September 3, 2009

I know I have been a bit wordy lately, but J is saying and doing so many things right now that I don't want to forget but totally know I will if I don't write them down.

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I was putting Julianna down for a nap and she, as always, didn't want to go. She started her bargaining tactics.

Julianna: Just one picnic, mama
For a picnic, we spread a blanket out on her bedroom floor, line up a bunch of her stuffed animals, and make some pretend meal in her kitchen and then feed it to all her babies. ONE picnic can take a LONG time!
Me: No Julianna, it's time for a nap. We can have a picnic when you get up.
Julianna starts really crying. I ignore her and ask if she has seen the remote control because I want to turn off the cartoon that is on and usher her into her room. She completely quits crying and says, "No mama, I'm crying!" and then starts crying again.
I'm not sure that came off quite as funny in the telling, but I again had to choke back the giggles.

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We were at the playground and Julianna was playing with a little girl that was 4 years old. They were playing in a little house (those plastic Little Tykes type things) that had a little window. The little girl was on the inside and asked Julianna, on the outside, what she would like to eat through the little window, obviously pretending like it was a drive-thru of some sort. Julianna didn't miss a beat and said "I want chicken and french fries and a Sprite and honey dipping sauce." A little embarrassing for me, but SOOO cute!

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Yesterday evening was so incredibly lovely that I took Julianna to a playground right after dinner. I kept seeing her sucking on all of her fingers. She is a thumb sucker, but never sucks on the other fingers. I repeatedly told her to stop because her hands were dirty, but she just couldn't seem to keep them out of her mouth. I finally asked her, "Julianna, why do you keep sucking on your fingers???" She said, "They taste like noodles!" Hee. We had chicken and egg noodles for dinner last, which she LOVES! I guess I didn't wash her hands after dinner. What a slacker I am.

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Julianna's fascination with Dinosaurs continues and she really freaked me out a couple days ago when I was looking at her flash cards with her. We came to a Ceratosaurus. I was stuggling to pronounce it and have absolutely NO memory of ever seeing it before.

Julianna: That one is MEAN!
Me: Yeah, he looks pretty mean. What do you think he eats?
The answer I was looking for was either "other dinosaurs" or "plants".
Julianna: Swimming dinosaurs.
I look at the back of the card and sure enough, it says its diet is aquatic dinosaurs. What?? There was no picture of water or swimming of any kind on the card. How she knows this stuff I haven't the slightest idea.

And if that didn't freak me out enough, today she did the same thing with another dinosaur (the Baryonyx) remembering that its diet consisted of fish. I once again stuggled to remember having ever even heard of the Baryonyx.

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Ok, one last one.

Today Julianna and Mimi were going to look at the bird encyclopedia. Mimi opened to a random page and J immediately identified a cuckoo bird on her own. We didn't even know she knew a cuckoo existed, much less that she could i.d. the thing. She also identified an Oriole in one of the new books from the library. The truth is, I have no idea how many birds the kid knows. She is always surprising me by identifying yet another one I didn't realize she knew. Its both amazing and kind of freaky at the same time.

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Dada got Julianna this camouflage shirt. She LOVES it - probably because he has one too.








On Campus Again:

My favorite of the week.




They had this little stage set up from some little music thing on campus this weekend. Julianna got up and sang and danced for us like crazy. She was SO darling, but didn't know when her 15 minutes were up and did NOT want to get off stage. What a little ham!




Julianna's first french braid!! I am totally rusty, but was shocked that she sat still long enough for me to do it. It's been so very long. In high school and college summers I babysat for a family with 4 little girls (and one boy). I used to put french braids in almost every day for each. I was a french braiding machine back then. I hope J will let me get a little practice in.

August 30, 2009

Dropping off a bunch of cute pics and a couple cute stories from the last couple of days.

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Swimming in the pool with Julianna.

Julianna: Owwww. I hurt my soul.
Me: What do you mean you hurt your soul?
Julianna: (Pointing to the bottom of her foot) My sole! I hurt my sole!

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As I mentioned last post, Julianna is crazy about Dinosaurs and can identify several of them. Rather than carnivores and herbivores, she classifies them as either Mean or Nice. I think it's obvious which fall into each category.

I bought her some Dinosaur flash cards from the $1 bin at Target the other day. I swear we had just run through them once or twice at the most. Anyway she took the cards to Dada's house on Thursday and pulled the first one out and said, "Look Dada, it's a Ankysaurus". Of course, we had to look at the card ourselves to see if she was right. It was an Ankylosaurus! I will say that Ryan also has several little dinosaur toys and books and things, so she probably was exposed to it more than the one time we went though the cards, but still - this was no run of the mill t-rex or stegosaurus!

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I just talked to Ryan and he said that Julianna showed him another card and said "It's a Iguanadon. It's Mama's favorite."

The Iguanadon had stripes like a zebra and I did say when we were looking at the cards, "Oohh Julianna, look at this one. It has stripes like a zebra. I think it might be my favorite."

I'm telling you, this kid has the most incredible memory!

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Ok, 'nuff bragging on her. Here are the pics:




Reading Danny and the Dinosaur.













Wandering around the beautiful Davidson College Campus. It's not Chapel Hill, but it's close. Go Heels!







She's walking backwards in this one.




Lollipop bouquet!

Tutus and haircuts

I guess it's obvious from the post title, but Julianna got both a new tutu and her very first haircut this week.

She has wanted to wear the tutu pretty much everywhere, all the time! Really, I have hardly been able to get the darn thing off of her for bed. She thinks she looks like a fairy princess. She really is just precious - but I wish I would have anticipated how stinkin' annoying those little bells on it would be!! :)












Tutu and tennis shoes - interesting look!

She did WONDERFULLY for her first haircut. Not a single tear. She was definitely nervous - I wouldn't say she was exactly all smiles and giggles, but very sweet and compliant. Everyone made over how much hair she has and talked me into only getting one inch cut off. Seriously, if you didn't know she had the haircut you would NEVER guess. It looks pretty much the same - but maybe a little tidier. Anyway, we took her to a little children's salon and she had a pretty great experience overall.


Playing with the owner's son before haircut.


She chose the police car.






After haircut!





Oh, and one cute little story from Ryan:
(Julianna was sitting in his lap)
Ryan: How many eyes do I have?
Julianna: Two.
Ryan: How many ears do I have?
Julianna: Two.
Ryan: How many noses do I have?
(Julianna put her hands on either side of his face and smashed her nose against his so as to add another nose to his face)
Julianna: Two!

August 23, 2009

More pics and a couple more stories. That kid has me laughing a good lot of the time. She is such a little rascal! She is also so darn sweet, I could cry right this moment just thinking about it.

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I made some elbow macaroni the other day and just put a bit of butter, salt, and the tiniest bit of pepper on it. When I sat it in front of Julianna she promptly pushed it away.

Julianna: I can't eat it.
Me: Why?
Julianna: I can't eat dirt!!

I guess the pepper really stood out on the white pasta and she was convinced I was serving her dirt. It took a lot of convincing to get her to believe it was like "black salt" and definitely NOT dirt!

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We were driving down the interstate the other day and I looked up at the clouds. I thought one looked distinctly like an alligator. I then said to Julianna, "What do the clouds look like?". She was quiet for a while and then said "I see a alligator." What????!! Mind you, I said absolutely NOTHING about an alligator. So either the kid looked up into the sky, saw the same cloud that I did and also thought it looked like an alligator or she has mad psychic powers and knew that's what I was thinking about. Crazy!

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We were again driving down the road and Julianna said "I see a Dinosaur", and pointed to the side of the road. And I swear the way the kudzu was growing up a telephone pole, it looked EXACTLY like a T-Rex!

By the way, after birds, Dinosaurs are her favorite things!

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Julianna was playing in the bath tub last night and was being down right NAUGHTY!! She was splashing me, drinking the bath water, and screaming - All of which I told her to stop doing about a hundred times. I finally said, in a very exasperated tone, "JULIANNA, YOU ARE SO.....", but stopped myself and didn't finish my statement. I'm not even sure what I was going to say - maybe "naughty" or "wild" - who knows.

Anyway:

Me: JULIANNA, YOU ARE SO....
Julianna: Precious!

Once again, I couldn't keep myself from laughing and only said "That's not exactly the word I was thinking of!"

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Ok, last one.

We were over at Mimi and Poppy's today to go out on the boat and swimming in the lake. Anyway, before we went out Julianna was coloring at their dining room table. Poppy came up to her and said that her picture was beautiful or something to that effect. She replied, completely unprompted, "Thank you Poppy."

I just LOVE it when I see her demonstrate good manners so naturally and sincerely completely on her own. Love it! (We don't want any Thingamajigs aroung here, right Granddaddy?)


Playground Pics:





Big girl going down the BIG slide!




Here's the precious one now. She looks so darn ornery doesn't she?!


Love this pic!


Her darling new chair at Mimi's.


On the boat.


Lake swimming! She had the greatest time and really believed she could swim all the way across the lake to the far shore! I told her, "I don't think we can make it". She said, "I can". Gotta love the confidence!




We got lucky this flock of geese came along. The only way we could get her out of the water was to bribe her with feeding them. They are getting a snack of leftover french fries and sugar cookie!!!

Pics

Just wanted to post a few pics tonight. Oh, and wanted to transcribe a conversation Jules and I had last night:

Me: Julianna, let's pick up your puzzle and put it back in the box now.
Julianna: No.
Me: Yes, let's do.
Julianna. No mama. Why?
Me: Because we have to pick up our toys after we play with them.
Julianna: No.
Me: Just pick up the puzzle.
Julianna: Nooooooooooo.
Me:(In one of my finer parental moments) Julianna we're going to pick up the puzzle because I said so and I'm the BIG boss.
Julianna: Mama, I'm the wittle boss!

At this point I tried REALLY hard not to laugh or even crack a smile - but I failed, and she totally knew I was amused. She's, of course, said she was the "wittle boss" about 3 times today. Eek! What a wittle mess. What am I going to do with her?


Coloring!












Louise and Julianna taking care of their babies!



Jules put this little cone (plastic ice cream cone minus the ice cream) up to her nose and said "Look mama! I'm a woodpecker!" SO CUTE!