V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

Ike and I are so excited about spending a few days in Jackson, Wyoming. If you have never been here you are missing out. It is GORGEOUS!! We are visiting our friends Dave and Holly at her parent's beautiful home. We might do some skiing tomorrow... there were 2 avalanches here yesterday so Holly and I might go shopping instead. Julianna is in Decatur with Nana and Papa so hopefully she is being a good girl for them. We will have plenty of pictures to post before we return this weekend.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Pictures

Christmas Eve at Nana and Papa's house.


Ike and me.


Cousins


The den with the stockings hung by the fireplace and the snow village. Santa had already dropped off Julianna's baby doll and stroller.


Living room with some of the presents.


Jesus' Birthday Cake. Pretty cute and it tasted delicious! I love cake. :)


The girls eating birthday cake in front of the tree. Making quite a mess!


Julianna putting out cookies, a carrot and some reindeer food. Milk too! Santa had eaten his cookies and most of his milk in the morning. The reindeer nibbled on the carrot and ate all of the special reindeer food that Julianna made at school.


OH BOY!! She got it!! She was very excited and whipped that stroller around all day!


More loot on Christmas morning! Julianna got a bunch of Fancy Nancy dress up stuff. I will post a picture of that later. So funny. She looked SO POSH!


Calendar for us made my Papa (painted by a friend) with the Naval Academy chapel painted on top.


Julianna and EH on the slide. Emma Hensley was very nice to share with Julianna.


Julianna admiring the pastel drawing of herself. It is very pretty. Can't wait to hang it in the house!


Me and my girl!


Snuggling up with Mamaw.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We did Christmas with my parents via web cam on the 23rd. Julianna got a new easel and lots of painting stuff from them. She played with it all day before we drove to Decatur on Wednesday.
Thank you everyone for our gifts. We are so blessed. LOVE YOU!

Find Kermit!

This post is for Chad. When we were little our favorite Christmas ornament was one of Kermit the Frog riding on a sled. We would take it off the tree and drive him around on the carpet and really had fun playing with him. Mom would always hide him on the tree and we would see who was the first to find him. When we both got married I was sad to know that Kermit was actually Chad's ornament and would be given to him... NOT ME! However my brother, ever so gracious, granted me with split custody. We mail him back and forth, so I get him one year and Chad gets him the next. This year was my year but I thought he could still have an opportunity to find him on the tree. I had to take the picture with low light or it was too obvious. Click on the picture to enlarge. Merry Christmas!! LOVE YOU!

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Quotes of the Day and other Randomness

1. "This is baby Jesus. Mary is his Mommy. This is Joseph, he likes to go to the beach."

Why do you think Joseph likes to go the beach? Does it look like he has a towel around his neck or something? I thought that was hilarious!

#2. Out of the blue..... ""I like Uncle Chad." How sweet. We miss you Chad.

#3. "Uh oh, I'm making a mess!"
She said that twice. Once she spilled a drink, the second time she dropped her cheeseburger while eating a happy meal in the car.

She also sang "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" all the way through about 27 times between 7 - 7:30pm. Not your typical toddler Christmas song but she has the whole thing down. It's adorable because the words in that song are kind of hard to say. I will post a video when I can get her to do it on camera. I was rather impressed and also made my heart melt because that was my FAVORITE song when I was little. I had my Mom sing it year round. I guess I sang it to Julianna more than I realized.

Here is a pic of us riding the giraffe today at the mall.

And Bear's new Christmas duds. I never dress Bear. This sweater was actually purchased to piss off our cat. Which it did. See picture below. But Ike put it on Bear and I thought it looked nice and seasonal so I think he can wear it for Christmas dinner or something.

Ha. That was so worth the $4 it cost to buy that sweater. Maybe he will wear it for Christmas instead. Really get our money's worth out of it!

Gingerbread House

Today I made my first Gingerbread house. I really don't remember ever doing one as a kid. I was so excited when I saw these Gingerbread House cookie cutters at the Williams-Sonoma outlet. I had no clue how labor intensive it would be to do it from scratch.... a kit would have been a lot easier but I'm glad we did it.

Before...


During...


After!


From our house to yours, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Y'all come back now! ;)

Christmas Party

We had a great time at Julianna's party today. It was the last day of school before the new year. We did lots of fun crafts.


Before the kids got to them.


Masterpiece in progress...


Really concentrating!


See what I got!?!


Then they "made" a gingerbread house. I have one picture of a little girl actually EATING the other piece of the roof. They mostly ate the candy and put a few pieces on the house.

Yum, then we had pizza.

We said goodbye to our friends. See you next year!

And our teachers, Ms. Connie...

... and Ms. Kristi.

Hope everyone from school has a great holiday. Can't wait to see you in January!

Pretty Girls

We started off our day playing at Savannah's house. The girls enjoyed playing dress up and got to eat lunch together. After we went home for our nap we ended up here...


We went down to the Peabody to visit with the ducks and to get a few gifts at the cute little gift shop. They have a HUGE, BEAUTIFUL Christmas tree there.


Just wondering... do any of you have one of these? This is "Elfie." (We are not very creative with names.) It's the "Elf on a Shelf" and it has been SO much fun for Julianna this year. Elfie is assigned to come here over the holiday to watch Julianna for Santa. Every night while she is sleeping he flies (using Christmas magic) back to the North Pole to report to Santa on her behavior for the day. You can talk to him and tell him what you want for Christmas, but you can't touch him or he will lose his magic. Every morning when he returns from the North Pole he finds a new place to sit and watch. It is the first thing Julianna looks for when she wakes up. She is so excited to find him. If you don't have one, you might want to get one for next year. It really has been a blast.
Tomorrow is the last day of school until January. Julianna has her class party and they get pizza for lunch. OHHHH BOY! I'm sure I will have a pic or 2 to share! ;)

So COOL!

So, tonight I downloaded Skype to my computer and got out the web cam and had so much fun talking to my parents. Of course Dad really wanted me to hook the web cam up so he could see Julianna, not me, but it was really fun anyway. I showed them all of our Christmas decorations and the little projects Julianna made at school. I don't know why we didn't do this sooner. The best part about the whole thing... its FREE! We can call anytime and it's free. WONDERFUL! I can see this becoming part of our daily routine. Come home, call NeeNee and PopPop, and Julianna can tell them what she did at school each day, etc. VERY EXCITED!! If y'all have family far away you should definitely give it a try if you haven't already. SO MUCH FUN!! Good to "see" you Mom and Dad! LOVE YOU!

"I made a booty!"

Julianna was playing with the playdoh again this morning with Ike when she made this masterpiece. Ike thought it was so funny he sent her in to wake me up to show me. It does look like a little butt crack right down the middle. How funny!

Then we did a little performance on the "stage" (bench) in the living room. For your listening pleasure... the personal stylings of Julianna Stutts featuring Mommy on background vocals.

Look what we did today!

We have had a really fun day so far today. Ike went duck hunting this morning (for the first time in probably 10 years or more) so Julianna and I were here together all morning. Weekends always throw off our normal routine for some reason but we had SO much fun this morning. We watched "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" then we played with markers. Then I decided we should break out the playdoh. I made these little guys with Julianna. Aren't they cute. I was so proud of myself I had to take a few pictures of them. I am not very creative usually so I was pretty impressed.


Yellow bird, Blue cat, Purple dog, Green turtle... it reminds me of reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I see a yellow bird looking at me! ha




We also dressed up like Santa. Whoops, the hat is a little too big!


There we go. Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Program

I got scolded this morning for not having pictures up yet. So here you go. We don't' have much because we filmed the program. Here are a few.

Here are the Silly Snails and a few "big kid" helpers. (they are 4) Where's Julianna? Just look for the shortest little one. She did a wonderful job singing "Happy Birthday, Jesus."


Family pic afterward in the gym where Julianna was playing with the best of 'em in her fancy dress. Didn't slow her down a bit!


Me and my girl. I don't know if you can tell or not but we are best buddies! I LOVE HER!!!

Jingle Bells Live on Stage

Julianna and her friends provided some entertainment for us during the potluck lunch after bible study this morning. It was pretty cute. More to come tomorrow... Preschool Christmas Program!! (I am so excited!!!!!!)

ps. how cute is the "background dancer" that flutters back and forth across the stage! ha

Jingle Bells

See ya tomorrow! :)

Pictures

We FINALLY DID IT!!! We have "visited" Santa at the mall 4 times before today. Today was the day. We SAT WITH SANTA!!! Obviously Julianna isn't ready for the alone pic with Santa but I am fine with being in this yearly photo op.
We also got Julianna's school pics back. Here is the sweet little angel! ( I scanned the photos in so they are a little cloudy. Sorry!)

Santa and Julianna (and Mommy) 2008

Awe, how precious. She has dark circles under her eyes just like her Mommy. lol

My big girl.