stinky sweetness

Before I can get to the stories at hand, a little background is required. You see, Julia is in the 'why' phase. She is usually awake when I shower so when I tell her that I need to go take a bath, she, of course, asks why. I have found that the easiest way to stop the 'why-ing' is to tell her that I'm stinky and I need to get clean. Fast-forward to this morning. Julia and I are sitting on the couch while I study. It's getting late and I need to bathe, so the following conversation ensues:

Me: Julia, I need to go take a bath.
Julia: You smell stink...(then, leaning into me closer, she sniffs and exclaims)...PEWWW! You smell STANK!!

To make this slightly more ironic, I was studying for my skin, hair, and nails exam where we examine noxious body odors. So bizarre.

Well....onto the sweet story.

The girls and I had dinner with mom, dad, and the missionaries tonight. As we are leaving, Julia is telling everyone goodnight and Elder Tingey asked Julia who her favorite princess was. (Julia is completely into princesses right now.) Julia thinks about her response for a moment and says, 'My mommy is.' How sweet is she!?!?

So, there's Julia's sweet and stinky moments for the day...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIA!!!

Today my firstborn turned 3! She has been looking forward to her birthday for months. You see, in our family, there are four child birthdays between the end of June and the beginning of August. So, since June, Julia has been asking if it is her birthday yet. Since I'm not a big party planner/entertainer, I don't feel compelled to throw birthday parties for kids that are too young to get excited about them (hence my children have not had parties until this year), but with Julia's excitement, I was up to the challenge. We decide to have a 'paint party' because Julia loves painting right now. We painted suncatchers, 'painted' cupcakes, and had face painting. The kids seemed to have a blast and Julia's favorite part was standing in front of her cupcake, candle lit, listening to everyone singing 'happy birthday to you!' She just smiled ear to ear and soaked it all up. And I was so proud as she noticed people leaving, she stood at the top of the stairs and yelled, 'thank you! thank you!' Of course, she was so exhausted by that point that I'm pretty sure only about 2 people heard her, but it was still nice. She's growing so fast right now. I've always heard that the most rapid development happens between 1-2 yrs. I'm not sure I agree. Julia has undergone so many personality changes (no...not like Sybil) in the last 6 months. She is defiant, obedient, affectionate, independent, you name it, she's there. And she is becoming such a lady. She wants to wear dresses everyday...always wants her hair down, not in a pony...is obsessed with shoes...is already asking for makeup...and crosses her legs at least 50% of the time. I will post pictures at a later time, but didn't want the day to pass without shouting out a tribute to my favorite 3 year old. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIA!

llama llama red pajama

So kids go through favorite books like...well none of the analogies I can think of seem appropriate for widespread reading. Julia and Elizabeth currently have the same favorite book....Llama llama red pajama. Their love of this book has resulted in seemingly endless late book fines (ok maybe that's my fault). We have read this book until Julia is reading it back to me and Elizabeth is yelling incoherently during the 'loud' parts. Well, tonight, David is reading this book with us and we get to the girls' favorite part...'baby llama what a tizzy! sometimes mama's very busy!' (I say this with great enthusiasm). Then Julia finishes the page...'Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama!' It was the funniest/cutest thing! We all laughed for at least 10 minutes (probably closer to 1 min, but you get the point). Long story short...I'd strongly recommend Llama llama red pajama for your little ones. It was at least as big of a hit as the Ms Spider series.