Juliette: 8 Months

Age: 8 months
Milestones: She is a SUPER crawler, AND she can pull herself up to a standing position! She also had her first experience with snow (which she touched for two seconds and then cried  #southernbelle) and went to her first major league baseball game (not the Cubs, but the Astros are still pretty fun anyways)
My Favorites: Her little personality.  I love how happy and easygoing she is about almost everything, and I love seeing how much she genuinely enjoys life and watching all of the fun around her.  You can tell she's excited to be a part of it, but at the same time she enjoys just watching it all go down.
Her Favorites: Basically everything a baby should not have, e.g. cords, phones, tiny things, hair, and whatever big sister is eating.  She also LOVES giving zerberts, playing with the "other" baby in the mirror, and watching the constant shenanigans going on around her.  You know what is NOT her favorite?  Broccoli.  Because I fed her one spoonful and she vomited all over the place. 
Surprises: How distinct her personality is already!!  She is such a happy little girl 99% of the time, but when she feels things, she FEEEEELS things.  It's not that she's moody or sensitive...in fact, rarely anything makes her cry (just if she thinks we're leaving her and if she's really really hungry), but when she does cry, it's INTENSE. It's never "wah feed me wah wah"...it's always a "MOOOOMMMMMM MY WORLD IS ENDDDDINGGGGGGGGGG I'M SOOO MAAADDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!" kind of cry, which is heartbreaking...but then as soon as the problem is resolved she recovers instantly.  She's also CRAZY determined.  Whenever she gets a new skill, I can already see her wheels turning like, "ok...what new things can THIS help me do?"  The VERY day she learned how to crawl, she used her newfound ability to crawl over to a ledge and try to pull herself up to a standing position...and succeeded.  Somehow I think we're going to be a lot alike...is it too premature to make that prediction?
Other Notable Moments:  She got her first little spanking :(  (she kept going after cords, it was a safety thing!!)  I gave her a little tap on the thigh and she looked around at me and smiled like "Everything's still ok, right?  I'm sure you didn't mean that, Mom."  and then she went after the cords again, so I had to give her another little tap.  She looked at me and tried to smile again, but this really really sad face kept peeking through.  I gave Juliette a hug and looked at Jenna, who was intently watching her sister with a look of total sympathy and concern.  As soon as she saw the spanking part was over, she rushed over to Juliette and started singing "Sisters" from White Christmas to make her feel better.  And my heart exploded.
Looking Forward To...: When she can talk!  She's pretty quiet most of the time, but I want to hear her little thoughts!

Juliette: 7 Months

Age: 7 months...look at that face!!!! <3
Milestones: She started eating solids!!  And oooh my goodness did she love it.  The sweet potatoes went in her mouth and it was like her world went from black and white to color.  After that, she couldn't shovel it in fast enough. It was SO cute seeing how into it she was!  Here's hoping introducing other foods is this easy!  And if that's not enough, she also started sitting herself up on her own!  Which is crazy because she JUST started sitting up in general.  You've got to admire that tenacity.
My Favorites:  Sometimes she licks her chops after eating, and I just love seeing her tiny little tongue sticking out.  I'm excited for her to get teeth because it means more food options for her, but this gummy phase is just so darn cute

Her Favorites: Sweet potatoes, her sister, sitting in the grass because she can grab it, and trying to make people look at her (she cranes her neck around and stares them down until they look...it cracks me up)
Surprises: How quickly she's becoming mobile!  I mean I guess I shouldn't be surprised...I think this is about when it all happens, it just feels like it's happening so fast!  One second she rolled over, and the next second she's sitting herself up and rolling herself across the floor...I can't believe it!
Other Notable Moments:  An inevitable moment in every Houston baby's life...their first flood! Our lawn was completely covered in water, but it was like she didn't even notice.  What a pro.  She also went in the swing for the first time which she LOVED and in the stroller without a carseat for the first time, which looked like it might've been a little exhausting.  She also clocked in some quality hours with her cousins.  She and Sofia are only a week or so apart, so it was REALLY cute to see them interact!!
Looking Forward To...: I can't wait until she starts talking more!  For being such a friendly and smiley baby, she's surprisingly quiet.  I'm excited for when she starts chattering more...and of course, when she starts saying "mama!!" :)

This baby's mama is pretty private about pictures on social media, which I totally respect, but I just had to put this picture up because it so perfectly captures Juliette's "look at me" tactics lol

Toddler Tales

Sure, being a mom is not always glamorous.  My clothes usually have peanut butter and/or stickers on them somewhere and I've encountered more poop face-to-face over the last two years than I ever dreamed.  Still, it is AWESOME and I love being a mom, especially because of all the funny little things my kids do.  Everyone keeps telling me to write these things down, so I thought I'd put down a few of my favorites...

For a while, everytime Jenna would see Juliette asleep, she would run up to her and yell, "JULIETTE!"  and of course, Juliette would be startled and wake up.  Well, I finally sat Jenna down and told her that babies grow big and strong while they're sleeping, so we shouldn't wake Juliette up.  The good news is, she listened and stopped yelling Juliette's name. The bad news is, NOW whenever she sees Juliette sleeping, she starts chanting, "GROW! GROW! GROW! GROW!"  So.....you can't win 'em all, I guess.

Jenna has been really into feeding the birds since watching Mary Poppins. We had a dove in our yard so Jenna grabbed a few leftover pieces of waffle, threw them in the grass, turned to me and breathlessly said, "OK! Ok.  Mommy, push up my sleeves!  Push up my sleeves!"  And then ran out towards the bird with her arm outstretched saying, "Here bird!  Sit here!   Sit here, bird!"  Her face was totally like, "This is it!  This is the moment!"  It was hilarious.  Needless to say she did NOT get a bird to sit on her arm, but she hasn't given up yet.  She's even varied her tactics over time...a few weeks later we were in the tropical bird house at the zoo and she ran up to one of the birds with her arm outstretched and said, "Here bird!  Sit here!  It's me, ANNA!"  As in, Anna from Frozen.  Because even at 2 years old, she knows that being a Disney princess will up the odds of a bird landing on you.

Ok, for those of you who have never read Duck on a Bike before, here it is in a nutshell:  a duck rides a bike and all of the farm animals are watching him.  Then a bunch of kids ride their bikes to the farm, and when they go inside, all of the animals grab a bike and start riding too.  It's cute.  Anyway, we were reading it and I decided to have Jenna practice some inferencing.  There's a double-page spread illustration in the book just after the kids leave their bikes out...all of the animals are staring bug-eyed and you can just see the front of a bike tire.  I asked Jenna, "what do you think they're looking at?" and all of a sudden she got very very serious and said (maybe a little darkly?), "Tigers."

Up until recently, Jenna hadn't really made things up.  She only talked about things she had seen or heard others say.  UNTIL dinner one day, she busted out the most random monologue, all while wildly gesturing and nodding her head.  She looked over at me and urgently said, "Mommy!  A cow knock on the door?  And get Mommy's phone and take a picture Jenna's back.  Ok?  Cows.  Knock on the door.  Ok?  Take a picture Jenna's back!  Ok?  Ok Mommy?"  So I just said "...yeah. Ok!"  because what else am I going to say? But then she got really scared!! And she climbed into my lap and I had to spend the next ten minutes trying to convince her that a cow wasn't actually going to knock on our door. (?!??)

Oh yes, and then there's BCOI.  Every time we color with anything....markers, chalk, crayons, a pen, paints, you name it....Jenna asks me to write BCOI over and over and over again.  I have no idea where she heard it or why she always asks for it, but we have BCOI graffitied all over our house.  Come over sometime and see how many you can spot.  It's like those numbers from Lost.
 BCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOIBCOI

And of course, we can't forget about Juliette!  She's in that phase where she wants EVERYTHING in her mouth. If we're being really silly with her and our faces are close together, she gets overly excited.  She grabs my cheeks, opens her mouth as wide as possible, and tries to pull my entire face into her mouth. It always makes me start laughing, which makes her start laughing, which gets her even MORE excited, which makes her work even harder at getting my face in her mouth.  It's a vicious cycle.

nom nom nom

Anyway, like I said: I love being a mom.  I'm sure I'll have lots more stories like this in the future so stay tuned.

Jenna 2.3

Age: 2 years and 3 months
Milestones: She went from speaking in short, clipped sentences to giving full-on monologues and having long imaginary conversations with her toys or nearby animals.  She has the best imagination! She can also jump with both feet, which she's been trying to do for almost a year.
My Favorites: I just love chatting with her.  I love asking about what she learned at Sunday School or what her favorite moments of the day were.  I love when she asks to pray for Juliette when she's crying and for her BSF teacher who's in the hospital.  I love being able to reason with her and hearing her try to reason with me.  It's just fun, this whole stage is just really really fun.
Her Favorites: Birds!!  We feed the birds in our yard almost every day and she would love nothing more than for a bird to land on her arm.  She also loves running, galloping, jumping...pretty much any ultra-high energy motion is her preferred mode of transportation.  And, of course, she loves tutus, dinosaurs, stickers, twirling, garbage trucks, sunglasses, trumpets, cheese sticks, Sofia the First, party hats, slides, sea lions, tea parties, puzzles, wearing a backpack, cleaning, soccer, horses, band-aids, taking care of her sister, and helping me cook.
Surprises: These past three months have been full of doctor's visits and poison control calls.  Oy.  I've been so impressed though.  Well...first, impressed with her knack for getting into these situations haha.  But also impressed with her attitude through it all!  For instance, the doctor heard some irregular beats so Jenna had to wear a heart monitor for a day.  She had all these wires stuck on her chest with a huge battery pack clipped on her pants...I was nervous how she would handle it, but she just patted the battery pack and said, "I got my phone!" and bounded away.  She showed her stickers to everyone she ran into, cried when we had to take them off, and asked "More doctor, please?"  It was adorable.  Most impressive was at a separate ER visit (after getting into some Dermaplast) when she had to have her blood drawn from an arterial vein.  They couldn't find the vein and wiggled the needle around in her arm for literally. twenty. minutes. It was THE WORST!  But she sat completely still and silent until the very last two minutes.  THEN she started crying because by that point, she had had enough...and frankly, I had too!!  She was such a champ!

Do they have some sort of frequent flier reward program for the ER?  Because that would be stupendous.

Other Notable Moments:  Christmas, Valentine's Day (complete with a Galentine's Day tea party and Daddy/Daughter dance), her third Rodeo (because she's a true Texan), and Easter

Sorry, Juliette.  This is not your best photo.

Looking Forward To...:  When she's night potty trained!  She's definitely moving in that direction, but it's just not something I want to take the time to do...I'm kind of hoping it'll just magically happen on it's own lol 

Juliette: 6 Months

Age: 6 months
Milestones: Sitting up without me spotting her at all, and she's even rolled over a few times!
My Favorites: I just love getting to know her more and more.  I love how easily she smiles, how she rolls over to her right side when she's tired, how much she loves people, how badly she wants to be able to do the things big sister does...it's just so fun getting to see her personality come out more and more
Her Favorites: Sitting up!  She worked sooo hard to be able to do it, and it makes her so happy now that she can.  She also loves just being with her family.  She has a really hard time being left in the church nursery...it's sad to see her so upset, but it's also really sweet seeing how excited she gets when I come back :)
Surprises: It's amazing to me how smiley she is!  She's so friendly to everyone...every time we go out, people ask me, "Is she always this happy?"  Yup, pretty much.
Other Notable Moments:  A trip to New Orleans, Easter, a visit from Grammy and Poppy, and a visit from Uncle Adam and her cousin Pete...it's been a whirlwind month, but so fun!
Looking Forward To...: More visitors!  My sister and her family are coming to visit next month and I can't wait for Juliette to meet more of her cousins!