A Joke

Chloe has apparently heard of knock-knock jokes somewhere... probably Sesame Street. We certainly didn't introduce them! One evening at supper we were treated to this joke from Chloe. She spoke all parts of the joke just in case we didn't know what the appropriate response was.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Finger.
Where's my finger?
Here's my finger!

I know, it's hard to believe she made it up all by herself. A comedian in the making.

12 Month Stats

Here are just a few of milestones Julia has reached.

• Julia weighs in at 20 pounds and 9 ounces and measures 27 3/4 inches.
• She is becoming much more steady on her feet. Walking is her first choice of transportation, but if she falls she will continue crawling to her destination. (Correction: Being carried is her first choice of transportation.)
• She folds her hands when we say it's time to pray. She has even started to jibber while we pray.
• One of her favorite activities is reading books. She doesn't have the patience to sit long enough for somebody to read to her. Instead, she'll sit for long periods of time flipping through books and reading to herself.
• She simply ADORES her big sister. Few things are better than playing with Chloe.
• She feeds herself with a spoon or fork after I put the food on the utensil. After she's done with that bite, she politely hands the fork back to me for a refill. I've tried giving her a small bowl or plate to see if she can feed herself that way, but it always results in a bowl of food dumped all over the place.
• She is very vocal -- much more than Chloe was at her age! She has a variety of consonant and vowel sounds. Her favorites are currently dada and growling like a bear. Yesterday she finally said mama over and over. Hurray!
• Sometimes she will sing. She has even been caught dancing. She has two forms of dancing: Standing directly in front of the stereo, holding onto the table, and bouncing her right leg up and down. The other is crawling around in a small circle in front of the stereo. Both are very cute. I would love to get them on tape.
• She has upgraded to drinking whole milk, but refuses to give up the bottle at this point.

What's Been Happening

Kevin was kind enough to write down notes of things I should be blogging while I was absent from this site for a couple months. However, the list is currently missing on this messy desk somewhere. I'll write the couple of stories that I remember and will add more when the list is found.

Chloe has become a big fan of Hide-and-Seek. She understands most of the concepts of playing. She covers her eyes, counts to ten, and looks until she finds the person hiding. However, if she's hiding, she doesn't understand the concept of staying quiet. As soon as we say "Ready or not, here I come" she shouts "Okay!" Her shouting isn't what gives away her hiding spot though. She only hides in two different places. I can't tell you where they are because I can't reveal her hiding spots to those who may play with her in the future.

One day Chloe was looking for her bowl that she uses to feed her baby, and she couldn't find it. She covered her eyes, counted to ten, and said "Ready or not, here I come!" Sure enough, she found the "hiding" bowl after that. It has become her new favorite way of searching for lost items.

A favorite expression lately has been "I nn like it" (I don't like it). The N sound is very, very subtle. Usually it can't even be heard. So we never know if she's saying she likes something or doesn't like something. Conversations usually go something like this:
"I like that."
"You like that? Well, good."
"No! I like that!"

One book that Chloe has really been enjoying is Green Eggs and Ham. After making pumpkin pancakes for supper one evening, Kevin offered to put some peach honey on her pancakes. "I like peach honey" (meaning, I don't like it). I told her she was just like the guy from Green Eggs and Ham because she hadn't even tried it yet. So she tried it and told us "I do like it, Sam-I-am!"

The Big ONE

Happy birthday Julia!

What a day it was! Julia sure appeared to enjoy her birthday tremendously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happy for so long. She was giggles and grins almost all day. We had a simple celebration, but did a lot of things that she really enjoys.

She had special treats to eat -- Fruit Loops for breakfast and pizza (for the first time) and peas for lunch. She had a hard time deciding which was better (the pizza or the peas), but decided to eat more peas in the end. We got out of the house this morning and ran some errands. We played throughout the day. When Kevin got home around 5:30 I was finishing up supper. He took over playing for a bit before we ate. After supper (corned beef and cabbage) I had to run out to Walmart to get more tapes for our video camera. Then we finally got to eat cake and open presents just shortly before heading to bed.

Looking through my pictures now I see that I don’t have really great ones. She was just a baby on the move all day long. I had a hard time catching her sitting still. Here are the best I could find. Sorry I don't have more that are worthy of sharing.

She had to pose with my old green feather boa. Poor girl -- I sure hope she likes green as she gets older.

We had balloons hanging from the doorway for her to bat around. She LOVED playing with them.

She started off eating so neatly.

The end result wasn't neat, but much better than I thought it might be!

She didn't need any instructions on what to do with the gifts. As soon as I put the pile of presents on the floor, she spread them out and immediately tried opening one.

Happy birthday, sweet girl!

A Year Ago

One year ago today Kevin and I went on one last date before welcoming a new baby. Where has the time gone?

Right now there's a cake in the oven for tomorrow's celebration. I tried telling Julia that we could just skip her birthday tomorrow so that she can stay my baby awhile longer; she seemed to think that was funny and laughed at me.

Check back tomorrow evening for birthday pictures.