Shake Your Groove Thing!

Julia had Gerber meat sticks for the first time today and liked them! I also gave her some apples and she liked them too. She really is a good eater. It is funny because everything that I give Julia, Natalie wants. Natalie finished off the meat sticks and the apples. Good thing those things aren't too expensive!! Anyway, here she is enjoying her first bites!



Now that Julia is all over, I not only had to get a play pen for the kitchen, but I had to bring out the baby pen. I wanted to keep Julia in it so she would have a safe place to play and would have some space from Natalie. Turns out I can't keep Natalie out of the pen. Funny, Natalie can't get out of the pen by herself, so it has turned out to be a great place to keep both girls!

Natalie loves to help in the kitchen and I just couldn't resist this shot of her tonight helping me make soup. I can get her to wear pants to school, I just can't get her to wear them around the house!!


As the title of this post suggests, someone has learned to dance and that someone is Julia. She is just shaking her head now, but it is super cute.



Julia has been crawling for a couple of weeks now and today we noticed that she was crawling on her feet. I wonder if it is because we have a lot of hard wood floors and she has found that is the only way for her to get some traction? It is funny to see.

Natalie's Speech

Jeff and I have known that Natalie is hard to understand when she talks. I thought it might be good to have her speech evaluated, so in November I took her to a free screening within our school district. They agreed that she needed further evaluation. I took her to see a private speech therapist before the holidays and we just finished up her evaluation. We received the report last night. Jeff and I were both shocked by the results.

In summary it said that both her speech development and her syntactical skills where below the 1st percentile. It also said that she exhibits a severe phonological disorder with associated grammatical delays.

Jeff and I are both letting this report sink in and are planning what to do next. The therapist said that it will be a long road. We do know that with the support of family and friends, we will charge on!

My Godmother and Me

On Monday Kendra came over to exchange gifts with Julia. We had such a great time hanging out with her and Immanuel. We are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Here is Natalie opening up Julia's present. She is such a big help. All of the kids loved the gift that Kendra got!


Kendra and Julia.

Christmas with the Kids!

We tried to get the kids together before Christmas and Julia started running a fever, so we had to meet after Christmas. We met for lunch at Emily's house and exchanged gifts. It was a great time and it is always so much fun to get the kids together. I can't beleive that last Christmas there were only three kids and now there are six! Ethan, is one lucky man with all these girls!


Emily, Chloe, Abbie, Ethan, Natalie and Julia


Julia was fascinated with Chloe. She wanted to play with her so bad!

Abbie with her new camera.

Natalie with her new jacket from Emily and Chloe. She did have tights on, but informed me that they were itchy.

Santa!

I just realized that I didn't post the photos of Santa and the girls. Julia was fine with Santa as long as she could see me and didn't look at him. It was pretty funny. Natalie wanted to be sure that she wasn't on the naughty list and wanted to tell him that she wanted a choo-choo train and cheeseburger for Christmas.

New Moves!

Julia has been acting like she wants to pull up on things so today I brought up the activity table for her. She can't pull herself up just yet, but she can stand for a few minutes if you stand her up. I just can't beleive how fast she is growing.



I just can't resist Julia in a hat. She is so cute!!

There are a couple of little videos together in the video below. First up is Julia playing peek-a-boo for one of the first times. She thinks it is so much fun! Then is a video of Julia really crawling. She is really moving around now!

Random Video Post

Jeff got Natalie on video singing "Up on the Housetop" when we were coming home from his Dad's house. I am pretty sure it is one of the cutest things she has ever sang - I love how she mixes up the verses. Here are the words that she is singing:

"Up on the housetop reindeer paws, out jumps silly old Santa Clause. Give her a dolly that laughs and cries, one that will open and shut her eyes."




So, while I was getting this video off of Jeff's phone I found these other two. The first one is a video of Julia when she was little doing tummy time. Jeff loved how vocal she was being. The second one is of me on a zip line at the pumpkin patch. The funny part is Natalie really wanted to do it and was up on the platform before they told her she was too short. She was really disappointed. Maybe next year she will be tall enough.

I Love My New Skirt

Mom got Natalie this skirt for Christmas and she is just crazy about it! So much so that she wore it to bed tonight. She is a hoot. I am curious to see if she leaves it on all night.

So Determined!!

I love the determined faces that babies make when they are crawling. Julia's faces crack me up!

Merry Day After Christmas!

We are so lucky to have so much family so close that we get to have 3 Christmas celebrations!! The day after we celebrated with Jeff's Sister and Dad. Susanne and I thought it would be fun to get Don a little tree. Natalie picked out the ornaments, pink and blue, and I think the end product was really great! I think Julia liked it to.


Natalie with her banana.

Julia and Suzanne.

Natalie with the finished tree and presents.

Julia playing with Suzanne's camera box and Natalie is probably telling her not to.

Jeff showing Natalie a photo of him and Suzanne as children, a gift from Suzanne.

Julia's snow globe, a gift from Suzanne.

Don looking over the gift Jeff and I gave him.

Natalie with her suitcase from Pa Pa Don.

Suzanne and Natalie with their new necklaces.

Family dinner!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!! Santa came to our house!! Natalie set out milk and cookies for Santa and we even put some food outside for the reindeer. She woke up about every hour, just to see if it was time to get up I think. Julia didn't sleep good either, so a very tired Mommy and Daddy were glad that both girls were in a good mood this morning!! I got Julia up first, and the first gift I got was a stinky diaper! I had the girls in matching PJ's, but Julia's had to go right in the wash...so just imagine them in matching PJ's...they would have been so cute!!

Santa's goodies.

Julia's favorite things were the cards.

Natalie helping Julia with her presents.

Julia playing with her kitchen.

Natalie's gift to Jeff.

Mommy's new shirt!

Natalie's new kaleidoscope.

Jeff and his new laser grip.

Mommy and her new camera!

Julia with her stash from Marty.

Mommy with her new freezable beer steins - go Steelers!!

Natalie's new alphabet floor puzzle.

Julia hanging out taking it all in.

Natalie with her new music player with mic.

Natalie and her train, and yes, she got a cheeseburger too. Crazy kid.

Natalie and her neat seats from Marty.

Checking the stockings.

Awww....Julia was already napping, but here are the three of us!

Natalie in her new rocking chair with her new teddy bear, both from Pa Pa James!!

Natalie and Julia playing with her train.

Merry Christmas everyone!