Julia has been reaching out and touching things for a little while now. She has gotten much better this past week at grabbing hold of things. This is proved each time she grasps the frog on her bouncy seat. We know it because the frog plays a song that we hear often. So far we are not tired of the song yet.

Julia isn’t sleeping in her big bed yet, but we are starting to use it for a play space. We want both Julia to get used to her crib and Emily used to having Julia share the room. I thought the photo was a sweet photo of Julia. Once she gets a little mobile I will clean out the bed, but right now it is a combo of a play place and storage of toys.

The girls were hanging out on Daddy’s lap and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap some photos. As usual, we couldn’t get Emily to look at the camera although she is willing to say cheese.

Emily still loves her sister and doesn’t seem to be very jealous of my giving Julia attention. This day she was giving Julia much more attention than her Daddy, but I caught the moment that she allowed Robby to love on her a little.

Julia is growing quickly, I have noticed that she is outgrowing 0-3 month clothes when they are one piece outfits. She is long enough to be stretching them a lot. We think that Julia is caring more weight than Emily did at her age. She just seems more pudgy, although you can’t call either of our kids pudgy. She is moving well – she has her rigid pose, where she can stand on her own because of holding her body and legs tightly. She has continued her crunches and leg lifts. She is also listing to the side in a movement that will become a roll over soon. She loves to watch people and smiles when we look and talk to her. She calms down when Emily comes into view.

Julia is still getting me up in the middle of the night once most nights and twice every once an a while. On rare occasions she holds off and gives me six hours, but I can count that on one hand. It is also not predictable. I try to brace myself for what she is going to do, but she doesn’t do the same schedule more than two nights in a row. The earliest she has gone to bed is 10:30 pm and the latest is 2:30 am, she can wake up from 6:30 am to 10 am. This morning she woke up just after Robby went to work and wasn’t interested in going back to sleep. We laid in bed and played and watched some TV.

Julia treated her Mommy with a new trick that she discovered. She discovered that while laying in Mommy’s arms that she could lift her head and shoulders up. She did it over and over again for about 10 minutes. I was excited for her that she was able to move in a new way, but I wished that her self-discovery didn’t happen at two in the morning. She was excited about it and it took another hour for her to settle down and go to sleep. They change so quickly!

This morning when we woke up, we looked out the window and saw snow falling. This is a rare treat for us. I was all for getting our kids up and making them look out the window immediately and then following that with going out and playing in it. Reason won out and I didn’t make Julia spend much time looking out the window and we fed Emily breakfast before going out. Unfortunately, by the time we did get out the door, the snow was beginning to melt. There was enough snow for Robby to teach Emily how to make a snowball, or at least a snow clump. Throwing the snow clump consisted of smushing it against someone else. The other favorite game was to get snow on your shoes and then stomping it off on the driveway.

It appears that Julia spent the outside play time with her eyes covered by her hat. Oh well, I guess Mommy should look in a mirror after putting the hat on her. She didn’t seem to mind the hat/eye covering.

Julia is not the easiest baby to swaddle. She loves to stretch her feet as far as they go and she loves for her hands to move. Some days I watch her struggle and be unhappy until she frees her hands from her fabric cocoon. Although when it is time for her to go to sleep, swaddling her is like magic to help her settle into sleep.

Julia has found that her fingers have uses. They are just lovely to suck on and make loud smacking noises. Fingers are great for closing around Mommy’s hair making it difficult to be parted from her. And lastly, they are good for reaching out and touching toys. Emily loves Julia’s hands to touch and hold. Often in the car, we will look at the girls and Emily will have reached over and taken Julia’s hand in hers.

Pacifiers are real hit and miss with Julia. At times they are great comfort to her. Other times she wants nothing to do with them. I notice it most when she is crying and will not take it. This happens mostly in the car while we are in a drive-thru and limited attention can be given to her. Pacifiers are very difficult for Emily to leave alone. If she finds Julia’s pacifier not in Julia’s mouth she will pick it up and try to put it in Julia’s mouth, bring it to Mommy, carry it around, or put it in her own mouth. If she wants to play with Julia she has been known to remove it from Julia’s mouth.