Dear Julia....My Heart Overflows

Oh, my sweet baby girl.....my heart overflows with love for you! It is the eve of your first birthday and your daddy and I have worked hard and stayed up late to make your birthday special! You have brought us more joy than I could have ever imagined. Everybody tried to tell me how much I would love you, but I had no idea! Every day, every hour, every minute, I have treasured. We waited a long time for you and you were so worth the wait. I love you my angel and thank you for giving your Daddy and I the best year of our lives.

Favorites....

This week has been a busy one. I have been staying up late sewing alot trying to do all my orders for Christmas! We had book club Monday night and unfortunately, not one person accomplished Grapes of Wrath. I gave it a good try and got less than half way. John was so disappointed in me and couldn't wait to tell me what happened at the end. I finally gave in and let him tell me five minutes before I left. I hope to pick it up again soon and finish it. I am a little bit distracted right now with Twilight because some friends are completely obsessed by the series and have given all four books to me. They ask me daily what page I am on so I am getting some pressure to finish it! Our book club book this month is The Last Lecture. Looking forward to that one too.


John is doing really well at school this semester and I accuse him of being the teacher's pet. I am not sure that he would admit it, but I think he is loving being in school. He is so smart and makes the highest grades in his class a lot of the time.


Julia is a blast these days. She is learning so much. Some of her favorite things are:


1. Books...she is very content to look at books. Her favorite is Pat the Bunny because it is interactive. She is so brilliant.....she can do every page. She has even memorized what comes next and does some of the motions before I even get to the sentence. For example....Judy's book says "Hear the tick tick bunny?" and the next page says "How big is bunny.....so big." When Julia hears me say tick tick, she has already thrown her arms up in the air for SO BIG! Wow, I am certain that she is going to have to skip a couple of grades at school because she is so stinking smart!

2. CDs with kids singing

3. Her bottle...baba to her. She asks for it first thing in the morning. She will be one year old next Saturday and the things that I read say to take away their bottle at age one. I am sad to think about taking it away because she loves it so much. And, she cuddles so sweet after she has it before bedtime.

4. Food. She is still a good eater. Broccoli, lasagna, tuna out of a can, black beans, grapes, bananas, apple juice. Just about anything....she is not very picky.

5. Walking around the house. She comes to us and reached her hands up to grab ours to let us help her walk around the house. Her balance is improving, but we still guess that she is a little ways from walking without our help. I am in no hurry.

6. Anything with buttons that she can push. She can climb to the top of the stairs and her best motivation is the green button on the printer that beeps when she pushed it. She likes the phones, remotes, satellite boxes, etc.

7. Her Dad. She is still such a daddy's girl. She always has a big smile for him and will reach to go to him almost always.

8. To talk and sing. She is speaking very good Chinese and knows several words. Some new ones are "Melmo" (Elmo), "Beebaaah" (Big Bird), dog, momma, baba and +(bottle).

9. Her two fingers and taggie. She loves her taggie (a little soft blanket with satin tags sewn all around it) and her two fingers when she is tired or uncomfortable.

This picture was taken last Saturday morning after John cooked pancakes. She was tired and couldn't find taggy, so the pancake had to serve the purpose. We laughed so hard!

This week we went walking with Soloman, Becca, and Mary Margaret. Sol and Julia loved (well loved might be a strong word) being in the double stroller.

One of my favorite picture of them playing in the leaves.

Speaking of favorites, I got to treat myself to my all time favorite musical tonight....Mamma Mia!!! There were six of us that went and we had a great time. We ate dinner at Circa....of my, delicious seared tuna!!!!!

Julia and the Chocolate Feast

Today, Julia, Mom and I went to Memphis to get some things accomplished. I think I had planned for about 14 stops and we made every one of them. My Julia (and my Mom) are such troopers to tolerate my shopping trip! Julia had a 20 minute nap all day compared to her usual 3 to 4 hours of naps and was smiling until the bitter end!

Julia and I went in Target and I grabbed some chocolate coins to put in her birthday party treat bags. I let Julia hold them while we shopped. I have to admit that I was very distracted by all of the cute clothes in Target and when I looked down at Julia, I realized that she had brown stuff all over her face and dripping down the front of her sweater! It took me a minute to realize that she had bitten through the netting and into the foil and was CHOWING DOWN on some chocolate! She screamed a very loud, high pitched scream when I took them away.

Looks like a little mouse got into these!

Ridgefest

John played at Ridgefest, a festival that is hosted at East Arkansas Community College, this past Saturday. Julia, me and my parents went to see him play and we had a lot of fun. Saturday night, we went to Baylee's first birthday party. She had a My Little Pony party and her Mom baked cupcakes that were so cute and delicious too! I met Baylee's Mom, Holly, at the gym when we were both pregnant and our due dates were a few days apart. Holly ended up having Baylee early and she is a couple of weeks older than Julia. This was Julia's first time to meet Baylee and I think they really liked each other. They had a stare down and wanted to touch each other's faces. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera so I didn't get any pictures.

I have been really busy sewing in my spare time lately. It's great for extra money and it is my down time at night after Julia goes to bed.

Julia was so happy to get a package in the mail this week!

Cool! It's a t-shirt that says, "Someday I will be a rock star."

A birthday present from Shawnie and Lance!

John playing guitar......the far left.

This is what Julia did while John was playing at Ridgefest. They had hay bales to sit on and she had a blast crawling between them. Her pink pants were black when we left!

Her favorite part of Ridgefest was the fish aquarium that is sponsored by the Game and Fish Commission. It put her in a trance for about 3 minutes!

Little Miss Social making friends. Actually, she just stares at other kids.

I had her Halloween pictures made by a local photographer. I took a picture of the picture so excuse the flash. She insisted on picking up the ball (pumpkin). I made a candy sushi prop out of swiss cake rolls, swedish fish and green fruit roll up. You can see it a little bit on the plate beside her.

This is Julia after her dinner tonight. She had lasagna, broccoli, and bananas. John and I fussed over who was going to pick her up and take her to the bathtub. We knew whoever did it would have to change clothes after carrying her!

A Day in History

Yesterday, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. He has campaigned with a promise for CHANGE, and I hope that we can all unite and see some positive changes under his leadership! It marks an important day in history not only because he is our first African American President, but because he won by such a huge margin and because of his liberal views on most issues. It's my policy not to talk politics in mixed company, but I will say that I am optimistic about what the next few years might bring and believe that our country will become an even better place.


And just as important as the Presidential election, today was the opening day for Wynne's new Hays Food Town! I couldn't resist fighting the crowd and seeing the inside for myself and after all, I needed some rice to cook for dinner. Julia and I ran in after our walk and it is a beautiful store! Congratulations to our friends, the Kings!

With the economy being so bad, we cannot afford a wagon for Julia. So, her Pappaw had to make one out of a Pampers box and his leather belt to pull her around in Sunday afternoon. And, the tent in the background is actually a temporary dog kennel that Mom found in some one's trash on the side of the road. Poor Julia.

One Fall Saturday

Today, Wynne hosted it's 10th annual Mid South Marathon. It is a Boston Qualifier and we had over 400 runners in town. The hospital is a big sponsor of this race and so I get to volunteer on the committee. We worked hard, but it is always rewarding when we hear people talking about what a great race it is and how they love the small town, friendly atmosphere.

Some of the runners getting ready to cross the finish line!

My parents and Sarah came over to help with Julia this afternoon so that John could have some time to do his school work while I was at the marathon. The weather was perfect today, and Julia loved spending time with them crawling around outdoors. She was filthy when I got home which is always a good sign that she has had some fun. I never want to be one of those Mom's that worries about their kids getting dirty....that might mean that Julia is missing out on some fun!


Then, we headed to Whit's 4th birthday party in Birdeye. We had a blast there, too! Their house is a beautiful family home that they have restored. It looked like a fairy tale when we pulled up!

Birthday boy, Whit with his delicious curls! He had a batman themed party. Julia got to enjoy her first piece of fried catfish. She sucked on it like it was a lollipop. She ate the whole thing and loved every bite! Then, John called me and said, "It's okay that I gave Julia some of that Hawaiian Punch that's in the fridge, isn't it? That's juice, right?" Uh, you might as well have given her some Pepsi. John has so clue about foods and their nutritional value.

Julia spent the entire time at the party crawling around EVERYWHERE! She is a girl that likes to be on the move! I tried to put her in the blow up toy, but she wasn't having it.

Oh but I just couldn't resist.....she will love me for this one someday. This is Julia giving the baby kisses in the mirror after her bath.

Julia's First Halloween

Julia spent her first Halloween at the Jackson's Halloween party! We had a great time with all of our friends and the Jackson's ALWAYS host the most fun parties.

Half of the party hosts......

The other half of the host with the most. This is your local dentist, Dr. Jackson, in his Mickey Mouse costume.

What am I, you ask? A geisha, of course. By this point, I had taken off my wig. Julia wore a red kimono and was a beautiful little china doll.

She spent her first Halloween night crawling everywhere in their house. She threw her hands up in the air about every 10 minutes to let everyone there know that she was, "So Big." Someone asked if we had to clap and cheer and say SO BIG every singe time she threw her hands up. The general consensus was that yes, the rule was to respond with great enthusiasm each and every time that she performed no matter how often. The Jackson's had lots of BALLS floating around, so Julia was pretty much in ball heaven.

Once, I rounded the corner and caught Julia and Emmy kissing in the hallway!

Sol with his Halloween Bubba teeth!

This story behind this picture was hilarious. We decided to get one good group shot of all of the kids. Well, I think it was a little late when we decided to give it a try so this is about as good as it got. Every kid was crying at the same time. All of the parents were laughing so hard that no one could even take a picture.

Low and behold, another Momma there had the brilliant idea to dress her baby up as a china man too! And no, we didn't plan it that way.

We had a great time and I know Julia will always remember her first Halloween!