Dollie & Me Party

  

Julia and I had a wonderful time at the Dollie & Me Party at our church on Sunday.  Nana enjoyed her first doll party with Julia, too, because she was at our church to hear Daddy preach.  

Everything was so fun and special.  We had lunch in the parlor where they had set up small tables and chairs with white table clothes and doily placemats for the girls to sit for their lunch of peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches cut into heart shapes, goldfish crackers, fruit, pasta salad, pink lemonade in real punch cups, and pink cupcakes for dessert.  Julia chose her plush doll newly named Ladybug to bring to the party.  After lunch, Julia put on stickers on a special tshirt for Ladybug, and we made a necklace by stringing beads on ribbon (we just made one for Ladybug instead of matching ones for her and the doll).  Then she had fun washing the doll's face with a cotton ball dipped in water and fixing the doll's hair with special combs and clippies.  We could have stayed all afternoon if her ear hadn't started hurting.  So much fun! 

  

Pumpkin Patch!

 

 Julia has been so excited about the pumpkin patch at her school.  She knew the pumpkins were coming and would ask everyday if they were coming that day.  She's been learning the days of the week at school, so we had a big time trying to tell her, " the pumpkins are coming on Wednesday and we'll go as soon as we can.  What is today?  How many days until Wednesday."  She was telling everyone about the pumpkins at her school and they were coming soon.  She wouldn't think of getting them anywhere else, and decided they had to go on the porch.

After school today, we stopped in and picked out five pumpkins.  Julia loved it, as you can tell in the pictures.  Julia said Daddy had to carry his and Mommy's, Mommy had to carry Julia's and Uncle Todd's (who is getting one since he is visiting this weekend), and Julia would pick out and carry the one for the baby (we are expecting around March 1st). 

baby doll fun

 

I found a two-in-one craft project in Family Fun magazine to make a doll bed and a doll table from a crate you get when you buy clementine oranges.  I saved a crate last winter and finally got around to working on it.  Nana ended up doing a good bit of it.  It has felt inside it and felt for the pillows.  There are wooden knobs glued to the corners, the legs/posts are painted a little, and fabric is glued to the outside.  Nana sewed the pillow and the blanket/tablecoths.

Last night, Anastasia helped me make a doll hat for baby Tree.  She designed a pattern for it, I knitted itsome, and she finished it up. When I got home, I couldn't stand I decided to turn the coasters I had made preciously out of the same yarn, into a poncho to match the hat.

Julia has been sick for the past two weeks plus.  First a fever virus, and now we are on round two of antibiotics.  At least she has had Pixar ('pick-star') movies, her dolls, and fun things in the mail from Grammie and Poppy, like the new dress and bows she modeled for the pictures here.

Day out with Thomas

 

We all had a great time going to Calera to Day Out with Thomas.  Julia got to have a picture with Sir Topham Hat, stamp and color, get a Rosie train tattoo, play with trains, play putt-putt golf, eat Dippin' Dots, hear a Thomas birthday story on a train car (and help sing Happy Birthday to Thomas), blow bubbles, play in a sand pit, ride a train car that Thomas pulled, jump in a jumpy house, pick out a souvenir (a stamp), go through a maze, and see a baby goat and other animals at a petting zoo.  And we are glad the camera wasn't lost forever and that I got it from the lost and found the next day. (I made the pictures smaller since there are so many - to see the pictures bigger, click on one and then click through the filmstrip at the bottom.)

 

birthday party

 

Julia's birthday party this weekend was lots of fun.  When she came home that morning (after spending the night with Nana while we were at the youth auction party), she saw the balloons on the mailbox and got really excited.  She kept running around the house looking at all the balloons and everything and saying, "for me!?!"  We had a Toy Story theme day - she wore her Jessie shirt, and we made sugar free alien cupcakes and had other Toy Story decorations.  It was also Poppy's birthday, so we had fun with the birthday flag.  We enjoyed having so much playtime with some of her friends from church - Charlotte, Patrick, Josh and Sam (and their parents) - as well as grandparents and Uncle Todd and the Martins.  Uncle Will and Aunt Stacey came soon after the party, enticing us back to the cupcakes.  We hope everyone else had as much fun as we did!