Santa Baby

Our trip to see Santa 12.23.08

Grandpa got one of the mall's firetruck stroller for the girls. Juliana LOVED it.

Only in small town Iowa will Santa give you a book and actually read all of it to you.

Juliana wasn't so sure about the Santa thing, but she did OK.

Grandpa is better than Santa anyway.

Home Sweet Home

We're home!

We had a great visit to Iowa. We were able to catch up with several friends and lots of family. It had been two years since our last visit and that is just way too long!

Unfortunately both girls were under the weather for the plane ride home. Being on a plane for 4.5 hours with a baby with a stomach bug (upper and lower) is an experience that is probably best forgotten or at least not talked about and definately not blogged about (because I think most of you would take this blog out of your links if I described it in detail.) Fortunately, the turmoil was confined to our little row of seats. Someone sitting near us even commented on how good our baby was... if she only knew...

ANYHOW, I would really like to thank my family for a wonderful trip. Thanks for all the gifts and even more for the attention that our girls were spoiled with. Thanks to Dad and Barb for letting the four of us invade for three weeks. Thanks to Barb for sneaking off and doing our laundry anytime I turned around for a second. Thanks to Dad for all the food. And... NO thanks to my sister Amy for letting me borrow her amazing Chi hair straightener and making me utterly dissatisfied with mine!

A few more Christmas/Iowa pictures will follow, but here is a sneak peek.

First Steps

Suffice it to say we had a lovely Christmas here with my family in Iowa and I intend on adding pictures and such of that later. For now, I wanted to post that I watched Juliana take her first steps tonight.

The past few days she has been showing off her new skills for her adoring extended maternal family members. She can get up and stand in the middle of the floor and had taken one tentative step here and there between pieces of furniture or family members. Tonight she got up and took six solid steps in a row completely on her own. Jonathan and I, her Aunt Amy and cousin Alyssa were all there to see and Juliana was quite pleased with all the clapping and cheering that ensued. I have no doubt that we'll be seeing some repeat performances.

It is rather fitting that Juliana started walking the day after Christmas, my family loves to recount that I took my first steps on Christmas eve (Juliana's birthday is nine days after mine.)

My baby is getting so big. Last year at this time we were still awaiting her arrival. To be more specific, at this time last year we were rather concerned about her arrival. I was hospitalized on Christmas morning and there were a lot of uncertainties. Now that baby that I was worried would be so tiny is a very tall, very sweet, blond baby that is turning into a little girl very very quickly.

Juliana 10 Month Update

At 10 months old Juliana Jayne...

-Has added "nigh nigh" and "baby" to her vocabulary list. I wouldn't say she is doing "sentences," but she has played a bit with stringing some words together like "baby... no... nigh nigh!"

-Is getting pretty good at standing unsupported. She usually won't stand on her own for much longer than 30 seconds or so, but she is very good at lowering herself back down to the ground.

-Is starting to be aware of strangers. She will no longer go to just anyone.

-Loves her stuffed penguin and penguins in general. If you know Jonathan and have seen his penguin collection you might assume it was a bit of brainwashing, but she LOVED her stuffed penguin from the moment she saw it. When she goes into Jonathan's office she is just mesmerized by all of Daddy's "penguin toys." She probably likes the contrast.

The picture at the top of this post was taken a couple weeks ago. I attempted to feed Juliana some yam puree, but she wasn't feeling too interested. I took her out of the high chair and went to clean Gabriella up from her lunch. When I finished I found Juliana underneath the table eating fistfulls/finger painting the floor with yams. She had been able to reach up to the tabletop to pilfer them. Evidently yams are much more exciting to eat underneath the table in secret.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

I've been a wee bit absent. It has been a busy couple of weeks with Jonathan trying to finish up with the semester, me trying to tie together loose ends at work (plus coordinating our family holiday craft night) and of course general preparations for our trip to Iowa.

This morning we woke up to... snow. Real snow that sticks to the ground and stays there. We've been telling Gabriella for weeks that she would see snow in Iowa so when she woke up to a full coating of the white stuff she thought it was time to go to Iowa! It has been snowing pretty steadily all day. This is a pretty big deal for the Portland valley. Last year we had a couple flurries, but nothing that stuck.

Hopefully these pictures of Gabriella enjoying the snow will make up for my limited blogging.

We have so much to be thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving

Monday

Bleh. We are all have horrible colds again. I'm still in my pajamas and having a hard time imagining how I'll accomplish my pre-Thanksgiving To-Do list. Since none of that is cute or fun in anyway whatsoever, I'll just post a couple pictures from last Monday when the weather was georgeous and we went on a long walk with Juliana's playgroup and then hung out at the park afterwards.