What the !?!?

I don't know what to think. My husband writes lots of funny, cute stories. Admittedly, many of them are huge exaggerations. Today, he sends me a rough draft of one about parenting; making fun of this parenting book I'm reading and the common sense way that it approaches parenting. Maybe it is a fad. But then again, maybe it will work. I think he's on board... but then he goes and writes another silly story.

Hopefully I'm over analyzing, as usual. I know he wants the best for her. I just need to get my heart off my sleeve and stop getting my feelings hurt so easily.

You should be in...

Pictures! My friend Pam took some pictures for us of Juliana (and Mommy and Daddy) for her first birthday. It's a good thing that we waited a little bit because she had a huge knot on her forehead for her birthday. It was a fun afternoon.

Pam really put up with a lot from us, because (as you can tell in some of the pictures) she hadn't gotten much of a nap that day.

As promised, here is my favorite one of the ladybug being transfered to Jules from me.


Here is the link if you have a chance to look at more.

http://rosesarered.smugmug.com/gallery/4761104_47z23

Quack Quack

Juliana loves to go outside and play. She loves her slide, her swing that's at her grandparents' house, her wagon and to throw the ball for our dog Shelby.

As you can see, she also loves toothbrushes. She does like to brush her teeth, but I think she just likes toothbrushes too.

She now can say "quack" and when you ask her who says it, she says "duck" very adamantly. We were quacking in the car earlier... she gets so amused with herself and just breaks off the quacking to laugh at herself. Just had to brag a bit because I think she's SO SMART! (proud mommy?)

Here's a picture of Diablo (Jeff's cat) using Jules' Easter bunny from Poppy as a bed.

Owwwie!

I just completed my first spin class... yowzer! I'm light headed and can't wait to feel the muscles! I did my first step class on Tuesday. No big deal... been there, done that, knew what to expect. Cycle is another story! I know I'll get better, but I just kept telling myself to keep the pedals moving. I'll work up to the running and all the hills. I wore myself out the first ten minutes of class... so it was easy to keep my heart rate up the rest of the time. Can't wait til I can keep up with those hard core people!

It was Jules' first time at the kids club too. When I picked her up, she had a little girl holding her hand and she still looked upset. (she LOVES bigger kids) It'll get better for her once she's more used to the environment. Plus she went down for a morning nap as soon as we walked in the door. So, that didn't help any either.

Ladybug

First to my favorite dress that Jules owns now.



She wore this to church on Sunday and I just love it! The other thing about ladybugs is that we had pictures taken in the bluebonnets on Saturday. I can't wait to see them because Jules and I had a ladybug crawling on our fingers out there. That's just a moment that you share with your kids that is so special... and even better when able to be caught in pictures. Can't wait to share that with everybody.

Next is a picture of her on her favorite piece of furniture in the house.

She crawls on it, sits on the side and falls over on it, pulls out the bottom and shares it with the dogs (much to Mommy's chagrin). I was lucky that I was planning to take it home, because she did not want to leave the store without it.

About Me

I was really good last spring and summer about losing the 60 pounds of baby weight, plus a little of the extra that I needed to lose before I got pregnant. It was even better when I was training with Target because I trained at Super Target and ate the great salads and such that are available in the deli as well as walking the "racetrack" continuously. I lost ten pounds over the holidays.

Well, my store now is not a Super, and it has a lot of fast food around it. So with a few months of eating fast food... I need to take some pounds off again. I have finally joined Jeff's gym and we've added the kids club so we don't have to worry too much about what to do with Jules while we take an hour for ourselves.

I'm going to do my first class today. When I have been a member of a gym before, the classes were my favorite part. I've got about 20 pounds to lose, but I'll be happy at 15. I have to order a bridesmaid dress in about 4 weeks, so maybe I can lose 8-10 pounds before I have to get measured for that.

Boys to play with...

This past Saturday evening, we babysat Jeff's cousin's sons. They're 2.5 years old and almost a year old. So Jett and Phoenix are perfect play partners for Jules. We're going to alternate babysitting with them for date nights!

Phoenix started off in the wagon, but couldn't sit still enough for us to be comfortable.
Jett also tried sitting, but preferred to pull:

Phoenix is trying to jump out of Jeff's arms.

Look how skinny Jeff is!

Thirsty!

One day last week, Jules and I got home before anybody else. I started picking up things around the house and turned around to Jules pouring a half full Coke Zero can down her front, trying to drink it. Wish I had gotten a picture of that, but was too busy cleaning up the mess. I turned around from cleaning up the mess to find this:


I did at least get her a sippy cup of water after that. But, as I was doing stuff in the kitchen, I turned around to find this:


This girl has a one track mind. We're really trying not to give her sodas... I now don't drink mine out of the can or bottle... colored cup for me. It's much easier to disguise!

Piano

So, everybody was running late yesterday. I couldn't get out of work on time... so Jules was kinda cranky when we got home. We had a visitor when we arrived! Jeff's soon to be sister-in-law was there. We came in, and she had brought a birthday present from herself and Jeff's brother, Ben. It was a miniature pink piano! Jules was very clingy and acted like she should be getting in trouble every time she hit a key... it was cute, but rather disappointing! Jeff had just been saying that he wants to get Jules a keyboard, so it was right on time!

This picture is from my phone, so it's not great, but it shows how much Jules has warmed up to it since last night!