Merry Christmas!

What a fun holiday we had this year!  Willa doesn't seem to yet understand Christmas enough to anticipate it and get excited, but she did like to tell any one that asked her that she would be asking for "Daniel Tiger toys!"  She didn't want to sit on Santa's lap yet, and in fact it took me 45 minutes to get her close enough to Santa to have her smiling in the same frame as him.  I brought all of my tricks, snacks, YouTube videos, Elmo toys, you name it.  Still she didn't want to do it.  I have the feeling that if I had just walked her in and said nothing she would have made her way over on her own, but the moment I asked her to and all three adults in the room were watching, it was too intense and she didn't want to.  Ah well.  This is the result, and lucky me, it's still very cute!

My parents and brother came to visit this year, and we had lots of fun with them in the days leading up to Christmas.  She helped Daddy and Papa make/decorate cookies, charmed everyone at church, and couldn't get enough of our tree.  I'm very proud of how gentle and careful she was with the tree, we were able to leave all the ornaments on it and she never got close to knocking it down.  No gates necessary, phew!

On Christmas morning she got right into the unwrapping process.  Santa probably should have taken the toys out of their boxes because we lost a lot of time in the dismantling of packaging process.  Lesson learned!  Here are the three videos we took that morning.  I love her reaction to seeing the toys in her stocking (ohhh!!!) as well as how quickly she thanked people for her gifts.  She truly is a kind hearted girl, how proud we are!

Overall we had a lovely time, and I'm sad to see the season pass.  Next up, Willa's birthday!

Maize Adventure

This past Sunday we took advantage of the beautiful Fall weather and took Willa to the Maize Adventure in High Point.  It's a lovely park with a giant corn maze, pumpkin patch, tractors, and a whole bunch of other stuff that will be more fun once Willa is older.  I think Willa enjoyed the pumpkin patch best, she seemed to love being able to just run and occasionally pet her favorite pumpkins.  She was also a trooper as we went through the corn maze, which was surprisingly challenging!  All of the older kids we saw were having a blast too, so I'm excited to bring her back when she can enjoy things like the jumping pillows, bungee jumpers, and gemstone mining zone.  We took way too many pictures, so enjoy!

Climbing every mountain

In the past few weeks, Willa has transformed from a girl content to play with just the mulch, avoiding all other elements of the playground at all costs, to one who will go on the slide as much as we let her!  In the span of about a half hour one day, when dark storm clouds loomed and limited our time in the park, Willa decided to try to climb the stairs up to the slide, and to slide by herself!  Thanks to the stairs in our house she mastered the stairs of the slide fairly quickly, but the transition from standing to sitting at the top of the slide was more difficult.  It took her a few tries to feel confident enough to drop to her bottom, and to figure out what to do with her feet.  I was pretty hands on during this time, but in only 30 minutes she (and I) had enough confidence for her to try it solo, and here is a video of the result!  Now, a week of daily park visits later, she is a champ and needs absolutely no help.  She even tries the bigger, twistier slide, and I am so proud!!  Go, Willa, go!!

Making up for lost time with lots of videos

I have been postponing writing a blog post because I feel compelled to back up to February when I first started shooting pictures and videos that I did not immediately post.  Fast forward to four months later, and I Have decided to just post all the videos here, with brief captions instead of long narratives in order to start my momentum for writing back up again.  Hopefully this way I will get back into the habit of posting fun things as they happen, with nice long stories to help me remember!

First up, Willa's first time walking in the snow in the biggest snow storm of the winter.  It left about six inches of snow, which promptly melted in the next two days.  That makes me extra glad that we got her out in it, to use her puffy coat at least once before she outgrew it!

Next up, Willa playing in the park about a week after the previous video.  I think it's a hilarious depiction of the ever changing North Carolina weather!  Say what you will about Florida weather, but it is consistent if nothing else.

Willa also likes to get active indoors, and has taken a particular shine to basketball.  I love that she also knows what a "quaffle" is so young!

Not only is she a Harry Potter fan already, but she also loves the Gators!  This is a video of her choosing to read "Goodnight Gators" for her bedtime story, complete with her first Gator chomp!

She is learning like crazy now too.  We shot this video on a sleepy Saturday morning, when Jeremy woke me up to say that Willa has started counting to three (with a little help)!

On June 2, we had our last day of Little Gym for the semester.  Willa got to show off her athletic skills, as well as her verbal skills when she proudly declared, "I did it!"

And finally, a video of us at the Arboretum last Saturday.  I'm so proud of her ability to kick and run!

Phew, ok, that should be all of them!  I hope you enjoyed them, sorry for the delay!

What does a sneeze sound like?

AH-dorable.

Let It Snow

Those who know me know that I love a good party.  Since Willa was born I have not been able to plan any of the big events I usually do, including the Oscar party, my birthday, or any big Family Solutions events.  So I had a lot of time to plan for Willa's birthday, and I wanted it to be perfect.

For the theme I decided to go with "Let it Snow."  I chose this after a client of mine said that her favorite part about having a January birthday was the possibility of snow.  I also have quite a few snowy decorations in my Christmas boxes, and figured all white food wouldn't be too challenging.  With this in mind I started gathering items that would fit the theme as long ago as last summer, grabbing six cups with white starbursts on them from the dollar spot in Target, discounted silver polka dot tissue paper, and pink and white beach balls from Party City.  I was hoping I could put all those things together to make fun favors for the kids.  When Christmas decor started going on sale, I grabbed all the snowflake ornaments I could, a sign that said "Let it Snow" and a little white fox.  All together it wasn't too expensive, and when I added it to our snowy Christmas decor and the paper garlands I made for Lark's Frozen themed birthday party it was quite festive!

A poster I custom ordered from Etsy with all of her special facts

The marquee number I made for Ethan's birthday party, and got to reuse, so pretty!

The favors I made for each kid, complete with a snowman I knit and a marshmallow snowman 

I served all of her favorite foods, like apples, cheese sticks, cheese puffs, cucumbers, and snowflake shaped Ritz crackers.  I used a snowflake cookie cutter for the apple slices, and for the homemade soft pretzels that Jeremy requested.  It was quite the snowy spread!

I wanted to keep the activities simple, so I limited it to the bubble machine her uncle Kenny got her for Christmas, and the beach balls I bought for the favors.  Those things plus her toys were the perfect entertainment for the three other kids that ended up coming.

No matter what the context, Willa loves books the best!

Willa's friend Wilbur, who is only 9 days older than her

We're still working on sharing...

Willa's friend Petra, whose mom, Audrey works with me

Her toy corner has never been so busy!

She ate off of everyone's plates, hilarious!

Again with the books!

She also loves to stick her tongue out, especially when someone sticks it back!

We were all excited to see her reaction to chocolate, since I didn't like it at my birthday but Jeremy loved his.  As it turns out, she was more like her Daddy with this and was all over it!

All. Over. It.

We asked each guest to pose with her in full cake mess, just so she can remember all the people that were there for her on her big day!

We had such a good day, and Willa enjoyed every minute of it.  I was so proud of her, she didn't get cranky at all during the whole thing, making it all the way through gift and card time.

Our little bookworm loved the cards more than the gifts!

How blessed we are to have so many wonderful friends and family to celebrate our little miss.  It was a perfect day I will be excited to share with her someday!