A sign of things to come?

Today in the car Julian was becoming cranky and I didn't want him to fall asleep (to ensure a good nap at home) so I gave him the XM remote to play with. I didn't think his playing around would impact my listening choice (seeing as he's looking in the opposite direction and all) but it did and I went from listening to Ray Charles to Rob & Big Punisher. Anyone remember that song from 1998, "Still not a player?" After Julian's nonstop flirting on tuesday at our play date with Eve, Sophia, and Cate, I am concerned that I am going to have a real ladies' man on my hands!

"I'm not a player I just crush a lot....." Oh boy.

Eve, Julian, and Sophia watching the snow...and no, we didn't put his hand there.

YES WE CAN!

This house has been buzzing with excitement ever since that fateful election night back in November. Oh the hope....here's a pic of me and Julian after we went to the polls, if you haven't seen it already:

Despite this being a blog and the perfect venue for speaking my mind on the current political and economic situation in our nation, I think it's pretty obvious how I feel by the picture above and leave it at that.

We watched the Inauguration coverage from sun up to sun down (and then some) and I am still in awe of everything. I cried during his speech and while I am still wary of politicians in general, I know in my heart of hearts that Obama stands for something completely different. And with that, I will leave you with a little obamacon.me that my friend, Amanda, made on Inauguration day.

Yes we can, folks, yes we can.

Our other children

Last night while I was rocking Julian to sleep I realized that all this talk of Julian on here, where are our other kids?!

Our cats, Trillian and Fitzchivlary (both named after literary characters), are great with Julian. At first they were very curious with him (I'm sure it was because of the milk smell) and now they are indifferent but tolerant of his squeals and grabby hands. Julian LOVES the cats. Any time there are cats in a book, he smiles at them. He even knows 'cat' in sign language- at least, he recognizes when we do it. The past few days he'll look at the cats and say "c c c." This is a good sign.

Trillian (above) and Fitz in a box.what is it about cats and boxes?

Scout and Paige have been very patient with Julian. Julian will wiggle across the floor just to pull on their hair and thankfully, they are tolerant of him. Unfortunately, we had a rough year with their health- multiple ear infections, tummy issues, etc.- but overall, I think as Julian gets older the dogs will enjoy playing with him. Sure, they are quite jealous of the attention, and when Julian is asleep Scout is attached to my hip, but I think they'll get along swimmingly with him.

Scout playing with Julian & the doggies enjoying a treat

Thank you, family!!!

The year before last we were really considering relocating out of the DC area. We still are but we're not nearly as driven because we realize just how lucky we are to have our families nearby to help.

This past weekend both Thad and I were sick with the flu (Thad more sick than me as he was battling food poisoning as well) and it was quite difficult taking care of a baby who refuses to take the bottle (trust me, we've tried everything and we decided to just live with it and move on). My brother came by to keep an eye on Julian while I took a nap and my mom came by to help put Julian to sleep and get some food/drinks for us. Terri came and also took care of Julian (and us!) so we could get some extra shut eye.

We are SO grateful for our family! Thank you for helping us and taking care of the little guy.

'I'm gonna get there....'

The past couple weeks have been tremendous in Julian's development! It's been even better because Thad has been off from work and he's been able to witness it all with me first hand. Oh, I can't even imagine things getting any better (or us falling more in love with this little guy) but each day is just so much better than the day before. We are so blessed with such a happy baby!

First off, we FINALLY got a tooth! It popped through yesterday and I can feel the edge of it when he chews on my finger. We were beginning to think that it was never going to come up as it as been hanging out under his gums forever.

Secondly, this kid won't shut UP (just like his mama!). He talks and talks and talks. He's always the most chatty first thing in the morning (I hear this is common with babies?) and his favorite sounds are, "la la la la," and "da da da da." Or just "da da" when he wants Thad. I have been constantly following Julian around saying "ma ma ma ma" but to no avail. I know it'll happen eventually but for now, da da is his favorite! There are also bunches of other sounds and Thad swears the other morning he said, "boob" and this morning he said "kitty." Maybe we should start following him around with a tape recorder so we can capture some of it for those of you far away!

Third, in proud tradition of a military family, Julian is army crawling! He will scoot himself across the floor on Mission Retrieve Remote. Why do babies love remotes? We have no clue but he will apparently scale mountains (or crawl across the living room) to get it. He'll pooch that little tush up in the sky and push with his feet while he propels himself forward with his arms. We better start nailing things down now.....he will get up on all fours and rock back and forth and he is very close to figuring out how to coordinate his knees and hands in order to move forward. I think a project this weekend is get the baby gates up on the first floor.

That's it for now! In parting, here's a pic of Julian playing one of his favorite games: peekaboo!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

When Julian was born and we were having those many sleepless and frantic nights trying to figure everything out, I remember having a calm moment and Thad saying, "I am really looking forward to the holidays. Julian will be older, hopefully we'll be more settled by then, and we'll be celebrating our first Christmas with him." It seemed then that the time would never come, but low and behold, time has that very tricky habit of flying by and we rapidly fell upon Julian's first holiday season.

We never made it to see Santa (our attempts were repeatedly smashed) so we'll attempt again next season. He did love the lights of the Christmas tree and wanted to grab all the ornaments that he could. I have a feeling next year we'll have a gate or something around the tree to hold back curious 17-month olds. My friend, Amanda, came over with her daughter, Bryce, to take some Christmas shots of Julian. Here are a couple of my favorites:


We had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's house as is the tradition and then had Christmas morning at our house, complete with monkey bread and mimosas. Julian loved tearing the wrapping paper (even unwrapped one of his gifts) and sitting in the empty boxes. At dinner we discovered Julian will say "mmmm" if he eats something yummy (in this case, it was a taste of whipped cream that got him). He's such a ham, he did it every time and we laughed! As long as we responded, boy did he work the crowd. :)

New Year's Eve was spent here at home with Brian and our friend, Melisa, who came down from New York (she says she came to see us but I think it was to escape the crowds!) and we had a big, nice dinner, watched a movie, and actually stayed up until the ball dropped! Granted, we forgot about the bubbly in the fridge, but the three bottles of wine before it was probably plenty enough.....Julian went to bed around 8 PM and we were able to celebrate like adults. Woo!

Here's the album of the Christmas festivities. Enjoy! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and hope 2009 will be just as exciting and fun as 2008!

Julian's First Christmas