Impromptu Photo Shoot

We had a playdate with our friends Melissa, Payton & baby Piper today which turned into an impromptu photo shoot. I thought I'd share some of the photos. I have a hard time deciding between color and B&W. I'm glad the parents get to decide.

It was fun and good practice for me too. Let me know what you think - It'll help me get better!

Our Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving with my family this year -- which is pretty much how we do it every year. Elise is modeling a cupcake hat the my mom was making while her Aunt Gina was holding her. When it's complete, it will have a cherry on top and sprinkles all over it.

This is my nephew, William. Fill in the blanks: "All I want for Christmas is ___ ___ _____ ______ !"

Poor Ava turned out to be sick - again! Aunt Kelly was holding her this time and Aunt Liz spent a lot of time snuggling her too. Aren't they lucky to have so many aunts?
Before my camera battery died and it turned out that my spare battery didn't go with my camera (drrrr!!!), I took a picture of our "thankful" turkey. People were thankful for a variety of things. Most people in my family are comedians so we had a very "colorful" turkey in deed.
We ended the night a little early so we could take Ava home and put her to bed.

We also got up early and did some shopping Friday morning - in shifts. Chris got up early for Walmart and Target, then I headed out to Michael's and Kohl's. We found several things we've been wanting and got almost all of our gift shopping done, especially for the girls.

Would "MIRACLE" be an Understatement?

If you have kids, pets, or kids n' pets, or are just a bit spilly, you need Kids N' Pets. Seriously, we've only had this product for a few weeks and have already been amazed by the results. Not to gross you too much but Ava had a pee-pee accident in her room which we steam cleaned, used another product, etc. and it still reeked. Then, we got this (thanks, Kelly) and it worked like magic. We've also used it on pet urine (yippee) and most recently, red juice vomit (hooray). The red juice stuff would not come out, even with our expensive steam cleaner. We thought we were going to have to live with a pink swirly stain all over the middle of our living room carpet. After Chris' many attempts to clean the spot, frustrated, I took over. I poured this stuff on it and within minutes, you couldn't seen any pink. Even better - you can get it for less than 5 bucks at Wal-mart. AMAZING! This stuff is so awesome - I'm thinking about drinking it!

Mondays

I actually kind of like Mondays. I've heard of people who get depressed when the weekend ends and Mondays comes around again - but not me. To me, Mondays are a day of renewed dedication and enthusiasm to get back on track with your goals and daily routine. I tend to feel refreshed on Mondays. I think a lot of it has to due with the fact that I have back up duty (his name is Chris) on the weekends...which is sooo nice....so I'm feeling more rested. We also tend to get things looking pretty decent Saturday and Sunday night so that Monday morning most things are in their places and the laundry is usually done. So, anyway, just a quick plug for Mondays. They really aren't so bad.

Monkey Sweater

Here are a few pics I snapped today. Long before Chris and I ever had kids, we saw this monkey sweater and had to have it. It sat in our armoire for years until we decided it was time to have some kiddos that could wear it.

I set Elise's jeans and sweater out for her today and she got sooo excited when she saw the monkey. She even carried it around with her until I got her dressed.

Also had to snap some of Ava.

Hooray for Fall

Not wanting to dwell on the untimely passing of our swimmy friend anymore - how 'bout a small tribute to Fall. We've been having fun the last several weeks doing crafty type projects. Above are Halloween potato stamp masterpieces.

Make a spooky tree. Ava found a rather large tree branch on a walk one afternoon.

Mommy: Ava, put that down.

Ava: No, I want to keep it.

Mommy: For what?

Ava: To do a project

I thought that sounded like a reasonable request so I obliged and we made a spooky tree by tracing our feet and drawing ghost faces on them.

To change up our decor for a less Halloweeny and more Fall-y theme, we decorated paper leaves with dried things like oatmeal, seeds, small pasta and beans.

And of course it wouldn't be Fall without some time playing in the leaves.

I do like Fall for the most part. I don't like being cold much though and Chris is starting to "freeze me out" as I say. Otherwise, yay for Fall.

Oh, and it wouldn't be much of an update if I didn't announce that my littlest sister, Heidi, had her baby on Wednesday...a baby girl named Adelle. She was tiny on my scale, weighing in a mere 7lbs 7oz. (My babies have been 8lbs 15oz and 9lbs 9oz). Anyway, they are doing great and Adelle is precious as can be.

Farewell

I knew I'd be making a post like this but didn't think it'd be quite this soon...

Our goldfish went to fishy heaven this morning or sometime last night. We sent her down the porcelain tunnel to reunite with all of her fishy friends.

We saw that the fish wasn't doing well. Before we left for the day yesterday, I explained to Ava that our fish was sick and looked like it was going to die. The fish had a fuzzy look and wasn't moving very much. She was sad but understood and then said a prayer and said goodbye to her fish, which she's been calling "Gum" for the last several days. We did take a water sample to the pet store and consulted with their "fish expert" on what to do. We added some drops to the tank but it wasn't enough or soon enough. This morning I showed her the empty tank and told her that "Gum" went to fishy heaven. She was sad and said "Oooooh, I don't have a fish anymore," and slumped her head. I gave her a hug and told her that we might be able to get another one sometime. She took it well and is going on with her morning.

I think we're fished out for a little while. And I thought fish were easy.

New Additon

(This is my 4th post of the day - so be sure to read below.)

Meet ??? We're not sure which name is going to stick. First Ava named it Vi ("VEE"), then ViVi ("VEE-VEE"), then Goldy, then Gold. She seems to be calling her Gold right now so I guess Gold it is.

Ava got her new goldfish for being potty-trained. Ava was one of those kids who just didn't see the need to be potty-trained when Mommy could do all of the work. Finally, I got some really good advice and it worked! (The advice in case you're wondering: "If you think she's really ready and really know how, just put her in panties." ) Sounds pretty obvious but I kept feeling like she needed to wear diapers or pull-ups and prove that she could stay dry first. We had tried panties before but probably gave up too easily. She did have several accidents but now has stayed dry for a couple of weeks and does it all by herself with no prodding.

So anyway, I could go on and on about our potty-trainings attempts and failures, but I wanted to say that we are very proud of our little girl. She decided she wanted a fish as a reward. So there you go. We have a new pet.

Here's a pic I took of Ava in Sept? with my old camera. We were trying to get some good shots of our girls but were very limited with my old camera. This is part of what pushed me over the edge to get my own nice camera and to learn all I could.

GO AVA!!

Pumpkin Patch

October Update #3 (Oct. 11 2008)

Pumpkin Patch Trip

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Ava & Elise's cousins William and Kate were there. Also there: my sisters Heidi, Kelly & Gina. Gina's friend Stephen, Chris and Gaia.

Elise showing the pumpkin some love.

Ava pumpkin surfing.

Our attempt at a family shot. This was before I had my new camera.

Below is a slideshow with more pictures from our fun day. Double-click to make the pictures larger.

Bouncy Fun

October Update #2 (Oct. 25th 2008)

Ava & Elise were invited to their neighbor friend Sutton's 3rd birthday party. His parents sure know how to throw a party. They rented this huge bouncy castle. It was big enough for adults to get in also so Chris and I went down many times - frontwards, backwards, you name it.

I was busy during the morning with Super Saturday at church so Chris took the girls to the party and monitored them in the bouncy until I got there. Here he is taking them all down together.

Besides having a big slide, there was a part for just bouncing, etc.

Elise did really well climbing up to the top of the slide part. She did it all by herself many times. After the party and later that afternoon (and after naps), they invited us over to get in some more bouncy fun.

PAINTING

OCTOBER UPDATE #1: While I've been a little better about blogging lately, I've still got just a couple of things to catch up on. Oct. 30, 2008

My brother and his wife recently moved to a new house on their same street. During the transition, I watched my niece, Kate. We decided to do some painting.

I'm trying to make more of an effort to do a craft time or mommy play time on most days. I love the smocks I picked up at IKEA. I have a set of 3, which comes in really handy when I teach our mommy's preschool.

We're still working with Elise on what's edible and what's not. Here she is licking her fingers as if she's eating pudding or something.

And here's her reaction to the taste of the paint after about the 5th time she did it. You'd think they'd get it after the first time. ;) Thankfully the paint is non-toxic.

September Update

While I'm at it, I may as well get all updated for September (and finish October next). Above are my two girls munching on carrots from our garden. I didn't even coordinate their outfits believe it or not. It was a matching carrot miracle.

What happens when a toddler decides to stand in a wagon and a preschooler pulls it? It all happened so fast. Poor Elise got some road burn. Ava didn't mean to do it. We were supposed to get our pictures taken the next day. That didn't happen.


Speaking of carrots. Since the carrots from our garden weren't that great and we have a couple of llamas that live nearby, we decided to go and feed them our homegrown carrots. They were quite pleased.

DEANNA ROSE FARMSTEAD

One day for playgroup in Sept, we went to the Deanna Rose Farmstead not too far away from here. We had never been. I can't believe this place is free. Of course it costs extra to feed the animals, do a wagon ride, or pony ride, etc...but they have to make their money somehow so we were fine donating to the cause.

The day was extra fun because we got to spend it with Ava's cousins - even Ryan and Ashley who don't live in our town. Grandma came too - even better.

We went on a horse-drawn hayride.

Ava & Elise especially enjoyed the petting zoo. Ava made friends with the only sheep in a petting zoo full of goats.

Elise was soooo sweet. She made a point to go up to each animal, bend down to look in their eyes and said, "HI!" to each one. We bought some feed to give them, right? Well, Elise, not knowing, ran out of feed then reached down to the ground picking up what she thought was more feed and tried to give it to them. Not feed my dear - but droppings! Yuck. Luckily they had hand washing stations nearby. She did catch on though - I found her reaching past the fence, stretching hard to get something just out of reach. She finally reached it and it was one stray piece of feed that she kindly gave to a nearby goat. ;) Resourceful, determined child.


Another cute thing the Farmstead had was a fake cow that the kids could try milking.

They had fun trying their hand at milking but it didn't take long for one of them to figure out they could squirt each other. All girls are pictured above but I'm pretty sure a boy started it.

Photo op on the tractor. Overall it was a fun day. The kids even got to run around in diapers and t-shirts for a few minutes in a little water area they had. If we had saved more time, they could've fed baby goats from milk bottles or gone fishing. Something for next time...

ROOM REDECORATING

Another thing that took place in September was mine and Chris' room redecorating. Since the girls were finally sharing a room and Chris and I got our room back, we, okay - I, decided it was time to paint and update. Why is Chris sitting on the armoire?? I tricked him into getting up there to try and hang my metal medallion. We decided I better do it to make sure it was straight. Instead of getting him the ladder like I had said I would, I got my camera.
Ava saw Daddy and gasped. We put Ava up too.
Then, Elise saw what was happening and we couldn't tell her no. I would've gotten up there too but then who would've taken the picture?? More room decorating photos to come.

The biggest thing we did in September was to travel to Omaha for a weekend. I put our pics in a slideshow below.