Happy 4th birthday Julianne!

Dear Jules,

Four years ago today, I became a mommy. Your mommy. What a joy you have brought to our lives. I never knew how much love my heart could hold until I had you. I can't believe you are already four years old. Time is flying by and we are watching you grow into a beautiful little girl so full of life. You've experienced so much this year including starting school, moving to a new state, sleeping in a big girl bed, lots of fun trips, and many other things that have made this year so very special.

You are so incredibly smart. So smart that it is sometimes scary. You are a mini version of your daddy. You love going to school and can't wait to learn more and more. This year you have learned all your letters and can now spell lots of words. You love to count. You love to color and make crafts. You love to dance. You especially love to sing (it is by far your favorite thing to do). You can memorize a song after hearing it just a few times (a talent you get from me). Your favorite band is Lady Antebellum. You love their songs!

You love to go to church. You love to learn about Jesus and sing about him. I love watching you soak it all in. Only He loves you more than we do! I pray that you will grow up to have a heart for the Lord and serve Him!

You love having a sister and have recently been telling us that you would like a brother too (mommy is not so sure about that).

You are hysterical. You make me laugh about 500 times a day. So funny and witty you are!

You have brought so much love and joy into our lives over the last four years. We pray that you have so many more years ahead of you. Thank you for everything that you are!

Here is your slide show that mommy made for your birthday. I hope you enjoy it for years to come! All my love baby,

Mama

Happy 2nd birthday Claire!

My dearest Claire,

You are two years old today! How can it be that my baby is 2? I now know what all these parents are talking about when they tell you to cherish each moment because time goes so fast. It does. I find myself constantly wanting to stop time so I can take it all in. Take you in. Memorize these days; what you you are doing, what you look like, what your laugh sounds like, how much you need me. I know I won't remember it all but that is alright because I will remember the joy. The joy of being your mommy. The joy you have brought into our family. The joy you bring me every single day.

10 days old....

You are so full of life. I never really understood what that expression meant until you came along. You are busy, crazy, silly, hysterical, and loving. You are either 100% happy or 100% not happy. There is no middle ground with you. You know what you want and have no problem showing us exactly what you think if you don't get it. You are passionate.

You love your sister. You try to do everything that she is doing. I love watching you play together. The communication the two of you share. The two of you rarely fight or disagree about anything. I pray that continues.

You are a mama's girl. If I am around, you rarely want anyone else. You've made great strides this year with me leaving you places and I am so thankful for that. You no longer scream when I leave you at school, or the church nursery, or with a sitter. For the most part anyway.

You love babies. You have about 100 baby dolls now and you love them all. You love to undress them, hold them, rock them, feed them, and put them to bed. I thought you would be a great big sister until I held a baby in front of you. Maybe not! We'll stick to dolls for now!

1 year old.....

You are independent. You want to do everything yourself. You want to dress yourself, walk everywhere by yourself (no hand holding allowed), feed yourself, brush your own teeth, and the list goes on and on.

You love to be naked. I don't know what this is all about but it is impossible to keep clothes on you. I turn around for a second and you have every single bit of clothing off. I redress you about 50 times a day.

You love to dance. Every time music comes on, you go for it. The other day my phone rang and you danced to the ring tone. I love that you and your sister love to dance. I love to dance and I know that is something we will always share. I love our dance parties.

2 years old...

You have taught me so much in your short two years. You've taught me patience. You have taught me that I can't control everything. You've taught me that sometimes the most wonderful moments happen when you just let go a little bit. You have taught me to laugh at myself, because nothing makes you laugh harder. You have taught me that the amount of love a heart can hold is endless....that just when I am certain I couldn't possibly love you more, you make my heart nearly explode!

Today we celebrate you, our beautiful Claire bear, on your second birthday! We love you so much and can't wait to see what the next year has in store!

Here is your second year slide show that I made for you capturing all of your most wonderful moments from the last year. I hope you cherish it as much as I cherish you! Love you sweet girl!

Always,

Mommy

Julianne is a rock star!

I think Julianne is going to be a rock star. It's what I always wanted to be so why not? This girl loves to sing as much as I do. She's mostly like her daddy so I love that she gets this from me:

Christmas morning!

Christmas morning at our house was really fun this year! Julianne woke up first and Claire was still snoozing but we let Julianne go ahead and come out so she could start enjoying what Santa brought her!

Walking out to see what Santa left!

Checking out her stuff
Looking pretty excited!

Happy girl!

She loves this Ariel doll that Santa brought her! Ariel is her favorite thing right now!

Daddy and Julianne

Holding up her goods to show them off!

Loves this Mickey Christmas movie!

playing her new alien game

Riding her bike that Aunt Mimi and Uncle Todd got her! She was so excited!

Claire woke up (complete with bed head) and decided to join the party!

New rocking chair from mimi and papa!

New vacuum. Obsessed with vacuums this kid is.

Diggin' into her stocking!

Their first Lego's!

Bottles for all of her new baby doll's!

We had a great Christmas and we hope all of you did too! Is everyone as tired as I am. Christmas is exhausting! But so much fun!!!!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve opening gifts, baking cookies for Santa and bouncing off the walls! We decided to let the girls open their gifts from all their aunts and uncles on Christmas Eve so they weren't so overwhelmed on Christmas morning. Good call! The girls were so excited to open all the gifts that had come in the mail over the previous weeks.

First up were the gifts from Uncle Jason and Aunt Tonja. Julianne got an Ariel costume and you would have thought it was the real live Ariel standing in our living room. Greatest reaction to a present ever. She doesn't normally get really excited about gifts but this one did it!

She was quite proud of it!
On to the next present....

Four pairs of princess shoes for dress-up! She is so into everything princess right now!

Claire got into opening gifts too!

She loved her dolly and microphone!

She thought the doll's paci was for her.

Now it was on to gifts from Aunt Randi and Uncle James. Look at those big ole bags! They liked the bags as much as the presents!

Claire got a Cabbage Patch doll and Julianne got a cash register. Then they got a joint gift:

A spiro bouncer! They were excited!

We took a break from gifts for a while to make some cookies for Santa.

Julianne did a great job rolling the dough and Claire did a great job eating it!

rolling the dough in the Cinnamon sugar was Julianne's favorite part!

On to more presents. Aunt Tami and Uncle Bill sent a pretty dress for Julianne. She was in heaven!

Showing it off!

Claire got a baby doll that looks so real it freaks me out a little.

Again, she thought the paci was for her and she couldn't even wait to get the baby out of the box before stealing it from her.

Posing for a picture with the cookies and milk we left for Santa.

And off to bed they went so Santa could come!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! Blessings to you all!

Julianne's Christmas Program

Julianne had her Christmas program at school this week. So much fun! She loves to sing and we could hear her over everyone singing her little heart out. Adorable I tell ya.

Here is the whole group. Jules is in the front row on the far left.

A bunch of 3 and four year olds singing = cute!
So proud of my girl!

Daddy got to sneak away from work for a few minutes to come. She was so happy!

Shaun and I with our little star. Love this girl!

Here is a video of the first few minutes of the program if you want to see some cuteness (and Julianne waving to us). Enjoy!

Santa photo 2012

Look what we got this year! A Santa picture with two happy girls who weren't afraid of Santa, happy to see him, and even smiled for the picture! Yay! 100% better than our dry run last year!
And way better than our second attempt last year too!

Claire hated Santa last year. She was so scared of him. Not anymore! The crying pictures are kind of funny but I love how this year's turned out even more. Two happy girls! Woo hoo!

Christmas parade!

We headed to Bentonville on Saturday for the Christmas parade. We thought the girls would enjoy it. They got all dressed up and posed for some pictures before we left.

Claire loves taking pictures. Julianne does not.

But then Julianne tries to get in front of Claire for the pictures...
And then Claire pushes her

Fun times. The drama with girls never ceases to amaze us.


Ready to walk to the parade!

And they're off!

Claire and I snuggled up. It was quite cold because the wind was blowing hard this day and it was raining a little. Claire does not like wind.

The Energizer bunny. I took a picture because it's actually my friend's husband in the bunny costume. He works for Energizer and got talked into being the bunny this year!

Julianne was "cold" but she hung in there to see Santa at the end

And the best part was all the candy people were handing out which she enjoyed while watching the parade! Anything for candy!

Merry Christmas!