Rambling Recap

While Juliana's birthday has been dutifully documented, it seems as though I've dropped the ball on the last couple of months.  Here's a quick commentary so try to keep up.

1) We went to the zoo with our friends Brigette, Alex and Ellie.  Brigette and her family moved to St. Louis shortly after we did and we have kids right around the same ages and gender.  A match made in heaven!  Unfortunately for Juliana and Giselle, I neglected to check the weather before we left for the zoo.  So while all the other folks were dressed in pants, long sleeves and jackets, my girls and I were dressed like it was summertime.  It was cool, the girls were freezing and to add insult to injury, it started to rain as we were leaving.  Mom fail.

2) The kids love to take random pictures with the camera.  They also love to "play" in the car.  I found this beauty as I was scrolling through pictures on the camera and thought it was pretty cute.  Too bad I had to delete about 72 of J's other "artistic" photos.

3) I got called as the Personal Progress Leader in Young Women's at church (which means I work with the girls ages 12-18 and help them set and accomplish certain goals).  We had our Young Women in Excellence night in October and our theme was "The Worth of a 'Sole'".  It was all about shoes and following in the footsteps of Christ.  We decorated with footprints (along the back in the picture), sang "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" and even had cobbler to go along with the shoe/foot theme.  We gave the girls a shoe charm as a little gift.  I only got a few pictures of the set up, but I thought it was pretty cute.  The girls did a great job and it was really a lot of fun.  I get to work with an awesome group of leaders (and girls), so it was easy and fun to put this together.

4) My sister, Paula, and nieces, Lydia and Camille, came to visit us!  They came during a week when Will was out of town, so it really worked out perfectly.  Two adults, five kids. The kids had SO. MUCH. FUN.  Seriously.  They still talk about it on an almost daily basis.  "Remember that time?  When Lydia and Paula and Camille came to visit?  And we went to the Arch?  And the zoo?  That was so much fun!"

Juliana and Lydia ran into each other's arms at the airport.  It was precious.

These two were pretty funny to watch interact.  Camille slept in the Pack-n-Play in Giselle's room and they actually did well at not waking each other up from naps.  Camille is six months older than Giselle, but G is taller and heavier.  What can I say?  Will and I don't breed 'em small or petite.

We went downtown to the Arch one day while they were here.  The girls claimed they had fun, but that was not obvious to me while we were there.  I just remember Giselle having a hard time, being really hot and having loads of fun trying to wrangle four young girls through crowds of people.  The girls were cute looking out the windows at the top of the Arch though.  They were mesmerized.

After we were finished viewing we had to wait for the "elevators".  That's pretty much where my girls started to have serious issues.  Giselle especially.  Food, drink, cuddles - nothing seemed to do the trick.  You can see how sweet their cousins were trying to be with them, but my girls are stubborn and would have none of it.

The next day we waited until after school to go to the zoo.  Everett was thrilled.

5) We've been grocery shopping!  It's a blast!  I love it!  Favorite part of my week!  I especially love it when I get to take all three kids with me and they argue over who gets to sit in the dumb "speciality" grocery buggy!  I like it even more when one of them chooses to pout about it!

6) Will and the kids carved our pumpkin.  The carving part was fine, but my beef with the following pictures (as well as the ones on Halloween) is that Everett seems to have forgotten how to smile normally for pictures.  He either gives me a) a whole "lazy eye" look or b) a "deer in headlights" look.  Let's have a look, shall we?

Exhibit A: Not a full DIH, but well on his way.

Exhibit B: Total deer in headlights/crazy eyes

Exhibit C: Classic lazy eye

Exhibit D: Followed quickly by deer in headlights

Exhibit E: Believe it or not, this is the best look of the lot.

On Halloween night, our Bumblebee and Tinker Bell were uber excited to go trick-or-treating. Bumblebee loved the mask and Tink was thrilled to be wearing make-up.  Also Exhibit F: deer in freakin' headlights.  Everett, I'd say you're killin' me, but I know what's coming...

Exhibit G: OH MY GOODNESS EVERETT!  Seriously.

Exhibit I: I give up.

Darling Giselle.  Yes, I'm a bum and didn't get her in her flower costume for trick-or-treating.  She was still cute.

An action shot.  We only did our street, which isn't terribly long, but they still got loads of candy and I'm a Halloween Scrooge and wanted to get them in bed relatively close to their normal bedtime.  I know.  I stink.  Boo on Mom!

Happy Halloween 2011!  Next time, Everett's birthday recap.  I know you're on the edge of your seat.

Four is Fun!

Somehow Juliana went from this:

(Little Miss looking more like a Little Mister at like three months old)

And this:

(On her first birthday)

To this:

All grown up, no bottles, no pacifier, no diapers, dresses herself, brushes her own teeth, rides a bike (with training wheels), AND takes care of all bathroom "stuff" by herself.  Seriously, when did all this happen?  It seems like it was only a few months ago that I was staring into that cute little face, wondering what kind of little girl/teenager/adult she was going to be. Ok, enough sappiness, onto the festivities!

Juliana started talking about her birthday and turning four around Christmastime (if only I were joking).  Apparently, turning four is a VERY big deal.  She had all sorts of requests for what toys, cake, and decorations she wanted.  Four is a great age for being excited about everything!  She likes My Little Pony, princesses, fairies, bikes, books, movies, crayons, markers, coloring books, etc.  I could've closed my eyes and picked pretty much anything from two whole aisles at Target and she would've been thrilled.

Juliana's birthday breakfast request was cinnamon rolls and grits.  It's always been a secret dream of mine to be a phenomenal cinnamon roll maker.  In the past, my attempts have been...well, less than stellar.  Fortunately, some friends turned me onto a fantastic recipe site: melskitchencafe.com.  I love Mel!  I don't know her from Job, but I've tried close to 30 of her recipes and they have almost all been hits.  Her cinnamon roll recipe is no exception.  They are a ton of work, but oh my heavens, they are out-of-this-world spectacular!  So much so that Cinnabon better be glad I don't decide to take this gig on the road and put them out of business.  Hands down the best cinnamon roll I've ever eaten and the secret ingredient?  Vanilla pudding.  I'm not kidding.  Vanilla pudding.  Go.  Try it.  And then come back here and we can bask in the yumminess that is the perfect cinnamon roll.  My only regret is I didn't get a picture of the finished product.

Fortunately, I have this beauty - Everett eating an aforementioned cinnamon roll and Juliana next to a big bowl of grits.

After breakfast we got on Skype with my parents so they could see the birthday girl open their present.  Bless you, Skype.

Lunchtime brought lunch, cake and more presents.  The cake was entirely homemade (thank you Mel!), but the decorating wasn't exactly exceptional.  Oh well.  I knocked it out of the park with those cinnamon rolls.

When asked, Juliana claimed she had "the best birthday ever!"  It was a small affair with just our little family, but I think she had a great day and felt very special.  However, I do think we need a refresher course on exactly how often birthdays occur since the next morning when she woke up she exclaimed, "On my next birthday I'm going to turn 5!  And I want a My Little Pony cake!"

(PS - Here's what our four year old does with the sparkly lip gloss my mom sent.  All. day. long.)

A Toss Up

I'm not sure if the thrilling part about this post and these pictures is

A) Juliana is riding a bike!  With training wheels!

Or, Natalie scored a Disney Princess bike for EIGHT dollars and managed to put on the training wheels ALL BY HERSELF!

It really is a toss up.  We're both super duper, you-wouldn't-believe-me-if-I-told-you excited!

What Is This Feeling?

Giselle had a doctor's appt. a couple of weeks ago, and just as I'd suspected, the girl is a big 'un.  Cute and darling, but not small or petite.  She's off the charts for both height and weight and just the cutest little last child we ever could've asked for.  When she was born I thought "Cool!  I'll hopefully be able to use most of Juliana's old clothes for her."  Even though they aren't quite on the same timeline, season-wise, that sentiment has mostly held true.  What I failed to realize at the time is that Giselle is wearing Juliana's stuff about six months prior to the age when Juliana wore them. 

Case in point: Juliana wore this green dress (thank you Kim!) when she was like 22-23 months.  G is sporting it at barely 15 months.  

Case in point #2: Juliana wore this around 19 months, as evidenced here:

(Oh my goodness gracious! I just want to eat her up!  Love that girl.)

And on Miss Giselle:

Way less hair, and not so blond, but still so cute!

In other outfit news (is this seriously where this post has digressed to?) I scored this purple beauty at Goodwill for $3.  It's from Old Navy and still had the tags.  Woot, woot!  Juliana is in love with it, seeing as how her favorite color is "purple and pink" (as though they are one entity).

Now for something non-outfit related, I came outside yesterday afternoon to find Everett helping Giselle ride Juliana's tricycle and it was about the sweetest thing ever, so I took a billion pictures.

While Everett helped Giselle, Juliana sat on the side and played with Ariel and Cinderella.  This entire scenario exemplifies all three of my kids' personalities to a "T".

Giselle's face is classic!

And finally, a funny anecdote to end this post.  At church on Sunday Will and I actually got to sit next to each other.  We were singing a hymn and about halfway through Will leaned over to me and said, "Is it awkward that I can hit the high notes and you can't?"  hahahaha.  Anyone who's had the misfortune of sitting by or near me while singing can testify that I'm not a very good singer.  My range includes all of about 5 notes.  I think I've improved over the years, mostly due to belting it out when I'm alone with the kids (either at the house or in the car).  Will can tell whenever I've taught the kids a particular song because it tends to be either wrong, or completely off-key.

Which is why earlier today, as I was taking Juliana to a play date, and she requested "the girl song" (What's Is This Feeling? from Wicked), I turned it WAAAAY up and we sang to our hearts' content.  We managed to get two playings in before I dropped her off.  And guess what?  I was terrible.  I screeched, I was off-key and it was awesome!

Happy Tuesday!