Kitty Cat Mailbox

We spend a lot of time outside and one of Julia's favorite activities is going for a walk down the street to see the neighbors mailbox that has 3 cats on it. Even though we have 3 live cats at home, seeing the kitty cat mailbox is always a big hit.

Sense of Fashion

Julia is very into accessories, specifically purses, hats, shoes, wallets, keys.

She even managed to match her shoes and purse in this photo

She also loves to 'help out' and carry her own lunch box to school (yet again she managed to match her hat with her lunch box)
But don't worry, while Julia may try to be matching and well accessorized, she still has plenty of messy toddler moments!!

4th of July

We had an excellent 4th of July weekend. At the 4th of July party at my friend's farm Julia had a great time watching the cows and helping to feed the chickens. I do have to question her future career as a veterinarian since everytime she saw the cows she would say "baaa baaa", maybe we'll have to focus on her actuarial skills instead.

At one point I saw Julia carrying around a stool. While I had no idea what she was doing, John and I just stayed out of the way and watched as she carried the stool over to the dessert table and climbed up on the stool.

She clearly has a big drive to eat!!! I guess that explains how at 18 months she got to be 32 pounds (99th percentile), 33 1/4 inches tall (90th percentile), and head circumference is in the 96th percentile (after measuring her head the doctor said "That's good, we don't want her to have a small head on a big body.")

Florida

John, Julia, and I had a wonderful time in Florida. We started our adventure in Tampa with Julia's cousins Taylor, Chase, and Sophia. While it was close to impossible to get a good picture of all 4 of them together they definitely had a great time playing all together.

Julia's first theme park adventure began at Busch Gardens where she spent most of her time splashing in the water. Here she is blowing a kiss... John and I like to think she was blowing us a kiss wishing us a happy six year wedding anniversary!

Asleep at the end of a very long day

We also went to the beach on Siesta Key, where Julia got to splash around in the ocean in a bathing suit (and hot, humid 95 degree weather), rather than in jeans and a sweatshirt in the cold, rainy Maine weather a few weeks ago.

All the daddies with their daughters (Uncle Dave and cousin Sophia, Daddy and Julia, and Uncle Chris and cousin Taylor)

While John attended his actuarial conference in Orlando we headed for a day at Disney. After about 2 hours in the 95 degree weather all the adults were tired and wondering what we were thinking bringing 4 kids to disney on a hot, busy, summer day but after a snack and some air conditioning we were refreshed and ready to take on the park. For me it brought back a lot of childhood memories since my grandmother and cousins lived in Orlando and we visited quite often. Julia had a great time, I think her favorite rides were It's a small world, Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride, the Jungle Cruise, and Buzz Lightyear. I thought Julia might be scared in some of the rides, but after we went into pitch black on the pirates ride, took a slight drop, and Julia asked for more, I knew we were all set. The highlight of the day was on the same ride she looked up at an animatronic pirate, pointed at him, and signed "Daddy, Daddy". I had to try and explain that daddy was at work, and Captain Jack Sparrow was not her father.

Uncle Dave trying to teach Julia to say "Arrr, I'm a pirate"

At the end of the trip, we said good bye to all the cousins but Julia and I spent a few relaxing days with my Aunt Arlen and Uncle Bill. We had an excellent time at the local zoo and even got to go to a movie on our own whlie Arlen and Bill babysat.

Swimming in Maine

Last weekend we went to Maine, but instead of beautiful beach weather it was cold and rainy. The weather didn't stop us from enjoying the beach, the first day we brought Julia to play in the sand and let her dip her feet in the ocean. The next day we went back to play in the sand and Julia walked right into the ocean, fully clothed in jeans and a sweatshirt. She fell over in the waves, was soaking wet from head to foot and loved every minute of it. On the entire beach there were only 2 people in the ocean, Julia and our dog Pearl.

The following weekend we were with the Crooker/MacGregor family on Crystal Lake in NH for a family picnic, we had beautiful 90 degree weather and Julia finally got to go swimming for real.

Special Strengths

Julia is officially a toddler, she moved from the infant room to the toddler room at daycare and is loving every minute of it. It was a lot harder on me and John than it was on her, we weren't ready to admit that we had a 'big girl' rather than a tiny infant. The first day she was a little bit apprehensive in her new room, the second day she was very serious when I put her down in the room, scanned the room, then looked up at me and loudly said "Bye-Bye", basically telling me 'ok mom leave, I'm ready to have fun'.


We had a conference with her infant room teacher who gave us a beautiful book with lots of pictures of Julia taken over the last year and of course I cried the entire time I was flipping through the book. In the book she listed Julia's Special Strengths:


-Excellent sign language skills- her words are ready to spill out
-Very, very easy going
-always eager to try new activities, makes more than one attempt to solve a problem
-very caring and sweet
-music is a special activity-very interactive
-Julia is a happy, fun loving little girl who is ready to take on the toddler experience.

Here's a collection of photos from the last few weeks....
Play dress up

ready for a run?


where is Julia?

Helping Organize

Fun in the Sun

Big Eater

Julia is a very big eater, but while she likes to eat a lot of food, she is becoming more picky about the individual items she will actually eat. Like many toddlers, one day a food is in and the next the food is out (and thrown on the floor for the dog to eat).

John and I were having salmon burgers for dinner and Julia decided she wanted a bite, but that one bite turned into her stealing my entire burger.... see for yourselves in the video.