Growing too fast

I could be talking about any one of our kids, but I'm talking about kids in general.

Things have been so busy trying to get things ready for the holidays, that I haven't had much time to update the blog. But then, today, my brother sent me a nasty email demanding an update. (Ok.. ok... it wasn't nasty, but he did comment that he wanted an update on his niece).

So without further ado...

She actually consents to wearing things in her hair these days... if only for 3 minutes. But, hey! That's 3 minutes longer than she did two months ago. She seems fascinated by hair accessories. I only experimented with the clips this one evening. The rest of the time she likes putting a headband or a hat on, then taking it off and putting it on whomever else is nearby... be it me, Jessica.... or Daddy!

She's starting to pick up more words these days. Her favorite ones to repeat are still "Hi", "Daddy" (or sometimes "Da' Eeeee"), "WoWo" (our cat Jojo), "Jie Jie" (big sister in chinese/Jessica), and when someone gets hurt "Ow-eee". Once in a while she'll try out a new word, but not consistently yet. Sometimes she'll blurt out a random word from a conversation Derek and I might be having at the time. When I ask her if she needs a diaper change, she might nod or shake her head, but every so often she'll say "yeah" before running over to the changing table. (Wooohooo! Praying for early potty training!)

One of her favorite things to do these days is play with the laundry basket. She'll push it around through the kitchen, around the island, down the hall and back around to the kitchen again. (it sounds like a long distance, but our place is really quite small)

When she tires of pushing it, she'll load it with toys or dish towels or will even climb inside herself and sit down. One day, I needed to get a load of laundry from the dryer, and she insisted on staying inside the basket. The result?


She thought it was toasty warm and didn't budge for a few minutes.

"See? I'm okay!"

It looks like she has a full set of teeth in the picture above, but she only had 14 (was missing two lower teeth still, the ones in front of the molars). As of this past week, however, those two teeth have come in and it's rather strange looking at her smile without any gaps. I kind of miss those toothless smiles she would give.... Like this one when she was just weeks old:

These days she gives us smiles like this:

What a ham. It's like she and the bear are both fixing their collars. (Side note: I've always loved the feet on this bear... )

Continuing on the theme of growing too fast... Last month, Juliana and I went down to Issaquah to spend some time with Teresa and her family. They live in Portland and were up here for a Husky game and staying with her Mom. Austin (Teresa's brother) played some music for us:

Peter (Teresa's youngest) was helping.

The boys were playing Xbox a bit this last trip and the lighting wasn't so good downstairs. The pictures came out really dull and grainy, so I'll share with you a picture that was taken this past summer on one of their other visits.

From left to right: Arthur, Peter, Juliana and Benjamin. Three boys and they all look like their Dad. Okay, I'll admit, I do see a lot of their Mom in them, too, but we like to give Mark a hard time about his little clones running around. He knows this too... and he tolerates it. Sometimes, I think he even encourages it.

See Benjamin on the right? He was born up here in Bellevue, before they moved to Portland and back then I used to get my baby fix by visiting with Teresa (or Tamara before she and her family moved to California, but that's another story for another day). Here's a picture of our visit to the zoo back when he was around the age that Juliana is now.

It seems like it wasn't that long ago. And now I get to watch my own little one grow up in a blink of an eye. Eep! Someone slow the clock down! I'm not ready!

(*Looks over at Jessica and her boyfriend Richard watching a movie on the couch*)

ACK! I'M REALLY NOT READY!!

(*Peeks in on Juliana sleeping peacefully in her room*)

Whew! Still a little girl.