A Very Merry Christmas and More...

We had a fabulous, over-the-top Christmas this year. Unfortuantely, this is the only picture we have of it: We used our video camera a recorded the present opening, but apparently we forgot to then document the goods with pictures. Oh well. We had a wonderful morning. Julie woke up at 5:30 a.m. (I swear she knew it was Christmas and she wanted to open presents!) all bright and cheery. So Arek and I decided not to fight with her and we all openened our presents and were done by 6 a.m. Arek and I were very spoiled this year, both by each other and our parents. The main presents were a cordless drill and driver set for Arek and a sewing machine for me (my first ever). Julie LOVED unwrapping everything (she even helped Arek and me unwrap a lot of our presents) and she loved all the new toys she received. The other really nice thing about Christmas was being able to talk with my brother Ben, who's on his mission in Russia. It was good to hear his voice. He sounds so happy and really enjoying the work there.

Spaghetti Face... I think this is Julie's first every time having spaghetti, although I may be wrong. Either way I had to take a picture I can't believe how long Julie's hair is getting. You may not be able to see it well, but I can now do three connected-piggy-tails. It also curls a bit around her neck... I love it!Her hairdo from the front:Thursday night Jenny and Todd came up to celebrate their 3rd anniversary by going to the Firehouse Restaurant up in Logan. We very happily volunteered to watch Lilly, since she is Julie's best friend in the world. Here are some snapshots of them playing together. Julie loves to give hugs now, especially to Lilly. Sometimes she has to do it (like after she plays too rough with Lilly) but often she just walks up next to Lilly and lovingly wraps her arms around her and pats her back. It is so cute to see.They loved the miniature keyboard that we have in our hallway... conveniently placed low so Julie can play on the keysLilly decided she wanted to sit down, but Julie was SURE she wanted to get up. She tried several times to pull Lilly to her feet... But I think Lilly was more determined to sit

Here are the girls with their matching miature camelbak waterbottles.

Christmas Stocking

I have finally finished Julie's Christmas stocking! So no longer does her stocking look like this:
It now looks like this:
I must admit I was very happy with how it turned out. The back is red velveteen, like the little hanger you can see in the picture. Next year I'll see about making new stockings for Arek and me so we have a matching set

Clementines

This week Julie tried clementines for the first time. She loves them... eats one or two a day (or more sometimes). The other day I gave her one (unpeeled) to play with while I did something at the kitchen table. A few minutes later this is what I discovered in the hall. If you can't tell, she split the still-unpeeled orange in two and was sucking the juice/eating the insides. Here is the final result of the sad, destroyed clementine. Julie sure did love it, though!

St. Nikolas Day

I'm not sure what words to write today... my mind is a blank. So in lieu of words, here are some photos of our Christmas decorations around the house. Oh, and Happy St. Nikolas Day to those of you who celebrate it! Julie loved seeing her new ornament in her shoe this morning. Next year she might get goodies, too, but right now the ornament took up all the room! Arek said we had to put this in the window. It's only about 5 or 6 inches tall, but we put it up on a block which makes it visible from the sidewalk below. It makes me laugh every time I see it. Our stockings. Yes, I know Julie's is white trash-looking... I am currently making her one. It should be ready by Christmas, so I will share pictures when it is complete. I am really excited for it.Our German nativity my dad got for us... I love it... the baby Jesus even comes out of manger, which is why it's up highOur Christmas tree... note the lack of ornaments on the bottom half... yes, Julie was loving them so we put them all up on top. Maybe next year we can decorate the whole tree. Oh and also, please notice the chain of popcorn and cranberries. I've always wanted to make one, but this is the first year it's actually happened. I like it a lot

Rag CurlsAnd the other day I put Julie's hair in rag curls to see what it would do. As you can see... the top didn't do much, so I just put it back into its typical pigtails, but the sides poofed out pretty cutely, I think. :)

More Cousin Time

Here are some photos from our Thanksgiving weekend. I love seeing Julie and Lilly (who just turned 9 months and is already walking everywhere!) interact together. They get along so well and although they are too young to really “play” together, they are fascinated by each other and love to do things side by side. Here are some of their adventures from this past weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Higgs’ house. Reading books with Grandpa

Julie taking movies off the shelf

Lilly taking movies off the shelf
Lilly pushing Julie (or trying to)
Climbing stairs together
Both girls made it to the top... Hurray!
Playing the piano with Grandma
Uncle Jared and his new puppy, Leigh... short for General Leigh (she's a girl)
Julie's still a bit shy, although she loves to LOOK at Leigh, just not touch
Helping to set up Christmas
The singing snowman tree... they were mezmerized by it

Thanksgiving

It's been a while since I last blogged. There are two main reasons: 1 - Julie makes staying at the library VERY diffcult now, so it is virtually impossible to do anything online that takes more than 5 or 10 minutes. 2 - We haven't taken very many pictures this month, so although we have done lots, there is not a lot of visual evidence. Anyway, moving on.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I LOVE this holiday. I love getting together with family and relaxing and eating lots of GOOD food. It also marks the beginning of the Christmas season, which is quite possibly my favorite time of the year. I cannot wait to set up our Christmas decorations next week. Here are just a few things that I am grateful for:

- My wonderful husband. He is so busy with school and work (he just got a second job working for one of his professors which is so amazing for him!) but he is so good about spending quality time with me and Julie when he's home. I can't imagine going into engineering and working two part time jobs and doing his scouting calling and everything. He really is amazing.

- My beautiful, BUSY little Julie. She keeps me busy but is so much fun. Here's some of what she's been doing the past few weeks since I last blogged:

She is a mouth-oriented girl. Has been since she was tiny. Whenever I look away, the next time I see her she has something (like this) in her mouth.

About once a week Julie has a play date with another little girl in the ward. And despite their lack of smiles in this picture, they tend to have a lot of fun together. Each time we get together there are less temper tantrums and they are getting better at sharing. And I confess that I enjoy being able to visit with another mom once a week.

Julie LOVES pb&j sandwiches. She has one pretty much every day. She finds so much joy in eating them, it always makes me smile to watch her.

- Both Arek's and my families. All their love and support and all the laughs we share with them. And especially my brother who is serving a mission in Russia. I am so proud of him! I try to show his picture to Julie at least a few times a week, so hopefully she'll kind of recognise him when he comes home in 18 months

- My church calling. I LOVE teaching music to the primary kids. It is sometimes daunting to come up with new ideas and ways to make singing enjoyable to them, but I love hearing their voices sing, and see the love that they have for the primary songs. I know most of the teachers get tired of singing it, but I love it when the kids get to pick a favorite song and a child says "I am a Child of God". Its message is so precious and important, I love that they love it.

Finally, here are a couple of family pictures that Jenny (Arek's sister) took of us last month. We just ordered some, and I cannot wait to put them up around our apartment. She really did a great job, we really appreciate her sharing her talent for photography with usHappy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Happy Halloween!

This was Julie's first real Halloween. Last year was technically her first, but since she was a month old and it was SUPER cold, we didn't dress her up. This year, though, she got to dress up and go to our neighborhood's trunk-or-treat, which she loved... once she realized that all the strangers were giving her candy! :) By the end she was getting super tired, though, and was ready to go to bed.

Pumpkin Walk, Part 1

Tuesday we went to a pumpkin walk in North Logan. It was so much fun! They had cardboard cutouts that we took pictures with and TONS of scenes made up of painted pumpkins. We were so impressed and had a blast, in spite of the cold afternoon. Here's some pictures of us with our cardboard cutouts and then below is another post with many of the scenes. There are a LOT of photos, so hope you enjoy!Julie as Ariel

Arek as Harry Potter

Me as Cinderella

Pumpkin Walk, Part 2

Here are some of our favorite of the scenes created with pumpkins. Yes, I know it's a ton of pictures. I couldn't narrow them down any further. There were just so many creative scenes

Rapunzel and Flynn Rider:Despicable Me:Angry Birds... Seeing this made us last so hard. They even had the catapultThe Sorcerer's ApprenticeA Christmas Story... "The soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window"They had a whole Candyland scene... with all the original-looking characters. I couldn't get a good view of the entire thing, thoughGilligan's Island:The hundred acres woods:And my personal favorite: The snowmen from Calvin and Hobbes