I thought it would be fun to let Julia ‘play’ with the big toys when we took her to the park. She fits well in the play bucket. I tried to get a photo with Emily, but she wasn’t interested in doing anything that involved standing still. Julia can hug the ball pretty well, although she preferred to chew and drool on it.

Julia is up to lots of stuff these days. Just a quick update for 6-1/2 months.

• She will roll over almost every time I put her on her tummy and still doesn’t like being on her tummy. She has rolled from her back to tummy a few times, but she has to be lucky or on an easy surface.
• You have to be careful of what you put in front of her. She will reach and take things that are in front of her nowadays, and then put them in her mouth. I’m starting to get better about remembering.
• She enjoys her exersaucer for brief periods of time, but it is not a long term place to play.
• She is making a lot of noise especially with squeals. You will look at her while she is making all of her noise and when you make eye contact her face lights up and she smiles. I think she knows how to get attention.
• Julia is still sleeping in her cradle at night in our room. She is sleeping through the night now with one feeding just before Robby gets up for work. If the cradle was wider I might worry that she could roll over, but it is pretty narrow. She would be fine to move in with Emily if I was ready. We will have a pack-n-play replace the cradle in our room for naps and ‘safe play’.
• Our nap schedule is getting pretty regular now, or at least the first one of the day is. Julia is ready for a nap around 10:30-11:00 each morning. She will nap for a couple of hours and then will take another one later in the afternoon, but that one is not as regularly timed.
• Julia likes to ride in the car and has stopped her screaming while we are in a drive-thru. She will go to sleep in the car pretty regularly. When you take her out she almost always wakes up with the movement.
• Julia has been sampling baby cereal for about a week now. She hasn’t figured out what to do with it yet. I made it with formula at first and have changed to mommy’s milk. When I made that change she made less funny faces and seemed to like it in her mouth more. She still spits it out, but seems to enjoy the flavor more.

Mommy and Emily had a playtime together at Cades Cove with the kickball. It was a little dancing and a little kicking. Lots of laughs and happy faces!

Mommy doesn’t always have a camera handy when Emily is playing with her Granddaddy. She misses a lot of really cute photo opportunities. Just this week I missed two cute playtimes that I wish I had photographed.

• One was while Emily was watching Dancing with the Stars with her grandparents. She went over to Granddaddy and got him to stand up. They danced together while the pretty people on TV were dancing. It was so sweet to see them dancing in a circle holding hands.
• The second was just yesterday while Emily, Granddaddy, and I were visiting on our front porch. Emily came and took Granddaddy’s hand and had him stand up. She then ran out to her swing and ask him to push her. She didn’t ask to get out of the swing until Granddaddy needed a break.