Several posts...

February 13th, 2006 JoElle is picking up on so many more words!
She loves to say "bubbles!" while also signing bubbles; JoElle also says "Bible" and "diaper" although diaper sounds more like "biper" to me! JoElle is asking us constantly what "that" is, she can't get enough of the world around her!
She can make a sheep sound, "baah, baah"; bark like a dog "woof woof" quack like a duck "quack quack" and roar like a lion "roar roar" ! It is so cute!!
JoElle is pretty good at saying ball and duck now. She also signs duck, although she has to modify it a little because it entails only two fingers and your thumb, she still uses all her fingers and her thumb.
We have been to three Kindermusik Sign and Sign classes. I think she probably knows light now, too. Oh yeah, she can say "Light" as well. She enjoys the time with Peyton, singing and learning signs.
Two weekends ago, JoElle's granny was holding her at Don Pablos and kissing on her, and JoElle turned to granny and signed "all done" to her! It was too cute! Of course, Granny didn't know what she was saying, so we had to tell her JoElle is saying she is "all done!" This is the first time JoElle has used all done outside of being all done with food or the bath. She is really connecting ideas together.
Last Thursday, Daddy fed JoElle dinner and then she started playing. About 10 minutes later she went to Daddy and signed "Eat" and then a minute later "more" so Daddy got her some more green beans and she was so excited that he understood her!
How fascinating it is to watch and help her to learn and discover the world around her! JoElle is in love with books. She will spend forever reading through books on her own. In the car, her two favorite books right now are the Dora book "Choo Choo" that she can push the buttons to make the train sounds, and a Maisy book "Where are Maisy's Friends?" She lifts the flaps up to find the elephant hiding in the closet, and then she will point to the elephant on her window. If I could make an elephant noise, I am sure she would be doing that too!
I can't believe this, but the lady who fixes the food at JoElle's school gave her CHEESE AGAIN. After all that we went through before I just cannot believe they still do not understand. Please pray for this situation as we are both quite frustrated with these individuals.

January 25, 2006 JoElle learned a new word at school- "diaper"!
According to JoElle's teachers, she said "diaper" today!
Last night sheplayed with Daddy for the longest with her balls; she just kept saying over and over again "Ba, ba BA" She can't quite get the "ll" part, but she sure was yelling it as loudly as she could!

January 23, 2006 JoElle went for her 1 year old check up today,
She got a few more shots, did pretty well, she screamed more this time than ever before, but still got over it quickly. JoElle weighs 20 lb 4 oz and is 29 inches long (75 percentile for heigth and 50 percentile for weight); she gained a half a pound in a little over a week, when we took her to the Dr about a week and a half ago after the milk incident, she only weighed 19 lbs 11 oz. She has been chowing down over the past week.
The funniest thing happened today; JoElle saw her pretty orange dress that she wore at her birthday party, and she took it down, so I put it on her over her pants and shirt. I took it back off a few minutes later (since she was fully dressed underneath!) and she got really upset! So I put it back on her, and she was instantaneously happy again! She is exerting her wishes, it was really cute! Normally we just ignore her little tantrums and they go away just as quickly as they start, but I only took her dress off because I didn't think she would care, but boy did she want to keep it on!
Tonight JoElle grabbed Daddy's hand so that he would walk around the house with her, holding his hand. She just started doing this last week; it is so precious!
Hey great news! We starting giving her Lactaid milk (milk without the lactose in it, for grownups) and she is doing great! NO tummy problems, no messy diapers at all, so I think this is finally a success and she will be off of her lactose-free formula within the week! Now, as far as getting her off a bottle, that is another story! We tried tonight to only give her milk to her in her cup, but she refused to go to sleep, she cried instead, which she never does when she is ready to go to bed, so I gave her milk to her in her bottle, she was happy and after playing a little more, laid down to sleep for daddy. She is weaned off the bottle at daycare, she only drinks her milk from a cup since all the other kids are older and only use cups.
Ok so if JoElle has a sister one day, Tim and I like the name Alexia. We still think the name Jeremiah will be great if we have a boy.
JoElle and I will be starting a baby Sign and Sing Kindermusik class this Saturday with Aunt Ana and cousin Peyton. I have been wanting to go to a Kindermusik class for months now, but they were all in the middle of the week during the day for her age, so FINALLY they have a class on Satrudays for all of us working mommas! I was beginning to think that people think only stay at home moms like to spend this kind of time with their kids! The class will help her to continue learning signs and utilize them; I am really looking forward to it!

January 21st, 2006 JoElle uses 8 spoken words and 4 signed words
She says " Dada, Mama, hi, bye, that, uh-oh, wow", and occasionally " duck" She can ALMOST say "fish" right now it still sounds like "sh"! And she can almost say "ball" She is trying so hard!
JoElle also signs 4 words to us: Milk, eat, more, and all done! It is so cool, she learned the last three all during this week that she turned 1. She also uses these signs at daycare to communicate with her teachers. This morning, she got to spend quality time alone with Daddy, and when he asked her if she wanted to eat, she started to sign the word "eat" to him. Then, when she was almost done with the food she had in her mouth, she signed "more" to Daddy. Then,in the tub, she thought Daddy was signing "milk" to her because he was wringing out a washcloth (the sign for milk looks like you are milking a cow) so she started to get upset, wanting her bottle. So she signed "all done" to him, but Daddy didn't know she knew this sign yet, since we just started introducing it to her last week, so he started waving at her, thinking she was waving at him! JoElle smiled at him, probably thinking he was silly for telling her Hi when she was telling him she was all done!!
Thanks for all the birthday gifts! Some of her favorite presents she received were the two books, both Dora books, she loves them both! She devours books, it is so precious to watch her with books, she loves to be read to, she loves to study the words on the page and the pictures, turn the pages, and point to the items on the pages and ask "that?"
One of her Dora books, given by Jeff, makes sounds and talks when you push buttons, she loves it! Especially when the choo choo train is trying to chug his way up the hill, she starts dancing, she picked up this new dance Friday 1/20/06, she starts bouncing her head and shoulders to the side, it is hilarious! I bet one of her teachers taught her this dance, they love to listen to music at school!
Probably her other fave gift right now is the Doodle Pro that Jeff's brother, Michael, gave her. She cherishes it, loves to carry it around and doodle on the magnetic board. After only showing her how to write on it twice, she is a pro! It is so cute, she will write and draw on it for up to 30 minutes at a time! Then she will show me her accomplishment, I tell her "how pretty!"and she starts cheesing! She is so proud of herself! Great gifts, Gaby! thanks!
Her 3rd molar broke through yesterday, 1/20/06, the top right one. She now has 11 teeth, she is almost done, only 5 more to go until her 2 year old molars come in! This time, she hasn't been very fussy, it was much better than all her other teeth.
Her appetite really picked up this week, she is devouring any and all food she can get her hands on and in addition she wants to drink up to 10 ounces of milk at a time! She is making up for last week when she couldn't eat from daycare giving her milk.
On Thursday, Jan 19th, we were driving down Collins (JoElle gets to face forward now!) and she started waving to a lady in the car next to us!

Highlights of JoElle's First Year

At her 1 year checkup, JoElle weighed 20 lbs. 4 oz and is 29 inches long. Can you believe that she more than doubled in weight in just a year!?!?
JoElle's First Birthday Party~ Sunday, January 15th, 2006 at My Gym JoElle had her first birthday party, what fun it was! Check out some pics.
JoElle's Milestones over the past few months:
Thanksgiving Day- 10 Months, 1 week: JoElle started walking!
JoElle had been taking several step at a time for several weeks prior to this, but on Thanksgiving she took off and walked around the kitchen (although still wobbly, she keeps standing back up when she falls and walks some more!)
JOELLE TOOK HER FIRST STEPS ALL BY HERSELF! (9 months)
She took her first unassisted step Friday, October 21st, at home with Daddy. Then on October 27th, she was taking more steps at daycare in the toddler room. They told us she has been taking steps for the past several days up there with them!
JoElle FINALLY said Mama! I have been waiting for this day since she was born!! After Daddy and I have been trying to coax her to say it, she finally did Nov 19th and then again Nov 20th! It's about time! She has been saying "Dada" forever!
On Decmber 9, 2005, JoElle made her first sign, she signed "milk" to me! We had been working on learning baby sign language, we started with milk as it is probably still the most important thing for JoElle, even though she loves food, too!
JoElle was fussing and I didn't know what she wanted because she had just had a bottle an hour before, she started signing "milk, milk" but it took a moment to register in my mind that she was communicating with me that she wanted her milk! Then when I was making the bottle, she frantically signed "MILK, MILK, MILK!" over and over telling me, "hurry up, Momma!"
It is so awesome that she can communicate in this way with us! We are now working on "eat" and "more" because JoElle seems to use her sign for "milk" to mean that she wants somethingin front of her or she wants food, so we are teaching her the difference between "milk" and "eating" food!
Dec 27th, Daddy was playing with JoElle while I napped and she did the same with him, he asked her what do you want, baby, what do you need? She paused, thought about it, and signed "milk" to him!
JoElle started saying "duck" on Dec. 12th, 2005 and "Uh-oh" pretty soon after. She also picked up "bye-bye" and "that" (to ask what something is) a while back (sometime in November); she also likes to roar whenver she sees a lion or bear, especially to her toy, Mr. Lion.
JoElle started waving around Nov 7th. She loves to wave at everybody, even the cars that go by when we are outside. Now she has perfected her wave (December) and she waves by touching her fingers to her palm, when she first started to wave, she waved like a queen at everyone!!
At 10 Months....
Lately, JoElle has been laughing a ton; she has picked up a new laught that sounds kinda fake, and she will go around laughing at anyone and anything. She tries to throw a little fit when we don't let her do something she wants to do, like eat the carpet, but she gets over it really quick. JoElle cries when Momma leaves the room, but she gets over that quick too!
JoElle was staying up much later, until 9:00 and sometimes 10:00 p.m. She wants to stay up and play with Mommy and Daddy. JoElle is already sleeping like a toddler, she is taking only one nap, from around 11:00 to 1:00 p.m. and that is it! But now she is going to sleep earlier, by 7:00, because she plays hard all day long in the toddler room. They have circle time, they play outside, they sing songs and they learn so much!
JoElle loves to push things around and rearrange the house and her daycare class. She pushed our trashcan around the kitchen the other day and she loves to play in the fridge!
JoElle learned how to use her walker, on September 20th; in fact, she turned her toy piano into a walker! She took the seat off and started pushing it to walk around! I can't believe she is so close to walking already. I wanted to cry becaues she is growing up so fast!!
JoElle started to stand up by herself without holding on to anything (7 months); She figured it out on Sunday, September 4th, when she was watching her cousin Peyton standing and walking all over the place. Then she started practicing her new skill all the time! JoElle can also stand up from sitting without holding on to anything, it's pretty impressive!
She loves to giggle and laugh, at pretty much anything really. Some things that make her laugh are: Daddy yawning, Mommy flipping her over, Mommy and Daddy laughing at her, the tv, her toys, riding in the car, Grandma, Peyton, any other kids....just about anything you can imagine makes her grin and giggle. JoElle is such a joyful baby; she is a huge blessing to us and everyone she comes in contact with. I pray for her that her joy will touch others hearts, especially those who do not have a personal relationship with our Saviour, Jesus. I pray that her love for others will bring others to love that Christ wants to show you.
JoElle has been crawling since she was 6 months and 1 week old! On August 3rd she started to actually crawl all over the place! Before that, she could only go a few crawls forward, and before that, many crawls backwards!! JoElle was rocking back and forth on all fours at 4 months, it took her two months to get the confidence and strength, but once she did, she just took off! She crawls and crawls and never looks back!
JoElle aslso started to pulling up to stand in her crib and everywhere else the same day she learned how to crawl. She likes to walk when we hold her hands. She is ready to just go! After a little over a month of this, now she can stand up in a split second, especially when we come in to her room to get her out of her crib, she scrambles up quickly and grins at us through the rails!

January 13th, 2006 JoElle is learning about animals at school
JoElle is learning how to "woof woof" like a puppy, she painted a cow all by herself in class, she is trying to quack like a duck, she likes to say duck, and she painted a yellow duck in class, too! They are also learning about cats and pigs. I think they may have been working on sheep because Friday she was saying "baa,baa" all evening long!
Aunt Ana and I baked and decorated JoElle's birthday cake for her First Birthday Party!! Yikes, I cannot believe she is almost a year old already! She looks like such a big girl now; she stopped looking like a baby several months ago, she looks like a little girl instead! We made her cake three-dimensional, with a caterpillar with different colors, striped, and polka dots. It is very cute!
Check out some pics of her devouring a cupcake while we were decorating her cake!

Thursday January 12th, 2006 More problems with dairy products....
So her new morning teacher in the toddler room is not quite comprehending what it means that JoElle CANNOT HAVE ANY MILK OR MILK PRODUCTS! AHHHH
So Tuesday I went to drop off snacks for her afternoon snack, since she cannot eat yogurt, and she was enjoying meatballs with rice. But then I looked at the rice, lo and behold, it was milky! I pointed this fact out to her teacher, who said, oh really? Then her teacher and a new teacher told me her diapers have been very loose that day. I told them "That's because you keep giving her milk and cheese and she is lactose intolerant" so I thought maybe they would get it FINALLY, but then Wednesday night JoElle threw up at home after refusing to eat dinner. When she won't eat green beans, I know we have a problem!
So, today, I dropped her off, reminded them again about NO MILK/DAIRY and told them she feels really sick AGAIN because of the milk they gave her...but call me if she gets worse.
I decided over break time to go up to the daycare to talk to the director about resolving this issue. She was trying to reach me at work to tell me JoElle was feeling bad, but I was already on my way!
We had a good discussion, then we had a discussion with the cook and the morning teacher, they are going to post it all over the place. Maybe we should put a sign around her neck "NO MILK!!"
All morning long she was trying to play, then she would go lay down on the floor, and her friend Trinity would go lay down next to her and pat her. Then when JoElle would lift up her head, Trinity would put her head back down! These little ones are just so sweet!
I took her up to my job to let my team know I wouldn't be there the rest of the day, everyone had a great time seeing her! She finally gave one other supervisor a smile and giggled at her. She wouldn't let me put her down. All afternoon at home, she wanted me to hold her. In fact this morning, she woke up a little early so I didn't have time to get dressed, and she refused to allow me to put her down so that I could get dressed, I gave her to Daddy, she still wanted me, but then ended up falling asleep on him after only a few minutes, so I knew she was not feeling well at all!
She was crying in so much pain this afternoon and there is no medication to give for it. I massaged her belly, we gave her apple juice, and I put a warm cloth over her belly, oh yeah and mylicon (gas) drops. She finally acted better after several hours and several dirty diapers...
January 9, 2006 1 year from our original due date :) Last time at this year I was miserable and praying for the contractions to actually pick up (they were so mild for an entire month, until they finally induced me on the 17th, her B-day)

January 8th, 2006 Picnic Time! Our first family picnic
Grandma wanted to go on a picnic, so we all met up at the duck pond at Trinity Park in Ft. Worth, Aunt Ana and Uncle Dan brought the fried chicken and a little picnic table for the kids. JoElle almost found a used hypodermic needle, yes that is very scary, but Grandma found it first and Uncle Dan disposed of it...
We had some excitement also because we tried JoElle on soy milk (since she is lactose intolerant and is almost a year old, I was trying to see what else she might be able to drink besides Lactose-Free formula), so that didn't go so well coming out, we had two MAJOR accidents at the duck pond. WOW, it was almost bad as the day we brought her home and she had a huge blowout from all the regular formula that she coulnd't digest... :)
Other than that, it was fun! JoElle enjoyed the ducks, she wanted to get in the water with them, she kept pointing at them saying "Du, du" (I guess she forgot the last sound is K!)

January 5, 2005 Cousin Isaiah's 8th Birthday Celebration
We spent time at Isaiah's house and JoElle played with her cousins. Check out the pics of JoElle, Elena, and Isaiah. JoElle gave Isaiah a book called "Critter Giggles" for his birthday, so he was telling us little ainmal jokes all night! She enjoyed the birthday cake, too!