Socialites!

Julia and I got bit by the social bug this month. Next month? We are going to be social recluses to recover from all the visiting we've been doing!

First stop this month was to Snellville to hang out with Yvonne and McKenzy (her 4-hrs apart BFF). McKenzy has far surpassed Julia in height and weight, but as you can see from the picture, Julia is not offended and still loves McKenzy.

Julia also met one of her many future boyfriends, Bennett, who is 6 weeks old and is the same height and weight as 3-month-old Julia.

Since Julia is so good in the car, I figured why not exploit this excellent opportunity and headed to Kentucky. On the way we stopped in Oak Ridge to see her Papa and Tya and cousins.

Here is Papa making Julia smile. (PS I have no idea why this picture is so big!)

Julia's cousins Natalie (who is practicing to be a stripper fairy) and Kaitlyn.

Uncle Tommy

 Aunt Krista and Cousin Miles

Tya and Cousin Quinn who is madly in love with Julia since she spent a week with us in Atlanta

Our final destination was Richmond, KY where Elizabeth is currently packing up her house to move to Louisiana. Since she has visited me SO many times in Atlanta, I decided it was high time to get myself to Kentucky!

Julia and Elle are 6 months apart. They are also destined to be BFFs. (We have already got Julia engaged to multiple boys and BFF's with a bizillion girls. Is that bad?)

Julia LOVED this exersaucer, especially after we put a box underneath her feet so she could reach. Aloysia liked playing the big sister and helped little Julia find the mobiles. 

Meanwhile Elle kept going straight for Julia's feet. I'm not sure if she wanted to eat the socks or the toes, but I didn't let her eat either. Do you see the fear in Julia's eyes and the determination in Elle's?

While I was visiting Elizabeth, our friend Julia and her family also stopped through Kentucky. So Julia and Julia finally got to meet! Julia is the 3rd Mormon oboist to get a doctorate. Yes, there were 3 of us all in the same house. If a bomb had hit and killed us all, it would have definitely had a statistical impact on the world.

Julia's daughter was named Elizabeth. Talk about confusion in the household! One of them has to name their next daughter "Lara" to round it all out.

The day I got home my cousin Ashley, her hubby Mike, and their daughter Lizzy arrived from Mississippi.

We went to the aquarium, and I somehow got Ashley to feed my baby for me.

Greg and the HUGE fish!

I die laughing every time I look at this picture. Is this a face only a mother can love? I kept taking pictures of her with the flash on in the darkened aquarium room. Her face obviously says, "Mom, stop annoying me! Jeez!"

Lizzy is 2 1/2 and she also loved the aquarium. I think she's trying to find Nemo.

We celebrated Lizzy's half birthday with a Princess Party! Her birthday is on Christmas Eve, so her parents like to make a big deal out of her half birthday too! It was good practice for me too because I am sure I have plenty of princess birthday parties coming up...for Greg, of course! :)

And here's just a few bonus pictures because I think they're cute.

Bundled up in her towel after a bath

She's totally got this ball thing figured out

Should motherhood be this easy?

Scratch that 9-hour milestone, Julia slept TEN HOURS last night! I think she just hit 10 lbs which was the magic number for getting her to sleep through the night. Either that, or it's the magic pajamas.

At 10pm Julia is ready for bed. We put her in her crib wide awake, and within a few minutes she puts herself to sleep.

Is that too easy?

Then in the morning she plays for about an hour. I put her back in her crib with her eyes wide open, and within a few minutes she is asleep for another 4 hours.

Again, ridiculously easy, right?

Now if only I could get her to change her own diapers and make her own bottles...

Milestones of Cuteness

Milestone #1: Julia SLEPT 9 HOURS LAST NIGHT! In a row. Yep, I'm pretty much more in love than ever.

I think that is definitely "sleeps through the night" sticker worthy!

 Milestone #2: 12 weeks tomorrow (and in case you didn't realize she was a baby, we labeled this picture for you!)

Milestone #3: Growing her cheeks so big they droop down!

Milestone #4: Rolling from her tummy to her back (perhaps more accurately described as "falling" but "rolling" sounds so much more advanced!)

Milestone #5: Holding her head up in spite of all that weight on her cheeks!

Milestone #6: Seeing her first deer at Line Creek. For some reason my calendar didn't come with a sticker marking this milestone!

What she doesn't realize and what you don't realize is that she is being photographed with the deer in the background. Yeah, the deer kind of blurred out. But that does bring me to another milestone...

Milestone #7: Growing an equally as large second chin!

Milestone #8: Growing a flower out of her head. Okay, it's just a cute picture. 

As is this one:

The Real Milestone #8: Sitting up like a grown-up. Hmmm...see any family resemblance here?

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

Greg actually got Memorial Day off and so we decided to throw the baby in the car and hightail it out of Georgia! Where should we go? I know...where the weather is hotter and the humidity is unbearable...Mississippi! 

We thought Julia should meet her great grandmas, aka Greg's grandmas, since they are the only living grandparents on both of our sides. Fortunately they both live in Mississippi about 3 hours apart from each other. Did you know Greg was Mississippi bred? (Notice I did not say inbred.) 

Greg got out of work late Friday night, so we stopped at the cheapest hotel in Tuscaloosa, AL. Needless to say, it was pretty gross.

Julia got her own queen-sized bed which she thought was pretty cool.

Um yeah, that is a huge crack in the ceiling and a whole lot of dirt on the wall. We thought we'd better get Julia used to the fact that her parents are cheapskates right off the bat. We like to tell our little baby girl, "Only the cheapest for you!"

We headed to Forest, MS Saturday morning and got there in time for lunch. The minute Grandma McAlpin (Betty's mom) held Julia, Julia just smiled and beamed at her. It was adorable!

Seriously adorable.

Grandma McAlpin is 92-years-old, and she made us a 9-course lunch for just the three of us. Greg had warned me that his grandma makes more food than could possibly be consumed by a human, but I didn't believe him until I had lunch at her house. And he tells me that this was a light lunch compared to her younger days. We had fruit salad, potato salad, butter beans, sausage, rice/jalapeno/corn casserole, creamed corn, celery with pimento cheese, rolls, and barbecue ribs. Unbelievable!

Grandma McAlpin's father owned a chicken dynasty in Forest, MS with lots of chicken coops and a chicken packaging plant called "Lady Forest Farms." Greg would come and visit his grandparents here every year when it was a thriving chicken farm.

Greg told me how he used to shoot guns at this here pond.

And this is a now empty chicken coop. The orange feeders would drop down to chicken-level.

A Kansas girl at heart, I always love me a big ole tractor!

Greg was so happy to show me around.

And since it was Memorial Day, we went to visit the gravesite of his Papa (pronounced Pa-Paw) McAlpin. He sounds like he was the most amazing grandpa and spoiled those Dahl kids rotten. He even bought ponies for his farm so his grandkids could ride them when they came to visit!

The now-closed-down Lady Forest Farms chicken packaging plant. The woman's silhouette is rumored to be Betty's. I'm not sure why it's a rumor. 

Okay, so funny story. This fall I was talking to my cousin Ashley who had just moved to Mississippi for her husband's job. 

I said, "Where is Mike working?" 

She said, "Oh, just a small town in MS...you wouldn't know it. Forest, MS." 

I said, "SHUT UP! That is where Greg's grandma lives!!!!"

How random is that? So we spent Saturday night with them and got to meet Ashley and Mike's adorable 2-yr-old daughter Lizzy.

Ashley, Mike and Lizzy

2nd cousins Lara and Ashley

3rd cousins Julia and Lizzy

Greg fell in love with Lizzy as he does with all little girls. Such a sucker!

Sunday morning we drove to Oxford, home of Ole Miss, to see Grandma Dahl (Tom's mom).

Julia was a bit grumpy when they first met, but quickly warmed up to her wonderful great grandma!

And we gave her a bath in Grandma Dahl's little blue bathroom sink. It was adorable!

Grandma Dahl is no slouch in kitchen either and spoiled us rotten with amazing foods. I don't know why Greg ever married me with his grandmas setting such a high standard of cooking. If it takes longer than 15 minutes and has more than 5 ingredients, I'm out!

We had the best time hanging out with grandmas and having them shower the three of us with love and good southern cooking!

And I'm sure you're all wondering...Julia was a perfect angel the whole trip. She slept the entire time we drove and never made a peep. She's not a very good napper at home, so those long day naps were some of my best parenting moments so far!