Thankful for friends and family!

Our month of November slipped away pretty quickly. Here's the highlights:

We've been making friends! This is Julia's buddy William, who we see with his mom Jody at a couple of our regular activities. It's been wonderful to see them bond over the past few weeks. They get really excited to see each other. 

Wearing the daddy shoes, while visiting daddy at work. Big shoes to fill. 

More time with buddies! Julia's little friend Klaus and his mom, Jenny.  

joined by her little buddy Louie and his mom Michelle. These two are my walking partners, and we seem to make it out in some combination most mornings. Now Julia gets quite put out when we go for walks alone. 

more playtime with Klaus

and playtime with her friend Aurora! Aurora has a baby brother, 4 month old Asher whom Julia adores. We went swimming with them, plus mom Amanda and had a great time. Two adults to three kids was a managable ratio in the pool. Julia loved going and I think we'll add it to the weekly routine. 

Thanksgiving week came and we drove up to Seattle to visit Dave's folks. Here's Grandma Gini and Julia looking at pictures. Julia can recognize family now, and called her cousin Sierra "my sister."

At Grandpa Dave's Julia was on the lookout for deer! 

We spent an afternoon at Great Grandma Olive's care center. She was fading, but knew who we were and was pleased that we had come. 

we got to see Dave's brother Bob and sister in law Shawna

Great Grandma Olive passed away a few nights after we left. Rest in Peace Olive. 

Gini had to spend a great deal of time sitting with Olive, but we managed to have a good visit despite her divided attentions. We cooked dinner at Grandpa Dave's on thursday and had Dave's aunt Rebecca and Uncle Bob over. Then on friday, we decided to do it all again at Gini's since she had a turkey hanging around. We didn't know if she'd be able to come home for dinner but cooked it anyway, and she was able to come, and uncle John was there, and Gini's friend Sy came and my sister Caroline and her boyfriend Matt came up, so we all had a good time and left Gini with a fridge full of leftovers.

Julia has been obsessed with birthday cakes for awhile and somehow decided that she was going to have one at Grandma Gini's. So she did! She did the mixing and did NOT want help. 

Grandma Gini frosted and Julia decorated!

She was soooo pleased! (and hasn't mentioned birthday cakes since, so perhaps she is satisfied.)

Julia watched Bambi at Grandma Gini's and became obsessed. I think she saw it about 12 times in 3 days.  One night she had a bad cough going on and woke up at 4 am coughing and coughing and couldn't go to sleep again. Gini was up too and she took Julia and sent me to her bed and they sat and watched Bambi 4 times in a row!  I was so grateful for the sleep! (I was extra tired since I had come back late from Seattle where I had a lovely toddler free evening with my friend Erin!)

It rained and rained and rained and rained

Julia and Daddy attempted to go hunt for a tree in the woods but Julia wasn't much of a trooper.  We'll have to find a tree elsewhere. 

It was lovely to visit and lovely to come home! We've been back in our routine, walking, going to activities, going to class, and endless housework. 

We had our first frost on Nov 26th,  and really liked the subtle change on our walk.  

and we've been noticing lots of mushrooms. 

Our latest sleep adventures are ongoing. Julia still comes up sometime in the night and crawls in bed to sleep with us. This is fine and I don't even notice she's there until about 5 am when she starts to get restless and kicks and pushes and demands pillows and wants to sleep on top of my arm and wants food and wants a toy and is in a million ways utterly obnoxious. I get pissed at the rude awakening and yell at her and she yells at me and it is a bad way to start the morning. So here's my plan. I went to the store and bought a crown. A plastic glittery jewel incrusted monstrosity of a disney princess crown. Today I put it on a high shelf in Julia's room and showed it to her, explaining that if she slept in her bed the entire night, she got to have it. Oh, did her eyes get big. All day we had conversations about the crown and how she could get it and oh my, does she want it bad! So tonight is the ultimate test. If she comes into our bed, it stays on the shelf. I REALLY hope it works since I feel kind of like a jerk, dangling it in front of her. If she succeeds and gets the crown, I think I'll move to M and M as a reward next, just to keep the incentive going for awhile. It's got to be something she wants since she can get out of bed freely if she so desires.