Merry Christmas! We are looking forward to this Christmas – the joy of Emily opening gifts and hugging on Julia.

A few funny stories from Christmas Eve.

I’m not sure what is sweeter than this display of love. I had put Julia on the couch, and Emily had proceeded to climb up to play with her. Hugging and kissing is one of her favorite games to play with her sister. After hugging her she got a blanket, laid down next to Julia, and covered the two of them up with the blanket. I guess she wanted to play night-night with Julia.

Julia has started to smile and express herself in ways that do not involve fussing or crying. If you get close to her and start talking in an animated way – out pops a grin and smile. It is so much fun! I tried to teach Emily to play peek-a-boo with her yesterday, but Emily didn’t quite get the consept of doing it to entertain Julia. When Emily understands that Julia is smiling because of something that she did, we will not be able to stop Emily from being a ham.

Julia is learning to use her arms and neck. She will reach out for a toy that catches her eye. This morning Julia decided that she wanted to wake us up and play. Today is Robby’s first day of his Christmas break, so I decided to let him sleep in and got up to play with Julia. I held her ‘sitting up’ on my lap, which is one of her favorite positions, and enterained her with her rattle. She would reach out and touch the rattle and bob her head in excitement. I guess it was some of her first multi-tasking, she had to move her neck while at the same time move her arms. It was hard work because she needed to take a nap.

Julia has been enjoying the Christmas tree lights. We have found that when she is fussy, she likes to look at the lights to distract her. One day she was a little fussy, and I needed to lay her down to do something. I decided to try laying her just under the Christmas tree, so she could watch the lights. By the time I had finished what I needed to do she was asleep.

I knew it was going to happen, Julia is growing just as quickly as Emily did. The time has flown, and while I thought I was watching all of the time, she has grown and I didn’t notice. Here she is 8 weeks old and so much bigger.

Her face and other features are filling out. Julia has strong legs and kicks them really well. She also has a lot of control over her arms. She can hit her toy hanging from the car seat handle and I think she is doing it on purpose. She also likes to knock her pacifier out of her mouth. Then she will lick her hand or stick some part of it in her mouth and suck on it. It makes a pretty loud sucking sound. Unfortunately, it is not as satisfying as the pacifier and she fusses after a little while.

She holds her head up well and is looking around. She doesn’t like her tummy time and doesn’t usually do her neck ‘exercises’. She must take after me, I don’t like exercises either. She will turn her head when she hears a familiar voice and when she knows that she is going to eat she gets excited. I still wonder what she is looking at half of the time as she focus on odd things, but she is alert and looking around. She doesn’t like her swing as much as Emily did, but she loves the bouncy seat. This is great because it allows me to get my shower and to keep her happy.

We took the girls to see a local outdoor train display after church on Sunday. The collection included a number of trains depicting different eras of East Tennessee train history and some actual train equipment including the crossing sign and pump car. There was a train hauling lumber to a mill, one hauling coal from a mine, a Southern engine pulling passenger cars, a CSX engine pulling container cars, a Chessie train, a UT Volunteer train, a marine life transport train, and I’m sure some others that I can’t remember.

The day was cool and we were all bundled up. The train exhibit was inside of a tent so it was a lot more comfortable inside. Emily enjoyed her freedom while exploring around the equipment and train set. She wasn’t very interested in posing for photos, so Mommy had to settle with ‘action’ photos. Emily was very tempted to touch the trains as they ran by us, but she resisted.

Julia enjoyed the activity from the front pack that Daddy wore. Daddy tucked her tiny feet into his coat to help keep her warm. At this point she likes to lay her face up against the person carrying her and go to sleep. I can’t imagine anything sweeter. This is how she spent the whole event.

After exploring the trains and equipment we took a cold stroll in the gardens. Emily followed Daddy for a while, but then decided that we needed to take a different trail. After that she picked the paths.

We were happy to warm up in the car on our way home as Emily took her afternoon nap in the car with Julia. We are hoping that this display will become a yearly tradition so that we can pass on Mommy and Grandpa’s love of trains on to our girls.