Catching Up - 2013 So Far

As promised, some pictures of Julianna's birthday, only 3+ months late...

Jules' second year is turning out to be so much fun! She is such a hammy little ham hock. She expresses her dissenting opinions freely and at maximum volume, and just when you think "GAR! What is this kid's problem!?" she leans in for a sweet kiss, a snuggle and a squinty, breathy chuckle. Kinda like this:

In short, she is irresistible.

Since time plays tricks with the mind, I want to document the words she is saying right now because soon she'll be speaking in complete sentences just like Jonathan. She has learned so many words recently!

Spoken:
Uh-oh (her first)
Ball
Dada
Papa
Hat
Foof (what a dog says)
AAUGGHHH (what all other animals say)
Hi
'Sdat? (what's that?)

Signed:
Milk
Banana
Bird

No "momma" in sight yet. :(

Meanwhile, in Jonathan news, he is so big and getting so grown up! At three-and-a-half, he is a full-fledged "kid," certainly no longer a toddler. We switched his school back in October and he has been flourishing there. He makes friends so easily and I hope that is something he carries with him his whole life.

One of my favorite things Jonathan has started doing these days is saying "Mommy, I love you" out of nowhere. He doesn't say it simply as a response to me saying it to him. He doesn't say it to get what he wants - for instance, 3 seconds before asking for a cookie. He just says it to be sweet. It is the most rewarding thing to hear from a tiny being who, as nature intends, has spent 99% of his life receiving, rather than giving love.

Here are a few recent pictures of our sweet and sensitive little guy.

Superheroes are BIG right now. Exhibit B, featuring cousin Will:

Finally, Jer and I always go in and check on Jonathan every night before we go to bed. Inevitably, he is passed out in some unnatural sleeping position which involves arms and/or legs sticking up at funny angles,  or him sleeping on top of the book he was "reading" to himself to fall asleep.

I couldn't resist taking this adorable shot of our sleeping monkey, involving the following critical items for a good night's sleep:
Turtle
Shark
Dolphin
Light-up Dog
"Mr. Marbles," his lovey
Elmo book
Thomas blanket

Our next big Team Duguid adventure is coming up soon. We're heading up to Chattanooga to see (and ride on!) the "real" Thomas the Train. We're going with Jer's parents and it should be a great weekend!

Julianna is One!

We hosted family for Julianna's birthday party on Saturday.  I cannot believe our (likely last) baby is one already.  It is certainly bittersweet.  On the one hand, we'll probably never have a tiny little squishy baby again and on the other, she is becoming more fun and filled with toddlery mischief every day.  I absolutely love the time between one and two!

The party was really awesome.  Our friend Jaime was in town and we had a lot of fun with her over the weekend.  Plus, she helped a ton with the party - couldn't have done it without her.  It being so soon after Christmas, and just having gotten back from vacation a few days before, I did not go crazy with a theme and hard core decorations.  We straightened up the house and hung up some pretty tissue pom poms and that's about it.

The kids alternated between playing in the basement and watching Cars 2 in the family room, and the adults mostly stayed upstairs, ate and chatted.  There may have been some fawning over Jules and her super cute birthday outfit.  She was in a fantasticly happy and silly mood all day.

It was a simple celebration in this time of crazy Pinterest-inspired overproduced events but it could not have been a more special way to celebrate our little beauty..

Photos to come shortly...

2013

I can't believe it but I haven't blogged in 7 months! It's a new year though, and although I do not make resolutions per se, I am using the dawning of 2013 as a reason to recommit myself to documenting our boring little lives. :) Our kids change too fast. Julianna is almost ONE! And I want to remember the silly things they say and do right now, before they are suddenly 25 and I wonder where the time has gone. So, I'm not making any aggressive goals like "I'll blog once a week" or "ever" but here I am, trying. We had a really lovely Christmas and New Year's with our families. The last week we were in Amelia Island and Jonathan was in heaven with cousins, grandparents, a heated-to-90-degrees swimming pool and trains galore. Julianna had good days and bad, but her high point was defnitely an early birthday celebration when she devoured a piece of cake in about 10 seconds flat, miraculously without getting any in her hair, clothes or ears. It was actually quite remarkable and a total opposite of Jonathan's experience which has caused him to have a strained relationship with cake to this day. We're having a party for Jules on her birthday, this Saturday. Let's hope for a good mood day. This little lady is such a cliche - total drama queen!