Blake year 1

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Juliana 1st year photobook

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Jules Takes To The Slides

Our little baby girl is growing up fast!!!

Juliana is 16 months and has 6 teeth on top and 6 on the bottom. She learns a lot from her older brothers. She's only had her bangs trimmed so we can keep her curls. When she tries to say yes, she nods her whole head back-and-forth. She uses baby sign for "more please" and "milk" and "thank you". The other kiddos at day care learned baby sign from her. Jules loves to dance and clap to music. She is a great walker and loves to climb onto chairs and mommy's lap. She has the most infectious laugh and loves to be tossed in the air by daddy (future gymnast?) We, of course, are taking all this in stride. But the day she climbed up on the slide in the backyard and went down by herself was a neat surprise.

Enjoy the video:

Blakers Goes To The Dentist

All I can say is "it's a good thing they know what they're doing."

What I'm talking about is Blake went to the dentist for the first time. Josh and I were getting our teeth cleaned and we decided to let Blake - now that he is 3 - come along and see how it's done. The dental assistant, Peg, is real good with children and she knew just how to get Blake curious. Peg let Blake be her helper when she cleaned Josh's teeth. Next Blake knew it was his turn and hopped in the chair. When you watch the video, notice how calm he is. Was it the cool sunglasses or the Lightning McQueen pencil or Mr. Thirsty? Whatever it was, Blake did it on his own and got his teeth cleaned. That's our BIG Boy!

Think back to your first days at the dentist. Was it always this fun?

Speaking of kids going to the dentist, here's a blast from the past, courtesy of Sesame Street and YouTube. (Me and my Llama)

Blakers Birthday

Blake turned 3 on Thursday. It was a busy day with doctor appointments, work, Blake's first trip to his new therapy, and a school meeting (Josh previewed the new high school).

Andrea managed to juggle all that and still made an awesome birthday cake in the style of Lightning McQueen. Blake woke up to some birthday music by The Beatles and began dancing with me. He picked out his own clothes and said, "I'm not a baby. I'm a big boy." (I'll work with him on that some more.)

We didn't start the cake until almost 8 o' clock but the kids were too excited to think about normal routines. Blake ate his hot dogs and then it was time to blow out the candles.

Blake got some cards and presents from his grandparents, great grandma, & aunts and uncles in Florida, Illinois and Idaho. He got a Disney Cars bike, a Shake-and-Go track and cars, a Mickey Mouse kite and pajamas.

It was really a joy to see Blake enjoy his special day. The funniest part was when he said the prayer at dinnertime. Blake has been saying the dinner prayers for several months now, sometimes without prompting. Usually his prayers consist of a family roll call: MaMa, Daddy, FaFa (Joshua), and Sissy (Juliana) and sometimes Lilah (the dog). This time when Andrea asked Blake to bless his birthday, he bowed his head, closed his eyes, folded his arms and began reciting the Happy Birthday song followed by "Amen". It was too funny and too cute that we all were trying to hold back from laughing. This story will be told at his mission farewell.

Blake sends big thank yous and hugs to all his family. Enjoy the video!

Tag: 6th from 6th

(I'm sorry it took us so long to do this)

I'm supposed to take the 6th picture from our 6th folder and post it...and then tag someone else and run around like duck-duck-goose.

This was taken just before Christmas 2008 when Shawna brought her kids down to visit us. There's Blakers on the left probably fussing over candy, then cousin Hannah who loves babies, Juliana always smiling, and Andrew who is waiting for Blake to stop crying so he can play. This was a fun visit. We went to see the Christmas Lights at the Lady of Snows Shrine. Well, I tag Aaron, and Shawna (get a blog), and James, Jessica, and Jill again.

Swinging Into Spring

Spring has sprung...

The cold and gloomy weather is just about gone. This week we got to open the windows, take the kids for a walk in the stroller, run around the yard and go to the park. We took some pictures from our little swingset in the backyard.


Blake likes to push Juliana around. This time it was a good thing. The weather is finally warm enough today to enjoy the swingset outside. This video should give you a good idea of how Blake and Juliana play together. Blake is the pusher and Juliana is the pushed, but she is learning to push back. Yes, they are both very mobile and like to do the same things now. Jules is becoming more of an independent toddler and less of a baby. In fact, they both like to avoid naps together!

Here are other photos of the growing kids. Blakers loves Disney's Cars and his new love, dirt. Jules can usually be seen with her left thumb in her mouth but when she's not chewing her thumb she shows her other talents, like walking everywhere, spreading sunshine, and looking cute in Daddy's attempt at pigtails.

Speaking of hair, the boys got their haircuts, long and long awaited. Josh looks handsome again and you can see his eyes. Blake's head size shrunk two sizes. He looks like a little boy again. Juliana has only had her bangs trimmed, so we are playing with different styles until we can find a fun place to get her first real haircut. Any suggestions?

Blake has improved his speech a lot the last month. We look forward to him shedding the Terrible Twos stage and to whatever 3 brings. Could they be the Terrific Threes?

Blake is "In With the In Crowd"

Yesterday, while driving the kids home from daycare, a song came on the radio - The "In" Crowd by The Ramsey Lewis Trio. The kids had a good day at school already and they decided to have some more fun in the car. Blake started bobbing his head to the beat and I started clapping before the car started moving. I look back and Blake starts soul clapping. It was too cute to not share with y'all, so I caught it on my camera phone in one hand while driving with the other hand. Enjoy...