Swimming!

Mimi and Bapa opened up their pool this week. It was so hot today, I took the kids up to have a swim. This is the first they have been in the pool this summer. (Actually, Jude only was in the pool for about 2 minutes last summer.)

I forgot her ladybug arm float, but they had this life jacket there that Julia used instead.



Jumping to her Aunt Ninnie!


Jude napped for most of the pool time, but woke up as we were wrapping up. Since I forgot to bring the sunscreen, and the pool water was still a little chilly, we only put Jude in the pool for 5-10 minutes. He LOVED it though!!







Trying to get a picture of the two of them together in the pool was HARD!


Julia did not realize that the "boat" could not hold her weight while Jude was in it! She about flipped him a couple of times!


Julia finally figured out she did not need to hold on to anything to swim while wearing the life jacket. Then she swam all over the pool.



Jude had a bath right before his nap, so I did not want to give him another one after swimming, but I still wanted to rinse the pool water off of him. So I plopped him in the kitchen sink and used the sprayer to rinse him off. He thought it was a hoot!


We are going to go up swimming again on Sunday. Julia cannot wait!

Fun day at the farm!

On Thursday we went up to the farm for the day. Julia had a BLAST!

After lunch, Jude went down for a nap and Julia and I went out fishing. This was Julia's first time fishing.

She helped Uncle Bill dig up some worms for bait. She loved holding the can of worms, and just watching them.


We then gave her a fishing pole and tried teaching her how to fish. She thought it was fun.




Unfortunately it was too hot and the wrong time of the day for fishing. Uncle Bill caught 2 or 3, but Julia and I only got a few nibbles. After an hour, Julia had enough fishing and we went off on a new adventure!

We picked strawberries!


I don't know why this picture is sideways, but I love how it has her squatted down looking for strawberries.


We got a big bowl full! (My mom also picked herself a bowl of them.)


We then worked some more in the garden. We weeded and planted some more sweet corn.

You can see behind her all the veggies she helped plant about a month ago.


We came in the house occasionally to cool off and eat popsicles!

Jude finally woke up from his nap and played for a bit before we left. He thought the rocking horse was great fun!

Piddle puddles!

Oh my! I think I am going to have my hands full with Jude!

Most days I strip Jude down to his diaper, just so he will crawl "normally". If he has clothes on, he will army crawl the majority of the time instead. I might have to re-think this though.

Both Saturday and Sunday, Jude removed his diaper during naptime. On Saturday I heard him shortly after he woke up, so I had gotten to him before he peed anywhere. However, on Sunday, I was mowing grass while he napped. Jerrod does not have as good of hearing when it comes to the kids, so I think Jude was awake playing in his crib for awhile before Jerrod realized he was awake and went to get him out. Jerrod told me that Jude had his diaper off when he got him out of the crib, but did not notice any wet spots. I did not give it another thought.

That night I got Jude ready for bed and sat down in the rocking chair that is in Jude's room to nurse him right before putting him in bed. That is when I noticed several little puddles on the floor in front of the crib!! I cleaned them up, sat back down, and reached for the nursing pillow that I keep next to the rocking chair. ACK, the pillow was wet too!!

The little stinker must have been standing up in his crib peeing through the bars to get that many piddle puddles!

Writing

I have been working on Julia's letters and numbers for awhile now. I have also been trying to get Julia to learn how to write her name. I did not think much of it was sticking, but apparently she picked up more than I thought.

The other day Julia was drawing on her chalkboard when she said to me "there is a letter J for Julia". When I looked over, sure enough, she had drawn the letter "J".

Every since, she has been writing J's on everything!

Waving

Jude is really getting into waving recently! He will wave "hi" and "bye". He is so excited to be able to do it. He will usually say "hi" or "bye" when he is waving too!

Hide n Seek

Julia has discovered her love of playing hide n seek.

She will tell Jerrod or I to "count to 10 and I will hide". She then goes off running to hide somewhere. Once we find her she will say, "okay, now you hide and I will count to 10". Although she usually only counts to 3 or 4 before she comes to find us!

Julia sayings...

A 3 year old's speech is so funny sometimes. Here are a couple of Julia's latest things.

Last week while buying groceries, I found some temporary tattoos for a dollar. I thought for a dollar, that was cheap excitement for Julia. So I bought them and we put some on her. Now Julia keeps talking about about her "tattoons". I keep telling her they are called "tattoos, not tattoons", but she does not care and calls them "tattoons".

Julia has a polka-dot hat and matching polka-dot flip-flops. The other day she said she was going to wear her "polka-dotty" hat and flip-flops. So now she keeps calling them her "polka-dotty" hat and flip-flops.

One day Julia was eating a popsicle and had gotten it all over her. I looked at her and said "you are a hot mess, lets get you washed up". Julia looked at me and said "I'm a cold mess, NOT a hot mess!". How can I argue with that?!

Cruising furniture

Not only has Jude finally decided to crawl "normal", he has started cruising around the furniture.

He will walk around the coffee table, walk from one chair to the end table to the other chair. I have a feeling that he will be walking before his first birthday!

Puzzles

I think Julia had inherited my love of jigsaw puzzles.

She has a couple 25 piece puzzles. In the last several days, she has put these puzzles together dozens of times! The first time she does a new one, she needs a little help, but not much. After that, she can do them by herself. It takes her 15 minutes or so to put them together, but she does it and is quite proud of herself.

I am very proud of her too. Normally she would get to frustrated and give up quickly, but now if one piece does not work, she will put it down and try another. She has gotten really good at them too.

Fancy ballerina

Julia got a new, fancy ballerina outfit. She was loving it!

She is showing off her "flamingo" pose!

"Normal" crawling

Jude has been army crawling for a couple of months now. Our hardwood floors make it easier to slide on his belly, rather than get on his hands and knees. Julia was the same way. For about a week now, I have been trying to strip Jude down to his diaper a few hours each day to try to get him to crawl "normally". This is what we finally did to get Julia to crawl normal. It is hard to slide on a bare belly.

Tonight Jude finally decided that it was easier to crawl on his hands and knees, than it was to try to slide (army crawl) across the floor with a bare belly. He has had the ability to crawl normally for awhile now, he just did not have the motivation.

He would start out trying to army crawl, and would quickly get up on his hands and knees instead. He was actually really good at crawling normally. Maybe now he will not get his shirts so completely filthy!

End of tumbling for the summer

Julia had her last tumbling class session for awhile. They do not offer it during the summer. This made me sad because Julia loves it so much and really looks forward to it. Hopefully I will be signing her back up for them in the fall. She has a couple friends who have been in several of her classes that she talks about and looks forward to seeing.

Waiting for class to start...


Front rolls. She does them so fast now that it is hard to get a picture of it.



Walking the balance beam is tough. Sticking out your tongue helps!


They ended class with back rolls, something they have just started to do.

Bagels and coffee

Most weekend mornings Jerrod and I have bagels and coffee for breakfast. This morning Jerrod asked "Where's my bagel and coffee?", to which Julia then asked me "Where's MY bagel and coffee?". I sort of laughed about it, then asked her if she wanted cereal for breakfast. She told me "No, I want a bagel and coffee!". Okay then.

So I made all three of us bagels and coffee for breakfast (Yes, Julia loves coffee. I make her's half coffee, half milk). Jude watched as we started to eat and I thought he might like an untoasted bagel, so he had one too! I think I will try to hold off a little while longer before giving Jude coffee!

Eating cat food

Thursday Jude discovered the cat food bowls and yesterday he discovered he liked the taste of cat food! When I found him at the bowls eating the cat food again, we decided that we had to do something. So up went another baby gate. This gate keeps Jude in the living room area and out of the kitchen and hallway where the cat dishes are kept.

The only problem with this gate is that Julia's room in on one side and the bathrooms are on the other! We just have to make sure to keep it open at night and when Jude is not playing on the floor.

Jude is trying to figure out why there is suddenly a gate blocking his path.


For awhile he thought it was pretty funny.


Then he started to realize that we could get on the other side, but he could not.


After about 10 minutes he was screaming mad that I was in Julia's room with her (putting her to bed for the night) and that he could not get to us!

Excuse the diaper and socks only look. We are trying to get Jude to crawl on all fours instead of army crawling. Stripping Julia down to her diaper is what finally worked on her, so we were trying the same thing on Jude. We are hoping the friction on his belly will be enough to make him crawl "normally".

Corn on the cob

When grocery shopping today the store had a big display of corn on the cob. Julia and I picked up some at the same time, I think we think alike. It is still slightly out of season, but it tasted okay. Since Jude is all about eating real people food, I thought I would let him try one. I knew he would not eat much off of it, but it is still good for him to try.

Jude thought it was great fun!




I eventually did convince him to eat at the sides of the cob and not the ends. He actually ate some of it. He probably would have ate more if I had actually buttered it, but that was a mess that can wait until right before a bath someday!

Face-plant

Julia was not paying attention to where she was walking and slipped on one of Jude's toys and fell right on her face. Her T-shirt was a little big so she was playing with it by tucking her arms inside of it, because of that, she could not get her hands in front of her to catch herself.

She ended up with a busted lip and a bloody nose. The lip swelled up too. She was fine within five minutes. It took longer for the bleeding to stop. A popsicle helped make things better too.

I tried to get a picture of her fat lip, but this was the best I could get. And this was after the popsicle.


She kept wanting to smile, which sucked in her lip.

You should be jealous!

I know you are jealous. I have been marked multiple times by a pirate!



Luckily, the pirate got me AFTER my interview yesterday!

Clap!

In the past week or so, Jude has really gotten clapping down. If you say "clap", he will do it. If you clap for him, he will clap also.

Jude thinks it was neat new trick.

Hollow leg?

For a baby who is a lightweight for his age, Jude sure eats a lot. I am always amazed at just how much food this boy can eat. He must have a hollow leg because I don't know where he puts it all.

Sunday night Jude ate the 6oz container of baby/toddler stew, a hotdog, potato salad and some pudding dessert. Last night for supper he nursed, then ate a container of pasta pick-ups, and two slices of pizza crust. Lunch today he ate a 6 oz container of the toddler stew, a 6oz container of applesauce and then munched on cherrios.

Since he is eating so much real food, Jude has slightly cut back on nursing. He has cut out at least one nursing session per day (sometimes more). Jude still likes nursing, but also prefers to have something to eat that has more substance to it.

Flying a kite

I bought a kite for Julia the other day. The first time we tired to fly it, it was too gusty out. When we got to my parent's house yesterday for Mother's Day, I remembered that I still had the kite in the van. Jerrod took it out and they all had fun with it. It was the perfect day for kite flying.

Julia did not want to hold the string, but loved throwing the kite in the air to get it started.




You have to jump when you throw it up according to Julia.


The three cousins (all the same age) were helping out too.


My almost 6 year old nephew was the one who probably enjoyed the kite the most. It was his first time flying one. He even asked if I would bring it back sometime. His birthday is next week and I think I know what I am going to be getting him.

Playing cousins

Jude and his cousin are only 2 weeks apart in age (Jude is 2 weeks younger). They are finally getting to the age where they are starting to play together. Jude loved playing with his cousin today. He just followed him everywhere and wanted to do everything he was doing.

Playing together (Jude is on the right.)


He thought something was funny!

More teeth

Jude is getting at least one more tooth that I can see. He was up most of Friday night because of it. I think I got a total of 2 or3 hours of sleep. I had even given him Motrin at around 2am, after his third or fourth wake-up. Last night he did better.

The poor guy. It hurts, it makes his nose run, it makes his little bum break out, and he is just miserable.

Pulling up to standing

I knew it would be only a matter of days until Jude was pulling himself up into a standing position. I walked into his bedroom this morning to find him standing up in his crib chewing on the top railing.

Then later that morning I find this:



He is always just so proud of himself!

Oh, and he climbed out of both the bouncy seat and walker this morning within minutes of me putting him in each!

First tractor ride

My mom watched the kids this afternoon while I had a job interview. Jude woke up from his nap right as I got back to their house.

Dad and my brother had to move the fair pigs into bigger pens, so we all went out to see them. Bill (my brother) asked Julia if she wanted a ride taking the pigs to the bigger pens, but she declined. So then Bill asked if Jude wanted to ride on the tractor. I handed Jude up to him and Julia and I followed walking behind.

Being typical Jude, it did not faze him a bit and he actually liked it!

Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me today, so there is no picture to document it. I will have to remember to have my camera next time.

Loves his truck

One day last week it was really hot in the house and Jude was having a flare-up of eczema, so I let him hang out in his diaper. I gave him his bulldozer toy and went to help Julia with something. I found this when I came back:


Sound asleep holding onto the dozer. He really does love that toy!

Will not be contained!

Jude decided today that he will NOT be contained.

I put him in the bouncy seat (strapped in, of course) and was working on something else. I look over in time to see him literally crawling out of the bouncy seat! He had done this before, so I had him strapped in really tight, but he still managed it.

A little while later, I put him in his walker while I went into the kitchen to make some coffee. Julia comes running into the kitchen yelling "Jude fell out of his walker!". I go to the living room and sure enough, Jude is on the floor in front of his walker. He just looks up at me and gives me a sly grin that tells me he knows what he did and he is really proud of himself for it! He has such upper body strength that he was able to use his arms to push himself up and out of the walker seat enough, that once leaning over, his body weight was enough to get him to slide/crawl the rest of the way out.

Julia never ONCE tried to crawl out of this walker! I think this is just a glimpse into what is to come with Jude!

Outside

We went back to the farm again Friday since it was so nice out.

Julia got Grandma (my mom) to pull her and Jude around in the wagon.



Jude decided he liked playing outside in the grass!


Julia loves that they have a huge sandbox, instead of the tiny plastic turtle sandbox she has at our house.