HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Julia is incredibly blessed with an exceptional Daddy and two very special grandfathers who love her to pieces. We were lucky to get to celebrate Father's Day with them in our traditional way--pool time, lots of margaritas and much food. Julia especially loved getting to swim with her Mommy, Daddy, Nana, Papa, Mimi, and Poppy (while Nina supervised, of course!). Here are some pics of everyone cooling off from the summer heat on Dad's Day.

Bye-Bye Baby Talk

Tonight, as we were listening to Julia "read" her picture books aloud, naming all the objects she knows--ball, slide, flower, elephant, pillow, peach, door, etc.--I realized, with combined feelings of wistfulness and pride, that Julia no longer speaks in her own, unidentifiable baby-talk language. Now, it's all big-girl words with actual real-life meanings that people other than J can understand. So from now on, we take delight in Julia's cutey-pie pronunciations of everyday words (like, "nulky nulky" for milk) for as long as those last.

Pool Season Begins

Although not yet officially summer, it sure felt like it when we were in Austin for Memorial Day weekend. We had a really fun time visiting the Edwards and Frey families. Julia kicked off the hot weather season with a dip in the pool. This year, she's big enough to stand in the baby pool on her own!

A Few Pics From Mother's Day '08

Even though the day was about the moms, the photos (as usual) ended up being more about Little J than anyone else.

Happy Birthday Wandie

In celebration of Wandie's birthday, the Miller family recently spent a Sunday afternoon at the Houston Downtown Aquarium (Wandie's choice). Julia expressed her excitement with continuous exclamations of "Oh Wow! Fish!"

A Few of Julia's New Favorite Things

In addition to her old standbys, these are a few of Julia's newest favorite things:

-Coloring
-Talking
-Counting
-Barney
-Choo-choo trains
-Swimming
-Bananas
-Chocolate
-Stickers
-Dora the Explorer
-Elmo

Julia also loves to sing these (and many other) songs:

-Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
-The ABC Song
-Happy Birthday (to Julia) (aka "Happy Day")
-The Itsy Bitsy Spider
-Julia's Night Night Song
-I Love You, You Love Me
-Rock A Bye Your Bear
-If You're Happy and You Know It
-Anything on Laurie Berkner's "Victor Vito" album
-Anything on her music class CDs

Colors! Colors!

While many kids Julia's age carry around beloved stuffed animals, lovies, or blankets, Julia has chosen a more unusual security item--crayons. Rarely is there a moment these days where Julia can be found without her "colors." On occasion, in order to prevent crayon from ending up on clothes, walls, or light colored furniture, we are forced to pry the crayons out of a very tearful Julia's tiny hands. But most of the time, we just indulge her curious obsession-of-the-day.

Don't even think about taking away my colors.