My Little Country Girl

At times, I have worried about Julia living out in the country and not living in a nice little neighborhood where she could play with her friends. Until now. This weekend was a weekend of perfect weather and LOTS of outdoor time. She loves being outside and never slows down! I think she is a country girl at heart.

She walks up and down the levee. She still hasn't shown much interest in the pond....thank goodness. I am not sure how to teach this naturally curious little girl to never touch the water!

Posing for one second!

Julia walks around all the time with a play (or real) cell phone to her ear. Wonder where she learned that? She says, "Hey" when she puts the phone to her ear and then starts speaking Chinese. Every now and then she will throw a word that we can recognize in the middle of the Chinese. Playing outside has caused a lot of firsts....that's her first mosquito bite on her face and she got her first scraped knee.

Julia exploring!

And when she's inside, she needs ALL of the remotes. One just won't do.

Jee Jee's Birthday Party

My mother had a very important birthday last week...I won't give you number details. OK, a hint....it had something to do with the official senior citizen designation. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the birthday girl, but I did manage to get a few of the two best little kitchen helpers.....

Emmy Ruth got to spend the night with us and enjoy the birthday celebration. They both sat on the bar while I was cutting up the salad.

We all agreed that the best part of the dinner was the strawberry shortcake!

Village Creek State Park

We drove out to Village Creek Sunday morning to let Julia explore and burn some energy. As soon as we got there, John and I both realized how lucky we are to have such a beautiful park so close to home! It's one of things kind of like Graceland....people come from Europe to visit it and the majority of locals have never been! We had a great time at Village Creek and the weather could not have been better!

Julia running towards the amphitheater stage! This girl never stopped the whole time we were there.

I thought she would like the trails best, but her favorite place to hang out was the parking lot. Go figure. She made a game of picking up these chat rocks under this sign and walking a hand full of them over to the curb. This lasted a good 30 minutes and it was quite a project!

She was so busy that she lost a shoe and found every mud puddle possible!

This soaking wet, muddy sock only stopped her temporarily!

This little Caterpillar needed an up close and personal look.

Julia showing us the water.

My favorite picture of the day.

Happy 2nd Birthday Caroline!

Sweet Caroline King's birthday party was Saturday. We had a great time! These babies are so much fun to watch because they are really starting to interact and actually play with each other!

I snapped this picture of Julia outside when we were leaving the party. She loves being outside so much that I have to trick her or bribe her to convince her to get in the car. I usually remind her that "blankie" is in the car and she will finally relent!

After the party, we headed to the gumbo fest in West Memphis where John was playing. They did great and I enjoyed some of the best gumbo I have ever had. Julia, once again, was a girl on move. She walked EVERYWHERE and explored every area of the entire festival.

We parked the stroller right in front of the stage. Julia and John played peek a boo and flirted with each other while he was playing. She found out how much fun it is to have a rock star Daddy!

Julia and I headed to Memphis for some girl time and shopping. She is so patient and good! I can usually hand her a book and some raisins and she's good to go.

We watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday....wow, it so deserved that Oscar!

Easter Sunday

Oh, the sound of those high pitched squeals from Julia when she saw this Easter basket!

We celebrated Easter this year in a quiet and lovely way at the homestead.

This little crocheted egg cover was mine when I was little.

This animated Easter bunny showed up on our doorstep Saturday while we were gone to the zoo. It is pretty obnoxious and is her very favorite. The tag said, Happy Easter Julia. It's still a mystery as to where it came from...guess it was the Easter Bunny. Thank you Easter Bunny!

The Biggest Day Ever!

The Easter Bunny hopped by the Shepherd house early and dropped off some tickets to the zoo. We decided to just go for it and use them Saturday, even after Evan's party at the Children's museum and Julia having a very short nap in the car. She was a champ though and we all had a great time.

I love this little look of wonder......

Her favorite was the petting zoo. She liked it so much because we let her out of the stroller and let her roam. She loves her freedom and doesn't want to be tied down.

Up close and personal with the dragon. Can you spot him at the bottom?

All in all, Saturday was pretty close to a perfect family day.

Perfect weather.....great friends.....lots of fun.....good food (John let me have my sushi fix!).....a little bit of worthy shopping.....a close to perfect husband.....

and a perfect little angel baby girl that is the real reason for this pretty perfect day.


When we left the zoo, Julia had had ENOUGH already.

Happy 2nd Birthday Evan!

Saturday, we went to Memphis to the Children's museum to celebrate Evan's 2nd birthday. Julia had a blast! Here is a group shot.

Here is a picture from Evan's birthday last year of Julia, Soloman, and Parker. It's amazing how much they change in a year!

Julia and Daddy ringing the doorbells at the museum.

Hanging out by the fire truck. I decided that I am going to bring John with me to every children's event that I can force him into from now on. I could actually have a conversation with some of the other Mom and Dad's while there instead of spending the entire party chasing Miss Julia.

Julia shakin' it in the disco room

Gone fishin.....

Favorites.....

Things That I Loved Today.........

Mary Katherine and little Daniel Carey came to stay with us this weekend and we had a blast! Daniel is less than a month younger than Julia and it is so much fun to watch them. We spent Saturday in Memphis and drug the babies around everywhere. They did amazingly well and Mary Katherine and I just took turns sitting in the car with them while they napped. Julia only had a couple of "meltdowns." These meltdowns are most common when she has been let out of the stroller to walk and has gotten a taste of freedom and then loses her freedom to be put back in the stroller or carseat. She gets SO mad and arches her back and screams LOUD! She ended up sliding straight through her stroller and landed flat on the floor in the JCrew dressing room during one of her hissies. I just smile and try to make a quick exit!

We found a delicious sushi restaurant called Edo's. It's my new favorite! It's been around forever, but we just discovered it after it was recommended by some friends and by some Japanese men who own a company here in Wynne.

This picture is a good example of what happened when we tried to get these very busy babies to pose for a picture.....LOL!

Julia looks so thrilled in this one too...don't you think?

This is another reason that I love living in Wynne. Julia and I have been walking everyday after I get off work. We park in the driveway of a very sweet lady who is in her mid 80's that I have known all of my life. Yesterday after our walk, I got in my car to find this.....a bag full of warm, fresh cooked spaghetti and some delicious homemade Chex mix.

Both were a gift from this sweet lady. Tell me....in what other town could we live in where dinner would magically appear in our car after a walk?

Another thing that I loved today.....I heard loud screaming (screams of excitement, that is) twice yesterday in the neighborhood where we walk. A senior from Wynne High School got his acceptance letter to HARVARD and was sharing his news with friends and teachers. He may be the first Wynne High School graduate ever to attend Harvard!