A Lovely Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fun time with the families.

First to Aunt Carrie's house (Jeff's dad's sister)
Jules got to see some cousins that she used to hang out with a lot, but hasn't seen in a couple of months. They had fun. Jules and Jordan:


She got to play with markers. Thank God for washable markers! Take a close look at her arms.


And this is Colton, Jules, Abby, and Jordan:


These two sleepy heads are taking a break between lunch #2 at my parents in North Richland Hills and Lunch #3 at Jeff's Aunt Vick's in Justin.


By the end of the day, Jules wasn't feeling so hot. It seems like a cold with a little tummy issue thrown in. She acts fine for a while, and then has these little times that you can tell she doesn't feel well. She's sleeping like a champ... good naps and 12 hours a night... so hopefully, that will help her get through it.

Friday, Aunt Meredith and I went for some early morning girl time... shopping. Jules got to have a good morning with Daddy.
After her morning nap, we went with Grammy and Gramps to see.... DISNEY ON ICE!
This was a test run to see how she reacted. We were fully prepared for her to not pay much attention and get bored. But she was entranced and loved EVERY minute of it. She wore her Mickey Mouse (or as she calls him "Mouse") shirt for the occassion. I didn't realize it before hand, but she even knows Pluto's name! I'm sure Mickey Mouse Clubhouse can be thanked for that. Anyway, here are a few snaps of the fun.









The Sweetie just woke up from her morning nap and still isn't feeling well. She's got the gross runny nose and way more dirty diapers than normal. How do the two combine? Plus, she's cuddling with Daddy right now. That NEVER happens! Cuddling for more than 30 seconds...
I'm very thankful that I can be home with her when she's feeling this way.

Thankful

To copy my friend, Susan:
I am so thankful for:



and of course:


BUT I am especially thankful for:


I haven't always been the best wife (hopefully, I'm getting better! :-D) and I thank you for your infinite patience and support. You are my best friend.

20 Months!?!?!?

Jules is 20 months old today. Hard to believe that we're a year and 2/3 into her life. She, of course, is amazing.

Some fun anecdotes:
She looks for the moon everytime we go outside.
It seems as though her two favorite foods are grapes and mac & cheese.
Halloween helped her discover candy... and it seems we're a little obsessed now.
And she's finally got hair! Although, ponytails, barettes and bows don't last.

I'm going to add a couple of pictures as soon as possible.

Thursday Drama

Okay... settle in for a long story.

Thursday evening, I picked Jules up from the sitters. I'm greeted with "I just broke Jules tooth - her back tooth." Automatically, I'm in STAY CALM mode. James brings me Jules (who happily yells "Momma" and goes to hug me), says he's just cleaned her up, and gives me a ziploc with the tooth inside it. He says they were doing flips and playing around and she knocked her head. Poor James is freaked out... super upset and worried about her.

I get Jules in the car - She promptly asks Grammy for grapes - and call Jeff. He starts calling around - Care Now, Cooks Childrens Emergency Room, leaves a message for his dentist. We have no idea what to do. My future brother in law has his dentist's cell number and gets in touch with him for us. They tell us to pull the tooth and if we can't do it ourselves, have it pulled. AAARRRGHHH! At this point, I'm freaking a little... stomach queasy just imagining a broken tooth in my baby's mouth. But she's acting completely normal.

We get home and finally (over an hour after I initially picked her up) look in her mouth. We see where she bit her tongue, but can't find a missing or broken tooth. It was surprisingly easy to get her to open her mouth wide. We look at our ziploc'ed tooth a little closer and realize that people molars have four ridges... this tooth only has two. Jeff calls James and asks him to look in his puppy's mouth. Yep.... it's the puppy's tooth!

Apparently, Jules bumped her head, started bleeding (from biting her tongue), and when James looked up, he saw a tooth laying on the chair... and assumed it was Jules' tooth. Both he and Ashley were SO relieved that she was okay... as of course were we. Now, it's just a funny story that we will enjoy telling for a long time.

A Little Politics

I just have to say that I am amazed at our country. It's remarkable that this country has gone through so much, yet 232 years later... is still whole and operating as was planned. (only one civil war...)

The glorious thing about our system is that if you don't agree with a couple of issues that a candidate/politician stands for... that's okay... because he has to fight with the other politicians to get his ideals into law. In addition to that, this financial crisis, this last month shows us that if you communicate with your legislators, they listen. They may change their mind two weeks later, but we need to keep communicating.

People who get so worked up and angry about one guy winning or losing... I just don't understand that. Last night really made me appreciate our system of government and what a strong system it is.

Trick Or Treat!

Jules went trick or treating for the first time tonight. Super fun...
She did really well. Lots of "Thank you" and "I like this."
If you ask her what a Lion says (she was a lion)... she'll tell you "Rooooar"
She's the best.


My dad bought this costume for her last year. It's a 2t and worked out perfectly. At the time, he told me to just let her use it as a sweatshirt. He got it on clearance, so he didn't mind. But when he saw her wearing it tonight, I could tell that he was super proud that he had bought it for her.

She wanted to eat every sucker that was given to her. At one point, there were three suckers open... one in each of our mouth. When she got the next tootsie pop, she handed it to Daddy to open. He did the switcheroo to give her the dum dum that she already had back. Uh, uh... not for this smartie girl. She got mad at him. He tried to pull it off several times. No Go. It was so funny!



Thursday evening, Jules and Jeff carved our pumpkin. Jules was seriously uninterested at first... but when it started developing a face... a little more interested.

Loving the fall!

My favorite time of year... cooler weather, all my favorite sports, a line up of holidays to come. So many things to love.

Last weekend, Texas beat OU. Jules got to wear her cheerleader outfit to celebrate!
It's a little big for her, but she loves it.















We went to watch my 2nd cousin at her marching band contest. Jules LOVED it! When one band would end, she was looking for the next one. She lasted a little over an hour, which was great. We even had time for Tory to come up and say hi to us before we left.

Today, we went to the pumpkin patch. Just like last year, Grammy, Gramps and Aunt Meredy went with us. Kelly and Caitie joined us too.

Jules and Caitie

We went to Hall's Pumpkin Farm. They have wagons that you can use for free. When Jules saw other people with wagons, she just had to get one. Aunt Meredy (who is awesome... thanks for all the help this weekend, Sister!) waited around until we got one for her. Jules loves her wagons.

We went and looked at the animals, played on the little playground, went in the hay house (although that didn't last long because of lots of rowdy, rambunctious boys), rode the little kid tractors, sat on lots of pumpkins, etc. Generally, we fit a lot of fun into just over an hour.
She even got the hang of the silly cut outs.




And tonight, she and Will (our 3 year old next door neighbor) figured out that they can talk through the fence, see each other through the slats and poke at each other. It was quite cute!


She's getting to be a big girl. No longer can I say the simple 18 months age that everybody understands. She's 19 months old today. And back to looking at perplexed looks while everybody has to do math to figure out that she's 1 year, 7 months old. At this age, it's just not appropriate to say one... because that's SO MUCH DIFFERENT than being 19 or 20 or 21, etc months old. Mom's understand... but so many people don't.

I love being Mom. I'm super lucky that I have a husband whose identity is firmly entrenched in being a good Dad. All I have to do is say the word and he'll work out giving me space, time, a girls night... whatever I need.