we have a climber.

Julianna and I were sitting on the front porch this afternoon. We were watching Josh weed the garden and my brother was mowing our grass. She was sitting in her cute little pink chair from that Kate bought her for her birthday.

She was content just sitting in her chair, drinking her juice for about 10-15 minutes then she got restless. She stood beside her chair and then all of the sudden started climbing on her chair. She climbed all the way up and stood up so she could see everything. I was beyond surprised because this is the same child that refused to climb off of a matteras that was on the floor at daycare. Wow.

And to make the afternoon even more interesting... when we went inside, Julianna and I played downstairs while Josh went upstairs to turn on the washing machine. Julianna was at the bottom of the stairs when she spotted her daddy. She got super excited and then proceeded to climb all the way to the top of the stairs to get to her daddy! Again, super surprised mom and dad. Then she gave it a second go and we got it recordedt his time:

saturday morning

Saturday mornings are just Julianna and I. Josh works with my dad at one of his stores on Saturday mornings to make a little extra cash + he gets to hang out with his favorite father-in-law. Win, win!!

This morning, Julianna let mommy "sleep in" until 7. I woke up to hear her having the cutest conversation with herself. It was adorable and I wish I could have recorded it. I even got a shower before she was ready to get out of bed. Awesome, because that never happens on Saturday morning. My shower usually takes place during naptime.

Julianna was a goof ball during breakfast this morning. She kept looking at me with a super cheesy grin:

After breakfast was playtime. She continued to go backwards on her little toy, threw plastic eggs, and dragged the remote controls off of the couch. She's obsessed with one plastic egg in particular. She loves the see-through green one. Josh was putting it back in her Easter basket last night, mixing up all of the eggs, and then she dug through them all to find her special egg. The egg was getting attention again this morning:

And right before we left for some errands, I was putting my makeup on in the bathroom. She was playing on the floor and then decided she would go through all of the cabinets and drawers. Do you put locks on every cabinet and drawer in your house??? We have them on some but not all. Any advice, mommas?

hey!!

driving backwards & random sunburn

Julianna, Josh, and I spent awhile just relaxing and playing outside this evening. Julianna will still only go backwards on her little toy and in her walker. When we walk with her hands, she walks forward. I'm not really sure what the deal is and why she'll only go backwards with wheels attached?! Nonetheless, we had a nice time enjoying the beautiful weather! I would have enjoyed it even more if I didn't have a random streak of sunburn on my leg. We had field day at school today so I spent the majority of the day in the sun. Little did I know, the way I had my legs crossed for too long was slowly turning one section of my right leg a nasty cherry red. How wonderful!

diggin' up dirt

This week in Julianna's class at daycare, they are learning about plants and soil. Sounds familiar... because that's what we've been learning about in my classroom. Of course, what 1 year olds and 8 year olds are learning is much different. Julianna's class got to touch and play with the soil. They also planted seeds in their own cup of soil. Again, I really love that Julianna is having such awesome learning experiences at such a young age! Hopefully she'll be extra prepared when she learns about soil in the third grade!

Speaking of dirt, we've been doing a lot of dirt diggin' at the Soto house in the past few days. On Friday, we went out to Whitiker Farms Greenhouse to pick out a new tree for our frontyard. We planted a tree the spring before last but we killed it. Too much plant food. We decided to give it a go again and bought a Okame Cherry Tree. What it will look like:

And what our baby tree looks like now:

We also updated the flowers by our mailbox. We decided to go with new perennials. We usually put an annual at the mailbox but we decided to go the perennial route this year because they come back... which I think is great. I love seeing flowers come back the next year. It's a sweet surprise. New mailbox flowers:

And a few other pictures from our garden:

How Great Thou Art

Easter egg bash

On Saturday afternoon, Julianna went to an Easter party at Ashton and Ty's house (my brother Zach's little guys). They had an Easter egg bash for kids! Katie did a fabulous job of planning everything. She made the cutest cupcakes that were delicious! She made cute lollipop decorations that we made from pretty plastic, balloons, with a cardboard stick (you can awesome see the candies in the background):

She also made fun paper mache eggs for the kids to break open to find the candy hidden inside:

After we helped Julianna open her egg, Josh put half of the egg on his head. We tried to get a picture of Julianna with it on her head but as you can see above... she wasn't interested!! An Easter egg bash wouldn't be complete without an egg hunt so Julianna got to go on her second egg hunt.

Overall, our little family had a fantastic Easter together. We really enjoyed the egg hunts and candy but we were able to truly celebrate the real meaning behind the season. I'm excited to share more about it with Julianna as she grows! I hope your family had a wonderful Easter as well!

Happy Easter!!

eggs

I'm amazed at some of the things Julianna does in her class at daycare. They do all sorts of art projects so this week they dyed Easter eggs! When her teacher asked me to send in boiled eggs for 12-18 month old to dye, I was pretty surprised. But they made it happen! Julianna dyed 4 eggs... with help of course. But she dropped in the eggs in the dye cup. She even picked which colors she wanted. I love that her daycare lets her do fun, creative activities! :)

1st birthday party pictures