Happy Girl! We were packing up gifts to mail and Julia moved into this box. She put all her favorite bed things in it with her. Then she kept opening and closing the box lid playing different peek-a-boo games. Don’t worry, we didn’t mail her to her grandparents. While she was napping we packed up the real gifts.

It is spring break for Grammy so we went over for a little playtime and lunch. It was a bit cooler outside than I was expecting so the girls were underdressed for playing outside. So we found a shrug for Julia and Emily got a sweatshirt that looked like a dress on her. They played outside for a long time both on the swing set and picking up leaves and putting them in a pot with water in it. It always amazes me at what keeps kids entertained.

Julia is looking older now days in her photos. I guess she is getting older. I’m not sure she asked permission to grow up.

Notice that Julia’s mouth is imitating how she is imagining the Mama eating the food off the spoon. I love it!

(27 months) The girls are always finding new things to play and making new favorite games. Julia has been exploring the dollhouse in the last week in new ways. At Christmas when we got the dollhouse she was more interested in dropping pieces down the stairwell or inspecting each piece.

This last week she has become very interested in playing with the dolls and the furniture. One game she plays is to go to her play kitchen and “fix” a bowl of food and then take it to the dollhouse. She takes turns feeding the different dolls with a big spoon. It was hilarious!

Our dollhouse family has grandparents, parents, a son, a daughter, a baby, and two “best friend” dolls. When Julia plays with the family members she sings a little happy song and occasionally interrupts the song with a doll making a comment to another doll like “night-night”. Once the interruption is gone the song resumes immediately. Her favorite dolls to play with are the kids. Emily rarely plays with the baby, but Julia does all of the time. Occasionally other toys work their way into the dollhouse. One day I noticed that a small Elmo doll was riding the rocking horse and playing in the pack-n-play with the baby.

We had a beautiful snowfall today. We did a little playing in the snow and these are some of our best memories.

We made angels.

We rode our sled and played with our neighbor Laurel.

We played with Daddy.

We got cold noses.

We made snowballs.

We made funny faces.

And lastly, we built a sled that Mommy, Emily, and Laurel enjoyed.

We have had several snow events already this winter which is rather unusual for us. One even gave us a white Christmas. We had a fun morning playing in the most recent snow. The girls kept trying to throw baby snowballs at Robby, but they just couldn’t hit him without his help. They also enjoyed riding around the driveway in their new wagon. We played outside until we got cold. The new rain boots were a hit and kept our feet dry!

We were enjoying our taco dinner at Jolie’s and Julia decided that her olives needed to dance. She put one on each finger and then started waving them around. It was so funny! Who knows if they were to dance or if they were little people who were having a conversation. Whatever it was she was thrilled with them and her little activity.

(18 months) Julia loves baby dolls. One day I gave the girls baby food spoons and jars and they spent 30 minutes feeding the babies. Julia remembered the game and when she could get her hand on another spoon she started to feed the baby dolls again. I got her a jar and she would spoon a spoonful of imaginary food into her mouth and then the next one into the baby’s mouth. She was SO excited over the game – the big open mouth is not her encouraging the baby to open it’s mouth. I couldn’t help myself and took some photos.

We had a real picnic of goldfish. The girls were so good to share and take turns. They loved the idea of a snack picnic. I’m surprised they haven’t asked to have another one. There was a little dress-up play before our snack – the jewels and tutu were just leftovers. Fun, fun, fun!!

Emily’s favorite new game is to play picnic. She packs a ‘cooler’ with items and then carrries it to a blanket she has put out. She then opens up the cooler and starts to put out her lunch. Sometimes she invites others to join her. She decides what people are going to eat and assists them with condiments. It has been fun to watch. Julia loves going to the picnics too and helping to unpack the cooler when her sister lets her.

I love to watch the girls play. Julia was having so much fun just pulling things out of her baskets and inspecting each one. She would study them and touch them. When she was done contemplating each one she would go back for another one.

You can’t really tell from this photo, but there are fish on her dress. Fish is her new favorite word. When ever she sees fish she points at them or waves her hands in the air saying ‘ish, ish, ish’. Fun, fun, fun!!

I’m enjoying the little bit of curl her hair still has. I don’t expect her curl to last past the first haircut. It is a sweet little girl thing she has right now.