23 months! (AKA almost 2 years old!)

Julia turned 23 months in November! And her 2nd birthday is rapidly approaching!

I can't even begin to say how crazy that is. Time flies, peeps. Flies.

• Julia was hobbit for Halloween (more on that soon, hopefully). She has been having a lot of fun with the cloak I made her. She puts it on and asks for "Hobbit music, please!" and then dances around quite cutely, swirling the cloak around her as she spins.
• Julia will to feed herself (unless it was something she loved) took a nosedive in recent months. Erik's dream restaurant of an establishment where servers servants literally feed you (majorly creepy) actually started to sound like an appealing place for our family to frequent for Julia to utilize their services, since, as all parents know, it's hard to feed yourself when you're busy battling to feed your capable but lazy disinterested toddler. It wouldn't be so hard to feed her if every time a bite came near her mouth she didn't shut her eyes, clamp her lips, shake her head, and wave us off. Yeah. So, we developed an ingenious spin on the "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo"-this-spoonful's-a-train-and-your-mouth's-a-tunnel game. We named the trains entering her mouth! Namely, Thomas, James, Percy, and Gordon. They taste so much better than generic trains and airplanes! But why stop at the trains from Thomas the Tank Engine? Might as well eat Sir Topham Hatt and Perkins, too! Cannibalism smannibalism. And why stop at that? Might as well eat all the Mickey and Sesame Street characters, right? Oh, and this bite tastes extra good because it's Aunt Meghan! And Uncle Erik! And Baby G! Yes, we have stooped pretty low. Julia is figuratively eating her family members, including her unborn baby cousin, because we want her to eat more of her beans. And sweet potatoes. I would be ashamed if it didn't work so beautifully. For what it's worth, Baby G is welcome to eat our family someday if it helps.
• Speaking of baby G, Julia loves to talk about her cousin. How she is going to hold him/her and if she/he cries she will rock him/her. She says, "It's okay. It's okay, baby. Don't cry!" And then she busts out rock-a-bye baby, rocking her empty arms. So. cute. She also said that she was going to go get baby Grayless, and we asked her how, and she said, "Out of Meghan's belly!" So, watch out, Meghan, if Julia runs toward your bump with a cousin-crazed look in her eyes. When we were talking about the baby, we asked Julia who Baby G's mommy and daddy are. The daddy, according to Julia? "Jesus." This is going to be one holy cousin. Does that make Julia a modern John the Baptist? I should have known when I saw the camel hair coat, locust, and honey on Julia's Christmas list.
• We were getting our advent wreath down from the attic and the candles had melted into it (sadness! note to self: do not store wax in hot places, especially on top of things that you care about). I was upset when I saw it, but Julia was upset for a different reason. "Oh, no! Mommy! My Christmas tree! You broke my Christmas tree! It's okay, Mommy! You can fix it! You can do it!" I guess with the evergreen and red berries, it did look like a small Christmas tree that got mutilated in a doughnut press. As I successfully pulled the candles out of the wreath with minimal loss of foliage and berries, Julia kept cheering me, "Good job, Mommy! You did it! You fixed my Christmas tree! It's so beautiful!" When she saw the large decorative stocking with a snowman on it that we were given at the hospital when she was born as a fun gift to put the baby in and take photos, Julia got really excited: "My nightgown! Oh, how beautiful! How pretty! I loooove it!" She held it in front of her, "Mommy, look at my nightgown!" Nightgown? No one routinely wears one around here, except Aaron (just kidding!). I have a few that I wear in the warmer weather, but I don't recall ever talking to her about nightgowns. And where she'd get the idea that a large, decorative stocking is a nightgown? No clue. So funny.  
• Julia has been more vocal in church lately in, erm, some not so good ways. Like yelling loudly partway through mass, "Let's go home now, Daddy!" Before we left for church that morning, Aaron told her we were going to church and she said no. He said, "Julia, we are going to church to see Jesus. We love Jesus!" and she replied, "No! No love Jesus!" Yeep. Godparents, you may have your work cut out for you! ;-) Actually, though, she does love Jesus and is very good when we pray and learn about God and she likes to participate. We've been trying to catechize her more as she's gotten older, like making sure she knows God made her and who the three person of the trinity are. When asked what the Eucharist is, she responds, "The body and blood of Jesus!" Except for one time when she said, "The body and blood of Goofy!" and laughed really hard. Not even two and making bad religious jokes. O_o
• Speaking of making jokes, Julia has an awesome sense of humor. She often cracks jokes, from putting spaghetti above her lip and saying, "Look at my moustache!" to adding her own verse to the Wheels on the Bus: "The balls on the bus say, 'Leave us on Julia's tree! Leave us on Julia's tree! Leave us on Julia's tree!" (based on the ornaments on her Christmas tree). I'm always amazed, left wondering how she comes up with this sort of thing!
• Julia has taken to calling many things "yucky" or "gross" if she doesn't like them. Of course, this applies to a lot of food (see my earlier bullet) but also applies to almost anything she doesn't like. We were playing with a set of wooden bears she has that you can switch out their clothes and faces, and Julia was trying to pick a face for the Daddy bear. I was feeling devious, so I palmed the "happy face" and left her with "sad," "angry," "shocked," and "sleepy" to choose from. She refused to choose from her terrible options and just kept scouring the box for the "happy" face. Not wanting to be too mean, I returned the "happy" face to the line-up. She happily picked it up and added it to the daddy bear, before gathering all the remaining faces, and saying, "These are gross! I don't like them." I responded, "They're gross?" "Yes," She said. "I'm going to throw them in the trash." Luckily, she didn't. 

We love you, Julia! You're our sweet, funny girl!