Christmas!

We had a really fun Christmas this year! Julianne was in awe of the tree, the presents, and really happy that her grammy and papa were here! My parents arrived on Christmas Eve and Julianne was very happy to see them. Tickles from papa
Showing them her "touchdown" move

The fun started immediately with drops, turns and upside downs from papa

After we put Julianne to bed on Christmas Eve, my dad and Shaun got to work assembling the kitchen that my parents got for her (lots of little parts). I'm sure this is what most of our Christmas Eve's will look like for the next several years!

Coming downstairs Christmas morning

What's going on?

Checking out her kitchen from afar

Oh my, look at all that stuff for me!

Checking out her kitchen

Pushing her new shopping cart

Looking at all the presents

Doing a Christmas boogie

Standing on my present

ripping into it

How am I going to open all of this stuff?

She became a fast pro at ripping open the wrapping paper

Playing with her new pots and pans

Filling up the cupboards of her kitchen

Her first purse complete with cell phone and credit card!

Getting the goods out of her stocking

What else is in there?

New bath toy!

Fascinated with the new bath toy

taking ornaments off the tree

Christmas cutie!

Got my apron on - ready to cook!

Hugs from grammy

We cleaned up all the paper and put it into a garbage bag...turned our backs for about 30 seconds and then saw this:

That's her under the garbage bag

The wrapping paper was as fun as the presents

She had so much fun making a mess out of what we had just cleaned up

The rest of the day there was a lot of cooking going on in that kitchen! She loves it!

It took nearly all day for Julianne to open her gifts...she wanted to play with every single thing she opened right when she opened it. So we had a relaxing 8 hours of opening gifts and watching her play. She still has a present that we haven't given her yet. More pictures to come of the rest of her presents - thanks to everyone who sent something for her - we are blessed with wonderful family and friends! We hope your Christmas was as merry as ours!

The first haircut

I just realized that I forgot to post about another one of our adventures while out in California - Julianne's first haircut. I had cut her bangs once or twice but her hair was getting out of control. This is what her hair looked like before we left on our trip: The poor thing is blessed with my hair - it is so thin but she does have quite a bit of it. Unfortunately, it grows in a mullet like fashion....thick in the back and on the top and not much on the sides. I decided it was time for a little clean up so I called my friend Shannon who cut my hair for years when I lived in California and we went in to see what she could do. I didn't want to cut any of her curls off because I'm terrified that they won't grow back. So, she just gave her a trim all over and made it look a little more even (AKA...less mullet like).

Julianne was not excited about getting her haircut. She isn't excited about anything that requires her to sit still for more than about 5 seconds. She was a little unsure about the whole thing:

Doesn't she look scared?
She started moving around and I think Shannon did about 80% of the haircut with her standing up

We thought she might think the water bottle was cool....she didn't.

What are you doing to me Shannon?

Ahhhhh!

Good thing I wore my necklace to distract her....

I do not like this.....

I gotta get outta here!

It was an experience, that's for sure. I think the whole thing took about 3 minutes. Shannon had to work fast. Her hair looked much better after but she already needs another haircut. We may be doing ponytails for a while!

Family photo shoot

While out in California, we went for a photo shoot with the fabulous Lorie. I walked away thinking we would not have very many good pictures because a certain blond haired little girl was not in the mood for picture taking that day. She is good about 98% of the time, and this day was the other 2%. I'm so happy with how they turned out, especially considering Julianne's mood that day. We had to get some baby bump pictures too. Thank you Lorie, we had so much fun with you!!! Picture overload to follow: