Great News!

At least part of the curse has lifted! The FDA treated Jeff right. They didn't come to his company until he was already on his way back from the bachelor party on Tuesday. He spent the afternoon Tuesday with them, all day yesterday and the morning today. And passed with flying colors! Now, we can go down to Austin next week and he won't have the Looming FDA stressing him out. We needed some good news in this house.

Bachelorette Weekend

Jeff's best friend is getting married in two weeks. I've become close with his fiancee, Eva. So, after our super rough week, it was nice to get away from reality for 48 hours in Austin. Didn't take any pictures of the festivities, but here's a picture of breakfast this morning (from my phone). We had a great weekend and although it was tame by bachelorette party standards, it was fun to "go out". I even got hit on a couple of times. I needed that stroke to my ego.

Grammy and Gramps had Jules all weekend and Aunt Meredith hung out with them and helped them a lot. Meredith sent me this picture from them shopping at the party store.

Mom made a late lunch for after Dad (Grammy and Gramps) picked me up from the airport. This is a cute picture of Jules that I took while we hung out over there.

Over the weekend, Jules actually called Grammy "Grammy"! What a big girl! Mom said she handed her a cookie (another new word over the week) and Jules said "Thanks, Grammy." Finally starting to get some manners!

After Jules' bedtime tonight, I decided it was time to make a dent in our mess at home. Four bags of trash later, I actually found my bathtub (a safehaven for many things that we were trying to keep from getting wet). Plus, I had all of this (in the picture) for goodwill. Probably, more will come for that pile. You can see that our floors are now concrete. Luckily, the foam floor playmat didn't get messed up... so we have that for Jules to play on.

16 month old

Saturday, Jules will be 16 months old. Yesterday, we had her fifteen month well baby exam. It was delayed due to a conference that the doctor needed to attend.
She's 22.5 pounds, 30.5 inches. 25th percentile for length and weight. Head is still 97th percentile, but it's in the correct curve. I was thinking about all of her words on the way over there. She has a lot... thanks, gracias, dog, kitty, more, Dadda, Yeah, No, Sit (she's bossy) Juice, Apple Juice, Cheese (one of her faves), vroom (is that a word?), and on Friday night, she said that phrase in the previous post... plus many more. I'm putting myself on the spot right now.
On the way out of the car, and on the way in to the doctor's office, I asked her "Do you want to take your truck?" (because she's very entertained by vehicles) She says "Yeah, truck"... I thought... new word!

When the doctor asked whether she had started saying a few words, I told him all that. Then he asked her what she was playing with and she says "truck". Love it when they actually do what we want them to do! He actually called her "very bright". We know that... but it's nice when the professionals agree! ;-) -I had previously been seriously irritated with this doctor for delaying two appointments in a row. He just won me back over. How easily a mother is swayed.-

Oh! And, it turns out that Jules has an ear infection. She didn't show any signs except for a bit of crankiness (tendency to bite lately, which has gotten better in the last couple of days?) and a runny nose. I felt horrible for not having any clue about it... so I cancelled plans with friends and stayed home with her. Jeff did the same. (so I could have met the friends anyway)

Just for fun, the interspersed pictures are from our play date at the mall with Kelly and Caitie (the other little one) almost two weeks ago. I had my camera set on some strange setting, so some of them aren't great.

A Weekend

So last weekend was awesome. This weekend was crap (to put it nicely).

We just had another flood at our house. Just a thoughtless accident. I'm so overwhelmed right now... Ugh. Sad to say, but I'm lucky that I had to close tonight. I came home to an explosion of crap (I want to say- just throw everything away) and a husband that is mentally and physically exhausted. Oh, our AC went out Friday night too. What a peachy weekend!

Enough about that... We will deal (although, eerily, in 7 days, it will have been 2 years since this last happened.

On to bragging about my little munchkin. Being around Jett has been really good for her. She's popping off sentences and surprising words all the time now. She and I were playing in the living room on Friday evening... she tried to hand me something and it fell. She says "I got it." and proceeds to get it! Imagine the shock on my face. Then I think back to when we have hung out with Jett and Phoenix in the last couple of months and I can almost hear her exact inflection with Jett's little boy voice. Jules is growing up too fast.

A Fun Weekend

We had a very busy weekend... packed full.
Friday, we had lunch with Grammy and Gramps... Jules always has a blast over there. I think Gramps is her favorite person (second only to Daddy and Jett).

Then, we went to Mema and Papa's house. (Jeff's grandparents and where his dad lives) Jules had a blast playing with cousins, as well as Mema and Poppy.



Saturday, we went to a friend's first birthday party. Super fun. Jules had a blast.
Believe it or not, she actually left her bow in her hair for the majority of the party. (But only after DADDY put it in for her.)

I forgot my camera at the Saturday afternoon/evening pool party, but took a couple of pictures with my cell phone. Jeff and Jules certainly had a blast in the pool.

Sunday afternoon, we had two family birthday parties. *I forgot my camera again.* Jules went to one (with Jett and Phoenix and their parents) and Jeff and I went to the other. After the party that Jeff and I went to, we caught a couple of movies. Nice, relaxing Sunday date.

Independence

Miss Thing has always asserted herself. She's just now able to DO more things.

Jeff has her watering the plants in the back yard. It's so cute! First, it started with the watering can. Now it's the water hose.
Of course, she had that long enough that that turned into watering herself and then Daddy...

The other night, she figured out how to climb up the three steps of her slide, pull her legs around (or under her) and slide down the slide by herself. I almost cried. But she was SO proud of herself.