Happy 11 month Birthday Julia

New words:

Ball (clearly now)
HOT! (I say this when cooling her food off and when she gets near the
stove)
Hello (been working on this one pretty hard)
ruff ruff (she does this now when she sees a dog passing by or hears one
barking off in the distance)
Dada (she says this now after working on it for a long time. DH is pretty
proud she says it when she is looking for him now)
Another word we think she is saying is "Purdy",, who is my sisters dog. If
not Purdy then she is saying "Pretty". We are trying to figure that one
out. When she sees me wearing earrings or a necklace and points to it , I
always say "Pretty", so maybe that is what she is saying.
She loves to point at everything. I then say what I think she is pointing
at and ask her to repeat the word.

Her favorite toy right now is the see & say. I have one with the Lion King
characters on it and also another one that has a duck, dog, cat, cow,
etc... on it and when I say "Julia, point to the duck", she will point to
it. This is so much fun to see how much she is absorbing and learning now.


Boooboooo's this week. YOUCH.

Sunday she was outside with Dh and I while I was vac'in the car out of dog
hair from a camping trip we went on. Julia and DH were playing roll the
ball back and forth (on the concrete) and she took a face dive forward
trying to pick up the ball. She has a nice scrape on her forehead now. I
then suggested DH take her over into the grass. hehe

She is growing a black eye. Later on Sunday evening, while DH and I were
sitting watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, she tried to step
past Dh's foot and didn't do so well. She did a face plant on the wood
floor with her nose taking the brunt of the fall. She now has a shadow of a
black eye creeping from the nose where it meets the eye socket. Youch. The
worst part of it for us was trying to get her to take a breath after she
fell. I hate trying to watch her cry so hard and not take a breath for what
feels like a whole minute and her looking at you like "Help me momma".

This week she started walking over to me (walking has been going on for
nearly 3 weeks now) and she grabs my leg and HUGS it. So sweet.
If she is playing in the living room, we walk near her and tell her we are
going to her her "I'm going to get you", she turns around and nearly runs
over to the couch trying to get away from us and is laughing so hard with
excitement that it cracks us all up.

....

Swimming lessons.

My SIL and niece are going to take a swimming lesson session with us. The
local YMCA (South City) has a new session for Saturday mornings starting in
early September. I know we will miss a few sessions with camping and her
birthday party, but I can't wait to get her started. She knows how to kick
when we are holding her in the pool, but we need to get her use to dipping
under the water and floating on her back. I can't wait to get in to the
pool with her and start the lessons. I have been swimming since I was 6
months old (my mom has a picture of me in the pool when I was that old)
with water wings until I was 2 and then I was on my own after that. We have
always had a swimming pool in my backyard so it was important to my parents
that I learn to swim at the earliest age possible. I want to do the same
with Julia. She won't let me put the wings on her arms yet so I need to
really work with her this winter in the big ymca pool. I want her to enjoy
the water, unlike some of my relatives and neighbors that won't set foot in
water outside of a shower!

First Birthday party prep
I have some of the party decorations for Julia's first Birthday party ready
to go. I bought an elmo pinata (pull string). Now I just need to buy some
of the snacks / fun toys to go in the pinata for the young kids to have.
Any ideas?
DH made the invitation on the computer at home and it is so cute. I'll try
and get a picture of it later.