Cutting Her First Tooth!

Julia is now cutting her first tooth. I felt it for the first time Wednesday night. There has been a little bump there for quite a while, but now a tooth is coming through her gums! Yay! Here's a really blurry picture of me trying to show everyone. (And please note how big her little hands look in this picture.) Not that you can really see it, but it's there, just above the middle of my thumb (on her lower right gum line). I will try to get a better shot of it this weekend.

And I must tell you all, she is teething like a champ. She is gnawing on everything and drooling, but she is not fussy or feverish. (Knock on wood, now that I told everyone.) She seems to sleep a bit more here and there when she is showing signs of teething, but that may just be her growing spurts too.

Julia at Seven Months

My precious baby is growing again. The sweet little thing is getting a little bit bigger everyday. Her tiny hands are still small, but they are not as teeny as they once were.

On Monday (the 19th) Julia was seven months. She weighed in at 15.1 pounds (according to our home scale). Here are some pictures for all to see.

Julia will soon be crawling and toddling about. I can't wait for these moments, yet at the same time I want her to stay as she is. I sometimes wish time could go a bit slower so that I can enjoy all of this and take it all in a lot more.

These days she is sitting all by herself and playing with her toys. She still enjoys tummy time and laying on her back. She has not quite yet gotten a handle on trying to get her belly up off of the floor during tummy time. She has just begun to try to move her feet when she is held up in a standing position on the floor, so she can walk (very slowly) with mommy's help and support.

As for her toys, she still has a good time in her exercauser. She still loves her butterflies and Mr. Star. Turtle and Turtle 2 is getting quite a response these days also. Books and reading time is also quite fun. Since Christmas, she now has a few new favorites too. Telephone, Monkey on a ball (Daddy calls him Obama) and her balls are some of them.

Grammy

Grammy came up the day after Christmas to visit for a week. It was great to see her, but the poor thing got sick while she was here in Maryland. This picture just shows how much these two enjoyed visiting with each other for that week Grammy was here.

And I think this picture is just adorable. A great-grandmother and her beautiful great-granddaughter, and they look so happy!

We can't wait for the next visit.

Christmas

Here are a few pictures of our first Christmas in the new house and Julia's first Christmas ever. She was so happy on Christmas morning, but I think it is because she is happy baby and a morning person. (She really is not old enough to understand she got presents that day.)

And this is what our tree looked like on Christmas morning. Quite a bit of those presents we took to other people.

And here is what Santa left the beautiful little baby. Please notice that the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, but we have no mantle. One day we will have a mantle, I hope.

This picture shows what was in her stockings. This is where her first baby foods came from. The can Julia has her hands on are her "wheels." They look like honeycombs on steroids and she loves them.

Julia and her mommy in front of the Christmas tree.

One of the presents Santa gave to Julia. She likes to push the button to get the balls out of her gumball machine.

Julia was so happy to give Daddy the present she bought him.

And her Daddy really likes the thoughtful present. Dave reads it to her before bed sometimes.

She wasn't so enthused about giving mommy her present, but it was just as thoughtful. It almost made her mommy cry. (I got a card with her hand prints in it.)

And this is what our Christmas tree looked like at night time.

That is what our Christmas looked like in pictures.

Christmas Travels

So, anyone who knows us, knows we have quite a bit of relatives. Dave came with numerous aunt, uncles, and even more cousins. Myself, I come with many siblings and a slew of "blended" family parts. Therefore, on holidays we make our rounds.

And this past Christmas, we started with Christmas Eve church service mid-day (with pieces and parts of my family) then off to Dave's sister's house for the annual Reynolds Christmas Eve festivities and present exchange. Here's a funny picture of Julia with one of her cousins at Betsy's.

Next, we spent Christmas morning at our house for Julia's first Christmas morning. Dave was sick, so, the morning start was slow. We finally arrived at my mom's for the Christmas gift exchange and, of course, Christmas dinner (which is always at noon). This year we were pretty late. Here's Julia with one of her presents there.

And, since we still have family we did not see yet, we got together with my dad's side of the family the day after Christmas at Kristy's place. We did our gift exchange and the kiddies did theirs. Here is Julia with her favorite part of Christmas... the wrapping paper. She really wanted to eat it and her mommy would not let her do that.

If I have time, I'll try to post some more pictures from our travels with people other than Julia in them. This also may not happen, so don't worry if you don't get any group shots of the festivities and gift exchanges.

Julia Video - Time with Aunt Vicki

Here's a couple videos that her Aunt Vicki took during her Thanksgiving trip back up here to Maryland. I think Aunt Vicki and Julia just love seeing each other. In this first one Julia is a bit tired or hungry (don't remeber which one) so she is not very talkative, but there are a few funny faces at the end.

This one she is a little more active in.

And when Aunt Vicki came back for Christmas, she took some more videos. Here she is sitting on our kitchen island.

And a couple cute videos of her (and I) in front of the mirror in our bedroom.

Thanks Vicki for uploading these for me!

Julia at Six Months

So, the sweet baby girl turned six months on December 19th. She also had a doctor's visit that day. Poor thing had four vaccines (one oral and three shots). She was a bit groggy for two days afterwards, but that's ok. She weighed 14 pounds 2 ounces and was 25 1/4 inch long.

Here is a picture I just love (from the day we put the Christmas tree together):

And she is now "allowed" to eat real (baby) food. We have started her on rice cereal. Here she is, fat and happy (of course, after eating):

And here she is with the spoon in her mouth. She is pretty good at the "Mommy is the one who holds the spoon," part, but sometimes she gets a clean one to try out on her own.

She got a few more food items in her stocking from Santa, and she likes all of them too. I'll tell you all about those later, but she gets to hold her cookies and puffy wheels. She enjoys that and she still doesn't grab at the spoon too bad when we feed her with it. I'm loving her personality. She is an easy one to raise so far. (Thank you God!)

And these two are actually from th 19th when she was 6 months exactly. She is such a joy to have around!

And have I told you, she is really liking her feet these days? The feet obsession has taken over the tongue sticking out fetish from when she was 5 months. If you put the rings on her feet it keeps her occupied for quite a while.

And on the 20th, Dave's cousin had a family get-together for Christmas. So, we put Julia in this cute outfit (compliments of her older cousin Addy). Isn't she adorable?

And our dog Max, Julia just loves to watch Max. I'm not sure if Max is as fond of her though. I think Max is jealous of the other girl (Max is a girl too) in the house and Julia can't "play" with Max yet, so we'll see. Anyway, Julia gets the biggest eyes and an open wide smile and makes a funny noise when she sees Max or hears her paws on the wood floor. She gets all stiff and her arms start trying to do this quick, but very shortened, up and down flying motion.

More to come later. Hope everyone is enjoying the posts. If you are please leave a comment.

Christmas Tree Picking

Dave is a "REAL" Christmas Tree type of person. I have always had a "fake" tree until I met him. (One day, especially after a few kids, I am suspecting that we'll purchase an artificial tree for sanity sake. Until then, we will always hunt down the perfect tree.) And, we don't just do a real tree from some stand, we actually go to a tree farm (different one each year, so far) and pick one out to cut down.

Here we are on one of the coldest, windiest days of December looking for the perfect specimen. Julia was enjoying the hunt for a little while. Although, she wishes she didn't have to wear a hat.

And here we are after we found "the one." Where we went this year did not have the best selection, but we did find a pretty darn good tree out of the rows and rows of stumpy and partly-bare trees. By this point, Julia was getting a bit cranky from the cold and wind (and so was I, I hate the cold).

So, Dave cut the tree down and carried it back to the truck.

We put the tree up later that night. The next day we began to decorate the tree. Here is a picture of Julia putting up her first Christmas ornament (we picked it out from the Christmas Shoppe in Williamsburg).

We may even try to plant a few trees in our yard that we could harvest in 5-7 years (that is how long "they" say it takes for a Christmas tree to mature or grow to the right size). I think it would be neat to nurture our trees and then let the kids pick which one we cut down and use.

And more Christmas posts will be added later (maybe next week). The next post should be of Julia turning six months.

Great Wolf Lodge

So, in the beginning of December we made our way, along with the whole Reynolds crew, to Williamsburg, VA for a very quick three day trip.

We stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, which is one of (Dave's sister) Betsy's favorite vacation spots. Here is Julia relaxing on the couch in our spacious suite that we all shared.

Although Julia and I did spend a couple of hours in our bathing suits in the water, this is the only picture of us in the water park. (Dave never got a chance to come down from the room that day to take any pictures.) Other than a bath, this is her first experience with water.

And, while we were there Julia got to meet Santa. She was just so very fascinated with the new, strange man who was holding her. And, I must say, he was a very convincing looking Santa. He had one of his helpers remove the bells from his left hand so that she would look at the camera for a picture.

And, I'm sorry that these pictures are a bit dark, but they are the only pictures I have from our trip. (At least there is proof we went on this trip, unlike any proof of Thanksgiving ever taking place at our house.) Other than Great Wolf Lodge, we did some shopping and lots of eating. More updates to come soon.

Happy New Year - Quick Update

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope everyone has started this year off on a good note. All in all we have our sights set on improving things for the coming year. I personally hope to update this blog more regularly (hopefully about once a week).

As a quick update... Dave did hit the JACKPOT on his new toy. And I have the picture to prove it. Just before the jackpot hit, Dave's mother was taunting him and telling him that his slot machine is rigged and would never hit a jackpot. They were just messing with it to kill some time and he hit the jackpot within a few spins while his mom watched. He got a big kick out of that.

Oh, and to let everyone know, Thanksgiving went well. We had, I think, 44 people total throughout the afternoon and evening come through the house. Of course, I have no pictures, since I forgot to take any. There was more food than we could eat and leftovers like crazy. After a week or two the leftovers got thrown out; there was that much!

Since Christmas (well, a little before for Dave) there have been a few sicknesses running through our family (and friends). Dave is getting over his third illness and Julia and I are just getting rid of a (minor) case of the sniffles and little cough.

I have been pretty busy running around for home and work and everything since Thanksgiving so I've been a little slow on the blog upkeep. I'll have more updates to follow really soon.