As I mentioned earlier, Julia just started walking. She has been practicing a lot over the past five days, toddling all over the place. Julia now walks so well that the only thing that stops her is when something is in the way.
This video was taken this afternoon.
For about the past week, Julia would take one unassisted step to reach a toy on a table or the couch. Today, she challenged herself and took several steps before falling down. She is simply thrilled with her new mode of transportation.
The Texas Rangers played the Orioles this afternoon, and we headed up to Baltimore to see Evelyn's favorite baseball team.
This was everyone's first trip to Camden Yards, so I just had to take a picture of the front of the stadium. Evelyn completed the photo op.
There was no way we girls were going to wear anything but red, white and blue to today's game - we had to show support for our team. Troy even found a Rangers baseball cap for me to wear, just so there wouldn't be any confusion about which team we were rooting for.
We all had our share of stadium fare at today's game: hot dog, chicken fingers, fries (Julia is munching on one in the picture below), lemonade, peanuts and ice cream. Thankfully the four of us shared all of that food, so nobody ended up with a tummy ache.
Evelyn has been to so many baseball games that I've lost count. She knows how to watch the game and be considerate of the other fans. As for Julia, this is only her third game. And she's a baby. A baby who likes to crawl around and get into trouble. That said, Julia did amazingly well at today's game. She was perfectly content hanging out on me, eating, or playing with her sippy cup of water, or yelling, or clapping, or waving to the people around us.
Even though our Rangers lost the game 7-0, we still had fun. Here's proof that we were still in good spirits at the end of the game:
The weather this morning was too perfect to not go to Sugarloaf Mountain. After Troy and I decided to tackle a hiking adventure, I packed a picnic lunch, and we scooted out the door. We have found that the trails aren't too busy in the morning - usually before lunch - and that was the case again today. We started our hike around 11:15 this morning, and hardly anyone else was on our favorite trail.
Even though we already have several pictures of various Sugarloaf Mountain hiking trips, I couldn't leave the camera at home. Here are some of my favorites from today:
I carried Julia on the way up, and Troy carried her on the way down. An additional 25 pounds makes a huge difference when you're climbing a mountain!
Evelyn thought this looked like a good place to take a picture. I thought it looked like a good place to take a break.
Here's Julia, our newest rock climber. This proved to be more of a challenge than she wanted, especially after nearly falling backwards a couple of times. Thank goodness I was there to catch her!
I helped the little adventurer find a shady rock to sit on. She didn't move from this spot, playing with pebbles on the ground. Here she is, happily showing off one of her finds.
Julia frequently goes shopping at the grocery store with me, but today was the first time she got upset. See, she now recognizes all sorts of different foods and their containers or wrappers. So she had a hard time understanding why all of this yummy food (and milk!) was behind her in the shopping cart, but I wouldn't let her eat any. She fussed quite a bit, including crying real tears, but somehow she figured out she wasn't going to get to eat anything while at the store. In my opinion, that's a very good lesson to learn, it's just tough when Julia is so young.
Today was a rough day for Evelyn.
Her first incident occurred in the cafeteria at lunch time. As she sat down at her table, she scooted over to make room for a friend. While sliding down the seat, Evelyn leaned against what she thought was the back of the seat. The picnic-table style seat doesn't have anything for her to lean against, so she fell backwards, right off of her seat. She hit her head on the floor, and then she cried and cried. Whenever a student hits his or her head, it's an automatic pass to the nurse's office. That's where Evelyn ate her lunch, supervised by the nurse to make sure everything was alright. Evelyn was fine (she doesn't even have a bump from where she bonked the floor), and she was able to join her friends for recess.
The second thing happened at the back-to-school picnic this evening. The weather couldn't have been better, and there was a pretty big turn-out for tonight's event. Our family of four enjoyed the pizza and music, followed by fun on the playground equipment and the soccer field. By 7:30, Julia was ready to leave, so Troy headed home with her. I stayed at the school with Evelyn so she could play a bit longer. I chatted with a couple of moms while Evelyn monkeyed around on the bars and slides. Before long, I couldn't see Evelyn anywhere. After a few minutes, I started to get concerned. Who should walk up to me right about then but the principal with a crying Evelyn in tow. She had wandered pretty far from where I was, and she got scared because she couldn't find me. Thankfully she was able to tell the principal what I was wearing, and he was able to spot me in the crowd of parents and students.
The poor girl had quite a trying day. Hopefully her Friday will be much better!
Whenever you want to get a picture of Julia doing something specific (like standing by herself), you have to be quick. She is a baby on a mission, with places to go and things to do. She changes her activities fairly often. This makes picture-taking a little tricky.
Lately, I've felt like the paparazzi, taking my camera with me all around the house, hoping to get a shot of Julia standing up. I finally got her this morning! There she was, standing in the kitchen, and the camera was right there on the counter. So here's proof that our little Sunshine can stand up on her own:
