Julia turns 12!

 12 is looking great on her (lol)... since she gets so annoyed when I say that.

This year Julia only wanted three things:  a dog, a phone, or a trip on a cruise.  Sadly she didn't get any of them (we're such mean parents), BUT we are going to see the musical Mean Girls in May and that will be a blast.

Julia was beyond excited for her birthday.  She always has a hard time sleeping the night before her birthday because she's just so happy for presents and being able to celebrate with friends and family.  This year was even more special because it was Grandparents' Day at school.  She was also supposed to have a soccer game after school, but it was cancelled/postponed because the fields were still wet from the storm we had a night ago.

When I woke her up this morning, I sang happy birthday softly and she smiled and giggled.  She got ready really fast and could hardly eat anything from being so excited.  At one point Jeremy looked at her and said, "Why are you so excited?  It's only a birthday."  (ha!!!)  He doesn't even remember saying this and when we shared it with him later tonight he said, "what's wrong with me?  why would I even say that?" ha!!  We had a good laugh about it.  And it is a great day and we couldn't be happier to celebrate our girl.

Julia had wanted to share a treat with her advisory at school and another treat with her soccer friends.  We bought the Lofthouse cookies to share with soccer friends and then Julia chose a recipe from one of the Magnolia Table cookbooks that she wanted us to make.  She chose the shortbread with chocolate icing recipe.  I made the shortbread cookies last night.  Almost broke the blender trying to pulse the dough and ran down the motor.  Then used the thing that you stick inside it to move the dough around and that worked really well.  Super easy recipe.  Then you melt a small amount of shortening with 12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips together.  Dip one side of each cookie into the chocolate and lay them on wire racks to cool.  We put them into a container and brought them to school.

She wanted to give each teacher a cookie so she brought the container into Señora Sparks room.  As she went to set the container on top of a tall desk, the clip hit the side and the entire container spilled all over the floor.  The majority of the cookies were fine and stayed together.  We put all the cookies back into the container and swept up the remainder of the crumbs off the carpet.  

Poppi and Grammy came to Grandparents' Day.  They walked around the entire school with Julia.  They loved meeting Mrs. Mason, her advisor and math teacher.  She has a kindness class that is amazing.  Students do all kinds of projects and tasks that help others in the school and around the world.  Julia was so excited to spend time with them.  It meant so much that Poppi took time off work to make it so that he could be there with her.  They had some time to take her to lunch and asked what she'd like.  Julia said either Brahm's or Whataburger.  Poppi said that they'd do burgers and fries at Whataburger and a dessert at Brahms's.  She loved it!!

Then they brought her home so she could hang out with Val for the rest of the afternoon.  I took her to soccer and Jeremy brought her home.  We ate Chipotle together for dinner.  Then it was present time!