Daddy = Jungle Gym

Julia is quickly learning these days that Daddies make for good Play
Toys or Jungle Gyms. Tonight Adam was sitting cross-wise in the arm
chair with his legs hanging over the side. Julia thought this was
Most Spectacular and tried to climb up his legs a bit. Adam thought
he would swing her a bit as she locked her arms over his legs. She
thought it was a fun time and laughed and giggled. I had to get a
shot!

erin

Checking out the fountain

This last weekend, one of my bestest friends, Stacey, flew from
Pittsburgh to visit. We had a marvelous time!

Friday night we took Julia out to eat at Pizza Ranch and then went for
a walk up town. (The tulips weren't blooming yet then but many of
them are now...!) We were in Central Park by the sundial (if you've
been here and know where that is -- a point of reference). Julia saw
the water fountain on the north side of the park and walked all the
way there! We then put her up on the concrete "step" around the
fountain so she could see it better. She really enjoyed standing up
there (and attempted several times to put her head through the bars).
It was a beautiful evening and we thoroughly enjoyed our walk!

erin

Dr. Appt Today: Update!

I am back from the Dr. Quickest. Appointment. Ever. Everything is
good and fine and well and good and fine. My doctor cannot do baby
math this time around (hee!). I should be 18w4d and his wheel said I
was 19. Whatever.

He did NOT schedule me for a 20-week ultrasound. He said that since
everything was going really well and since we had the 12-week one done
for dating, we could hold off and maybe not need to do one at all.
Ha! It seems that God is deciding for me whether I find out what the
sex is...!

I am up 3 lbs (10 lbs total so far). Blood pressure today -- 114/70.
Good, good, and good.

erin

a quick note

I can feel the baby (in my uterus) moving!  YAY!  (yes, sometimes one-liners are fun and so worth it...!)

All that is missing are the bonnet and the staff...

Happy Easter!

Yesterday was a day of celebration... the Easter celebration! It is
the day that we Christians celebrate the Risen Son, our Savior Jesus,
who died on the cross to redeem us all and rose again...! Hallelujah!

Of course, following in true Easter tradition, I decked Julia out in a
cute little outfit. However, after dressing her, I had to giggle a
mite... she resembled Little Bo (Easter) Peep to me, especially
because of the pantaloons and the black shoes. All that was missing
were the bonnet and the staff... as you can see, we even managed a
picture of her with one of her wayward sheep...! (Note to self: Julia
definitely needs white dress shoes...!)

Julia's outfit wasn't "shown off" off too very much... she spent most
of her morning in the church nursery as Adam and I participated on the
praise team yesterday. After church, she was stripped of her finery
and spent the remainder of her day in a t-shirt and then later,
pajamas. :)

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

erin

Easter Egg Hunt

Today was the Pella Easter Egg Hunt in Central Park.  I had no idea
what to expect as I did not take Julia last year when she was only
three months old.

But, this year, I decided to brave the storm of people and quickly
found myself lost in a sea of moms, dads, kids, and baskets. I didn't
realize that the 1 - 4 year olds would be grouped together, so Julia
was at a slight disadvantage. By the time we got under the rope and
into the "field", most of the goodies were gone... but we managed to
find four untouched pieces. I consider it good of me (ha!) that I
refrained from begging a nearby 4-year-old for one of the 3
toothbrushes she picked up that were lying admist what must have been
2 pounds of candy...! I figured that would look tacky of me.

Julia didn't seem to mind, though. She thoroughly enjoyed
kid-watching and took to screaming (her new form of communicating when
extremely happy) at kids as they passed by... she was filled with
glee!

erin

Miss Cookie Face

Yuck-o!

 

Thankfully I had the foresight to put a towel around Julia's neck and into her lap before her macaroni and cheese lunch followed by a pink frosting cookie!  What I did NOT foresee was her ripping the towel off afterwards and throwing it (and everything ON the towel) onto the floor!  Whoops!  However, Julia loves to "wash up" in the bathroom, so while this LOOKS nasty, it cleans up pretty quick and easy. 

 

erin

Easter Easter Easter!

On Thursday, Julia helped me decorate for Easter and dye the eggs. 

 

erin

Sunday Hair

At the suggestion of a couple of friends and with a little extra time on a Sunday morning, I used the curling iron to give Julia a little flip.  So cute...!!!  Now I can't wait to see what I might be able to do with her hair next Sunday...!

 

(Thanks for the suggestion, Amy & Liz!)

Hi, mom!

A Haircut for Julia

Julia's hair always been a bit on the long and unruly side (as "unruly" as straight hair can get), so it was no surprise when her bangs started creeping back into her eyes.  I COULD have taken her to the salon to have it cut again, but I figured I would try my hand at it first.  I combed EVERYTHING forward (because with her cowlick, EVERYTHING eventually comes forward and into her eyes) and started to cut.  Julia did a pretty good job sitting still, and while it may not be the perfect cut, it'll do!

 

erin

She can't change her own diaper yet...

... but, she is smart enough to pick up the dirty one and throw it in the wastebasket.  Now that Julia is walking, she loves to "show off" the things she can do.  Twice this weekend after I changed her diaper, she got up, picked up the dirty diaper, walked into the bathroom, and threw it in the wastebasket.  She turned around to see if I was watching, and then clapped her hands when I said, "Good job!"  Reason #456821 why I love being a mom.  *sigh*

At Adam's Gig

Friday night (April 3rd), Julia and I drove to Oskaloosa to watch Adam play with Amy Steenhoek & Rising Son. What a fun time! I managed to capture a bit of video to share with you all...

Silhouette

Julia was playing by the front door one day (seriously just a ploy to
get to the nearest adult shoe...!) and I thought her silhouette was
beautiful and yet cute at the same time.

(In one picture, she is attempting to reach the door latch -- yes, the
door is locked. In another, she is watching a fly buzz around on the
door.)

erin

Cousin Time

This last weekend (March 27 - 29), Julia and I took a trip to Tomah,
Wisconsin, to spend time with my parents (Jeff and Sue) and Julia's
cousins (my sister's daughters, Laila and Hannah). Julia had an
extraordinarily fun time playing with her cousins... if you watch them
play together, you would really know and believe that they were born
to play together... they are definitely family!

Julia enjoyed watching the girls cut out cookies with Grammy (my mom,
Sue) and Julia enjoyed cookies with her cousins on the living room
floor (sorry for all of the vacuuming you had to do, mom!).

Julia also enjoyed her cousin putting shoes on her... again, she LOVES shoes!

And, Julia especially enjoyed the table and chairs that were in the
dining room and tipped over in the chair approximately 500 times that
weekend... and even though she cried every time, it did not deter her
from getting back up and into the chair... one... more... time.

This weekend was also the turning point in Julia's walking... since
early January, Julia has been walking... a few steps here and there,
and basically it was about two to four steps a day for a while.
Recently she became more confident in her walking ability, but even
still, she preferred crawling and would crawl to something, pull
herself up, walk a few steps, fall down, and keep on crawling. So...
she was walking, but preferred to crawl.

Well, over the weekend, she turned that corner and now prefers to
walk... we can set her down in a standing position in the middle of
the floor, and she will walk until she falls. And... even then, she
may try to get rigt back up again. Crying is not really involved
anymore. It has been really neat this last week to see her walking
around... we have witnessed her walking the length of full rooms
now... something that even a week and a half ago would not have
happened. She is suddenly very confident in her walking abilities,
has been walking at daycare as well, and I'm sure will be running
circles around us come summer.

We had a great visit with the family even though it was very short.
Here's hoping we can get back to Wisconsin in June when my sister
flies home from Georgia so that we have time to visit her and her
girls both.

erin

--
*** Visit my Blog at: erin-quilter.blogspot.com ***

Red Shoes

Is it any wonder that my child is already in love with shoes?

Julia has taken to putting on shoes of any size and variety... she
will even toddle down to the coat closet and ferret out Adam's shoes
and attempt to put them on her feet... but she is partial to my red
Crocs. Now that she is walking (and does so intentionally and seems
that she would FINALLY rather walk than crawl -- yay!!!), she finds it
partcularly amusing to attempt to walk in our shoes. The Crocs cause
a bit of a problem on the wood floor as rubber/plastic shoes against
wood cause a bit of friction, but it doesn't keep her from trying...!

erin

The Cheerio Incident

A few weeks ago, I set Julia on a chair (an adult chair, no less,
which she thinks is super fun) in the middle of the dining room so I
could do a few things in the kitchen. She wanted a snack, so I gave
her a bucket of Cheerios.

Things went well for a bit; she thought it was enormous fun and was
quite giggly and ready to look at the camera. Then, suddenly, I heard
the tub hit the floor. Consequently, in order to save my sanity, I
wasted about 40 cents worth of Cheerios and vacuumed up the whole lot
of them instead of trying to pick them up and put them back in the
bucket.

erin

The Twilight Zone

Yesterday I decided that I needed a movie break and popped over to a
Redbox and rented "Twilight".

I doubt very much that I have blogged about the Twilight Series by
Stephenie Meyer; I don't often write about the books I read.

I read them in succession (the first three, anyway) soon after Julia
was born and then read the fourth this last summer / fall.

No doubt, you may have heard, the books are highly addicting and I was
through them in a flash. Meant for the young adult genre (YA
fiction), I was slightly taken aback by some of what I felt was "too
adult" in the books for young teenagers to be reading, but regardless,
I enjoyed the books thoroughly. Even though I don't think the writing
was on the same level as that of J.K. Rowling, Steven King, or even
Anne Rice, I don't dispute the fact that the books have created a
large fan base and that the readability and subject matter lend to a
really good series of books for the general public.

I anxiously anticipated the release of "Twilight", the movie, but
after some initial research, I was in disagreement with the selection
of actors/actresses and then when I started hearing reviews after the
movie came out, I stopped wanting to see it so badly.

However, yesterday it seemed like a good way to kill two hours and I
thought it might be enjoyable. So... here are my thoughts.

1. Even though it is almost always too hard to put every key aspect
of a book into a movie, I feel that the writers/directors picked
applicable scenes to set the stage for the mood of the movie and to
create possibilities for sequels. There wasn't "enough" of the book
in the movie for me, but then, RARELY is there ever "enough" of any
book in any book-to-movie I have seen. (Exceptions: "The Lion, Witch,
and the Wardrobe"... "Contact"...)

2. The lighting in the film was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely
beautiful. Throughout the movie I was struck over and over again by
how beautifully they lit the movie. The mood the lighting set was
spot on.

3. After my initial disgust over who was cast as the main
actor/actress of the movie, I would retract those judgements and say
that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson both did an amazing job and
excellently portrayed Bella and Edward. I now completely understand
why all girls under the age of 18 (and some over) are head over heels
for Robert Pattinson. Between the lighting, makeup, and style, he was
a perfect Edward. And, Kristen Stewart did a beautiful job as Bella.
I also think that the lighting and makeup did their best to make her
stand out among the crowd and yet portray her character as Stephenie
Meyer did in the books.

4. I didn't particularly like who was cast for Jasper or Carlisle. I
understand that Jasper was supposed to be a "new" vampire and was
meant to look dazed a bit, but he didn't need to look like a moron.
And, the actor playing Carlisle resembled Tom Cruise's Lestat TOO
closely that for about 5 seconds, I almost wondered if it wasn't Tom
Cruise again. I knew it wasn't, but the resemblance was uncanny and I
had a hard time getting past it.

5. I didn't like the "fast-forward/flashing" motion type of stuff
done with the vampires to show that they were "fast". I understand
WHY it was done, but I don't think it was necessary for the movie to
be successful.

6. The setting in general, though, was beautiful for the whole movie.
I think that the writers/directors/whomevers did a really great job
utilizing the setting in the movie -- it wasn't JUST a setting... it
WAS truly part of the movie, and I really enjoyed that.

7. I admit I was fearful that seeing this movie would completely
destroy my the "world" I had created in my head around Stephenie
Meyer's books. Too often, the ideas of others don't match my own when
it comes to what I see in my head. For example, I am one of the few,
but I dislike the Harry Potter movies. The first movie completely
destroyed everything I had created in my head, and I stopped reading
the books and watching the movies after the second movie came out. It
was simply not what I had seen in my head and I couldn't get past it.
(One of these days I will go back and read the books and watch the
movies and I'm sure I'll be "over" it by then.) So, I was pleasantly
surprised when I watched this movie and realized that my "world" was
NOT destroyed and actually the movie only enhanced it. YAY!

It is obvious that I should not be a movie critic, but I wanted to
share some of my thoughts on Twilight. I am actually glad that I
watched it and will put it on my "movies" to own list. I had to keep
from watching it a second time last night, that's how much I enjoyed
it. So, I would give this one a 4 out of 5. And, even though book #2
wasn't my favorite in the series, I will look forward to the sequel
coming out this fall.

erin