Emily is just growing bigger with every passing day.

While their big sisters are at Thursday School, the little ones get some playtime with their Mamas. This might have been the calmest ride in the grocery store for Julia. She is pretty use to sitting with the very active Emily. Both girls enjoyed their cookies and honking the horns. It sure is nice to have friends to hang out with, Maeve is a pretty sweet one.

Our baby girl is growing up before our eyes! She is a walking, discovering, communicating, sister-loving little girl. She brings smiles to all of us, especially Emily. Her six-tooth grin and giggles liven up our house. And her mother never grows tired of watching her little waddle as she moves from thing to thing.

Julia talks to us in lots of ways these days. She has a few words she uses: “wa” – water, “oh” – on or off, “ba-ba” – pacifier, “mama” – mommy, “da-da” – daddy; “mlk” – milk, “shoes”, and “more”. She also signs for please, more, eat, all-done, milk, and bath. We can’t forget the unmistakable nodding of her head yes and no.

It is hard to have a Julia story without the involvment of Emily in it. Emily runs to see Julia in the morning, she fetches her when Mommy needs both girls, she trades toys with Julia (whether Julia wants to or not), Emily shares bites of food with Julia across the high chair tray, Emily shows Julia all sorts of new tricks, and last for this short list she makes her cry and then tells her sorry and by the end of her breath makes Julia laugh. Julia knows to cry, scream, and holler when Emily has wronged her; she is capable of speaking up for herself.

The things that Julia loves: to play hide-n-seek from inside her closet, her blanket, her sister’s pooh bear, to imitate Emily, her bath, to take her hair bows out and chew on them, delivering mommy’s shoes to mommy’s feet, to ride down the slide at the park, sitting for her milk and blanket cuddles, a ladybug book, playing peek-a-book from under blankets, taking her shoes off, and seeing Daddy when he comes home from work.

The things that Julia doesn’t like: baby gates, being separated from Mommy, being forced to eat something once she sees something more desirable, laying still for a diaper change, having her finger nails cut, and being told no.

The most unique thing Julia does is to wave her arms with much exuberance when she is excited about something or someone.

We took advantage of a photography class needing models to get some free photos of the girls taken. Time will tell if the mix of busy kids and photographers in training can produce some good photos. The quality of the photos will not dampen what was a really fun evening of just spending time together.

Amazingly, we got there early, so the girls and I walked down to the excursion train to check it out. On the way down the sidewalk, we found lots of things to look at and discuss. Emily kept telling me how much she was enjoying our nature walk and thanking me for taking her on the nature walk. It was cute. We found etched stone with river names that Emily loved pointing out all the individual letters she knew.

Julia loved the swing by the fountains. She would walk back to them every time I got her out of it. Emily on the other hand figured out that she could take her shoes off and run around getting her toes wet in the fountains. There was a lot of happy giggles! We were just silly, let off steam from the days frustrations, and enjoyed each other’s company.

The humble photos that I have are just snapshots that I took while we were at play.

Emily was pushing Julia’s swing from the front. It is more fun when you can see the face of the one you are pushing.

Emily has not been interested in taking naps lately. Today there was a lot of noise coming from her room. When I went in to check on what it was, this is what I found. I took her creation as a sign that she was unwilling to take a nap. At least I got a good laugh out of it.