Emily received a kid’s digital camera for Christmas from Uncle Doug and Aunt Saba, and it has been a hit. Somehow she knew immediately what to do with it. She only needed one half lesson on what the buttons were for, and she ran around taking photo after photo. When Robby downloaded them, the total was over 300 that she took the day of Christmas and the day following. It has been interesting to see the photos and reflect upon the fact that this is the world from her eyes. She took photos of people, people taking photos of her, toys, things that were important to her, random things, ceilings, carpets, and many more. Here is a sample of her photos – They aren’t going to win awards, but they are expressions of her perspective and interests.

What happens to the bows after they come off of gifts . . . well, you can decorate your head with them. I’m not sure if Julia put it on her head first or if Emily decorated Julia with it. Julia definitely took the bow off, looked at it, and then put it back on her head. Last Christmas, we had a little baby laying on the floor covered with all the bows that came off the gifts. I guess this year we will have a toddler covered with bows. Fun times!!

We are continuing a tradition from Robby’s childhood of hanging an ornament on the advent wreath each of the days of December. Robby has really enjoyed watching Emily pick out the ornaments remembering back to he and his brothers doing the same thing. It was a lot of fun to do with her and Julia enjoyed looking and touching them. We saved a Santa ornament for Christmas Eve and baby Jesus for Christmas day.

The girls are pretty busy these days and getting them to pose for a photo with anyone let alone a parent is not easy to do. Julia and Emily had been playing in Robby’s lap sweetly and as soon as the camera came out Emily started covering her face and refusing to look at the camera and Julia was upset at Emily’s odd behavior and started to cry. So when the craziness had calmed down and Emily had moved on to play elsewhere I tried again and was much more successful.

This is Julia’s second Christmas coming up and she is not a baby any more. Her milestones right now are that she has finally gotten her second tooth and she is quickly improving at standing and walking. Her teething hasn’t passed yet so maybe another tooth soon, but the second tooth that came in was a top tooth directly opposite the first tooth. I guess she wanted to be able to crush a cheerio between some teeth and hurried that one out.

Julia has a lot of control in her standing. She can stand up without holding onto furniture if there is something small to push off from. She likes to stand and swing her shoulders back and forth and giggle. She can squat down and stand back up too without much support. I still love to watch her plop down onto her bottom from a standing position, but that trick’s days are numbered. She can take 3-4 steps in a row to get some place, but if she is walking to me as she gets close she just falls toward me knowing that I will catch her. She knows that crawling is more efficient, so if she can’t get someplace by walking along the furniture, she is more likely just to get down on her knees and crawl.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house! The other day Emily helped me finish up wrapping a gift for Robby. She picked out three bows to place on the gift and stuck them down. We then hunted for the perfect hiding spot under the tree among the other gifts. When Robby got home, she promptly told him that he had a gift under the tree and tried to take him to the tree to find it. Thank goodness I had the gift in the box before she started helping me or else she would have told him what was in the box too. Emily hasn’t mastered the art of keeping secrets yet!