Wordless Wednesday at the Park ...

At the Park last week ...

It's Pepper!!!

I focus on Julianna most of the time... Ok maybe all of the time... here on my blog. So I wanted to take a little time out and focus on our beloved little Jack Russell/Doxie mix named Pepper. Julianna and Pepper are best of friends. Pepper is so well behaved and is very tolerant of Julianna! We are so happy with that relationship of child & doggy!

Vacation at the Beach - Part Two {2}

Yes, I am slow... it's summer. What can I say. No time to do anything especially when the weather has been so nice... we've been enjoying the outdoors. Here is my Vacation at the beach Part 2 post & pictures...finally.

Wordless Wednesday {Almost}

Julianna loves her Mum-Mum crackers!

Edit 8/24/11 - I entered this picture in the "For the love of Blogs" Picture Perfect contest! Check it out and please go  click on "LIKE" under my picture (#5!) - Thank you !!!!








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"She's a Toddler..."

Julianna is 15 months old! Wow! Time is certainly Flyyyying by!

She is getting so big and doing new things every day! I have heard that they really change between 12 months and 24 months dramatically - in what they learn, how their bodies change, how their faces change, how their personalities change... and so on. It really is very true!
One day she is happy, and the next she wants nothing to do with anything that made her happy the day before! She can go through 15 mood swings in one hour. Cry cry cry - then right to giggling & hysterical laughing. Huh?? She loved chicken yesterday. Today she hates it. What??

We have stopped asking "Why?" -
Our answer simply is  "She's a toddler". {after all}

I look at pictures of Julianna from 3 months ago, and her face looks totally different. And when I think how much she has learned in the first 3 months of toddler-hood, it amazes me. They really do suck everything in like a sponge.I can show her something once, and she seems to pick everything up right away lately!  You can see her mind going when she is trying to figure something out!

Julianna's progress this month 

Food: Julianna is eating pretty much everything we eat - with some exceptions (spicy or shellfish, etc). She still has cereal and fruit puree for breakfast along with something else like fresh fruit or part of a bagel. That is the only time that we still feed her with a spoon. We are letting her try new foods all the time - she likes just about everything luckily. We are crossing our fingers that it keeps up!
She is getting very interested in our utensils - like when we use a fork or knife. We bought her a toddler fork & spoon - and have let her start experimenting with it. So far, she holds the fork in one hand, and tries to put a piece of food on it with the other. Not quite so efficient. Her food interests are changing all the time now too. We keep trying to introduce new things so she doesn't get bored.

She drinks about 14 - 18 oz of organic whole milk a day. I still am not ready to give up the morning bottle... she takes milk from a sippy cup during her afternoon snack and before bedtime. Sometimes she screams and does not want the sippy. OK fine, I cave in and give her milk in a bottle but then right back to the sippy the next day and it's back to sippy. (She's a toddler!)
Julianna drinks a lot of water - she loves her water in her straw sippy cup! It makes me so happy that she loves water. I plan to hold off on fruit juice {forever} for as long as I can. And even then, it will be pure fruit juice with no sugar or artificial stuff in it. 

Personality: Julianna is anything but predictable anymore. One day she is sweet as pie... other days she is the beast from the east. Sometimes she shrieks with delight during her bath, and other times she cries hysterical and wants out. Huh?? She will flail her legs and arms when we change her diaper sometimes, and other times she talks sweetly & quietly to her stuffed animal she's holding. Sometimes she screams for no reason just because she wants to be held and only Mommy or Daddy can calm her down. Other times she pushes Mommy & Daddy away furiously (flailing arms and yelling) & cries hysterical if we come anywhere near her and wants nothing to do with us. She does not want to be held ever anymore - she arches her back and twists all over to get down - she would much rather be on the floor exploring.

For the most part, Julianna has managed to keep her sweet & girly personality. I have heard (& seen) horror stories of toddlers being monsters 24/7. I know she can still morph into that, but I am hoping we will not experience that LOL! But who can predict this stuff? After all, she is a toddler!

Other random things

Julianna has started to color with crayons... a little bit. We showed her how to do it when we were out at a restaurant last weekend, and she did it on her own. Not very well - but she did it - and that is the beginning (hopefully) of years of coloring. She hasn't tried to eat the crayons yet either.

Meltdowns & Tantrums. Oh yes, it goes hand in hand with todder-hood! I don't need to explain these much as all of you moms out there just nodded in agreement. It's that time in life - Meltdown central! Meltdown over anything and nothing. Take away the wipes she was ripping to shreds = meltdown. Take away the remote control = meltdown. Pick her up when she doesn't want to be picked up = meltdown. Take her away from playing with the buckles on her stroller = massive meltdown.  Other days nothing makes her cry. Oh and - the "Whine" - let's not forget that whine she does when she wants something now. Let's not forget... She's a toddler!  (This is my mantra I repeat over and over in my head)

Julianna is furniture surfing, standing without holding on, standing up with just leaning on things (like walls, appliances, etc) ... She is also crab walking (like crawling with her legs straight and butt in the air) she can get around real well. She is still not walking on her own yet, but I suspect that is about to happen any day now. She is just a real late bloomer with that I guess. Most kids her age I now notice are running all over the place.

Julianna is exploring everything now. I love watching her play and figure things out. She is very independent and plays well alone. She uses her hands & eyes now. She hardly puts anything in her mouth - I think we are finally past that stage. She also loves Sesame Street and any the Muppet characters on there.  She loves pointing to everything now. She says Hiiii all the time. She does say Mama but only on her terms. Dada is still "her" word of choice. She also says many other indistinguishable words as well. She also loves to throw her ball or a dog toy and chase it - pretty funny! And her new favorite game with Daddy - she rolls down the sofa cushions and giggles hysterically when daddy catches her! This kid is just so funny!

Julianna is still well-behaved when we are out - she loves being in her stroller and in the car - and seeing new things. She is a joy {most times} when we are out in a restaurant or anywhere else. (Crossing fingers as I type!). I guess since she is a happy kid, and both Mommy & Daddy are so active with her, it fulfills her? We were out to dinner on Saturday night - Brian and I thought she was being a beast and not behaving very well (due to lack of naps that day)... well some couple next to us tells us how good Julianna is being and how she is such a god girl. Huh? Maybe she is and when we think she is bad, maybe that is 'other' people's good behavior LOL! It's all perspective. Makes us feel good I must say! :)

I am well aware that all of this can change in a New York minute....
and I may have a totally different report next month on her! She is {after all} a toddler!

Here are some photos from the last month 

(excluding vacation since I will be posting those Thursday!)


Pepper shares her bed with Julianna so nicely. They are good friends! Aww!

"Mom, Let's eat now!"

Julianna has enough hair for pony-tails now!

Love the flippy hair!

Vacation at the BeachPart One

For our summer vacation, we spent a week in South Nags Head, NC - also known as The Outer Banks! This is our 3rd year there and we do plan to go back yearly as a tradition.

This was a special year since it was Julianna's first beach vacation. She truly loved the beach - liked walking in the wet sand, liked when Daddy brought her in the ocean, and liked playing with her sand toys! She also figured out how to climb into the sand chair and sit down to play with her toys. She did not like to get all sandy, and so her solution was to sit on the sand chair and play with toys. She loved the buckets of water we set up for her to 'wash' the sand off her hands off with. Perfect. LOL. Such a girl!

Julianna's word of the week was "Hiiiiii" - she would say Hi to anyone that came near us in the store, the restaurant, the beach, etc! She gives you this big cheesy grin then says "Hiiiiiii"! She also finally started saying "MaMa" but in a convoluted way; "Muaww-Muaww". She says "Ooooh" a lot too! (Derived from a few weeks ago when she was saying "Uhht-Ooh" to everything). She also says something that sounds like "OohSHHeeii" (It really does sound like 'Oh Sh*t' to me! LOL) 

On vacation, I took about 2000 pictures. A little less than I thought I would be taking. I used my 50mm lens the whole time we were there. I really wanted to get used to using it. I now realize after looking at all my shots that many of my pictures had WAY too much exposure and some were very "bright" like an atomic explosion. I guess opening up the aperture all the way and thinking the shots were coming out OK when I reviewed them on the LCD screen was a bad idea - haha!  We also had a few overcast & grayish days- hard to get nice color in that lighting no matter what!

Julianna's first time on the beach - She loved it!

{Yes mommy & daddy wear dorky hats!}

OK that's it for Part One. I'm not sure I dig the Picnik website for doing collages. You can only upload 5 pics at a time - not so easy if you are trying to make more than one collage at a time. If you buy the premium package, you can do a lot more. Quite frankly, I am sick of buying buying buying lately. I want something good for free dammit! Oh well - I will check out the other site I normally use for making my part two post of the beach vacation!

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday {Almost}

Julianna loves playing in the sand at the beach

Kudos to Kim Klassen Cafe ...

I want to quickly post about Kim Klassen Cafe Blog -
It's a nice photography site, and she offers some pay classes along with some freebies too. I took a free class on textures and I have to say, I learned a ton from her class! I have since been collecting textures and I love playing with them when I edit photos. (Great one more thing to delay me!)You might call me a texture addict even!

Here is the link to her blog; Kim Klassen.
I just bought THIS texture pack too - with about 80 textures to play with - hoorraayy!

She offers a free texture on Tuesdays when you sign up for the Texture Tuesday emails. It's a nice blog and was very helpful to me - Just wanted to share it with you all.

Enjoy!

Yankee Game

This past Saturday, Brian and I got to spend some quality time together, doing our favorite thing that we love to do. We went to the Yankee game. Julianna stayed home with the babysitter. She won't be going to a game until maybe next summer- but most likely not for 2 summers. She needs to be able to sit for the game and kind of understand it. I can't wait to bring her one day!

The game was Yankees vs. Rays - and it was also the day that Derek Jeter was honored for his 3000th hit. What a game & the Yankees put a hurtin' on the Rays. We enjoyed a great game and indulged in hotdogs, garlic fries, peanuts, cracker jacks & beer! Oh and some ice cream too - haha! {Yeah I know, maybe over indulged a bit}. My husband and I love going to a baseball game. This is our first one this year, which is quite unusual for us. We normally go to several games a year but for whatever reason did not go to any yet. We have some catchin' up to do! Maybe a playoff game? 

For those of you that don't know, I am a HUGE Yankees fan. You can check out my blog post about "Growing up Yankee" when you have a few minutes.

Here are some pictures from the game 

You'd never know the old stadium used to be right here ... now it's a beautiful park and walkway.

 RIP Boss Steinbrenner

 If you squint you can see Derek's butt (#2)

The Big Man - CC

Stadium dogs - nothing like em'

Ah... the garlic fries. You haven't lived until you've had Yankee stadium garlic fries! 

 And the beer... Love my $10 Yankee stadium beer.

 ...And here we are! Our seats were decent - main level (middle level) in left field.

  Me