Other Trip Highlights

We went to Utah for my brother's wedding, ended up staying longer for my grandmother's funeral. I'm doing separate posts for those events, but here are are the highlights of everything in between.Julia met Eli. Eli is the son of Robert's cousin, Jeremy and Sarah Nowland. They were due just a few days apart, but Julia came early and Eli came late, so they are 15 days apart. They were so cute together! Julia kept whacking Eli on the arm or holding his hand.

Julia got her first golf lesson and Robert greatly improved his game by playing 5 times (at real golf courses).

We visited the Oquirrh Mountain Temple with my family. The celestial room is beautiful and has an awesome chandelier!
Julia met her Great-Grandma Whitehurst. And finally, Julia put daddy to sleep

New Windows

It took us four months, but we finally got our new windows installed last week! We got new energy efficient windows in the entire house. Looking at the pictures I can already see three other benefits. One, they have screens (yeah, no bugs!), two, they are much easier to open (and they all do open, some of the old windows wouldn't open at all), and three they look nice. These aren't the best pictures, but it's good enough to tell how much nicer the new windows look.

Before

After

Happy-Birthday-to-me haircut

Before

After

Julia Swims

We took Julia in the pool for the first time Thursday. I put in her feet first to see how she would react, and at first she pulled them back, but then stuck them back in the water. I was pretty surprised how well she responded. I eventually put her almost all the way in and was still happy!

Happy 1/4th Birthday Julia!

Julia is three months old today, that's 1/4th of a year! I'm still amazed that this little person is really my baby. There are so many sweet moments that I'm so glad to have with Julia. I think the best part of my day is first thing in the morning when I walk into Julia's room. I come in and unswaddle her and she looks up at me and stops crying and gives me a big grin. Or maybe it's it at night when she falls asleep and looks so peaceful and beautiful.

She's so different now than when she was born, it really is amazing how fast they change. Some of her hobbies and interests include:

-Standing up on our laps, with our help of course

-Staring and looking around. At the wall, at people, at toys, at fans, at the TV. She especially likes the ladybug balloon in her room. She has become very aware that there is a whole world out there to see and she just can't get enough of it (which means getting her to sleep and eat when we're not at home has become a little more difficult since she is always so distracted)

-Talking. She loves to babble stories to me. Yesterday I was sitting at the playground with her and she was telling me a very long story. A little girl came up asked if Julia was crying and I said "no, she's telling me a story." So the little girl said, "oh, she's telling you a story of being married to a prince." So apparently Julia has dreams of being a princess.

-Sleeping at night! It's normal for her to go 5-7 hours at a time now. It's truly amazing! And she wakes up so happy and talkative. Now we just have to work on sleeping during the day, she hates naps.

Her other dislikes include tummy time (you'd think we were torturing her), hot weather, and being forced to sit (in a car seat, swing, bathtub) when she isn't in the mood for it. She's discovered that if she straightens her back its harder for us to get her to sit.

We love our sweet baby girl and I'm already starting to "forget." You know how everyone says God makes you forget what it's like to have a newborn? Yeah, I look back now and think, oh, it wasn't so bad when she was first born, she was so adorable and sweet and little. I'm excited to see what the next three months have in store for us.

Hollywood Bowl

We had a busy week last week. On Wend. we went to another Dodgers game. On Friday, as per L.A. Wheat family tradition we went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw the LA Philharmonic, John Fogerty and the fireworks show.
Note Daniel's "baby face" imitation in the background.

Then on Saturday we had a big BBQ/Pool party at our house! Unfortunately I was so preoccupied with making sure things were going okay and taking care of Julia that I forgot to take any digital pictures. Oops. We did have a couple disposable water cameras though, so we'll have to wait until we get those developed to see any pictures

Family Reunion

Last weekend (end of June) we drove to Southern Utah for the Sandberg Family Reunion. It was fun to see all the new babies in the family now that the grandkids are starting to have kids. Julia loved her first camping trip (we slept in the cabin though) and met lots of new people. Julia with my dad. Everyone's wearing green because it was St. Patricks Day (we celebrated all the holidays at the reunion, we even had Santa Claus come.)
Julia with her daddy
Robert went with a group of family up to the top of the plateau above the Ranch to go geocaching. They didn't find it, but they had fun hiking all over the mountainside.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Julia went to her first Dodgers game last Wednesday. She slept through the first half and woke up during the seventh inning stretch to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame and watch the end of the game. She's a smart girl, that's what I do too. (except I can't actually sleep during the first half. Sleeping anywhere and through any kind of noise is a nice skill babies have. Usually I just people watch.)

Disneyland!

My parent's and little brother stayed with us for a week after Julia's blessing, so we went to Disneyland three times last week. (We went for three days because my dad is in the military, so he gets into Disneyland for free and he can get five people a three day park hopper for the price of one day.) It was nice not to have to rush and try to do everything in one day or feel pressured to get there too early. It actually went better than I expected with a two month old. Julia mostly slept the entire time and my Mom wanted to spend a lot of time with her, so she watched Julia while I went on the rides.

I think what made it a lot easier was that Disneyland has a baby care center where you can go to nurse, prepare bottles, and change diapers. They also have little high chairs and little potties for kids who are potty training (or just plain afraid of the "big" potties in the normal restrooms). It is a nice calm environment, not too crowded and very clean, so it takes out all the stress of having to do all that stuff at a super crowded place like Disneyland. If you're ever at Disneyland with a baby I would recommend checking it out.

Here are the pictures:

P.S. I also added a slideshow to the post about Julia's baby blessing