Julia video (relative) extravaganza

The promised videos have arrived in blog form! Enjoy!

This video shows Julia saying hi to Grampa:


Here we have Julia saying hi to Odebolt and answering affirmatively to the question: "Are you ready for lunch?":


And finally, Julia enjoys talking to herself in the mirror in a very animated fashion:

New videos coming soon!

Hey! Just wanted to let you know that some new videos (some specifically for the grandparents) will be coming soon. Unfortunately, our resident Video Editor and Uploader has been very busy, and when he did have a chance to work on the videos last night, YouTube was doing site maintenance and wouldn't upload the videos. So stay tuned, and hopefully they'll be up here soon!

Thought of one more thing...

When Julia's reading a magazine or a book, she likes to say "who's that?" ("whoooszhat?) or "what's that?" ("whaszhat?") I think she's so used to us asking her, that now she figures it's only fair if she asks us. :-)

Time for another update...

Happy Valentine's Day, family and friends! Can't believe it's (past) time for another monthly update, or how much has happened in the past month. Jonathan started his classes again, played his lecture recital, and we took a six-day trip to Fort Wayne and Peoria. On the trip, Jonathan played a couple of recitals, and Julia and I got to visit with friends and family, including Julia's first real playdate with her cousins, James and Sophia.

Julia is such a fun little toddler! Hard to realize she's only 4 months away from her second birthday! She continues to be a bundle of either very positive or very negative energy and continually delights and amazes us:

• Julia has always been a chatterbox, but she's definitely been experiencing her "'real' word explosion" over the past month. I've been trying to keep up the list on the right side of the blog, but I'm sure I'm missing quite a few words. And some "words" only make sense in context. It's so neat, though, to start communicating verbally back and forth with Julia. It's something you have previously taken for granted but learned how to do without and adapt to with this little person for the past year and a half. I can now know exactly what Julia wants and/or is talking about! SO COOL!!!
• Julia has known for a long time how to say "no" to a question (not the actual word yet, but a nevertheless unmistakable shaking of her head with a whiny sound), but over the past couple weeks she has started answering "yes"! I am impressed because I answer with "yeah" instead of "yes" far too much of the time. Again, so cool to be able to communicate so much more clearly!
• Closing doors is still a fun game. But now she says "bye! bye! bye!" as she closes the door and screams "HIIII!!!!" when she opens it.
• When we were in Peoria, Julia was privileged to inherit Unk's (Jonathan's Uncle Rob) rocking chair that he sat in as a toddler. She loves having a chair that is just her size. She sits in front of the fire and reads or she rocks her stuffed animals in it. She also likes me to take it into the kitchen, so she can sit and read while I cook.
• After we finally took our Christmas tree down sometime mid-January, we were able to make a special little play corner for Julia. We got her a toy organizer (like Uncle Peter's), and she stays cozy sitting on her Marmee quilt. She loves to sit in her little area and play with her toys. She's been getting more and more into "pretend play." We have tea parties with her tea set from Marmee and Pops and she loves to talk on my old cellphone (usually she's talking to Daddy). She also likes building towers with her blocks (or handing her blocks to Jonathan or me so we can build towers), and she loves the stackable boxes from Aunt Molly and Uncle Dan and rings from Gramma and Grampa. And she's still a stuffed animal lover. Her heart belongs to Baby, but she also likes her Puppy and the Oberlin bear (both stuffed animals that were given to me by Jonathan... hmmm). With her stuffed animals, she cuddles them, she dances with them, she plays hide-and-seek with them, and she reads to them. She is the sweetest, most affectionate little person! :-)
• Julia also takes good care of her electronic "friends." We've explained to her that rechargeable items (e.g. cell phones and iPods) are "hungry" when they need to be recharged. So she will frequently ask us to plug said items in, even when they don't need it.
• And last week, Julia and I restarted Kindermusik. We moved up to the next age level, so the class is structured a little differently. This semester is focused on animals (animal sounds, songs about animals, etc.), so Julia should love it. She was still pretty shy at class, which surprised me because she has been much more relaxed in social settings lately. But she has loved listening to her CD and doing some of the dances and activities with me here at home, so she seems to be enjoying it, even if it doesn't necessarily seem like it while we were at class.

Those are all the updates I can think of for now. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring and hopefully knowing soon where our new home will be. We love and miss you all!

20 Month Photos