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Our little girl is getting big!  She’s getting so close to 1 year, I just can’t believe it!  The 10 month photo shoot went better than last month’s.  This month has been so crazy that it’s hard to remember all the little new things she’s doing.  She talks all the time.  She can say “mama” mostly when she’s fussy and wants to be held.  She can say “hi dada” or something really like it.  Other than that, she just babbles all the time.  She really like the “b” sound.  She enjoys putting small toys in big containers and taking them out again.  Endless baby fun!  She has discovered the STAIRS!  More than once she’s gotten halfway up the stairs before we notice and pull her down.  There is a gate a the stairs now.  Today she figured out how to open it.  Not sure what we’ll do next.  I fear she’s going to be a climber.  She’s still really interested in everything Joshua does. She wants to just play with him and his toys, which is less than thrilling for Joshua, as you can imagine.  We’ve had to have lots of talks about not taking toys away from sister.  Being a 3 year old boy with a baby sister is tough.  Of course, being a baby girl is no picnic either.  One thing we didn’t have with Joshua is all the DRAMA!  It’s amazing to me how much more dramatic Julia can be, especially when she doesn’t get her way.  It wouldn’t surprise me if one day soon, in a moment of true distress, she put her hand up to her head and wailed, “Woe is me!”  Who knows, maybe that will be her first sentence. 

The big thing is, of course, walking!  Last week she started letting go and taking 1-2 independent steps.  I was excited, but I didn’t want to call that walking.  More like taking a couple of lucky steps before she fell down.  This week is a whole new story.  Just this past Tuesday she just took off and walked down one of the aisles at the mall.  Since then she’s been walking everywhere she goes!  She totally took us all by surprise.  Joshua didn’t walk this early – he was 11 1/2 months.  Julia’s walk is so funny.  She holds her hands up at her chest, and reminds me of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde.  “Bend and snap” anyone?  First some pictures of my baby at 10 months!  She’s still sporting the Pebbles ‘do!

I like this last picture because you can see those bottom teeth.  Still the only teeth she has in, but we’re expecting the uppers to come in soon.  Even with just the 2 teeth we’ve moved on to a whole bunch of new foods.  She still loves the puffs, and she’s also tried yogurt, chicken, bread, and graham crackers.  We’ll probably try Cheerios soon.  They’re so much cheaper than puffs.  She just loves to eat, and I’m so grateful that she is as good as eater as her big brother!

I really want to post the walking videos, but they are too big for WordPress to upload, but don’t worry…Jason will figure something out.  He always does. 

If you haven’t heard the news, we’re currently without a home.  We sold our house in Nashville in July, and we don’t close on our new house until September.  Until then, we’re living with Jason’s parents in Mt. Pleasant.  The move went pretty smoothly, thanks to a dedicated crew of movers that we couldn’t have done without.  After we packed up all the big stuff and brought it down in the big UHaul, we still took another 4-5 days to completely clean out the old house.  Now we wait.  For the most part, things have been pretty easy on me and the kids.  Jason has a nightmare of a commute to work, but we keep reminding ourselves that it’s just temporary.  This too shall pass.  Joshua and Julia really love being at Nana and Papa’s house.  They get all sorts of attention, and Joshua plays for hours with all the little cars and trucks that Tricia saved from when Jason was little.

Anyway, all this house stuff has been a little bittersweet.  We’re really excited to move into our new house, but we’ll miss our old house.  We have so many good memories there.  It’s sad to think that the house we brought 2 brand new babies home to, and the house where Joshua took his first steps and Julia learned to crawl, is a house that neither of them will remember.  We’ll drive by it and tell them that they lived there when they were babies, but they’ll have no memories of it.  It is such a good house.  We’ll miss it!

Geema and Pa Joe now have a membership to the zoo, and we went with for her first visit.  We made sure Geema got the full effect of how we do the zoo.  Chasing Joshua through the playground, not seeing any animals, and riding the carousel.  Maybe we’ll see the animals next time. 

Here’s a brief, sweet moment of the kids playing trains together.  I think I should post these pics as proof that it did happen once.

Our little girl is nine months old!  She’s into absolutely everything, too!  For some reason, the bathroom is a big draw.  We have to keep the door closed, or she would hang out there all the time.  Weird.  She has been going for the dog bowls a lot less.  I guess that’s progress.    Julia has started following Joshua everywhere, and she likes to in on anything he’s doing.  Joshua doesn’t mind…yet.  Julia gets into his toys a lot, so we talk about sharing a lot.    She’s cruising on all the furniture.  Yesterday she actually let go of the coffee table and tried to walk the 2 steps to the couch.  As soon as she let go she fell back, but she was just fearless!  It didn’t matter that she’d never tried that before.  She just dove in! Much more interesting to me, she’s has started to say “mama!”  Mostly it’s when she’s upset and she wants me to pick her up.  I just love her saying it no matter what!

Since Julia is so on the move, there was no chance of getting her to sit still for a picture.  At least not a nicely posed one.  Fortunatly she’s completely cute no matter what!  Check out the new hairdo!  Her locks are getting so long, that we’ve had to resort to the Pebbles look.  I had almost forgotten what her eyes looked like!

Joshua was feeling left out of the pictures, and he asked to be included.