Julia, on a beautiful holiday Monday afternoon, while Aidan and Mommy were reading to each other, you wanted to do something special with me.
We came up with an idea to paint the old birdhouse that used to rest on the eave of our front porch. But, Mommy humbly requested that we not paint it.
So you and I came up with an idea... what if we MADE our own bird house and THEN painted it.
You loved the idea...but were pretty insistent that it also be a Fairy house, as needed. So, you know, any fairies that were passing through would have a place to sit and chill for a moment before carrying on their way.
We gathered scrap wood and loose supplies and came up with a plan. You and I brainstormed, and drilled and tried things out in the warm, golden sun.
And we worked and laughed and giggled and worked somemore...
And then, it was time to paint!
The sun dried the paint before our very eyes (you couldn't believe it!), and before you knew it... we had finished our Bird/Fairy House!
I still wasn't sure where the fairies entered the equation, but I was pleased with your ingenuity and sticktoitiveness. We had made a pretty, functional, rocking bird house.
And Fairy House, you reminded me.
You came with me to pick up the groceries and brought a piece of paper and a pen. On the way you asked for my help to spell a couple of words. Then, when we got home, I read the note you had written, and I understood how this whole plan had come together in your mind:
Aha! You wanted to make sure the Tooth Fairy had a place to rest, in case she came to visit you when you placed this planned-out note under your pillow.
It was such a good note and good plan, in fact, that you inspired some brother-type people named Aidan to embark on a similar plan!
So, sweet dreams and big plans inspired a day of hard work with great payoff!
We hung the house, even found some bird seed...hopefully fairies also enjoy bird seed... and we ate dinner, swam, read, and tucked you guys in.
I don't know if you can see, but it looks like you can almost see some fairy dust in the bird/fairy house. She did visit each of you that night and even gave you each a dollar for your kindness and ingenuity.
I had so much fun making a Fairy House with you, today, my daughter. You are an amazing, strong, kind, inspiring spirit. You believe in fairies...and I believe in you.
Julia, when you set your mind on something, it gets done! So one Saturday, you came up with an idea!
"Let's build some drums!"
And you and I put our heads together and creativity on high alert...we used LOTS of boxes and tape and some beads and coins and a shampoo bottle and rubber band and ...holy smokes... we built some drums!
Your brother even joined in for the painting!
The end result was a HIT (get it?) for everyone!
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I love being creative with you and this is certainly a cymbol of our love and creativity!
Let's just be up front about this. You both LOVE Legos. You've both been playing with them - both the big ones and the regular sized ones- for years. In fact, both of you started playing with the little Legos- the real Legos- for years.
You were well under the recommended minimum age on the box. But, you've always known what to do with them. Your dexterity and dedication have grown, but your creativity has flooded the floor! And grown to the ceiling (the sky is the limit!)
Aidan, your favorite part of the Legos used to be stacking the heads up on top of each other and putting them in a PEZ dispenser.
Then you graduated to building and collecting the little characters- sometimes with multiple heads, sometimes with one. Now, you've recently gotten into building little vehicles and ships and 'PEW PEWs' for your characters. In fact you just made this beauty all by yourself the other day:
It's a "wormer harvester" that "cleans the whole house." Pretty cool, huh?
And look at this cool one too! It looked like this yesterday...
...and this is what it looks like today with even more modifications!
Julia, your favorite thing to do is make the tiniest most intricate, colorful abstract creations you can. Of course, you like to build big, and make spaceships and shooters and 'Pew Pews' too...but your humble beginnings were in manipulating the smallest of pieces - usually colorful little circles- into amazing creations.
Here is your mermaid which you made all by yourself. So amazing.
And check out this creation I found which you had made. You said it's called "The Million Falcon!"
Legos- to me- are so great because they're like you. They're colorful, they're kind of a mess, and they can be anything in the world!
I love it when we play Legos as a family. Everything is awesome when you're part of a team!
And I love it when I hear that familiar 'crash' of a cascade of Legos being poured on the floor- even if it's just to find one head or to build for hours- because I know that Legos leads to creativity...and love.
Wow! Is it already week 34? Let's check the bump size:
Yup. That looks like a 34 week belly to me! And I think your mother would agree with me. Her aching feet ache, her pregnancy-arthritic hands hurt, she's suffering from dunlap disease so much that when she sits down in a chair her belly (aka, you, young lady) are resting on the chair itself! She's having difficulty breathing at night, feeling rather large and inactive and sluggish and generally very, very pregnant.
If any of that sounds negative, it's not. It's very, very positive! You're growing, baby, and with growing comes some growing pains from time to time. But right now, with 6 weeks to go, we are just happy you're thriving so well in there!
We're getting ready for you to come too. In fact, the nesting has kicked into high gear. We've reorganized yours and Aidan's closet (and re-installed all the shelves that fell out after that happened), we've organized your wardrobe, added extra storage cubes for your personal effects, gone shopping a few more times to add to your wardrobe even more (pinks and yellows and reds, oh my!). We've sold some old stuff and bought you some new stuff (double stroller, new bouncy chair, new swing!) and even assembled most of the new arsenal of baby stuff.
The boxes are making a certain someone quite happy:
Namely me! I'm building a large cardboard train! Choo choo!
But, really, we're all getting happy in expecation of your arrival. I mean today you're the size of an acorn squash, but soon you'll be the size of a newborn baby...because that's what you'll be. And we can't wait.
Developmentally, it now says that you can recognize and react to simple songs. These very songs may actually even soothe you when you come out! That's great, because we do a LOT of singing, and lately everyone's been getting in on the act.
In the quest to get Aidan back sleeping through the night, we've started over with sleep training. Which means back to the days of Lullabye medleys at night. So you'll love "Return to Pooh Corner" (which Aidan requests nightly "Pooh song please," "Somewhere over the Rainbow," "The End," "Golden Slumbers," and so much more.
In fact, your Mom says you really seem to like it when she sings "Return to Pooh Corner" to Aidan at night time.
Plus, you may also start to recognize your brother's lovely singing voice too, as he's recently learned a few new songs and gotten more comfortable belting out a tune or four:
And, whether or not you'll be a singer, we'll just have to wait and see...but, we already know that you're going to be a dancer. Check out these moves!
Soon you'll be a little baby out here in the world; until then you're a wonderful bouncy, big, rambunctious bump. If you keep dancing, we'll keep singing. Both You and Aidan are my sunshine, and you'll never know how much I love you.
Seeing as we're 19 weeks along (which means you're about 21 weeks away from coming out here to meet everyone), we've seriously been making room for you! But getting all the pieces to fall into place has been pretty tricky!
And the ground-breaking ceremony all relied on us finding a new home for one piece of furniture.
You see, the dining room is going to be your nursery, so we needed to clear out the dining room closet to make room for storing your belongings. But, my bass lived in there, so we needed to find a new place for that. The only spot it would fit was the front hall coat closet, but then we needed a coat closet. So, we decided to convert the decorative under-the-stairs nook into a coat closet. But the piece of furniture that lived in that nook needed to go before any of this could happen! Finally, the keystone was removed (we gave it to BJ and Kari to decorate their guest bedroom), and the nursery project could begin!
This is what I look like when I do house repair. Except I have bigger muscles and greener overalls.
So, here's a sample of the fun we've been having over the past week:
Coat closet converted into bass closet
Nook converted into coat closet
It may look like I'm playing with Toby, but who plays with a dog with a drill in their other hand?
Doors mounted on coat closet (thanks to a lot of help from expert carpenter, Nannah Joon)
Take that, Nook! You're a closet now!
Decorative Bass moved from entry way
Buffet (and record player stand) moved from kitchen area to entry way
Decorative Bass moved to bedroom
Dining table moved to kitchen area
Book shelves constructed
And, blammo- you've got yourself room for a baby! We're well on the way to an awesome nursery!
Uncle Joe, Nannah Joon and your cousins Devon and Jeanessa playing Uno in your nursery when it was a dining room
And now look at it! It's really starting to look like your nursery in there!
The hardest part about creating all this new storage space is to not fill it up immediately. Even though you're just gonna be a teeny tiny baby, you come with a lot of hardware; so we're gonna need a lot of space to store it!
And even though we've always had emotional room for you, now we have physical room for you too! And you even have your own physical room!
Speaking of making room, your Mom is certainly doing a lot of room making too. Her belly continues to grow and grow! In fact, her belly is growing so much that she's out of pants again (it's too cold to wear her maternity capri pants). So, on Sunday we went off to Target to buy her new pants. Instead of the more expensive maternity wear, she decided to try and buy a regular pair of jeans, just a few sizes up. Dejected, she walked out of the dressing room: they did not fit! The ones that fit her waist are too long or too big for the legs, the ones that fit her height are far too small for her belly! And the sundress she tried on looked like a Muumuu. That probably didn't help matters much.
Seriously, who invented these?
But, ever resourceful, your Mom decided to make her own drawstring pants.
Pants or no, though, your Mom continues to make room for you! Last night alone she had a bowl of broccoli cheese soup, a bowl of ice cream, (Moolenium Crunch again), two pieces of buttered toast and...right before bed, she hit the fridge again for some dried fruit!
At this rate, there's going to be plenty of room for you!
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