Happy 2nd Birthday Juliet!!!

Juliet is at the age where she doesn't want to smile for the camera.  Robby did the same thing at her age, and it is so sad because a two year old's smile is so sweet.  And, Juliet is so sweet.  Of course, this year her personality has really taken on a life of her own, and sweet is not necessarily the first word people would probably use to describe her.  I would use words like independent, spirited, charming, energetic, friendly, and happy as well.

She has clearly developed her own interests, which include shoes, jewelry, purses, chap (aka chapstick and/or makeup), and she loves the movie Tangled.  At school, they say that she loves to play with baby dolls, but she doesn't do that too much around the house.  She does love to go shopping, either in real stores or with her shopping cart and purses around our house.  She also loves to talk on the phone, especially when she gets to FaceTime with loved ones :)

As with seemingly most little girls, she has her daddy wrapped right up in her little finger, and she and her big brother are great friends.  She also loves hugging Lincoln, and it will be really fun when all three of them can play together.

She truly lights up any room that she walks into, and she makes me laugh and smile every single day.  She so clearly likes to make up her mind about things, and while she is certainly showing a two year old's attitude sometimes, just as often, she is very sweet and obedient.  Tonight, we were over at a friend's house, and I did not want her going up the stairs.  When she headed up, I called for her to come back down and was ignored.  So, I went upstairs and asked her to come down, and she looked at me and thought for a bit about what she wanted to do.  Finally, she said "okay Mommy!" and then every couple of steps on the way down she would say, "Welcome, mommy.  Welcome."  Clearly, she had done me a big service in her obedience :), but her sweet spirit was really shining through at that moment as well.

I am so proud of her and so grateful to have been given the gift of being her mommy.  I can't wait to see what this coming year will bring and what I will be saying about her by the time she turns three!

Happy 1st Birthday Juliet!!

Juliet, you have finally made it. You are officially one year old. This year has been a huge blessing, and I cannot tell you how happy you have made us.

I love you so much.

I love your beautiful smile more than I love my first cup of hot tea in the morning.

I love your sweet snuggles more than I love homemade chocolate chip cookies OR brownies.

I love your infectious laugh more than I love sleeping in as late as I want.

I love your slightly mischevious nature more than I love shopping for a new pair of shoes.

I love your inquisitive personality more than I love curling up with a good book.

I love your modest drama queen tendencies more than I love watching Grey's Anatomy.

I love your wonderful (and not picky!) appetite more than I love even the best Mexican food.

I love your tenacity more than I love solving even the hardest word puzzle.

I love your warm greetings more than I love getting long emails or real mail.

And, it's not just me. You have made our family more complete. Daddy and Robby both love you so much also. We can't wait to see how you will grow over the next year!

I Need New Mascara

(This picture was taken this morning prior to the events outlined below. P.S. Grammy--he loves the shirt and even let me take this picture to show you how good it looks on him)

So, today I figured out how to knock two things off my to-do list in one shot: I would continue my trend of cooking something new at least once a week and make sure Robby got to celebrate his birthday in style at school this week by making homemade cupcakes for him to take to school tomorrow. As I lay in bed last night sleepless from jet lag, I even came up with this (slightly unoriginal) concept:

....no not just a bunch of cupcakes. Squint your eyes and let your creative juices flow. Then, you will clearly see that it is a caterpillar. --You could tell. I knew you had a discerning eye, my friend.

Anyway, the point of this is that while I was hard at working making this culinary delight, my children were upstairs for their daily nap. Unfortunately. . . only the one who is actually unable to get out of bed without help was in her bed.

The other had stealthily made his way to my bathroom, where his inquiring mind stumbled upon my makeup bag. What is a little boy to do with a whole bagful of makeup and no grownup around? Well, let's see:

1. dump it all out on the bathmat
2. open up the various containers and deposit the contents in a pile on the floor and mix around to see what color is created.
3. use the wands from one item to the next so that concealer becomes black and mascara pink.
4. attempt to save the parentals loads of money by experimenting to see if enough mascara applied to the hair will allow a glimpse of what you might look like with black hair (the verdict--we will stick with the more natural tones for the foreseeable future).

Needless to say that once he was discovered he was in BIG TROUBLE both for getting out of bed during nap time and playing with Mommy's stuff that he is not supposed to touch. But, after the punishment time had ended and the bath was administered, he was allowed to come downstairs and test out one of the cupcakes.

I only felt slightly guilty when I snuck the last couple of bites of the cupcake when he went to go to the bathroom considering that I am now out of concealer, blush, and mascara. I only felt slightly guiltier at allowing the poor kitchen fly to be blamed for the missing cupcake upon his return from the bathroom.

Happy 4 Months Juliet!!

Juliet's party dress for Lucy's Birthday Party!!! Happy 2 Years Lucy :)

Today my sweet baby girl turned 4 months old. I honestly cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. She has truly grown out of being an infant at this point (in fact, now that her cousin Sloan is here, she is not even the youngest grandbaby on the Sloan side).

(Juliet saying good morning to Daddy this morning)

In honor of her four month birthday today, she decided to go for the gold and hit a major milestone. So, this afternoon she rolled over from her back to her front. I set her on the couch on her back and then went into the dining room to talk to Bryan. When I looked over to check on her, she was lying completely on her tummy as if for tummy time. The only difference was that she had her arm still under her. She seemed to be completely surprised by this turn of events (remember that she hates tummy time)

Finally, I put her back on her back and decided to call it a victorious roll even though her arm did not make it out from under her. Then, all of a sudden, she was back on her tummy, and this time she was able to pull her arm out :). Then, just for good measure, she rolled one more time before bedtime.

(Juliet wondering why in the world she is on her tummy all of a sudden)

Bedtime has become a sweet tradition for Juliet and me. We lay on her furry pink rug and read stories together (well, I read, she tries to eat the pages). It is one of my favorite times of the day as she laughs and coos just for me.

(Juliet wondering why Daddy does not want to wake up)

Then after bedtime with Juliet it is time to put my big boy to bed. We also have a story time with him each night. The two most likely books are "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight" by Jane Yolen or "Hug" by Jez Alborough. He continues to do very well in his big boy bed, and he really is a great big brother to Juliet.

(This camera smile just cracks me up!)

It Was a Great Day

We started out the day singing happy birthday to the birthday boy. He wasn't too sure about that, but he recovered quickly when he discovered donuts were in his future:

Then, he got to go to school where everyone knew it was his birthday, and they had a birthday hat for him. Of course, he also got to share his birthday cookies with everyone.

After school, we came home and opened presents. Robby got a new set of Legos, wooden blocks, three little construction trucks, some new puzzles, and a Nemo baseball and a Cars baseball. All in all, it was a good haul for a 2 year old!

Then we went to feed the ducks at the Botanic Gardens. Robby is a huge fan of ducks these days. In fact, when we sing Old McDonald, ducks are pretty much the only animal that we do (well occasionally we do frog in honor of Cocoa the frog). The problem with this outing is that the ducks were MIA at the gardens. We decided to try to feed the turtles instead, and apparently, these are some hungry, hungry turtles. We started out with one turtle to feed, and we threw him some bread crumbs and Kix cereal, and then suddenly there were three turtles vying for the food. The next thing we knew, we looked up and there were turtles headed our way from all over the pond. By the time we threw out all of the food, I had counted almost 30 turtles that had swum up to us. It was crazy! Robby loved it though.

Then, we went home and Daddy fixed Robby one of his favorite dinners, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and for dessert we had cupcakes from the Cupcake Cottage. They were delicious!

After an immediate bath to clean up the cupcake from all corners of Robby's body and some more time playing with toys, Robby got one last special treat--he got to stay up until 9:15 to watch Finding Nemo. Then, it was bed time and lights out for this special birthday boy!

2 Years

I truly cannot believe that my amazing little boy is turning two years old tomorrow! It has been such a joy to watch him grow from a helpless infant into a true toddler.

Here he is right after birth:

Now flashforward to the present:

Though we are not doing the party thing until next weekend, Bryan and I wanted to make his actual birthday special, so we decided to combine two of his favorite foods--chocolate chip cookies and M&Ms to make these enticing confections to send to school tomorrow:

(yes, yes, we know--the decorations are amazing :) Well, the 2 year olds will like them anyway.

Birthdays

So, I feel like I haven't posted about what's been going on in our world in a while, so I thought I would update. Of course, I could really sum it up in one word: birthdays. We have been celebrating birthdays for the past four weekends in a row. It started off with Bryan's brother Michael's 30th birthday, which was on January 16th. All of the siblings went to Waco to surprise him, though Robby and I were unable to go. We went to Eastland for the night instead. By all accounts, it was a fabulous weekend.

The next weekend was Bryan's birthday, which was pretty low key. My friend Minda came over and watched Robby while we went out for a night on the town. Turns out we are pretty old though because after dinner at Ghengis Grill, walking around Sundance Square, and then dessert at Simply Fondue, we were tired and ready to call it a night! Bryan got an iPhone for his birthday, which has quickly become his favorite toy. Of course, we already had to replace the first one he got after the screen got cracked. Thanks Apple for taking such good care of your customers and replacing it for free!!

Then, Bryan's niece Lucy turned one on January 31st. She had a birthday party with another little girl who also turned one on the same day, and it was a blast! They had a bouncy house, two cakes and cupcakes, and lots of good people and conversations. We took 165 pictures, so I thought I would share a few:

Then, this past weekend we went to Houston to celebrate Bryan's dad's 60th birthday, which was also really fun. We got to play several sweet mafia games, eat tons of good food, and Bryan and his brothers have invented a new game called Soccer Tennis that they played all weekend and promises to be sweeping the nation very soon. Over the weekend, Robby apparently determined that there is nothing so important to him as a ball (always of great importance but now of utmost importance). If he is not playing with a ball, he is looking for a ball. The whole way home (over five hours thanks to wreck traffic), Robby would periodically cry for a ball. Once Mommy climbed over the backseat and got him one from the very back. He promptly threw it behind his head into the back again. There were no more ball retrievals after that.

Okay, super long post. I apologize. But, I will be out of town most of this week for work, so maybe this will last until I have time to post again :)