First Day of School

Bravely walking into school and proudly sporting her Dora backpack...



We happened to time it right to where we walked into school with Noah and Haley. I think seeing her friends there really helped her confidence and comfort with going to school.


Jewels and me. My new favorite picture of the two of us!


She loved the idea of putting her belongings in the bucket with her name on it (last year, we just handed her things to the teachers to hang on wall hooks)...


And she thought she was a big girl for putting her sticker on her back by herself, which she saw Noah do so many times last year...


Julia and her teacher Ms. Jackie...


You didn't cry AT ALL walking into the door of your class, and you happily trotted over to a table and began playing with toys with some other kids. This was shocking considering that even after 9 months of school last year, you nearly always cried when I dropped you off. I was so impressed! Well, I guess you thought I was sticking around like I did during Meet the Teacher. Ms. Jackie said that when you looked around for me a couple minutes later, that's when the tears came. So sorry pumpkin!!

Overall Ms. Jackie said that you did great, though!! Since we're only two weeks into potty training and I know that the transition of new teachers and kids can be tough for you, I picked you up before naptime. I figure we'll wait til Thursday to have you attempt sleeping on a napmat. Good thing I picked you up early... you hadn't gotten potty all morning and I think you were holding it til we got home. Don't worry - you'll get more comfortable with the whole potty process at school.

You are such a big girl now, and your daddy and I are incredibly proud of all the transitions you've gone through the past couple of months with potty training, your big girl bed, a new Mother's Day Out class, and a baby brother on the way. We've even transitioned to the 2T section at the stores when looking to buy your Fall clothes! We just can't get over how big you're getting, even though you daily remind of this fact with your continual requests (often demands), "I do it myself!" You bring us so much joy and laughter, and we hope you have a wonderful year at school. We love you more than you'll ever know!

Haley's Party

Haley celebrated her 3rd birthday with a super fun party at ASI Gymnastics. Most of my pictures are really poor quality due to the lighting, but you can at least see the great time they were having.

Here's the birthday girl with older brother Noah...

Left to right: Paige, Haley, and Julia jumping on the trampolines...

The girls taking their turns sliding into the foam pit...

Parachutes are always fun...

Andrea, Travis and Baby Eli...

Snack and cupcake time!...






Below is a pic of Haley giving Julia a big hug and telling her thanks for her present. I was actually so proud of Julia: We decorated Haley's card with suckers, and Julia told me exactly where to place each sucker and never asked for a sucker for herself. Then, when it was time for Haley to open presents, she really wanted to give the card to Haley herself (she didn't like it just being in the pile of presents). This was the first time I'd seen her genuinely excited to give to another person. And Haley was super cute with all of her "thank you"s and hugs. Good job girls!!!

Alpine Slide Video

Here is some first person video footage of Jarret on the Alpine Slide at the Durango Mountain Resort in Colorado. Pictures from that vacation to come soon!


http://www.vimeo.com/13812188

Birthday Weekend

Jarret's home! Nothing else mattered very much about my birthday weekend, other than the fact that the 3 of us were back together again. Friday was a rough day for me, and Julia and I were both so ready to have him home.

For the family time portion of my birthday, I tried to think of something fun and different we could all enjoy. So we took our first trip to Hawaiian Falls. We only got a few pictures, but for the most part, Julia had a great time. However, she didn't enjoy getting water splashed in her face and she absolutely hated the giant bucket of water that dumped out over the playground every few minutes. As for me, the pools were nice and cool so I was happy!





On Sunday (my actual birthday), we slept in and had a relaxing morning at home. Julia was so sweet to me all morning and all evening, saying "Happy Birthday Mommy!" and singing happy birthday to me over and over and over. We skipped church service, but I'd say we still had our own church. Julia was flipping through my Bible, so I asked her what the Bible said. We've only tried one memory verse so far, but look how good she is doing! This was the first time she'd done it completely on her own without any prompting AND in the right order!

Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Later, we ate lunch with Jarret's parents at Maggianos. Julia was a bit cranky at lunch and didn't want to be in the picture with us.

Then, his parents kept Julia for the rest of the afternoon so we could shop and go see a movie together. It was wonderful to have "us" time after having so little of that this month.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and there's still more celebration to come since we haven't had a chance to do dinner with my parents yet. Mom twisted her ankle on Saturday, so we were giving her a couple days to recover a bit. Plus they saw how sad I was on Friday and were trying to give me as much time with Jarret as possible over the weekend.

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to share life with, on my birthday and everyday!

First Painting Experience

This post was primarily for Jarret to watch while he was away, but Vimeo took so long to process the video that he's already home now (thank goodness, and all 3 of us are SO excited!). Anyway, since I went through the trouble of uploading the video, I figured I'd go ahead and publish the post.

Video of Julia painting

I think it's particularly funny how animated she talks about the "lellow" color. And it's obvious that I'm a mom who is too concerned with keeping everything picked up and clean, since my child never really got into the idea of painting with her fingers. She kept asking for a paper towel to wipe off her hands when they got messy...kinda defeats the point of FINGER painting. :-)