Fun Times, & Learning

I take back what I said last month about Jackson figuring out how to suck from a sippy cup. He did it great for that one day and then hasn't done it again. So we let him drink from our adult cups or from a sippy cup with no valve.

He is definitely saying "mamama" for me and "nigh-nigh-nigh" when he's tired (for night-night).

He *loves* being upside down. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for my sake of watching him try it, this will serve him well in wakeboarding.

Therapy Updates

Occupational Therapy - Tummy Time, Crawling, & WALKING!

• Our OT left the organization and a new one hasn't been assigned to us, so we went the entire month with no therapy appointments.
• He is still not crawling in the traditional sense on his hands and knees. However, in this past month he has learned to army crawl pretty darn well. When combined with a few well-placed rolls, he can now certainly get where he wants to go.
  
  


• He pulled up and cruised for ONE day: July 30th. He has never done it since because...
• Around the same time he discovered he could walk by holding on to both of our hands. This became the theme of August: All the child has wanted to do is walk, walk, and walk some more. If I sit him on the floor, he cries. If I lay him down, he cries. If I pick him up even, he cries. This is not all the time, mind you, but it happens extremely often. Enough that we say he has just been flat out frustrated this month. He grabs for our hands all the time and gets mad if we don't let him holds our hands to walk. But man, the moment you let him grab your hands he is a happy camper and off to the races!
• By the end of the month, he was walking extremely fast holding two hands and quickly learning how to walk by just holding one hand.
• He took his first steps by himself the last week before he turned 10 months! Jarret and I were sitting across from each other practicing with him, and he was able to take a couple of steps. We've tried it a few more times since then, and he is able to take a couple steps. We are doing all we can to aide him learning to walk since we feel this will help him be less frustrated.

Eating/Food/Nutritionist Appointments

• It's now unbelievable to us that we even needed Jackson to see a nutritionist. This kid eats anything and everything! His new favorite food is blueberries - eats them whole and tosses 'em back like candy.
• He also had his first ice cream cone. Here's a pic of Jacob and Julia taking turns sharing their ice cream with him:
  
  
  

Sorry, those are all the pictures. I did terrible with the camera this month!