Miss Julia Is Three

Julia Julia Julia. 

You are our energetic, blue-eyed, solve everything with a smile, nonstop talker. 

You love to love.  

 Love to be held.  Love your brothers. Love music and books.

You are the only one Cole lets call him Coley without complaint.  You are a mover and a shaker, attention lover.  You honestly talk or sing almost constantly in the sweetest squeaky voice.  You are sweeter than sugar.  

You are the image of love.  

We love you.

Happy Birthday!

First Haircut

Julia is 2 1/2 years old now, and her hair which has changed so much over this time, was looking a little scraggly at the ends.  It was time for her first ever haircut.  Not one hair on this spunky little ones head had been cut until now. 

I have been asked if I gave her, her side bang.  Sorry can't take credit, it is au naturale.

It took a little bit of coaxing, a 6 month old candy cane Lindsey found, and promises for ice cream afterward to get her to sit still for the job.

Do candy canes ever expire?

 But in the end her hair looks so much better.  Thank you Linds!

JOY

She loves.

She loves to love.

She loves with all she is.

And you can't help but to love her back, she is pure joy

This Moment.

We are alive.  Loving, laughing, and trying to maintain our sanity. :)  

December...Memory Lane

Merry Christmas one month too late.

December brought holiday cheer, cookie baking, and time with almost all of our family.  We are truly blessed.

Here we are a few days before Christmas.

And here are the kids Christmas day sporting some of their Christmas gifts.

I think we are up to date on blog posts, or as up to date as we are going to get.  Thank you for sticking with us during our sporadic, inconsistent blogging.

Happy New Year!!

Raindrops

"Julia, Do you hear that?"

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.

"What do you hear?"

Her, "It's waning."

Me, "Your right it is."

We wedge ourselves into the narrow space between the window and bed.

We sing songs.

(this would be the "so" in "Jesus Love Me So.")

We talk about the rain.  

"Yup, I'm for real Julia this is rain."

We warm our feet on the vent. 

Julia leaves to grab her reinforcements.  Blanket. Paci. Stool.

We munch on cashews.

Draw on the window with cashews.

We snuggle and talk about the rain.

Oh, how I love these moments, savoring the simple times with my girl.

November...Memory Lane

My JuJu bean turned 2 this month.  And she is a chatty, passionate, expressive little thing.  Have you ever heard of the Five Love Languages?  Julia is hands down our touch baby.  She is the one I pick up from school, and right when she sees me she yells, "MOMMY!" and comes barreling to me for the biggest of hugs.  When she loves she loves, with everything she is made of.

For her birthday, in our attempt to get back to eating right (lets just say Florida was about a hundred and two steps backwards in our grain-free, refined sugar free lifestyle) we made a Vanilla Bean Cake.    When Derek swung home from lunch the day of Julia's birthday, I had beans cooking on the stove.  A little insight into our conversation.

Me: "Did I tell you I am making Jewels birthday cake from beans?"

Derek looks skeptically into the pot cooking the white northern beans for her cake.

Derek: "Do I need to pick up a real birthday cake on the way home?"

Me: "What do you mean?  This is going to be a real birthday cake, just made of beans."

Derek is looking at me like my head is detached, and I can see him churning his wording around in his head as to what to say without offending me.

Derek:"Yes, but it's her birthday.  Don't we need her to have a real cake to put candles into?"

Me: "It is a real cake, just made of beans.  Do you want me to show you a picture?"

Derek: "yeah."

I show him the picture, and he starts laughing.

Derek: "Oh I see.  I thought you were just going to spread beans on a plate, layer it with cheese and sour cream and put candles in it."

It did look like a real cake, tasted like a real cake, and was devoured by all of us like a real cake.  The frosting was a mess, but it tasted great.

Julia even helped me make her cake.

At the end of the month, at Thanksgiving we attempted to get a cousin shot.  With seven kids ranging from 11 months to 8 years, it is near impossible.  But we gave it a go.  This is the best I got, not sure about the others :)

Cracks me up Julia is talking on a phone.  Cole's eye is a little puffy, because there was a little cousin rough housing, and Cole got an elbow, knee, or head bump to his eye.  We just called him Spot for the next couple of days.

One more month, and then we enter the New Year!  Whoop Whoop!

September/October...Memory Lane

Where were we??  Ahh yes, school pictures.  Would you believe it has taken me this whole time to find them, and that is the reason for the delay? Well either way I am really going to make an effort to keep this up.  2013 here we come!

September came with a Labor Day Parade, and more time together outside.

We ended September by road tripping down to Florida for a week.  It was awesome.  Relaxing.  Perfect.

Here is our week in a few snapshots...

To end October we took the kids trick-or-treating in Derek's old neighborhood, covering the same ground he did as a kid.  

Derek as Shaggy, Cole as Scooby Doo (yes this is the third year Cole has sported this dog costume) and Julia as the cutest little nose picking ladybug I have ever seen!

Memory Lane...August

In August the summering continued.  The kids ran free.  I went grain and refined sugar free and was doing really well until our Florida vacation in October.  Websites like  Wellness Mama and Spunky Coconut (she has a cookbook I am longing for) are great places for some great easy recipes. The Spunky Coconut site has some great cookie, donut (I love these), and treat type food that satisfies the desire for the sweet tooth I try so valiantly to ignore. I was pretty strict the whole month of August, and when I had sugar after that it made me feel sick...what does that prove?  Now we don't even have white sugar in the house.  I find the kids, and Derek and I's moods and behavior are so much more even, and nice without sugar and processed food.   

But anywho,  August....

The month I forgot I was the owner of a camera apparently.

A cousin got married, which gave us an excuse to dress up, and dance.  The reception was a fun outside event, with an area for the kids to play.  How great is that? 

Julia will be remembered on that day as having a really bad hair day...

(excuse the baldie in the back, I couldn't crop him out with out lobbing off part of our heads.)

Nick and his girlfriend Susie flew home from California for the wedding.  It was so nice to see both of my brothers in less than three weeks. 

Sibling love. 

We should have known trying to get a picture of Julia with a plate food in front of her was going to result in just that, a picture of Julia eating, and Aunt Lolo cheesing.

Cole getting in some quality Papa time.  

 

Cole showing us his moves like Jagger.

And Julia following suit.

At the end of the month rolled around school began.  I know I took pictures of them on their first day of school, but can not seem to find them.  Hmmm.  

to be continued....

Air Zoo

Last week my kids, plus two of my friends kids ventured to Kalamazoo to visit my sister, and the Air Zoo.

This was the cutest place, and ages four and under were free.  My kind of place.  

First we entered the clouded walkway,

then looked at a few  dozen planes,

stopped by the hands on toddler section,

rode on the hot air balloon ride,  warning if spinning in  fast circles over and over again isn't your thing, avoid this ride.

Then rode on the planes,  

next up was the ferris wheel,

Stopped for a quick picture while Mara and Alana rode a ride, and looking oh so thrilled about it,

a quick one of Julia with Aunt Lolo,

the space center was next, 

Cole and Mara our future astronants.

Then we watched a really cute 3D movie, featuring three flies who go to the moon.  After all of that we repeated the process.  The kids could ride the rides as many times as they wanted.  We stayed until closing, stopping for a picture on the way out.

We will definitely go back someday before Cole turns five :)

Busy Busy

Have you heard of busy bags?  If you google "busy bags" there is a whole bunch of ideas.  I especially like this site  for ideas.   They are super cheap, and most can be made with items from your home, or a quick trip to the store.

Everyone tells me how busy Julia is.  I get comments like, "Wow, she sure is busy."  or "She just does not stop does she?"  I get these comments all of the time.  So, I made a whole slue of different busy bags for her and Cole.

One of her favorites is the fuzzies (or pom poms) into a container.  Whoever thought of this, thank you! SIMPLE.  It literally took me a minute to make, and has provided endless entertainment for her.

What you need:

1.) A willing toddler.  Check!

2.) an old container with a hole cut in the middle (I have also heard of people melting a hole into it). Check!

(for the record we do not eat margarine, no idea where this container came from.)

3.) fuzzies (really cheap in the craft aisle) Check, Check!

Instructions: 

Dump out the fuzzies.  Then have your little one put them back in the container through the hole you so expertly made.  Kind of like fifty two card pick up for toddlers.

Convince her not to put the fuzzies in her mouth.

Oh the concentration...

Fun right?

We think so.

We store this in a large Ziploc bag, hence it being a busy bag.

P.S. The cutie above picked out her bow.