Santa Arrives

Obviously, this was not Julia's first Christmas, but in many ways, it felt as if it was. She was so much excited about what was going on, even if she didn't fully get some of the concepts, like Santa Claus.

On Christmas morning, Julia woke, and I put her in bed with us for a bit of snuggle time. She and her Papa were quite content to sleep. I, on the other hand, was about go crazy, as I knew Santa Claus had made a stop at our house and left presents downstairs. "OK, let's get up and go downstairs!" I would announce, and they would snuggle themselves back into the covers for more sleep. I was dying to watch Julia open her presents, but I had to learn to be a little patient.

Finally, we made our way downstairs, and we had such fun watching Julia open her gifts from Santa and from Aunt Lulu (who was chosen to be her Secret Santa in my family's gift exchange this year.)

Julia's dollhouse with new furniture from Santa

New drum from Santa

(She's been drumming on everything from plastic containers to cups since she saw an drums on an episode of Toot and Puddle.)

New drum from Santa

Opening gifts from Lulu

Puzzle from Lulu

Pots and pans from Lulu

Puzzle from Lulu

Updates from Julia's Teacher

As you may know, Julia goes to daycare (aka "school") 3 days per week in the same building where I work part-time. It is a great arrangement, and she really enjoys her wonderful teachers and her friends in the class.

Miss Barbara, Julia's primary teacher, fills out an on-line journal with stories and pictures of some of Julia's school activities.

Here are a few entries:

9/17/09: "Julia loves pretend play, especially playing with the phone. Usually, she picks the phone up, and says "Hi Mom!" Then, she walks around with it by her ear as if she was listening to her mom talking to her. At the end, she says "Bye Mom!" Julia shows great pretend play and language skills by playing with the phone."

Pretend play with the phone

10/12/09: "Today, we did a Fruit Loop tree project. I gave Julia some fruit loops to taste as I was preparing everything else for the project. She liked them so I gave her a paper and some glue. She started putting the glue on the paper; however, she kept looking at her cereal at the same time. Then, I asked her to put some fruit loops on top of glue. She did what I asked her to do however, when I wasn't looking at her she would put some cereal in her mouth instead."

Fruit Loop Tree art project

11/19/09: "Julia loves to do what her teachers do. One afternoon, she saw Ms. Lupe changing diapers. She grabbed a chair and put it next to Ms. Lupe and asked for a set of gloves because she wanted to change her friends as well. That really made us laugh. Ms. Lupe gave her a set of gloves, and she put them on. Then, we heard Julia saying "Esrin, come here!"(to change a diaper). Julia lifted Esrin's dress up and tried pulling her pants down. Then we had to stop Julia since it wasn't a part of her job duties!"

Changing diapers

Dec 4, 2009:
Julia and her friends on Pajama Day
(Julia is in the middle in pink and white pig pajamas.)

Decorating the Tree

Decorating the tree with R and Julia was such fun! (Sometimes, I tend to romanticize how a family event is going to go and need to manage my expectations, but this evening was the storybook, Norman Rockwell event I imagined.)

Julia LOVED unwrapping each ornament from its tissue paper, and would exclaim, "Look! Look, Papa!!" or "Look, Mommy, look at this!!" She was old enough that she could handle the ornaments and put them on the tree. From time to time, she needed a bit of help, but she loved the whole experience. One of my favorite moments was when she called snowman ornament with a looong skinny hat a maraca.

R and I talked about the different ornaments, and where we were when I bought them - it was a little walk down memory lane of our relationship: ornaments from Chicago, the Empire State building representing New York, the bicycle representing Holland, and the snow men from my first Christmas with his family when they where vacationing in Colorado.

Julia & Papa

Busy decorating

Papa

Busy girl

Placing the star on top

My favorite part of this video is when Julia stops at the lion ornament to roar!

Quiet Time with Papa

With Papa

Halloween

Halloween started off really well. R and I each had a big pumpkin to carve, and we had a little pumpkin for Julia. Little Miss enjoyed helping to clean the seeds and guts out of the pumpkins; she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. In fact, she loved it. She did get quite peeved when she wasn't allowed to work with any of the sharp implements to carve the pumpkins.

Then, our friend and neighbor, Elizabeth (Julia's Tia), came up to go trick-or-treating with Julia and me. R stayed home to man the door at home. Julia was very shy at the first house, and afterwards, we ran into some older neighborhood kids dressed in scary masks. After that, Julia was even less interested in the second house. By the third house, she flat out refused to play along. She wanted to hold tightly to me, and she became more and more terrified.

Elizabeth recommended we head to her house to visit, as Julia is very comfortable there and could see "Uncle" Mark. It took Julia a little while to warm up, but going to Elizabeth and Mark's house was a great move. She was soon hippity-hopping around (video to come soon) and doing her best to impress their teenaged son. After our visit, it was clear that we should go straight home instead of visiting more houses.

I think it was a combination of seeing the scary costumes and being out in the dark, but trick-or-treating was not fun for Julia this year. As R put her to bed, she talked to him about the "scary monsters." I was concerned she would have nightmares, but she slept through the night. The next morning, she was back to her happy self.

Papa's pumpkin

Julia with Mommy's pumpkin

Julia with Mommy's pumpkin

Kangaroos like lollipops.

Julia and her baby

Julia and Mommy

Papa's Technique...

...for putting shoes on a toddler.

Papa puts shoes on a toddler.

Papa puts shoes on a toddler.

Papa puts shoes on a toddler.

Moon Bounce Madness

Julia and I were on our way to grocery to buy pumpkins for carving. We happened to pass a church that had pumpkins on sale half price, plus a moon bounce. To say that Julia had fun in the moon bounce is an extreme understatement - I don't known when I've seen her have such fun! These pictures are quite blurry, but they start to capture her sheer glee.


















Picking a pumpkin

Stella's Birthday Party & The Pumpkin Patch

Julia and I headed to a local farm and pumpkin patch to help Stella celebrate her 3rd birthday. It was a perfect, crisp fall day. Julia got to check out her first campfire, but she didn't like the smoke one bit! She also rejected her first s'more, protesting when I tried to mess up a perfectly good piece of chocolate. She'd like the chocolate plain, thank you. The party was capped off with a sing-along featuring Stella's dad playing the guitar. We had a great time.



After the party, Julia and I explored the farm a bit on our own, and we saw pigs, a calf, turkeys, ducks, chickens, and a few goats. Julia was very polite to the other kids and didn't gloat that her Grandma & Grandpa live on a *real* farm.



Then, we were off to the pumpkin patch where Julia tried to lift and carry very big pumpkins. She eventually settled for sitting on a pumpkin and posing for pictures for her camera-happy mother.

Port Credit (and Toronto) trip

R's Canadian business partner's daughter got married in September, and we were invited to the wedding. Luckily, happily, my Mom was able to go with us. This enabled us to go to the wedding without Little Miss AND most importantly, we got to spend some time with Grandma. Oma and Opa also attended the wedding, so lucky Julia got to see three of her grandparents in one weekend.

We also enjoyed Port Credit's Blues and Jazz Festival. The festival was within walking distance of our hotel. The weather was beautiful, and we also enjoyed some time on the swings and at the playground.

The wedding was great fun. The wedding ceremony itself was very traditional, but the reception was unique and full of personal touches. The reception was held at restored movie theater where the seats have been removed to form an event space. The reception also featured a photobooth and a Bollywood-style first dance by the entire wedding party. The food, music, and flowers at the wedding were wonderful. Because the bride's family is Italo-Canadian, and the groom is from an Irish family, I learned the term (and found out I was a) mangiacake.

On Sunday, we enjoyed some sightseeing in Toronto and celebrated Grandma's birthday with a lunch in the Distillery District.

This trip marked Julia's first international trip, earning her a stamp in her brand new passport!


Julia, at the beginning of our journey


Grandma and Julia start their visit on the airplane


The view of Toronto from our Port Credit hotel room


Julia having fun


Grandma enjoying the swing, too


Our little family


Wheeeeeeee!


Julia and her balloon at the music festival


The site of the reception


Enjoying a playground nearby the hotel


Oma & Grandma enjoying the park


A little time for sightseeing in Toronto