11 months

Another month has gone by and as always, I'm shocked at how quickly time passes. Joselynn is a only a month away from being a year old!  She's got quite the personality these days and is just as outgoing as her big sister.  Watching them interact and play together is such fun and its obvious they truly love one another.  Josie is the master crawler these days and can reach things across the room in seconds.  And we realized about 2 weeks ago that she's learned how to crawl up the steps so we've been extra careful about keeping the gate to the stairs closed.  She's also standing up on her own with and with out the help of furniture.  She's got amazing balance too and can push her self up to standing then shake whatever toy is in her hand without falling.  All of this is leading to walking and I know its going to happen sooner than later.  She has taken one step on her own and is cruising on furniture all around the house but I'm just not quite ready for another mobile kid yet!  Like her big sister, she also likes to dance to any music she hears.  We've had quite a few dance parties in the living room lately!  She LOVES food and will eat anything we put in front of her!  In fact, she usually tries to stuff it all in at once so we have to keep an eye on her.  She's also used a spoon a few times but we have to put the food on the spoon so she can guide it to her mouth.  Otherwise she makes a complete mess.  Josie is also saying Mama and Dada and using it correctly!  It's so neat to hear her calling for one of us and then getting excited when we come to her!  I'm pretty sure that she also said bye to David the other day.  We were talking to him on the phone and Jules and I both said bye to him and right as we hung up the phone she said it too!  It was crazy!  I know it will only be a short while before she's talking nonstop like her big sister!  She has also started to use sign language more and is able to say milk, eat, more, all done, hi and bye, and night night.  I know the next month is going to fly by and before I'm ready, my baby will be 1.  We have her baptism this weekend so be on the lookout for a post about that as well as her upcoming birthday party!  Happy almost March!

 trying to feed herself with the spoon

standing on her own almost a month ago

Princess Party

Forget football on Super Bowl Sunday-it was all things princess at our house!  We celebrated Juliann's third birthday party with 6 other toddlers, 3 babies and 20+ adults.  It was a bit crazy but lots of fun!  Castle Ellington was decked out in pink and Juliann and her friends made adorable princesses and princes!  The kids played a few games but were far more interested in the toys in the play room.  The princess nuggets (oh how we love Chick-Fil-A in this household) and princess fruit snacks were also a huge hit with the kids!  Princess Jules was spoiled with lots of wonderful gifts from family and friends and had a great time at her party.  In her words: "I loved it being my birthday and being a good princess!  I loved my cake and my party!  I love my friends too!  Happy Birthday to Jules!!!!"  I love this kid!  Enjoy the pics below!

 Juliann's favorite-Ukrops cake

 Princess Jules waiting to open gifts

 Enjoying a royal feast

 Playing pin the crown on the princess

 Making a wish

 One of her favorite gifts!

Christmas and New Years

Finally!  I'm over a month behind but I'm getting around to posting about our wonderful winter holidays!  We spent Christmas with David's family in Lexington this year and had a great time!  We left Richmond on the 22nd and headed to Oma and Opa's house.  We spent the next few days hanging out with Oma, Opa, Uncle Peter and Aunt Anne and helped cook and decorate the Christmas tree. Juliann even got to decorate a miniature tree that Opa got for both girls!  It was the cutest little tree and Jules loved seeing all of her presents underneath it!

 Jules decorating the mini tree!

Opa and his girls

The girls tree BEFORE Santa visited!

Christmas Eve was busy but so exciting!  Jules was actually still able to fit into her Santa dress from last year and looked as adorable as ever!  She really enjoyed the service at church and especially liked being able to hold her very own candle.  Josie was also well behaved during the service, although she didn't quite understand why she wasn't allowed to hold a candle!  After church, we headed over to a party with David's extended family.  Although we've been together for 11 years, we usually spent Christmas Eve with my family so it was neat to finally meet his extended family!  Finally, we headed over to the Pickrals house for another party.  The Pickrals have a grandson, Joseph, a few months older than Juliann and she LOVED playing with him....and his toys!  Eventually, the girls became exhausted so we headed home.  Jules helped us put out milk and cookies for Santa and headed up to bed.  She was so surprised early the next morning that Santa had eaten all but a bite of his cookies.  She was even more thrilled when we let her finish the cookie!  She kept saying, "I got to eat Santa's cookie!"  She just couldn't believe that she ate his leftovers-it was too cute!

 Family picture on Christmas Eve

 Jules putting out cookies for Santa

Jules was also SUPER excited about all of her gifts.  I swear, my two kids made out like bandits this year!  I have never seen so many presents and we must have opened presents for at least 4 hours!  Not to mention we let her open all the gifts from us the day before!  We had so many presents we had to ask David's aunt and uncle to take some back to Richmond for us because there was no way it was all going to fit in our car!

 Presents...

 and MORE presents!

 Jules excited to open her gifts!

 Josie the reindeer

 Jules starting to open her art easel from Santa

 Chef Jules

Josie trying out some of her presents

 Josie opening up her baby doll with help from Patrick

 Jules with her UVa piggy bank from Susan and Bill

Jules helping Uncle Peter open a gift

We left Sunday and headed back home.  We were supposed to drive over the mountain to see my parents and have lunch but the impending bad weather had us going straight home.  We met up with my parents later that week and the girls got even more gifts that we had to figure out how to get home!  Can we say spoiled?!?!?  :)

 Jules opening her tea set from Sugars

 Loving the digital camera!

Josie opening her pop up toy from Sugars

We spent New Years at the lake and enjoyed relaxing with friends and swimming in the indoor pool.  The indoor hot tub was also a big hit with the moms!  2011 has already gotten off to a great start and we are hoping it continues!  I know I'm a little late in saying this but Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy 3rd Birthday Juliann!  I can't believe its been three years-time goes by so fast!  Our little girl is growing up so quickly!  It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms for the first time and in the blink of an eye she's now this little independent person.  Its amazing to me how much life has changed since she first entered the world at 8:01pm 3 years ago today.  I was blessed with a quick labor and a pretty easy baby (once she figured out how to nurse)!  She was impatient the day she was born (coming 3 weeks early and in 3 quick hours) and not much has changed!  She tells me she loves me every day and it melts my heart each time.  She wants to do everything on her own and can be a bit bossy at times.  I know she gets it honestly so we butt heads sometimes!  She loves her baby sister, all things princess, Dora, and Super Why.  Her new favorite thing to do is Skype with family members and she can't wait to go to preschool in the fall.  She says things each day that amaze us and is too smart for her own good!  She talks nonstop (again, not totally her fault!) and is one of the best eaters!  We can't imagine our lives without her and know that we are very blessed.  We love you Jules!

 February 1, 2008

  February 1, 2009-1 year old

 February 1, 2010-2 years old

February 1, 2011-3 years old