Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New house coat!

My aunt and uncle, Doris and Larry, came up to have Christmas with us. And they gave Julie the cutest little sock monkey house slippers and a red house coat with the little monkey on the inside. Julie is so super cute in it. Thanks so much Doris and Larry! We had a great time visiting with you, and are so glad you were able to make the trip up. : )

Christmas Pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas. Ben, Julie and I had a little Christmas morning together on Christmas Eve morning just the three of us and then we headed to visit my family that afternoon for the long holiday weekend. Santa brought Julie an easel this Christmas and she really enjoys it. She loves the chalk board side. She'll ask me to draw something so she can erase it, and then she exclaims "Gone!". We had a great time with our family as well. We hung out at the house, shopped a little, played Wii alot and went bowling together. We of course ate too much and got some great rest. Here are a few pictures from our weekend.



Here is Julie finishing off the cookie that she left for Santa the night before that he didn't finish.


Here's Julie getting a first look at her Elmo chair that she loves.



And she played tea set with her new set that her Grandma gave to her with her aunts and uncle.


Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Julie's first Christmas tree

We didn't do a Christmas tree last year, or the few Christmases before, but this year we decided to since Julie is a little bigger now and can enjoy it. And she really does. She had a lot of fun putting ornaments on the tree, even if she did try to put them all in the same spot. : )



And then the next day she pulled her rocking chair up to the tree to have a closer inspection of the tree and it's decorations.



She says "Hi Tree!" and "Hi Lights!" to the tree (and lights) each day and she tells them bye at night before she goes to bed. She also gets to turn the lights on in the morning and off at night, which she seems to really enjoy. Yesterday she even turned the lights off at her naptime, because the tree needed to take a nap too. : ) I just love her innocent enthusiasm.

Presents? What presents?

Julie and I went to the post office this morning to pick up a package sent to us from Ben's parents. We brought it home and opened it up to put the gifts under the tree. I don't think Julie even saw the presents, all wrapped in colorful paper. She went straight for the packing peanuts!

She has really enjoyed the packing peanuts all afternoon long. I think as I am writing this that she has emptied and refilled that box with those peanuts at least three or four times. Maybe that's what we should have gotten her for Christmas!


Thanks Grama and Grampa J, for the gifts we will open tomorrow and for the peanuts that Julie is enjoying today! : )

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Are we sure she's my daughter?

Today when asked what she would like for a snack, Julie didn't respond with "ne-ne" or "m-e-ups" like I assumed she would. No, she didn't ask for candy or M&M's, she asked for peas and corn. She loves her veggies!!

Life Group Christmas Party

Last Sunday night our Life Group had it's Christmas party. We had lots of fun party food and a gift exchange. The kiddos really enjoyed opening their gifts and playing with each other.

Here's Julie and her friends having a yummy dinner together.

Julie really enjoyed her iced sugar cookie! She didn't even get up to play while she focused intently on finishing that cookie.

Ben helped Julie open her present. She got a Winnie the Pooh bath toy that she loves and has played with in her bath every night since.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Little Video of Ben and Julie in the leaves

Fall leaves

Today Ben took on the leaves in the yard. He raked up a couple of big piles of leaves and then let Julie have at it. She was a little hesitant at first but quickly got the hang of it and had a blast. Here are a few pictures of us playing in the leaves.






Thanksgiving

We drove to Texas to visit family over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a long trip in the car but Julie did really well. My parents got a portable DVD player for Julie as an early Christmas gift so we took it with us and she made good use of it in the car. It helped the time go by for little Julie, and the rest of us. : )

We stopped in Rockwall, TX on the way to visit with our good friends, the Allens. We got to meet their precious little baby girl for the first time. It was a very short visit but we really loved getting to see them in person again and look forward to getting together with them again!


Here is a picture of all of our family sitting at tables in my aunt and uncle's back yard for our Thanksgiving meal. There were a lot of us there but even more food. And it was super yummy. I believe that my aunt's turkey and dressing is the best in the whole world. We look forward to it all year.


Here is Julie sitting with her great-Grandma, my Dad's mom.


All four generations, me, Julie, my dad, and my grandma. What a cute bunch, huh?


We spent the night at my other aunt and uncle's house on the way back home, in Mansfield, TX. Every time we get together at their house, we take a stair-step picture of everyone. When we got there Julie remembered taking the picture with everyone last time and she directed everyone to sit on the stairs for another picture. It was really funny to see her position everyone where she wanted them to be in the picture. She was content to let Daddy take the picture and not sit down with everyone. She just clapped and "yay-ed" after the picture was taken, so proud. : )

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Sunday photos

We had our Thanksgiving meal with our Life group on Sunday night, a little early but with several of us traveling out of town in the next couple of weeks it was the best timing for all of us. We had a great meal and the kiddos wore themselves out playing together.

I made some cupcakes (yes, with sprinkles) Sunday afternoon and Julie got a warm one from the oven as I was preparing them. She shared with her Curious George while watching, you guessed it, Curious George on TV.



Here's Julie with her friends at the kids' table during dinner. I think this was captured during the 5 seconds that they were all seated at the same time.



And here's what they did to work up an appetite before dinner. Julie loves playing with her little friends. We are really fortunate that she has such good little friends to play with at this stage.

Short video

Here's a little video of Julie playing with Tate in the front yard during our photo shoot. : )

Fall photo fun

On Sunday afternoon we decided to take a few pictures of Julie in the front yard playing in the leaves. She liked throwing them in the air and then asking Da-da to pick them up again and hand them to her to throw. She also enjoyed kicking the leaves into the air. And, of course, chasing the cat around the yard. : )



My sweet girl

Here's a few pictures from the last couple of weeks around the house.

In this picture Julie and I are wearing matching aprons that my mom gave to us. I keep them hanging in the kitchen and Julie will tug on mine saying "mama, mama!" and when I put it on she pats her belly, wanting to wear hers too.



Julie is such a girlie girl. She carries this basket around the house like a purse. On this particular day, she combined the sunglasses with her "purse", bracelet, and, although not in this picture, her cell phone. She walked around the living room saying "Bye!" and waving back to me. Once she walked to the door, turned around, said bye and then added "keys?". When did she become 16 years old all of a sudden??



She has recently decided that one paci is just not enough. If she can get her hands on two at a time, she wants to have both in her mouth at the same time. Boy are we in trouble when we decide to break her of her "be-be" habit.

New Patio

A few weekends back we went to my parents' house to help them lay down a stone patio in the back yard. It took the whole crew of us working together for most of the day to put it down, and we had a good time working together.

Here's some of us working hard...



And Julie "helping", of course.



And the finished product. Looks good, huh?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Party video

As mentioned in the previous post, at Julie's costume parade this morning, the older kids performed a little show while the little ones sat and watched. Well, I have shared with you Julie's love of dancing before and today she just couldn't help but participate even while watching. She really makes me smile.

Happy Halloween!

Today Julie's Mother's Day Out class had a Halloween party and costume parade. So I dropped her off in her classroom and went to the gym to watch the parade, then back to the classroom to join in the party with her. It was super cute. Julie enjoyed wearing her lion costume again. After they paraded into the gym, the bigger kids put on a little show with a few songs they learned to sing for us parents while the little kids sat and watched. After the little show, we went back for her party where the kids got to have some snacks, go trick-or-treating, and play a pin the nose on the pumpkin game. Julie had a great time and I really enjoyed watching her have so much fun. Here are a few pictures from our morning.