What Started as an Innocent Search for a Flight......

ended in a trip to DisneyWorld! And we leave this Sunday.....yes, as in two days from now! We are flying out of Northwest Arkansas Sunday evening to spend 3 and a half days in 2 year old wonderland. I went when I was 3 and again when I was 13, but John has never gone. We are thrilled and I am trying really hard not to have a bad case of buyer's remorse. I think it will go away quickly as soon as I see Julia's happy face!

John bought me Jersey Boys tickets for Christmas for tomorrow night at the Orpheum in Memphis. Julia will be spending the night with her grandparents, so everyone is excited about that. Tonight was the annual Chamber of Commerce Banquet in Wynne. It was great and I have to admit that it feels really nice to sit there and enjoy the banquet and to not have a role. My friend Keeli did an amazing job!

Here are some random January pics...

Blowing bubbles is a favorite past time.

Making bubbles with the wand is an even better past time!

My good friend Tracy and her family came over last Friday night. The guys were in the basement playing loud music and we just let our kids run wild! They loved singing back up on the mic, playing piano and dancing as fast as they could. Julia was soaking wet from all of her dancing! Here is Julia and cute Dempsey backing up the band with the piano.

Here is sweet Joanie and Julia at 100 o'clock. We partied until past midnight and finally had to wind down! Julia takes frequent breaks with her blankie and fingers when she gets tired. Tracy and I did look at eachother at one point and asked eachother, "Well, did you ever think?????" She was referring to our sweet children running around the basement to the very loud music having the best time ever. Tracy and I have lots of our own memories from high school days that involved lots of loud music. We agreed that kids make everything more fun and that we have both come a LONG way!

Julia passed out in about 30 seconds when she got in her bed!

John decided to make smoothies one night this week. Julia decided she wanted ALL of them. I guess you can tell who rules the roost around here.

Playing "puzzle pieces." Another favorite activity lately.

Silly Julia sticking play doh on her face.

Then cracking when it falls off and screaming, "Mommy, my so funny!"

Just because every now and then I crack up when I see John doing these that I never dreamed I would see him doing. Like sitting in a chair, with a bowl full of goldfish beside him, a pink playhouse in the yard behind him, coloring Piglet in a Pooh coloring book!

Our gingerbread house that we made way after Christmas.

Julia was eating the candy as fast as I could put it on the house. It was a race!

Here's what the box looked like...

and here's our version. They make these things look a lot easier than they really are!

There's a lot of things going "night night" around here lately. Here are some green beans that got covered up in a paper towel and told, "Night Night!"

The Terrific Two's

I will probably regret posting this when it really hits, but so far, I can't see why everyone calls the two's the terrible two's? Julia is such a little sweetheart and is really a good little girl. She still hasn't climbed out of her big girl bed! Every morning when I go in to get her after I hear her talking, she says, "Mommy, I want to get up now, OK?" When I say ok, she slides down off the bed. Is this unheard of? She is not one to get into things and has never even opened a kitchen cabinet door to get something to eat or pull anything out. I can reason with her most of the time and she rarely fusses. She loves to sing, play with her little people and read books. She also likes her Jee Jee and Paw Paw and Sarah. She gets so excited when she sees them!

Sticker legs....aren't they juicy? Oh yeah, and those are orange play doh worms on the couch that you see.


The snow day. I had to go to work, but John said he spent 20 minutes bundling her up to go outside in the snow and she was ready to come in after about 2 minutes! He said she asked for a paper towel to wipe her hands when she got snow on them.

She is a little artist and spends a lot of time coloring. This was a paint with water book that she was really proud of.

Contemplating life....

John and I are loving every minute of being Julia's parents. We ask ourselves if every little girl is this good or this sweet or this pretty. We think we got pretty lucky.

I got to go the movies last night to see The Blind Side and really liked it, even though it was a little bit sappy. John has netflixed a couple of interesting independent films lately. One was called, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John." Incredibly quirky and right up our alley. I am about to finish reading a fascinating book for book club called Olive Kitteridge. I've had a hard time putting it down this weekend. In our spare time, I am still sewing like mad and John is playing a lot of music. He is playing an exciting gig tonight in Little Rock that is sponsored by the Oxford American magazine.

Life is good!

Bringin' in 2010!

We went to see Starry Nights (a drive through light show) in Memphis a few days after Christmas. Julia loved seeing the Christmas lights everywhere we went around Christmas time and could spot them a mile away. She has been heartbroken that the lights have come down. Every time we pass this certain house that had some lit up candy canes lining their sidewalk, she says, "They prolly took them down." I keep telling her that they will "prolly" put them back up next Christmas. I feel myself having to knock on a stranger's door next Christmas and request that they put them back out asap!

Here is one of the many reasons that I love having Julia around. She sees things so differently. When we passed by this light display that is in the picture above , she yelled "it's a peacock!

Well, of course it is!

She also named the snowflake lights that lined Falls Blvd. this year starfishes. The candlesticks were keys.

She didn't quite make it until midnight New Year's Eve, even though she tried really hard. John and I got an adult couple of hours at the Rotary Bash for Cash where we ate steaks and watched other people win cash. My parents took Julia to their Sunday School New Years Eve Party. Then Julia and I met back up at Mickey and Jessica's gorgeous new house where all the kids played and had a blast. John was off to his New Year's eve gig, We missed having him with us, but I honestly can count on one hand the number of New Year's eve's that we have spent together in all of our 18 years. It's a busy night for musicians!

Here's Julia New Year's Eve at Jee Jee and Paw Paw's having a moment with blankie.

John's birthday is New Year's Day and he requested a traditional New Years meal and a pineapple upside down cake. Julia and I whipped up our first one ever and it turned out pretty good! He even had a number 2 candle to blow out. No, it doesn't mean anything. We just had it left over from another recent birthday!

Here's Julia's cheeseburger pose showing off her new boots.

She's getting so big that she barely fits in the sink! Happy New Year!