Julia crawled today!

4 little crawly steps, and towards me (!) in mom's kitchen.
She hasn't taken off just yet, but pratices a few crawly steps here and there.

Her hair today was unruly, and power pigtails just wasn't cutting it. Gramma and some painter's tape fixed the problem...



She's getting all crazy with this mobility, climbing and crawling, what are we in for?





*painter's tape was tried out on Gramma's ownself before sticking to baby, and it was removed without any trauma.

You put the lime in the coconut...









Gaaaahhhh!









***No babies were actually harmed during these pictures....she wouldn't put it down and kept chewing on it.

"Hey guy, guess what we're going to do today?"




Whaaa? I dunno.



"We're going to Gramma's!"



SWEET!

Today it was supposed to be hot out, so here are the kids this morning before leaving for work.












When we got home, the neighbors were just gearing up for the first massive waterfight of the year, so out went Antonio to join in the fun.

Julia and I lounged with the neighbor on her front patio, and we tried to put Julia in a rubbermade tote with about 2 inches of hose water.
She didn't seem really excited to be in the water, like she usually is at home.
We splashed a little and made faces & tried to encourage her to enjoy it, because, man! It was hot out.

She was so up on her tiptoes to get out she was teetering on toenails.

Not wheeee for her.

She happily sat on the blanket in the shade and pulled up grass until it was time to leave for swim lessons.

After swim lessons for guppy boy, we were starving!
Dinner was a dish best cooked by someone else tonight.
So, we hit the drive through to share an order of Chicken Teriyki.


Bite?

I finally have photographic proof that the girl has teeth!








Closer....

*bwew* *bwew* *bwew* *bwew*



FFFFFFFFFfffffffwoooshhhhhhhhhh!


*bwew* *bwew*









~Note advanced technological ice fire propulsion

Two, two new teeth ah ha ha ha

Julia got her second tooth today.
She now has a cute little sharp matching set of bottom teeth.

She also rode, (is it rode?) in a swing today for the first time too.



It didn't scare her at all, she shreiked, laughed and jumped her feet.

Sleep, bah who needs it

Most days, when we get home from work and school, Julia likes to settle down, have a little snack and take a nap, heck we all do. Although, Antonio opts for cartoons instead of a nap.

Not the case yesterday, no nap for the girl.

Tuesday's Antonio had swim lessons.
She did not catch a few moments of shut eye in the car either way.
Once home, we roll right into dinner mode, then bath, because
1) the kids do that every evening and
2) she's all into her eating. (see peas picture below)

After bath I coax Antonio's to bed with stories. Tonight we read, "How I Became a Pirate" while Julia rolled and scooted around, playing with his trucks, not acting one bit tired.
At all.

What's the deal?

She played with toys, we played scramble towards each other and shriek with laughter and snuggled.

Even though I tried a few times to get her to sleep, she didn't give it up until after 10:00, when I finally went to bed with her.
Apparently, laying with her on the bed isn't the same as laying with her, in the bed.

Today we went to check out the children's project at Lowe's.

When we arrived and found the area, since it was Antonio's first time, they gave him a smock.






Then they handed out the packets of Fire Truck parts and started walking the kids through the steps





Antonio is great with the hammer! Here he is putting on the siren





Assembling the wheels





Here it is all put together





He even gets a badge for his smock.

Peas

Julia has her first tooth!

You can't see it yet, but when she gnaws on your finger you can feel it.
It's the lower front left one.

Sunday, after a wonderful breakfast, we headed over to Spanaway park to feed ducks.
Unfortunately, it being spring, the ducks were busy chasing each other.
A few lonely ducks did come by and eat a few bites of bread that Antonio threw at them.

Saturday, Mom, Antonio, Julia and I went to Old Navy. I found a pair of pants, a pair of shorts and a slew of shirts for him, and a cute little outfit for Julia. Antonio is into flames on his clothes, and where I did find a cool pair of shoes with flames, they were too long/narrow. I'm thinking a pair of those old school Vans with the checkers would be cool or something.

So, I'm sifting through piles of clothes, holding up random cool things for Antonio to thumbs up or thumbs down, and there's this other family trying to find something for their boy.
The dad was a super dork and kept on repeating "This is popular" in a nerdy voice. The kid was so not listening.
And here I am "Dude does this shirt rock?"
Antonio answers, "pshhhht. yead dude"
I love it.

We came home for a bit, then went over to Grandma's house. Mom wanted us to clean her windows for her Mother's day present, which we did. I, the tallest one, got to clean the ones outside. Antonio played with Max, and Julia watched everyone from her stroller in the middle of Grandma's front yard.

This evening, after dinner, Mom took her out to the yard and set her in the grass. Remember how much Antonio hated grass? He would just cry if he was placed on it, then would give it stink eye while sitting on our lap in the yard. Julia is quite the opposite. She sat there for the longest time and happily pulled up grass with her grabby little hands. I'm sure she ate some too, but hey, she was happy. Antonio came out after a while & we took some pretty funny pictures.





And in case you wanted to know what the inside of Antonio's mouth looks like...

Julia is sitting herself up now from laying down. She props herself up until she's sitting. Pretty smart girl we have.
We think she's waving too, I've suspected it for a few weeks, but I'm pretty sure that's what she's upto. She throws up her arm with her hand open and smiles when she sees someone enter a room.

Although she didn't pull herself up there, I helped, she did scooch over to be closer to the water coming out of the faucet.

Yesterday was just rainy enough to make it an indoor playing day.
So, while I prepared dinner once finally home from work, Julia happily banged wooden spoons and measuring cups on her high chair tray, and Antonio squeezed snakes of play dough and created letters all over the kitchen floor.

We made it through bath, teeth brushing and jammie getting on-ing without drama, and read a chapter from his new book, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary. It’s a chapter book, and since he enjoyed the Frog and Toad Collection so much, I wanted continue with the chapter books, but it’s taken a while for me to find some that I knew he’d like.

So, 7:15 he’s tucked in and I had Julia seemingly snuggling down to sleep too.

Not the case.

Antonio had a nap at daycare yesterday, which I found out after he’s popped out of bed for the second time to tell me how unfair it was that Julia was still up and she’s younger than him. This totally throws off his bedtime, which rolls over to a rough getting up time in the morning.

At least he’s quiet about it. He pretty much hangs in his bed and sneaks a book to read or a small toy.
When he wasn’t asleep by 8:15, I made up a plate of cheese, crackers and sliced strawberries and invited him out for some bites and to watch the naughty children on TV (Nanny 911)
Julia happily played in her exersaucer, which was cool, because it was about as close to one on one mom/boy time as we can get right now.

I shuffled him back to bed at 9, and Julia and I were in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10.

Antonio had commando’d into bed with me sometime during the night. He’s taken his dad’s sleep mannerisms and hovers on the edge of his side of the bed, because Julia and I sprawl and take up the majority of the space.
This morning, after 5 minutes of stretching, he got dressed on his own before I even got out of the shower.

So, even though we had a later night, he was so cool this morning, & we were all glad about that.

Here's a picture of Antonio Saturday evening.



The neighbors had a party, and there were a ton of kids.
I think Antonio only stopped playing long enough to scarf down a burger and snack on something another time. Oh yeah, and he made a stop for a brownie too.

Today, we met with a girlfriend of mine and her two boys who are Antonio's age & we all went to the pool. This was Julia's first time in the pool, although she's logged many hours of pool side time watching her brother take his swim lessons.

She loved it! She was happy to be held and float along and splash a little, she'd jump her feet at times too. I think we were in the pool for about an hour, and she showed no signs of wanting to get out. Neither did her brother. We lured them out with promises of tacos and video games.

I just picked up this bathing suit for her on Thursday, it's a size 12 month, and she really could have used something a bit bigger, I had to squeeze her into it.