Officially Ours!

Our girl is 23 months old and I would say "and where has the time gone?" but I won't because isn't that what every mom says? She is a blast and I love listening to her talk and am fascinated by the words and sentences that come from her. We spent a lot of time walking by and driving by the blow up Halloween decorations at Eldridge Court. This girl LOVES a pumpkin!

Emmy got to spend the night with us one night when Tara was gone on a business trip.

Julia likes to gather up sticks and give them to ShyAnn to chew. They could do this for hours.

Sweet girls!

Julia and I play flashcards. She picks them up and asks me, "Mommy, you wanna play?" How can you say no to that?

You got it.....High Five!

My very favorite part of every weekend are in the mornings when John goes to get Julia from her bed and brings her upstairs to spend some time in our bed. He has to bring Julia, "all these books", her blanket, and her milk which trust me, is quite the load.

Julia has been having fun picking up "popcorns" in the yard, counting them and moving them from place to place. I kept telling her that they were called acorns and not popcorns. She compromised and has given them the final name of "apopcorns." Thats the way its going to be and she is sticking to it.

Well, after almost 2 years, Julia is officially paid in full.

I guess that means that now, she is officially ours.......

Fall Fun 2009

Julia and I dressed in our best Halloween outfits (I know, I swore I wouldn't dress my daughter in those stupid themed outfits....) and the three of us headed to Parker Pioneer Village last weekend.
Parker Pioneer Village has a festival every fall and they celebrate the way that things were done in the past. This was my first time to go and we had a blast. The kettle corn alone was worth the trip!

I don't know why we buy expensive electronic toys. Julia counted these beads for at least 20 minutes before I pulled her away!

Julia making some corn meal the old fashioned way.

The highlight of this trip was the seesaw. She laughed so hard and talked about the seesaw for days!

This past weekend, Julia and I took a road trip to Fayetteville to visit our friends and go to War Eagle arts and crafts fair. We had a great time and everybody especially loved the pumpkin patch.

Little Daniel Carey!

Julia and Mattie in the wagon looking for the perfect pumpkin.

Julia and I drove to Little Rock to spend the night at the Peabody with a friend of mine from work. It is becoming a tradition to stay at the Peabody and go to the Komen Race for the Cure every year. Once again, it was a great and very memorable experience! The picture above is sweet Emily helping Julia color.

Race for the Cure....I hear there were over 40,000 people there!

Even the Peabody ducks came out and walked on pink carpet!

Julia enjoying the music and an apple at the Race

Sunday was my favorite day of all because we didn't get out of our pajamas! Here's Julia helping me carve the pumpkin.

She loved squishing the insides of the pumpkin!

Ohhh, she loved this pumpkin! She gave it a bunch of hugs and kisses and wouldn't let me put in outside. It had to stay inside and go wherever she was.

It did turn out pretty good! I love a pumpkin carving kit!

RIP Spooky Shepherd

Our 16 year old cat Spooky died this morning. She was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago and has had three surgeries to remove the lumps. We knew our time with her was quickly coming to an end the past couple of weeks when she stopped eating and was really slow to move around. John and I had decided last night that we would take her to the vet this afternoon when we got off work to put her out of her misery. Thanks goodness, she died peacefully early this morning at home and we buried her in our backyard. RIP Spooky!

Just for fun, the Spooky story.....

In 1993, I was going to college and we were having a terrible mouse problem in this substandard housing that we were living in. A girl at college told me she had some baby kittens that she needed to get rid of. Thinking that I could solve the mouse problem, I asked her to bring me one the next day. She did and she was a sweet little six week old black kitten. We named her Spooky because it was close to Halloween and because she was black. When I got home, John was SO mad....he does not love a cat. Spooky did solve our mouse problem and we quickly grew to love her. She slept by my head for many years and she was like family. Spooky's peaceful life became a little chaotic when Julia came along, but she learned to love Julia and would still cuddle with the three of us on the couch. I could tell Spooky stories all day long, but its still a little too painful to talk much about her. She gave us 16 years of happy memories and we will miss her dearly!

Not a great picture....but this is healthy and happy Spooky a couple of years ago looking down at us through the stairway railing.

This picture was taken last night from her hiding spot under the bed in Julia's room.

RIP!

Again, Again, and Again....

I have been picking Julia up from Miss Melinda's (where she is staying Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays) and from my parents (where she stays on Wednesdays) after work. Our ritual is to get in the car and start our drive home with the song C is for Cookie. Then, we listen to the rest of the Sesame Street CD. Julia screams, "Push!" very loudly from the backseat when one of her favorite songs comes on which means, "Turn it up!" I have to skip through the songs when she says, "No like it, this song!" When we get home, she wants to play outside until John gets home. She loves to push her baby in the stroller, play in her house, and slide.

She likes alot of repetition. The day that she was letting the baby slide and then her sliding, she did it over and over again....I am guessing at least 25 times.

It's tough going uphill in the grass!

Just had to show off one of Julia's many talents. She likes to wear my shoes around and this day she had on one incredibly high heeled boot on one foot and still managed to get around a little. I did notice some scuffs around the heels on my boots when I wore them the next day!

We celebrated Dad and Sarah's birthday this week by cooking some chili at my house. I thought Julia would enjoy coloring some homemade cards for the two of them but she was too busy counting the colors and hauling them around to actually color.

Funny how even when its someone else's birthday in our family, we all still sit around and stare at Julia. The true birthday honorees get lost in all of the attention that Julia steals!

I love this picture because she staring at that cake with those very wide eyes! She was in rare form after she ate her piece!

Mom, Ms. Nina and I went to Little Rock for a couple of days this week to attend the Hospital Auxiliary State meeting. Of the 380 attendees, I was by far the youngest person there and I would guess the average age was around 75. It was a good time and we even snuck over to Robinson Center to see Mamma Mia which just happened to be in town when we were there! How lucky were we! It was just as fabulous the fourth time as it was the first!