Sooooo Big!

It's so hard to believe that our little baby is already one. We took her in today for her 1 year check-up to see how she was doing. She was a champ at the doctor's office despite having to get a few shots. She weighed in at 20 pounds (30th percentile) and was 29 inches long (45th percentile). As far as development, she is still not quite walking yet, but she loves to stand up and will walk all over if you are holding her hand. She easily walks around furniture and stands on her own without realizing it. I think she is able to take her first steps anyday, but we'll see. When you let go of her hands she sits down immediately, so who knows when she will actually want to do it. We're in no hurry! She eats everything now and still really loves her meat. But she does well with her veggies and fruits too. She is still an excellent sleeper - about 11-12 hours at night and two naps of about 1.5-2 hours each. I am hoping to get rid of the morning nap relatively soon, but we'll see what she thinks about that. She can definitely go without a morning nap a couple days a week right now. She is starting to say lots of words - she said "Happy Birthday" on her birthday when someone would say it to her. Her other words include Mama, Daddy, dog, hi, and night night. I am sure she has others, but we have yet to understand them - she babbles quite a bit! She can blow kisses, shake her head no, wave, clap, do various motions to go along with "Wheels on the Bus" and "Patty Cake" and show us that she is "SOOOOO BIG". We are in the process of switching her to whole milk and will complete that process as soon as we run out of this current canister of formula. She is also switching to full time sippy cups and getting rid of the bottles, which makes me sad! I will really miss feeding her bottles! Our little baby is becoming a big girl!

As a side note, I have done a lot of blogging over the past day or two, so you might need to click the "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page to see them all as they don't all fit on one page right now. Enjoy!

First Day of School!

It's official, summer vacation has ended :( But we are looking forward to this year as Ben started a new school today! He is in PK-4 at one of the Catholic schools in our town. He was a little nervous about starting a new school, considering he had been at his old school since he was an infant, but this morning he seemed pretty excited. Abbey wanted in on the picture as well - she knew it was an important day and didn't want to be left out.

This was when we got to school - he quickly unbuckled himself and was ready to go!

Here he is in front of school. He did great at drop off! He gave me a quick hug and kiss and then went into school with his teacher without a problem. He looked a little nervous, but excited too. I was so proud of him. Abbey, on the other hand, cried when Ben went in and didn't want to walk back to the car. She just stood outside the closed door crying. All morning she told me she missed Ben. But after we dropped him off we went to a nearby park where the school was having a welcome coffee. So the girls got to play and I got to meet some of the other preschool 4 parents. It was a fun morning for everyone and I think Abbey will soon start to enjoy her all-girl mornings as we start to do some fun stuff that is more age appropriate for the girls.

He had a great day! He was so excited when I picked him up and told me all about what they did and the new kids he met. We are really looking forward to this year!

Juliette's Birthday Party

Since we left for FL the day after Juliette's birthday, we delayed her party until we got back. So this past weekend, it was party time! Here's the birthday girl in her party dress.

Mingling with one of her guests...

Ready for cake!

Her birthday hat cake - we have made this cake for each of our children's first birthdays, but decorated them differently. So it's sort of tradition at this point, yet they each had their own unique decorations on it.

Singing Happy Birthday to Juju!
Birthday Princess!

Time to eat cake! Unfortunately, she was not too into eating cake that day - perhaps she filled up on that burger (she loves meat), so no good cake eating shots today. But I have plenty of good ones from her other celebrations posted previously.

Then it was time for presents!

She had a great party - thanks to everyone who could come and we missed those of you who were unable to attend, but hope to see you again soon!

Pool Time

Besides the beach, we also spent time in the pool! Abbey was nervous at first, but by the end of the week enjoyed being taken around in one of the floaties.

Our little water baby loved every time she was in the pool, whether in a floatie or being held by someone.

And our little swimmer loved the water too. He went underwater a lot and by the end of the week, took off the arm floaties and treaded water! He bobbed up and down, but he could get himself up for a quick breath of air. He was very excited and we were so proud!

It was a great vacation - thanks Madgie and Patch and we look forward to seeing you again at Christmas!

More Beach Fun

By the end of the week, the kids were all about the ocean! Juliette played in the sand and tried to eat shells, while splashing with water in the pail.

Ben liked going out pretty deep and jumping in the waves.

Abbey even warmed up to the ocean and enjoyed playing in it. She got into jumping over the waves too and would go out pretty far if someone was holding her. But here she is enjoying a leisurely walk by the ocean with Madgie.

And taking in the view with Patch.

Madgie and Patch with their grandkids!

Children's Museum

We decided to take a break from the beach one day and check out the Children's Museum in Jacksonville. It was a nice little place and the kids had a good time, but unfortunately, the air conditioning was broken the day we went and it was incredibly hot in there, so we didn't stay too long. But while we were there, Ben got to dress up like a fireman and play in a fire truck!

And the museum had a whole section just for little kids - Juliette really liked this area and had a blast crawling around and finding new toys that she didn't have taken away from her immediately by her older siblings!

Other FL Fun

We had some downtime at the condo when we weren't at the beach too. We read lots of stories...

We played with the many toys Madgie has accumulated over the past 4 years...

We went to Adventure Landing and tried out mini-golf for the first time. Ben enjoyed it, but Abbey was a little young for it yet.

We also took the opportunity to celebrate Juliette's birthday! Madgie made her famous Texas Sheet Cake and you can see here that Juju was really excited about more cake!

Yummmm....
And of course Abbey enjoyed the cake too!

Boogie Board Fun!

Wow did we have some fun with boogie boards in the ocean pool! Daddy started pulling Ben around on it and he loved it!

Then Juliette wanted in on the fun, so Patch pulled her around a little bit.

Abbey wasn't a huge fan of being on the board, but she did enjoy pulling people on it! Here she is pulling Patch.

And then pulling Juliette too!

FL Beach Time

We decided to take a quick last trip to Jacksonville before the summer ends to visit Madgie and Patch and spend some time at the beach!
The first few days we were there, the tide worked in our favor - high tide was early morning and the water would flow out over a sand bar leaving a pool of ocean water just deep enough for the kids to play in without big waves bothering them. It was perfect as it gave the kids a chance to play in the water and get used to the ocean, which was key to Abbey who wouldn't go near the big ocean until the end of the vacation! But here she is on the first day playing in the ocean pool.

Here she is showing Patch how she can swim!

We also found several sea creatures in the ocean pool - here are Ben, Abbey and Daddy checking out a hermit crab they captured in their pail.

Juliette also loved the water!

1 Year Pictures

Oops, I forgot to post Juliette's 1 year pictures...enjoy!