After a busy Saturday we came home and washed Thomas' car. Well Thomas and Julia washed Thomas' car while I sat down and relaxed and took some pictures. 
Julia did a great job of helping and she was even ready to wash Mommy's car too. She definitely liked the bubbles.
We gave Julia her own washcloth but she preferred to just use her hands. 
Good thing it was almost bath time because the front of Julia's shirt and shorts were soaked by the time the car was clean. 
On Saturday we took Julia to Sprayground for the first time this year. Since my belly is so big Daddy got in the water with Julia this time. She had fun but didn't stay in the water for long. 
Daddy showed Julia how to stand on top of the water to stop it.
Daddy and Julia just playing in the water. 
Here's a few pictures I took of Julia yesterday playing with a sink full of bubbles. I meant to do this when we did the letter b but never got around to it that week. Her shirt got a bit wet but she had fun! I love the expression on her face in some of the pictures. She's such a cutie and we're having so much fun with her! 
This week we did D is for Dinosaur and we had fun. We decided to paint the letters again since we haven't painted since letter A. For letter B we used butterfly and bee stickers and for C we used cotton balls. Once we're finished Julia will have two alphabet books that she made on her own, one for capital letters and one for lowercase letters. 
Julia decided she wanted to paint both big D and little d and mommy just watched. 
This week we did big D with stickers and little d with the Do-A-Dot markers. She loves doing this activity each week.
We also sorted big D and little d letters. Julia did great with this activity as well. At the end of week she said D says 'dddd', C says 'cccc', B says 'bbbb', and A says 'aaaa.' She went through and did the sounds that the letters make which was really neat. Sometimes she'll say the c sound for the letter d but I'm so proud of how she's doing with her letters and sounds. 
On Monday we had a playdate at a friend's house and Julia had a blast playing in the two pools. Her water shoes worked out perfect and I'm so glad we had them. It was a perfect day for a water playdate since the temperature was about 90 degrees. At first Julia and Bradon were testing out the water but it didn't take long for them to get wet.
Julia and Bradon in the pool before they filled it up with the balls.
They had so much fun throwing all the balls into the pool. They picked up every ball and put them in the pool. I just love her big smile here and of course she's styling with her pink shades.
I LOVE the look on her face. She had so much fun and was a bit sad when it was time to leave.
Julia enjoyed riding on the little fish too.
The little water fountain on this pool reminds me a bit of Sprayground. We'll definitely have to go there again this summer. Thanks to my friend Leigh for having us over, Julia really had so much fun! 
On Saturday afternoon we set up the sprinkler in the yard since it was 90 degrees. We thought Julia would enjoy running through the sprinkler but she didn't like the feel of the rough grass on her feet. So on Sunday we went out and got her a pair of water shoes. We've been meaning to get her a pair of shoes for the pool anyways so now she's all sorted for summer fun. As soon as she got out of bed this morning she wanted to put on her new shoes which she calls flip flops and no hurt toes. I tried a pair on her a little while ago but she said 'hurt toes.' It was so cute as she definitely let me know that she didn't like them. Hey they even match her PJs.
Close up shot of her cute water shoes. She likes them!
I've been wanting to go strawberry picking for a while and we finally got to go on Saturday. We went to a place which was much closer to home but I don't think it was as good as the place we went last year.
Julia was a much bigger help this year compared to last year. She enjoyed holding her basket of strawberries and she didn't smash them in her hands. This place only just opened so they didn't have much for picking so they only allowed kids to pick. Hopefully next year it will be better.
Julia enjoyed showing off her strawberries.
We took a little break after picking strawberries to enjoy some ice cream and Julia admired the strawberries that she helped pick. We also bought some which were good but not as good as the ones we had last year.
Julia tasted one in the car before we left the strawberry farm. She thought it was delicious! 
Last night after we came home from dinner Thomas was watering the lawn a little with a hose and of course Julia wanted to help. She ended up getting pretty wet once she put in her hand in the water and she loved it. She just smiled and smiled and laughed and laughed. We got laughing pretty hard too!
Julia loved putting her hands in the flow of water which made the water spray everywhere and ended up getting her even more wet which she loved.
We had lots of fun this week doing B is for Butterfly. Here's Julia matching up the letters in the word butterfly and gluing them onto her paper that says butterfly. 
Showing off her finished product. She even colored the butterflies with some highlighters.
This week we also made a butterfly counting book. Each page has butterflies on it. She had to count the butterflies and then glue the correct number on that page. Of course we colored the butterflies once we finished matching the number of butterflies with the number. She does good at counting up to 10 but always skips number 7. So very cute!
We even used tissue paper to decorate this butterfly. Julia did such a great job at putting the tissue paper on her butterfly. I crumbled the tissue paper and dipped it in glue and she put it on her paper. I must say her butterfly looks awesome! We even hung it on the fridge but she soon took it off and wanted to take it with her.
We did so many 'Bb' activities this week that we did this on Saturday. Usually I only do activities Monday-Friday. Julia did such a great job of finding the big B and little b in this short story. Mommy found one and so did Daddy but Julia found the rest. I did the highlighting for her. I'm having lots of fun doing the letter of the week with Julia and so is she. Next week we're doing C is for caterpillar.
Yesterday my mom had a few hours to spare while waiting for her next flight here in Atlanta so Julia and I headed down to the airport to have lunch with her. At first Julia was a little shy but it didn't take long for her to warm up to Grandma. I asked Julia if she wanted to got to the airport and see Grandma and she said yes. We ran into some traffic on the way to the airport but nothing too bad. It's nice that I'm not working so we can do things like this at the last minute. 
As I said it didn't take long for Julia to warm up to Grandma. They had fun being silly after we ate lunch at Atlanta Bread. Even though our visit was short we're glad we got to spend a little bit of time with her. Who knows maybe she'll get stuck in Atlanta sometime when she's traveling again.
This past week we just started doing a letter a week and of course we started with letter a. Julia already knows all the capital letters and some of the lowercase letters. But I thought this would be a fun way to reinforce the ones she knows and learn the ones she doesn't know and start learning the sounds the letters make although she knows some of those too. Each day we did a few activities with big A and little a. Monday we started off by painting the letters and she decided she would paint big A but she wanted Mommy to paint little a. I took a few pictures throughout the week to show you a few things that we did. 
The next day after nap we worked on our big A and little a activities and Julia was excited to do some more things with the letters. She absolutely LOVED using these Do-A-Dot markers and even asked about them the next day when I said it was time to do some things with big A and little a. I think we'll be doing this activity each week for a while since it was a favorite. I was quite impressed with how well she did with putting the marker right in the circle. I showed her how to do one and she did the rest without any help. Such great eye hand coordination. 
We also used the computer a few days and she liked that as well. Here she is using starfall.com and putting the big A and little A in the correct baskets. 
On Friday Mommy made a big A and little a out of play-doh. Julia didn't help too much but enjoyed watching. 
As a special treat on Friday we made Apple Shakers. I cut up some apples and put them in a bag. Julia poured in some cinnamon and sugar and what else but shook them up. We both enjoyed eating them, they were yummy! Thanks to my friend Jenny for sharing the idea of doing a letter a week and for passing along some great websites for getting ideas. She's doing it with her son who is 6 months older and he enjoys learning the letters as well. Stay tuned since next week is the letter B.
Friday, April 29th we moved Julia into her big girl bed. Here she is helping Daddy get her new bed ready. She was excited to have a big bed just like Mommy and Daddy. It took a while to take apart her crib and set up the new bed so she got to bed a bit late on Friday night. Looking back we would have done it on a Saturday when there was more time but it all worked out fine. 
Here's Julia lying on her big bed before bath on Friday night. She kept saying 'big bed.' 
Does she look cute or what in her big bed? 
Reading a story in the big bed on Friday night. A few tears were shed by Mommy after I left the room as it's just another reminder of my little girl growing up. It was exciting but pretty sad as well. I remember bringing her home from the hospital and putting her in her crib and she looked so small in there and now she's in a bed...she's growing up and rather quickly. Gets me teary eyed just thinking about it. 
Saturday afternoon nap and I decided to take a picture to see how little my girl is compared to her bed. Let's just say she has plenty of room and there's lots of room for Mommy and Daddy to lay down when she gets upset in the middle of the night. The only trouble is I'll probably just fall asleep and stay there the rest of the night. 
Lately when Julia wakes up from her afternoon nap she wants to read another story. I snapped a picture of her right before we were about to read another Curious George book.
