Strollers & Seats & Crawlers... Oh my

We had some firsts and fun this weekend.

Friday night we went out to eat, and Julianna did so good sitting in the chair with her floppy seat at the restaurant... and she ate a full serving of barley cereal and a full jar of garden veggies. Hungry little girl. In case you didn't know, the 'hand over the eye' means "I'm Tired".

On Saturday night, we had some good friends of ours over for dinner, whose son is 3 weeks younger than Julianna. His name is Jake. We call him Julianna's boyfriend. I made some Penne with Vodka sauce along with mozzarella & tomato salad... and then chocolate pudding pie for dessert. Yum. Little Jake is crawling like a king! He is sooo fast already! Go Jake! He is also can pull himself up to a standing position. We are hoping Jules is not too far behind. Jake & Julianna played nice (kind of) on the sofa together before dinner.

Julianna was nice enough to share her most prized possession (as of right now) with Jake, her Sassy picture book.                               

"Sassy Book - Mine... Mine... Mine"

Poor unsuspecting Jake got a hold of Jules' book ... Check out the look she's giving him. Wicked. Watch out for this one Jake! She might hold a grudge, LOL!  

All's good.  

I think Jake might have needed a break from Julianna at this point. Off he went...

I am so impressed with how well he is crawling already and he's not even 8 months yet! Julianna, get a good look - this could be you...

Where ya' going little man? To inspect the dog's food bowl again!? 

This weekend, Julianna learned that she can actually hold the bottle and not have mom or dad hold it for her diva self like we normally do. I was shocked she held it for as long as she did! Baby Steps.  

Sunday - Julianna just waiting patiently for mommy & daddy to get their act together so we can go to Buy Buy Baby to get her Big Girl Stroller.  

Julianna in her Big Girl Convertible Seat. We installed it on Saturday because we had enough of carrying her heaviness around in her infant seat. Out went the Chicco base.... In went the Britax convertible seat. This thing is so nice & cushy... Lucky Jules!  

And off we went to Buy Buy Baby to get her Big Girl Stroller - I've been researching and having mind-bending dilemmas over which light-weight (umbrella style) stroller to get for her.  We had Julianna sit in each stroller & we wheeled her around, reclined her, and tried out the belt. She was having fun! We finally decided on the Maclaren Quest Sport. I kind of was leaning towards the Maclaren anyway.

So long Chicco Cortina Heavy-weight Travel System!

(Here is a stock picture since ours is still in the box in the back of the car).

What umbrella style stroller does everyone else use? How do you like it?

 



Belly Flop

It's official. Julianna likes loves being on her belly.
She absolutely hated it since day one no matter how much tummy time we did with her. In the past, if she rolled on her belly by accident, she would scream bloody murder until we flipped her! Don't get me wrong, she's been rolling over for months now but she just does not like it at all.

I don't know how it happened or why, but one day last week she decided to roll over in her crib and not scream... and fell asleep peacefully. Ever since then, she can't get enough of it. I sit her down on her butt, on her floor mat, and it takes her all of 3 seconds to get down onto her belly. OK fine, as long as you are not screaming!

She's also shimmying to get things and pushing up with her legs. She might end up crawling after all! Hooray! I would be fine if she went straight to walking but secretly I'd be happier if she crawled first.  The past 2 mornings, when we wake up, we look on the monitor and see Julianna sleeping soundly like a little lamb... ON HER BELLY. Comfy as can be.

Peaceful Sleeper. I am so thankful this child sleeps 11 hours at night.

Jules playing on her belly yesterday morning with her favorite stacking cup. No screams.

Exploring. It's almost time to childproof.

"Daddy, read me a book."

I just love the Little Golden Books. I had them as a child and love them just as much now for my daughter. The illustrations still hold up.  

Happy Jule-bug! 

"Mmmmm this tastes good!" 

After Julianna went to daycare yesterday morning, Pepper took advantage and laid right in the Boppy hole, thinking I might not notice her. Silly Dog. 

Just in case any of you in the 'warmer' climates don't know what we are dealing with here in the Northeast... Here it is. We won't be seeing grass until April sometime.  

New Facebook Page

I have to tell you that I just love Facebook & Twitter. I might even be close to being an official "Facebook-aholic". So, I decided to create a Facebook page for my blog.

I thought it was a great way to network & get my blog out there for even more mom-friends! If you are a facebook-aholic like me, I encourage you to "LIKE" my blog on facebook... and I would be happy to return the favor if you let me know your page too!

I am doing this because I want to be able to ask questions, talk about baby stuff, or have fun discussions in an informal setting like Facebook - I'll post my blog entries there as well, but also talk about other mom stuff too that everyone can interact with.
Join me - It will be fabulous!!

Just go to the bottom right side of my blog and click LIKE. (You obviously need to have a facebook account first in order to do this!)

See you on Facebook! :)

Wordless Wednesday

... Almost Wordless

This is not the clearest picture, but does it really need to be? I love my husband more than anything & he is the best daddy ever, but he truly is "Pattern Challenged". This is the "Fashion-Don't" that he dressed our poor child in on Sunday. I had to quickly send him back to the child's room to pick something else that actually matched. He did try to reason that the blue in the shirt matched the blue flowers in her pants LOL!!

Is your kid this weird?

My husband and I have always known Julianna sleeps in weird positions. We go into her room when she's sleeping and stare at her like psychos. We watch her breathe. We laugh at how she sleeps in what seems like the most uncomfortable positions. She twists her arms & legs like a pretzel. Maybe everyone else's kid is this weird? Who knows!? I have to take some shots of her other positions. She does another thing where she rolls on her side and props her feet up on top of the bumper! I Need to get a shot of that. I guess she must be comfortable because she sleeps hard!

 Slightly turned on her side, arm under her chin, left leg twisted up under her other leg, and her head all twisted up to the right. Weirdo kid of mine!

Look at the arm jammed under her chin - that's just not normal 

EXTRAS

I had to take this picture. I love to look at her little lips & her chubby fingers while she sleeps. I can't help it.  

When we change Jul, she loves to play with her little Giraffe. It keeps her distracted so she's not trying to throw herself off the changing table.

I just love this kid so much !!

This Weekend...

As I said in my last post, Julianna is now 8 months old. I love her more each and every day. Every day she does something new that makes me smile and love her all over again!

Here are some 8 month milestones that are note-worthy:

• Not crawling - not even close (We suspect she may go right to walking!)
• Likes to stand up - Jul will stand up if we balance her, she likes it a heckuva lot more than being on her belly! (Waaaaaahhhh!)
• Solid foods - Jul is becoming the Veggie-Eatin-Queen! She loves any and all vegetables lately, especially corn, Mixed Veggies & Squash. She's not really too hot on fruits still. Who would have thought?!
• Sippy Cup - Lovin' her sippy!
• Sits without support of hands and can recover from tipping over
• Uses Palmer grasp (whole hand) to reach for and grasp for toys (or anything else she can get her grubby little hands on as we are walking by something she wants!)
• Feeds herself finger food (gerber puffs & minced egg yolk!)
• Rolls all over and holds self up with arms
• Not waving bye-bye yet. Soon I hope.
• We are teaching her Mommy, Daddy, Hungry, Thirsty, More and All Done in sign language. No feedback yet as it can take weeks for them to pick it up.

Not sure where all of you live but here in the North East, we have been hit with the Big Freeze! It was -5 this morning when we woke up. Yes, 5 below zero. No, we do not live in Green Bay, Minnesota or Canada. We live in New Jersey. This is NOT the norm for us. Oh and we woke up with no heat too. This crap sucks. The oil lines froze up and we lost our heat. I have had a fire going in the wood stove all day today which has helped to make the house bearable and lucky for me, the stove is in my office (I work from home).

My husband is diligently working to thaw the lines out as we speak. God bless him for creeping around on all fours in the crawlspace to insulate the lines. Glad its not me. I love that man.

This past weekend, Brian, Baby Belle and I drove around our beautiful

Lake Hopatcong and took some nice Winter shots. Enjoy ...

Bear statue in the woods by the entrance to Raccoon Island 

One of the few spots on the lake that doesn't have ice.

It's the ferry entrance over to Raccoon Island.  

I thought this sign was funny ... No swimming please. 

See the ice-fishermen in the far background... 

 A man walking on the lake with his Newfoundland. That dog is about the only one loving this weather.

I bet that slide is fun in the summertime! 

Brian saw this little guy wandering up from the Lake as we were parked. He jumped out of the car and got a few shots of him - Real pretty fox!  

Hey, don't run away!

Ducks love to swim no matter what the weather. Brrrr.

Happy 8 months to my Beautiful Belle

Julianna is 8 months old - well, she will be this Sunday, but since it's not likely that I'll be blogging during the Packers or Jets game, I'm doing it today.

This has been a great month of firsts and new things! Julianna is really becoming such a big girl and she is changing so much. She is doing tons of rasberries lately. And I am talking about serious Razzzzberries where spit flies everywhere (take cover!) and she thinks it's sooo funny! Every day she does something new that we just can't believe. She is getting so strong too, like being able to sit up from an almost laying down position.

And yes, I am already thinking obsessing about Julianna's first Birthday Party. I decided (with Brian's approval) that we are going to do a Hungry Caterpillar theme for her Birthday Party. She seems to love that book when we read it to her, and hey, we like it too! I found so many great ideas on the Internet and I can easily make the Hungry Caterpillar from Cupcakes. I saw that on someone's blog not too long ago - I wish I could remember who it was so I could credit them. I did a google search on the Hungry Caterpillar and there are hundreds of ideas out there. I can't wait!! (I'm a dork, I know!)

I am not what you would call creative at all.

However, if I see something in a photo or online, I can

probably figure it out & copy it. Here are some ideas that I like:

Hungry Caterpillar pizzas! Love it! Easy!

Hungry Caterpillar Party Favors!

One big first that I am particularly tickled about is Julianna's ability to drink out of a sippy cup. We are trying to get her to drink just a little water every day from her sippy cup so it's easier to wean her off the bottle when she hits a year old. She has been doing it for a few weeks now - I hold the bottle for her and she drinks. (She still has not attempted to hold her formula bottle yet- what a diva!) It's pretty cute to see her bird mouth open up for it. She got the hang of it pretty fast- maybe a week. But today we had a very special thing happen!

See the riveting sippy cup adventure unfold below:

This is usually how it goes. We hold the sippy cup and the little princess opens her bird mouth so she can drink from it. If we give the cup to her, she usually plays with it and then loses interest.

Today, when we gave her the cup ... Holy Cow! She put it in her mouth like she wanted to drink from it. She didn't realize she was only getting air at this point (It needs to be turned up Jule!) 

Then ... wonder of all wonders... she leaned back and

figured it out. "Oh, I can get water this way!" 

"Ooooh yeah! This is great! So this is how it works?"

suck suck suck ... Totally getting the hang of it ...

"I'm loving this! Can I have some more?" 

Well... no sooner than she sat up, she barfed water up all over her pants and playmat. Not so fun. Guess her little belly wasn't used to all that water. Guess Mommy & Daddy should have taken it away sooner but we were so overjoyed she figured it out on her own, we got lost in the moment!

And here is a random picture of our dog Pepper. I had to lure her with a treat, and even then she was quite suspicious. It's not often we get a decent picture of Pepper, since she is scared terrified of the camera. The minute she sees us reach for the cam-corder or camera, she slinks into the bedroom and hides. Silly sketchy Jack Russell.

Exciting News!

No, I am not having another baby. It's not that kind of news! It's just the fun kind of happy news I want to share...

About a month ago, one of my blog entries called Baby Stuff I can't live without,  was printed up in "Lake Hopatcong Weekly" (LH! Weekly) - This is our local newspaper serving the towns in the Lake Hopatcong area.
Well the nice editor named Tim has been in contact with me again asking if it would be OK to feature my blog on their website in the blog section. My answer: Of course!

Here is the LINK to the post that is currently on the LH!Weekly website. Pretty neat huh? I thought so. It's all in good fun - I enjoy writing my blog and it's extraordinary that someone else noticed enough to put it out there to share with others!

Just a small pat on the back to myself! :)

Now for some Julianna pictures!

She happily hangs out in her Jumparoo while Daddy

gets ready to bring her to daycare in the morning!

As you can see, I clearly took these with my point & shoot camera -

so please ignore the bright flash face and the shadows. *sigh*