Under the Big Top.....

Julia attended her first circus last Sunday in Memphis. She thought it was pretty fabulous. It was the Shriner's circus at the Agri center. It seems like there were 10 or fewer circus staff members because the same girls who were swinging on the trapezes were the same ones selling popcorn during intermission.

Julia's favorite were the elephants.

Julia marching and dragging Daddy along. I had to post this picture because of the infamous blankie that is draped across his shoulder. I don't think Julia has ever been more than several feet away from it in all of her 28 months. Just wondering if she'll ever be able to function without it!

The breath-taking trapeze act.....

The lions.....

and here is the part that really got on my nerves. Everything was going along smoothly until they announced intermission. Well, the intermission turned out to be an all out carnival...complete with bouncy houses, pics with the tigers, and elephant and pony rides. Every child in the auditorium raced to the floor. I stayed in the stands and got to hear all of the screaming and miserable kids whose parents wouldn't let them (or didn't have the money to let them) participate in the festivities. Then the parents would spank them which led to even more screaming. We left after a very LONG 45 minute intermission with no end in site!

Intermission....are you kidding me?

Here's Julia sporting her new circus t-shirt and yelling, "Cheeseburger!" All in all, I would say it might have been our last circus because I was a little irritated at the commercialism of the who thing. Julia, however, would argue that is was the best night of her life......lol.

Spring Fever!

The Easter egg at the end of the day after being "gently" carried around all afternoon and night.
Julia dyed this egg at Miss Melinda's when she was there Tuesday. She chose yellow because it matched blankie.

Martha Stewart's in the house! Julia and I whipped up some bird nests for CrossRidge's bake sale. Chow Mein noodles, almond bark and jelly bean eggs....so easy and cute too!

Treat bags for the Easter party at Miss Melinda's. Julia loved sitting outside on the deck and putting these together. It was really hard for her to understand why we couldn't eat the treats and play with the stickers that went into the bags.


One of our favorite places is the library. They always have a craft to go along with the holiday. Here is Julia showing off her newly constructed Easter egg magnet.

Concentrating on making it perfect...

We have LOVED the blow ups at Eldridge Court this year.

Julia and Sol, I mean Spiderman! Becca says he won't wear anything else...lol!

Becca and Spiderman helped us to start a new tradition of playing hide and go seek at Eldridge Court. Here's Spiderman counting.

Here's Julia counting.

She loves the hide and seek game until I am hiding so good that she can't see me. She likes it for a minute, but then sheer panic sets in and after screaming, "ready or not, here I come!" she starts crying and yelling Mommy, where are you?

Julia's quotable quote one night when we were coming home after dark. "Mommy, the moon is following us!" Wow, that's deep!

California Dreamin....

Pebble Beach

I just got back from a great trip to California. Mary Katherine went with me and it's easy to forget that I did go there because it was a required work trip because we managed to fit so much fun in between the work! We flew out of Northwest Arkansas to Sacramento last Sunday afternoon and visited Napa Valley when we got there. We drove to San Francisco where we stayed until Wednesday for my meetings. Highlights in San Francisco were our hike through Muir Woods, dinner in North Beach, Wicked (yes, it was my THIRD time to see it!), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (very memorable!), and of course, the shopping. I LOVE me some Anthropologie!


We left San Francisco at noon Wednesday and headed south on Highway 1. It was an amazing drive and the scenery is unforgettable. We didn't have much of an agenda and I really prefer to travel that way. We stopped when we saw something interesting and made lots of side trips. The trip was the best of everything.....wineries, the city, the beach, the theater, museums, the woods, books on tape, lots of good food, a great traveling companion, and I could go on! We made our way to LA Friday to fly home and only had to buy one extra piece of luggage to haul all of our new purchases home ;)

The wineries.....

Hearst Castle.....very interesting tourist stop in San Simeon!

And true to my crazy ways, I left Fayetteville at 10 pm Friday night and drove straight home to my baby girl because I couldn't bear to be without her for another second. I tried to wake her up when I got home at 3 am with lots of kisses, but she wasn't interested. She made up for it with her squeals of happiness when she woke up Saturday morning! John said she didn't ask for me once while I was gone.

Almost 28 months!

Just thought I would write a few notes about Julia at almost 28 months....

* She has an incredible vocabulary and it never ceases to amaze us. She gets her pronouns mixed up sometimes and calls Daddy a "she" and herself "my". She calls Sonic "Snogit" She talks to inanimate objects often like telling her book, "Thank you very much, book." Her memory is also pretty amazing. She remembers people and other details better than I do!

* Julia is a little on the shy side when it comes to interacting with other people. I don't say that she is shy where she can hear it because I don't want her to grow up with that label and believing that she is shy. Usually I just tell people that it takes her little while to "warm up" when she is hiding behind my leg and not talking.

* She loves to perform by singing songs and dancing. She loves her music and unfortunately, has her mom's rhythm when she dances! She also loves to color, create things with playdoh, make crafts, and paint. We think she is already quite the accomplished artist.

* Julia is a big girl. Tall and filled out:)! I can hardly carry her anymore without some serious arm cramps...not that she wants me to anyway.

* Her favorite places are the park, the library, Jee Jee and Papaw's house, and most of all "Home Sweet Home." I think she and John would be perfectly content staying at home and never leaving!

* She is a great sleeper and a great eater. She goes to bed around 9 or 9:30 and wakes up around 8:30. Her naps are getting less and less predictable. She usually lays down around 2:30 and after talking for 30 minutes or so, she will sleep for an hour and a half or so. Sometimes, she will do without a nap but we pay dearly for that later! She eats just about anything we put in front of her, but she does have her favorites (chicken, any and all kinds of fruit, goldfish crackers, juice). Oh yeah, and milk. She drinks entirely too much milk!!

* Julia throws the occasional fit, but they usually happen when she is really tired. She is very good natured, very laid back, and doesn't mind following the rules (for the most part.) The worst part of her days are diaper changes (yes, I am getting ready to get serious about some potty training), putting on clothes, and being made to lay down for a nap.

* She is very content staying at home with John four days a week while I work. She goes to Miss Melinda's on Tuesdays. The last couple of weeks there have been much better for her. She hasn't cried when we left her now for three weeks in a row. It definitely makes all of our days better when she doesn't cry. John is trying out life as a professional musician. It definitely has its ups (getting to stay home with Julia during the week, doing what he loves) and downs (being gone almost all weekend every weekend, driving in the wee hours only to keep me constantly worried about his safety), but overall, its working out okay for now.

Julia and Shawnie and Pat Crase's fun and amazing! art show at the library. Julia spent her time playing with the Thoma the train set that they have at the library. She looks so serious because I interrupted her playing and asked her to pose for the picture!

Hanging out with Sol and Parker

A Sunday afternoon's art and her first time with watercolor!

A Memorable Weekend

My sweetheart Emmy Ruth turned three on Valentine's weekend and Julia and I made the trip to Memphis to celebrate. Emmy had a great party with everything fun....a jumpie, the ball pit (Julia's favorite), delicious cake, and most importantly, good friends! I cannot believe that Emmy is three. Everytime Julia and I head to her birthday party, I get a little teary-eyed thinking about the many conversations that Tara and I had before we had our babies. I think we both agree that motherhood is so much better than either of us could have ever imagined!

Fun in the ball pit!

The Birthday girl!

Sweet Sol and Julia

I think she was first in line for the cake!

Without going into too much detail, I have to post about my most traumatic experience ever in Memphis. I decided at the very last minute to send Julia back to Wynne to spend the night with Jee Jee and Paw Paw. She left the party with Neall and Becca who insisted on taking her back to Wynne with them (THANK YOU!!!). The plan was for me to stay and meet up with John later where he was playing at a restaurant/bar. While I was waiting on John, I had a few glorious hours in Memphis to shop and hang out by myself. I went to one of my favorite stores on Summer and was just about to check out when Tara called me. I put down my things to look over them one more time before I headed to the register and chat with Tara. I was in the middle of telling her what a great time I was having shopping when I hear, "This is a hold up!" about five feet behind me. I looked and saw a man with a black mask and sawed off shotgun at the register. I hid behind a rack of shoes and thought about Julia. He fired two shots, one in the ceiling and one at the register. He got off with the drawer, but noone was hurt. Well, noone was hurt physically anyway! I am grateful for so many things. First, that Julia wasn't with me! Second, that we all got out of there alive because I know that it could have been much worse. Wow....I am not sure that I will ever be quite the same.

To balance out the horror of the experience, John and I had a great time in Memphis and got to celebrate Valentine's Day in style. It's always fun to watch John play guitar (makes me fall in love all over again!) even though I don't get to see him play that often anymore. We spent the night in Memphis and then saw Jersey Boys at the Orpheum. It was definitely one of my favorites! I loved every minute of it and was sad when it was over. Thank you John, for my very best Christmas present ever! We had dinner then raced home to get our sweet girl who didn't want to leave her Jee Jee and Paw Paw's house. I hugged Julia extra tight when I got to see here and know for sure that I am one lucky Momma.

Disneyworld February 2010

I am still not sure what came over me when I decided to book this trip, but it was a blast and we made lots of good memories. We were able to leave Wynne in the midst of LOTS of ice and snow and make the long drive to Northwest Arkansas to catch our flight. Thanks so much to my friends in Rogers, we were dropped at the gate and had a great $29.99 each flight on a large airplane (no prop plane!) to Orlando. Julia flies like a queen and never skips a beat. I would leave tomorrow for Paris with our little traveler. I brought lots of snacks, books, and a DVD player to keep her occupied during our travel time and never once even opened the DVD player. The snacks, on the other hand, well we needed those from time to time!

Julia waking up with a smile the morning we left for Disneyworld!

Riding the bus to our first RAINY day at Animal Kingdom. It poured all day long. Looking back on it, John and I decided that we preferred the first two rainy days at Disney because there were NO lines!

Had to post this picture because you can see my jeans and how soaking wet we were!

Imagine what the tennis shoes felt like.

This was as close as Julia ever got to one of the characters. She loved them all....from a safe 10 foot distance. She would stand back and wave at them. She got really close to giving Tigger a hug here, but changed her mind just in the nick of time.

Miss Independence wanted to push the empty stroller instead of ride in it. This is where the snacks came in handy. Bribery does work.

We loved the safari ride, Lion King show, and parade best at Animal Kingdom.

Julia loved the parades more than anything! They were loud and colorful and Mickey was waving right at her, of course.

See those little happy eyes? Now that's why crazy mom and dads take their 2 year olds to Disneyworld!

It's a small world after all....never fails to deliver. May have been my favorite!

The 36th (I'm exaggerating) parade that we saw at Magic Kingdom. Anytime Julia heard music, she asked us, "Is it a parade?" and we had to run and find where the music was coming from.

A family teacup ride!

Oh she loved that castle!

Julia is a heavy little thing, but I will hold her until my back breaks when she needs a blankie break!

Seeing the first fireworks

Swiss Family Robinson treehouse was another of Julia's favorites.

Dumbo is all that she has told people about since we came home. She didn't seem to love the ride near as much when we were there, but she sure loves to talk about it now! When asked if she had a good time at Disneyworld she say, "I rode Dumbo and he flys up in the air!"

She really loved the shows too. Nobody quite does 3D like Disney.

Hanging out with Miss Piggy at Disney Hollywood Studios on our last half day.

John's favorite part of the trip were the 3D movies.
A great and very memorable vacation. Not the greatest pictures. I think we were too busy having fun to waste time with the camera!