Deborah 1 year

It is hard to believe that Deborah is a year old. Time has gone by so quickly. I am not ready for her to not be a little baby anymore. She is such a joy to have in our home. She makes everyone happy in our home. She loves to play with all her siblings and it is so much fun to see her laugh with them. She still is not walking which is fine, except when she wants to go in the backyard with Dean and Julia. She will watch them through the window. She is still pulling herself up on furniture but has not shown signs of walking. I am curious to see what happens this coming month. She still is good at taking 2 naps. She is even able to miss her morning nap at times and will take a long afternoon nap. She usually sleeps from 7 pm to 7 am. She is great with babysitters. She has been getting sick lately with fevers and a cough. She seems to catch whatever the other kids get but a little worse. I think she is teething again. I never knew the other kids were teething until I saw the tooth. Deborah gets a fever and it really affects her for a week while she is teething. It makes me sad for her. We just love this girl!

Deborah's Birthday Party

Even though Brian was gone for Deborah's birthday I still wanted to do a little celebration. I was originally going to have my local family come over to swim and then we would just do dessert. Unfortunately our downstairs A/C unit decided not to work the day before and we did not have it fixed yet. My sister Emily was kind and let us move the party to her home. We did dinner and dessert. The kids jumped on the trampoline with the sprinklers. Deborah did not really care about her presents. Julia thought they were her presents. She also did not know how to blow out her candle or even cared too much of the cookie brownie. It was fun to celebrate her life and we hope to do more celebrating when Brian gets back!

Rain

It rained and the kids went in the back to play. Deborah just watched at the window enjoying their fun.

Papa Visits

We had a quick visit from Papa for the night to start off his trip to Africa. The kids were very excited and loved every minute they had with him. Deborah warmed up to him very well. She loved having him hold her and sat on his lap later in the evening and just talked her baby talk to him. The one thing they wanted to do with him is play a game. Chutes and Ladders was the pick for the night. Papa was able to tell a story to Dean and Julia before they went to bed. He made the story of the 3 Bears super exciting with all of Dean's favorite characters from Toy Story and Kung Fu Panda. Noah walked with him to Walgreens to pick up last minute items for his trip. He just stayed over night and left early in the morning (kids were still sleeping).We are so glad that he was able to stop in AZ for a quick stop. Brian will be joining him soon. 

More standing

Deborah has finally started pulling herself up on furniture again. She had gotten sick and stopped trying but the past few days she has been doing it wherever she can. The only problem is sometimes she gets stuff or afraid to sit back down. She is so cute to watch! We might have a walker soon time will tell!

Daddy Pile

The kids love their dad! The are always excited to see him when he has been gone. He was on his monthly scout camp out and when he got back they all desired his attention. It is fun to watch and I am glad I could capture the moment with this picture.

Bath Time for the Girls

Deborah likes her baths and Julia always wants a bath or shower if she knows someone else is taking one.  Sometimes she gets multiple a day if she is lucky. Deborah enjoys it when someone is with her because I usually let her play longer. She is such a happy girl right now!

Dean starts Preschool

Dean started preschool at Ms Christina's preschool. He gets to carpool with his friends Ryder and Dallin. He was excited the first day. All summer he has wanted to go back to school. I think he will love his teacher and have so much fun learning! The second picture is Dean, Dallin and Dawson(he is Dallin's twin but goes to the public school for preschool. Did not get a picture with Ryder who is probably Dean's best friend.

Dentist

Time for the dentist and it went great this time. Julia let them clean her teeth and sat in the chair the whole time. She did get a little scared at first but I just sat and held her hand for a while. Her teeth look great and she even let the dentist count her teeth without having to hold her head. She loved the glasses she got to wear. Deborah did great sitting in her car seat and watched. Dean was brave again and was a wonderful example for Julia. He said that he was about to cry once but he held it in. No cavities for him either. Good thing for me because I want them to enjoy the dentist as long as they can.

Good morning Deborah

Deborah is just enjoying her breakfast. She even got it in her messy hair. She was just ending her 7 day fever, congestion, and slight cough when this was taken. She was able to show us a happy face. She started drinking whole milk this week which so far has been good. She does not drink as much but she has adjusted well. No more bottles which is great! I just love her little smile and her laugh. She will just start laughing without anyone making her. It is fun to watch.

Julia

Julia is our silly girl. She can make the silliest faces and shen I ask her to smile she usually squints her eyes. She loves milk and will even steal Deborah's cups of milk and drink them. The other day she thought it would be fun to use the hot pads as gloves. Lately when I take her to the store she thinks it is fun to run away from me and when I find her she thinks it is a game and will laugh and run the other direction. It is not so fun for me. Her favoite skirt is the one she is wearing in this first picture. She loves it but is is slightly big so her shirt has to be long enough to cover her underwear. Her and Dean can get wild together and like to wrestle but usually nobody gets hurt. She has been very stubborn and loud these past couple of weeks. She wants to do everything herself and if she wants something she wants it now. It is hard to reason with her but I think it is her age. She talks a lot but I am not sure if she has speech problems. She usually has a hard time pronouncing the sounds at the end of words. For example she can't finish the word milk it comes out mil. She says this word multiple times a day but even when I work with her she can't do it. There are also some sounds she cannot make but it might be because of her age. I am finally being able to decipher some of the words but it does get frustrating at times when I have no idea what she is saying. She gets frustrated too.It is funny because her cousin Alexis (Lexie) gets upset at Julia because when she says Lexies name it sounds like Jessie. Lexie is only 3 so she thinks Julia is doing it on purpose and Julia does not get it because she thinks she is saying it correctly. Julia is fun, keeps us busy, and is entertaining. 

 This is still morning so we have not gotten to hair time yet.

Peyton Comes to Play

My niece Peyton has wanted to play with Julia and Dean all summer. So we had her come over one afternoon and she did crafts, played games, made a fort, brought snacks and even put Julia down for her nap. She said she was practicing for when she can babysit them in a little over a year when she is 12. The kids had so much fun and look forward to her coming again soon!