Julia's 2! Extravaganza!

Well, she's officially 2 now. Can't you see how much she's grown?!

We spent the day of her actual birth at America the Beautiful park in downtown Colorado Springs. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home (I know, I suck) so I have no pictures of her frolicking in the fountain. She quite enjoyed herself, though!

When we got home, she opened her presents. Unlike last year, she was adamant about opening them without the assistance of her older sister. So, she asked Evan for help. :)


She declared every gift "cute" and would ooh and ahh over them all.


After a dinner and a bath (and a trip to King Soopers for brownies after mine were too disgusting to eat....I have no idea what went wrong, they were from a box for goodness sakes!), we called Nina & Papa on our computer (thank you Skype) and we sang Happy Birthday to her.
She tried so hard to blow out the candles by herself. Evan eventually helped her out.
She found the store bought peanut butter brownies delicious (as did we all).

We had her birthday party this past Saturday. Of course, it was Mickey Mouse themed. I made her cake. It was cherry chip with vanilla icing. Oh my goodness, was that cherry chip cake delicious!
Do you like her party skirt? It was an Old Navy find and I adore it on her.
We invited only a few people (Rachel and her family, Kim and her family, Baby Noah and his family). After she opened this Mickey Mouse coloring book from Kim, she had absolutely no interest in opening any other gift. She'd just pass them to me and say, "Here go, Mom."
That was, until she got a surprise gift from her Aunt Kyle....a helium tank with balloons.

Why is Kyle so mean to me? you ask. Well, you see, when Ethan turned 2, he loved balloons more than anything else. And when looking for a gift for him, I was strolling down the party aisle at Wal-Mart and stumbled upon a small helium tank with balloons. Knowing how much he would love me, I purchased said helium tank, wrapped it up and didn't tell a soul what I'd done. At Ethan's party, he opened the gift, and as I predicted, was ecstatic about it and demanded it be opened so he could blow up all the balloons. Kyle, on the other hand, was not as happy. She may or may not have made an inappropriate hand gesture at me. I can not recall.

So, Kyle emailed Rachel and asked her to buy Julia a helium tank for her party and to surprise me and Evan with it. Yeah...the kids loved it. I'm trying to figure out where to store it. Sigh.
My ceiling. Which are 16ft. high. The babies kept letting go of their balloons. Yeah.

This is Noah. I love him. It goes--Ethan, Owen and then Noah who have my heart. Evan's somewhere at the bottom after the little boys. Julia also loves Noah.


Julia was a bit embarrassed to have to blow out her candles in front of everyone.
Thankfully, her daddy was there to help her out.

We had root beer floats. Rachel drank hers from a stein. :)

Do you want to see her skirt again? Ok!


The older boys played the Wii.
Noah showed his patriotism.

The older girls played pool party with their Barbies.
And Julia wanted bubbles! Thankfully, she received lots of bubble toys!

Noah was in complete awe of the bubbles.
Julia kept eating them.
Thank you, Buzz Lightyear, for supplying them with endless bubbles. Julia loves you.
Overall, Julia had a fantastic birthday.


She's ready to enjoy being 2!!!

2

Julia is 2 today. She's been talking about it for weeks now.

She knows that she gets presents. She knows she's supposed to blow out the candles. She's knows that when someone asks her how old she is she's to proudly say, "Two!" and hold up at least 5 fingers.

But, wasn't she just this big a few months ago?! Wasn't I just crying over her first birthday?!

Cause, this is how big she is now and I can't quite fathom it.

Did you know Julia can count to 10? She can. She skips 5 a lot and gets stuck on 7 and will say "sebenteen" until you prompt her with 8.

Julia likes to sing now. It's only taken almost 2 years, but she will let us sing songs with her. Her favorite is Itsy Bitsy Spider. And "Up Down" from Winnie-the-Pooh.

She has friends. She is in love with Baby Noah who says Eh! She talks about him every day. She also loves Henry, Mabel, Peter, Kayleigh and Baby Caleb. And, sometimes, she even enjoys the children at the Y. :)

She keeps talking about Illinois. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows that her NinaPapa and MemawPepaw live there. As do Aunt Kyky, Matt, Effen and Baby O. She thinks Papa's red truck is a fire truck. She'll get over her disappointment when she actually gets to ride in Papa's truck.
She is Evan's child. I always said that Elisabeth was all Evan's, but Julia has proven me wrong. She's even more of Evan's child. She loves to watch sports on tv, has a passion for cars and motorcycles, dislikes strawberries, and may have a tiny bit of a temper.
She's our cuddle bug. Our drama queen. Our bully. She loves Elisabeth but will tattle on her in a heartbeat. She loves to sit and hug us. She makes the funniest faces. She follows Elisabeth around and demands equal access to everything Elisabeth has. She knows what she wants and is quite stubborn about getting it. She's rough and tumble and has made Elisabeth cry when they've bonked heads. She's our comedian.
She loves dogs and cats and chickens. She knows some of her animals and the things they say. She loves Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. She plays with baby dolls and Barbies. She really wants to jump rope and to have her own bike. She is fearless on playground equipment.
She is Ethan's soulmate and I can gauge what her next stage will be by asking Kyle what Ethan was doing just a few months before. Balloon obsession? Check. Mickey Mouse problem? Check. Garbage truck watching? Check. Flags? Check.

Julia is the reason I have a love/hate relationship with being a stay-at-home mom. Getting to stay home with her is both overwhelming and rewarding. Seeing her grow from the tiny baby that needed held constantly to the toddler who can do it by herself has been amazing.

I love her giggle...the way she lights up when Evan comes home...that she calls Elisabeth "Didi"...how she still needs rocked at nap time...her love of bath bubbles...her apple juice addiction...how even though she is rude when you meet her, she melts everyone's hearts...the way she runs...her chubby hand in mine...
Happy Birthday, Juju. You are truly loved.

The Circus

The circus came to Colorado Springs. Not just any old circus, Ringling Bros. and Barnum&Bailey. They had free tickets at Evan's base (first come, first serve) but Evan wasn't able to get any for us. Thankfully, our wonderful neighbors (who are also in the Air Force) had 4 extra tickets and gave them to us.

The girls had never been to a circus before. Elisabeth was so excited she started jumping up and down and dancing and chanting, "We're going to the circus! We're going to the circus!". Julia had no idea what a circus was, but she also jumped up and down and danced and sang, "Circus! Circus!"

The show was 3 hours long.

We did not know that when we were excitingly waiting for it.
Julia did a good job. Better than I expected.
See the clowns? They are so far away that I didn't even freak the eff out. Elisabeth checked on me occasionally to see if I was handling the clowns okay. I super hate clowns.

We promised Elisabeth cotton candy. I mean, it is the circus and cotton candy is just part of the deal. Um, this cotton candy cost $12. Let me say that again--TWELVE FREAKING DOLLARS. It came with the cute hat. I don't care what it came with, cotton candy is spun sugar and air. $12 is ridiculous. Elisabeth ate the whole bag.
Here's the beginning of the show. It was kind of like a musical, which I found weird. The ringmaster sang the entire time.
Twirling girls.
Tiger man. Look how many tigers he is stuck in a cage with.
This was Evan's favorite. The motorcycles are driving in circles in there. They started with 4. Then they asked if we wanted to see 5 motorcycles in the sphere. I said no. They didn't listen and added one anyway. Then they asked if we wanted 6. I said no, I did not want to see 6 motorcycles in a very small sphere. They did it anyway. Then they added a seventh and I gave up on them listening to me at all.
Julia was given an entire tub of popcorn during intermission to make her stop her whining and kicking the small boy's head in front of us. It totally worked. :)
Julia's favorite part was the elephants. She'd squeal when they came out and would declare them "Big!". This elephant is carrying a dog in a basket.
This was right before one of the elephants took a massive crap. It smelled, even way up high in the seats. I've never seen people sweep up that gigantic of a poopy mess so quickly!

We did enjoy the circus. Elisabeth loved the tight rope walkers and the pirate acrobats. I liked being able to take the girls to something that we'd probably wouldn't have thought of doing before.

`