A few months in Pictures....

I am so behind on our blog a.k.a. family journal......so since a picture is worth a thousand words, thank goodness I took a few!  So here's Christmas, Ashlynn's birthday, and random in between shots all rolled into one post. 

Christmas Eve dinner with my brother and his family

Of course, we had to do the nativity with all the little kids.

Mary and Joseph, of course

Our little Cow

Mad Cow

Christmas Eve - after opening 1 present and their Christmas P.J.s

Ashlynn making sure the cookies are yummy enough to leave out for Santa

January -- Ready to play in the snow

This is how we found Mikayla one night.  Yep, made a bed in her closet.  

Ashlynn's 2nd birthday! Here she's mad because she wants to eat her pizza dinner. She LOVES pizza.

And now she's a happy girl

Dancing to "Old McDonald Had a Farm" - the theme for her birthday, since she was obsessed with farm animals AND that song.  Kraig had to sing it to her every night for months when he put her to bed.

Farm Cake....."Perfectly Chocolate" cake with cream cheese frosting and dyed green coconut for grass

Ashlynn had a great time!  I didn't get a good picture of it since we were Face-Timing with both Grandparents, but she had the biggest smile on her face while we sang Happy Birthday to her.  She is definitely a two-year old!  Some funny things she is doing right now:

1. Strips herself naked whenever she is in her crib, and usually wets the bed.  So we safety-pin her up in sleeper jammies, even for nap time.  (Thanks for the idea, Steven and Kathy!....apparently exhibitionism runs in the family...)

2. Can usually be found carrying around two little squeaky rubber duckies or little barbie dolls in her hands

3. Gives us the biggest kisses and cuddles

4. Can't sit still through a book or movie for more than about 5 minutes

5.  Yells, "You're in CHUBBO!!! (trouble) Time out!!!" to her toys, to Mikayla, and even to us (and it's hard not to laugh)

6. Every morning after breakfast, she heads to the dog food rubber maid and has to give Miko two scoops of food, then drag a stool over to the window in the door to watch her eat.  She loves her dog.

7. If Miko barks a lot, she yells, "NO BARKING, MIKO!"

8. Favorite Movies right now: Dumbo and Cinderella

9.  From the Cinerella movie she sings, "Sing, sweet Nightingale, ahahahahah -aiy-aiy-aiy-aiy-aiy!" (You know the part I'm talking about, when the ugly stepsisters are having their music lessons and Anastasia's finger gets stuck in the flute and they start to fight? That part)

10. Quick to anger, quick to forgive and forget.  That's our Ashy right now.

11. She's energetic and rambunctious at home with just our family, mellow and sweet outside our home or around others.....We have a dual personality here.

12.  If I ever leave her alone for longer than a few minutes, she is usually getting into make-up, lotion, Vaseline, markers, or making a water mess.

13.  She loves to wear dresses and skirts!  Even over her PJ's sometimes.

We love our little sassy and sweet monkey!

Catch-up

Aaaah, so much has happened since I last posted!  I kind of forgot about blogging for a while....I guess that's what happens when other things take up your time and attention for a while.  Now I will attempt to backtrack and document our last several months.  Starting with Thanksgiving!!!

We went out to my parents' for the holiday, which is always lots of fun.  My girls LOVE to visit their grandparents' and are SOOO much better behaved there than at home.  So seriously. my mom thinks I have angelic kids because when we are there they ARE angels.  They don't have tantrums, they sleep all night every night, they obey, they are HAPPY all the time....what is up with that?  I mean, I am really glad they are so happy there but it makes me feel like 1) a liar (since it's hard for my mom to believe Ashlynn is a little terror at home and 2) like I am doing something wrong at home.  It must be the trampoline.....or the drums......or all the attention they get....hmmmm...we need to get a trampoline.

 But anyway, we had a wonderful time! My poor dad broke his foot just a week prior to us coming so it was good to see him and cheer him up a little.  He fell down the stairs whilst carrying a big box and landed on it wrong, dislocating it and breaking it in a few places.  Ewww, talk about painful!!!!  I have never seen my Dad laid-up so it was strange to see him just sitting around.

While we were there we recruited Stew and Dave to photograph our family while my mom made faces and got pretty silly.  Also, Kraig got me photo Shop (yipppeeeee!) and so I have been playing around with editing. Here's how some of our faves turned out:

This is literally in my parents' back yard!  That fence above is their property line.  Don't they live in a beautiful place?

And they get quite a lot of antlered (or not antlered) four-legged friends parading around their front and back yard.

So that was our Thanksgiving photo shoot!

We had a delicious traditional meal with my parents and two younger brothers, Dave and Stew, and with my aunt and uncle and their 5 (grown-up) kids.  It was big, noisy, slightly chaotic.....just the way it should be with huge family gatherings.  And afterwards, we had that what-are-you-grateful-for tradition that my mom always insists on doing, and it was a memorable, meaningful time as we reflected on life and all of our blessings.  Especially the blessing of health and loved ones.  My awesome cousin, Kasey, broke her jaw right before Thanksgiving, too.  So she had a miserable time sucking her dinner through a straw, but we were all feeling so grateful that it wasn't more serious. And then my Dad, of course, was feeling a special appreciation for the ability to walk on two legs. Life and health is so precious, and so fleeting sometimes.

Now he is pretty much all healed up!  So, as you walk away from your computer today, be grateful for your two legs and feet.  I know my Dad is.

4 Year-Olds Are Fun!

Someone coined the term, 'Terrible Two's', but for Mikayla, she was a sweet and EASY and fun little two year-old.  THREE, however, was a huge challenge for us.

1. Didn't want to potty

2. Didn't want to EAT

3. Didn't want to go to sleep at night

Other than that, she was great! (HA! Only problem is those are 3 kinda essential elements for making up a happy child and happy parents.  

This is what she did on many a night when she couldn't fall asleep: Book Castles!!! (love her creativity though!)

Anyway, now that she's 4 all of the above problems have pretty much gone away!  She is a potty pro, she is TRYING NEW FOODS (huge breakthrough for us), and she goes to sleep pretty well at night.  (Eliminating naps took care of the night-owl problem.....on most nights.....she IS having a few issues with nightmares now and being scared to sleep in her own room.  Her imagination is too vivid!  She tells me details about her dreams and they would scare anyone!  Like getting eaten by wolves, or our house burning down and her sister dying!  Awful stuff!  It breaks my heart.)

But apart from some nights, she is a happy, excited, fun 4 year-old.  We are so grateful that she has finally overcome her fear of trying new foods.  We started the 'one bite rule' with her and I think she was ready for it.  Even though for the first week she sat at the dining room table for an hour sulking and complaining that she had to try a bite, and we went through lots of drama, she finally just started trying new foods, and liking them pretty well.  She still takes a while to warm up to new tastes and textures, so even if she likes something new, she doesn't want more of it right away.  Strange, huh. She still has a hard time swallowing new textures.

 Anyway, here's a list of what she's tried so far:

1. Chilli

2. BBQ chicken

3. Mashed potatoes

4. Carrots, peas, corn, celery

5. Salad

6. Beef Stew

7. Chicken Noodle Soup

8. Chicken Alfredo

9. Spaghetti

I know these are probably all foods most 4 year olds eat, but this is a girl who wouldn't even touch any dinner foods except for the typical kid foods - you know, mac n cheese and chicken nuggets and junk.

I am so grateful and so proud of her.  It really has been a fear-of -throwing-up issue for her.  It started when she was one year old and had a super sensitive gag reflex and would choke/throw up on anything with texture!  Before introducing lumpy textures, she was one of those babies that would eat ANYTHING pureed, even the broccoli and spinach and stuff.

A lot of 'parenting experts' have said don't pressure your kids to eat new foods, but I am convinced that if we just continually laid foods out on the table and hoped that one day she would try them on her own, it would take years, like, she would be twenty years old before she tried a salad!  We have tried so many different approaches to eating (no dessert, playing a game, making mealtimes fun, etc.) and the only thing that worked for her is waiting till she ready to try the one bite rule, and being really strict with it.  She cannot leave the dinner table until she tries one bite of everything on her plate. 

Note: We did try the one bite rule when she turned three.  She would sit there until it was time for bed.  She was so determined and stubborn about it!  And then we were concerned about her weight (and doc was too) so we stopped doing it because we just had to get some calories into her!  The more I parent, the more I learn that we cannot force these little people to do something they are dead set against.  We need to wait for them to be ready.

Yay for 4 year olds!!!!  

Here's a few more fun pics.

She is a great little builder.  She loves to build these little walls.

This is with her grandma 'Lessie'.  She's growing up really fast!

 On the train - my girls both love trains!  Mikayla wants to be a train conductor and a mom to 5 kids when she grows up.  Oh yeah, and she's going to live in a city far away, 'in California', she tells me.  Makes me sad when she talks like that!

Milestone Celebration Trip

In some ways it seems so long ago that we welcomed this sweetheart into our family, but in other ways I can't believe that

this girl is 4!!! 

We went to Colorado to visit my awesome parents to celebrate.  We started the day off with balloons and a pancake breakfast.

Next was bowling!!! Her favorite. Kraig and I must really love this girls because we are willing to humiliate ourselves and bowl gutter balls in order to please our girl. I actually lucked out and did pretty well this time - even got a strike - and Mikayla got a strike too (with a little help from the ramp).

Help from G-ma 'Lessie'

A li'l dance w/ daddy....

After bowling we did cake......and it had to be her favorite color.....I'm sure you can't GUESS what that might be.....RED! So red velvet cake it was. We kind of did a red theme for the day.  Here she is pouring on the red sprinkles.

As one of her presents from us, she got her first Barbie dolls.  They had to go along with us to dinner, at the Spaghetti Factory....which also happens to be  a RED building!

Actually, she chose the Spaghetti Factory not because the building is red, not because spaghetti is red, but simply because it has a train inside.  And her latest ambition is to be a train conductor when she grows up.

We walked around downtown Denver after dinner.  The horse-drawn carriages were a big hit with Ashlynn. She kept yelling, "Neigh!!!" and running around giggling.

We had a great time!!!! Downtown Denver is fun.  Haven't been here since I was a little kid and we lived in Aurora, Co.


BTW....THIS is the reason we got her barbie dolls.  She has been asking for a doll house for a few months.  We found this one (which is like 4' tall!) for a great price, but it's so big that the dolls that fit it are barbie-sized.  She LOVES it.  She had to wait to get home to get this big b-day present. It even has a working elevator.

August 20th was our 7th Anniversary, so we planned a little overnighter while our kids were content to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We escaped to a quaint little mountain town in the Rockies, 'Georgetown'.  They call themselves 'Colorado's Victorian Town' and they have a steam engine you can ride and see gorgeous scenery and you can even have an elegant dinner on Fridays and Saturdays.  They also have many original buildings from the 1800's that they have preserved and restored over the years.

This is the Chalet we stayed at, "Chateaux Chamonix". A French woman owns and operates it and makes homemade croissants and 'pan au chocolate' every morning for the guests.

Our view from the balcony

We went out to breakfast at 'The Happy Cooker' which was a little outdoor cafe that served brunch and breakfast foods all day.  It was relaxing to sit outside and enjoy this quiet little town.

Downtown Georgetown

After exploring the Victorian buildings and doing a little shopping, we went on a scenic drive that ended at about 11, 000 feet and a trail head to one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks.  We didn't have time or the gear to do the full climb, but it was nice to do part of it.  We ended up hiking for about 2 hours and it rained on us for the last half hour, but we didn't care.  It was great to be outdoors with my man.

When we got back to my parents' house, the kids had been really good and really happy.  I'm grateful for my parents and how much my kids love them.