Telephone, Bath

This afternoon when the phone rang, Julia immediately put her fist to the temple of her head. This is the baby sign for telephone. She completely initiated the sign on her own, which I think is amazing.

After supper, as I carried Julia up the stairs, I told her it was time for her bath. Right away she started rubbing her fists in circles on her chest. That is the baby sign for bath. It's been a couple of days since she has seen that sign, so it's pretty cool that she remembered it.

Outdoor Soccer

Evelyn is back in the world of soccer for another 8-week session. With the wet and rainy spring we've had this year, it's been a little tricky getting on the real grass field for her classes. However, the soccer complex has outdoor turf fields that the kiddos can play on. Today was the third week they have played on the turf.

This morning the weather was absolutely beautiful - sunny, warm and a light breeze. I brought the camera along to practice, and I got some great pictures of the Peanut. In the pics below, she dribbled the ball to cones and bowling pins, and then she knocked them down.

Popular Name?

Last weekend, Evelyn went to a birthday party. There were about 20 kids at the shin-dig. I was surprised that another girl was named Evelyn. This afternoon we girls went to the mall for some shopping and playing. While in the kids' play area, I overheard another mom call to her daughter, "Evelyn!"

Back when Troy and I chose Evelyn's name, we were certain of two things: (1) We wanted a name that wasn't very popular; (2) The baby's middle name would be Lucille. Evelyn worked perfectly. It paired up with Lucille nicely, and it was ranked 88th on the 2003 Social Security list of baby names.

After the two episodes mentioned above, I got curious enough to look up the popularity of Evelyn's name since 2003. Here are the years and the popularity ranks:
2004 - 84th
2005 - 71st
2006 - 65th
2007 - 55th
2008 - 54th
I guess it's no wonder I've been hearing Evelyn's name more often. (In 2001, her name wasn't even in the top 100.)

I won't completely omit Julia from this post. Julia's name was ranked 40th in 2008. The popularity of her name actually went down last year. It had been holding strong in the 30's for the past decade.

Evelyn's 5th Birthday

Evelyn had a day-long birthday celebration today. It all started in preschool, where she had a small "party" with her little friends. The party was very simple. The class sang "Happy Birthday" to Evelyn, and then everyone had brownies, ice cream and lemonade. Julia wasn't interested in the brownie, but she ate a healthy serving of vanilla ice cream.

Lucky for Evelyn, Wednesday is her gymnastics day. Evelyn insisted that we bring cupcakes and princess rings for the three other girls in her class to celebrate her birthday. Can you guess what color the frosting the cupcakes had? Yup - purple. The girls loved their rings and devoured the cupcakes.

Evelyn chose to have her birthday dinner at IHOP, where she had her favorite meal of baby cakes (with butter pecan syrup) and sausage. Then it was time for presents and birthday cake at home. Evelyn's presents seemed to have a purple theme this year - lots of purple clothes, toys and wrapping paper. The little bookworm also got several books. Evelyn requested a chocolate train cake with a purple locomotive and tender. The number on the tender was a 5, of course.

Since Julia had a long day with no afternoon nap, she went to bed during the opening of the presents and completely missed out on cake and ice cream. That's okay - there are plenty of leftovers!

A New Way to Eat Supper

As the day goes on, Evelyn eats less and less at her meals. For breakfast, Evelyn eats like gang-busters. She has a morning snack, and she usually eats most of her lunch. She heartily eats her afternoon snack, but by the time supper rolls around, she's pretty much done for the day. I feel like I'm serving a bird with the small amount of food I put on her plate for dinner.

Tonight we had leftovers, and Evelyn gets pretty picky about leftovers. I decided to avoid a food battle and serve up something I knew Evelyn would eat: a slice of cheese, butterfly crackers and cinnamon applesauce. True, Evelyn ate this "meal" more heartily than she would have the leftovers Troy and I were eating. But! She found a new way to get rid of the food on her plate - Julia. It all started when Evelyn said, "Can Julia eat cheese?" Before we knew it, Evelyn continued giving Julia nibbles of her supper, and Julia kept scarfing the nibbles down. As I've mentioned before, Julia is not one to turn down food, and table food appears to be no exception. Plus, now Evelyn has a new way to clean her plate - give her food to her sister.

Goosing Strangers

Today was the day the whole family was supposed to see a Cardinals baseball game in D.C. The weather simply did not want to cooperate, though. It has been a very rainy spring, and today was no different. However, Troy and I thought we saw a break in the weather that might last long enough to get the game in. We packed up the girls and their belongings, and then we headed for the Metro station.

The train ride to the stadium was uneventful. When we stepped off the train, though, we noticed several baseball fans waiting for the train to take them home. Not a good sign. We went up to street level to see what the weather was doing . . . raining. And there were lots of people walking to the Metro station from the baseball stadium. We decided to join the crowd and headed back to the trains.

The train for the ride home was packed. Julia was in her stroller, which was in the aisle. Like I said, the train was very full, and there was a man standing with his back to Julia's stroller. It wasn't long before Julia reached up under his jacket to touch him. It looked like she was trying to goose him! Oh, it was a long train ride, trying to keep Julia from touching that guy. Eventually the crowd thinned out, and we didn't have to force Julia to keep her hands to herself.

New Foods

As a 12-month old, Julia is venturing into the world of new foods. Her doctor recommended giving her the same things we eat, as long as they are conducive to a little one who needs to gum her food. Julia still only has two teeth, so there's a lot of gumming going on.

In the past week, some of the new foods Julia has tried are crackers, bread, banana and avocado. Her entire meal is not table food - most of her breakfast, lunch and dinner is baby cereal and mushed-up baby food. However, she is definitely tackling new tastes and textures. The only new food that she hasn't made a face at is avocado. My guess is because avocados are, for the most part, tasteless.

Julia is also slowly transitioning from formula to whole milk. Like everything else that has to do with food, she has no complaints. The only problem is when I try to give Julia whole milk in a sippy cup. It's time to wean her from the bottle, and she has made it very clear to me that she prefers bottles. Introducing new foods is going smoothly, but the sippy cup will be more of a battle.