Life's Little Moments

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

They weren't kidding.

I can't count the number of times I have been advised to enjoy my children while they are little, because they grow so fast. Our recent trip to the dinosaur museum proved that conclusively.

See these cute little museum goers?

Kylie, Kaelyn, and Ashlynn

About 3 years ago we took the same three girls to the same museum...

2009 Kaelyn and Ashlynn (age 3)

2012 Ashlynn and Kaelyn (ages 5 and 6)

2009 Kylie (age 10 months)

2012 Alyssa (age 7 months)

CRAZY!!! I cannot believe how quickly that 3 years has gone by. People weren't kidding when they said kids grow up way too fast. I wish that I could slow things down a little. Well some things anyway.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Christmas wish come true

Kaelyn spent the better part of Christmas break wishing that she could loose a tooth like some of her friends had. She even sang, "All I want for Christmas is to loose my two front teeth." Well on the morning of Jan 9th she did just that. I don't know that she could have been anymore excited.

She was rather happy to show off the new hole in her head.

Alyssa was also excited by the whole tooth thing. We discovered that she had cut her first tooth the same morning. So Alyssa gained her first and Kaelyn lost her first on the same morning. Fun stuff. Alyssa cut her second tooth a few days to a week later (I can't remember exactly). I find it especially funny that they were the exact same teeth, the bottom middle ones. Kaelyn seems to take the whole tooth loosing business seriously. She lost her second tooth the very next day! When she was showing me the quarters that the tooth fairy brought to her she said something funny.

"Mommy, I figured it out."
"Figured what out?"
"You put a quarter under Alyssa's pillow, and the tooth fairy brought her a tooth. Right?"
I couldn't help but smile, "Alyssa doesn't have a pillow."
"Oh. Well then you must have tucked it in her blanket."

I love that girl. She is a quick thinker, and so much fun to have around.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

One of Kaelyn's favorites...

One of Kaelyn's favorite Christmas presents is that we signed her up for her very first dance class. She is in a ballet class. Her first day was on January 3rd. Her class starts at 5:30 at night.

So of course by 3:30 she was ready to go.

She was overflowing with excitement and anticipation.

And all sorts of cuteness.

She was especially huggy and happy. So cute.

Here is a little video of her in class. She had such a good time. At times she seemed rather graceful, and other times not so much. However, she was adorable the whole time. We are all looking forward to seeing her learn and try new things.

It was so much fun to watch her that first class. I forgot to tell you about the very best part of that class. When they were all done the teacher was stamping their hands and asked each of the girls what they wanted to be when they grow up. Of a class of five girls three of them wanted to be princesses.

Not Kaelyn though, she quickly responded with, "A Paleontologist."

"Oh!" Ms. Mary said very taken aback.

"Because I love dinosaurs and I want to dig up their bones."

I love that kid!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Sitting Pretty

So guess who has learned a new trick? Alyssa has started sitting up all by herself. She is pretty good at it too. The day after I took this video she spent about 10 minutes sitting on the floor playing with some of her toys.

The best part is how incredibly proud of herself she is every single time.

I love it, and I love watching her grow.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

New Year. New you.

It happens every time. When I have a baby I take a few months off from even trying to look good. I mean when you have a new baby you also have baby weight, and you feel like a zombie because well let's face it newborns don't sleep much. It is hard for me to want to put forth the effort to look good when I don't really feel good. As far as the health and beauty aisle I have always been a fairly low maintenance girl, but right after having a baby I am even more so. I spend maybe 10 minutes getting ready each morning. I usually stick to the bare essentials: get dressed, brush my teeth, put on deodorant, and put my hair in the infamous "mom pony". Eventually, after life with the new baby has settled into a bit of a routine, I get tired of feeling (and looking) frumpy and have to do something about it. Usually that something has been a hacking off my hair and getting a new cut. Jon predicted my change of heart this time around and in talking about it we decided that for Christmas he could get me a gift certificate to a salon so I could go and get a new haircut and with it a new outlook on life.

On December 30th, Jon watched all of the girls for me and I headed off for a few hours at the salon. It was actually only the second time in her life that I have left Alyssa for more than an hour. (The first being the day before when we went to the temple.) It was fantastically fun! Included in my gift package was a haircut and style, a mini mineral make up lesson, a eyebrow waxing, and a manicure. I learned a lot from my make up lesson and the hair stylist. I gained a little more confidence in my ability to do my own hair and make up. In fact, I think I put on make up at least 4 days this week! It is always amazing to me how much better I feel when I know that I look good. It has got me thinking, maybe it is worth the time and effort after all. The girl who cut my hair asked if I was going to wait another 20 months before getting my hair cut again, and I think I have to answer no. Because I have learned that contrary to what I said earlier in this post ("It is hard for me to want to put forth the effort to look good when I don't really feel good.") when I put forth the effort to look good I usually end up feeling good. Interesting little fact, eh?

Thursday, December 29, 2011

3:00 in the Afternoon

I got the idea for this post from a friend. In case you ever wondered what we are up to at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon, it might look something like this...

Jon working on the computer

Kaelyn playing up in her room

Kylie napping on the couch with her Aunt Katie

Alyssa napping on a different couch (long before she learned to roll over)

And me taking advantage of those naps and working down in the basement.

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween, while forever ago, was a fun one. While we brought home over 50 pounds of pumpkin we only ended up carving one of them, Kaelyn's. So that one was her design. It has 6 tiny teeth and awesome star eyes. We celebrated by attending the ward's annual trunk-or-treat. An event that is guaranteed to send pretty much anyone into sugar shock. Two months later my kids still have candy in their bags! Kaelyn invited her friend Zoe to go with us to that. So pictured below are Kaelyn (as Annie from "Little Einsteins"), Zoe (as a fairy), and Kylie (The purple princess). Alyssa, I am pleased to say, still fit in her candy corn costume on Halloween night.

In case you don't know who Annie is...

She's the one in the purple box. How'd we do?

My favorite part about this Halloween was that all of my kids asked to dress up as something easy. Their costumes were made of things I already had on hand. I didn't have to go out and buy anything. Which was certainly a plus since Jon's first day of work (after 5 months of unemployment) was on October 28th. The girls also enjoyed trick-or-treating on our small road. Most of the houses that were home said that it has been over 10 years since they last had trick-or-treaters come!

She's a super star!

So the next big thing to catch you all up on is a big deal to me. On Aug. 24th we started potty training Kylie. Our goal was for her to be diaper free during the days. I was prepared for a long drawn out painful process, I have never felt as much of a failure as I do when attempting the whole potty training thing. I've heard it said that they can give you something to deal with the pain of childbirth, but really they should come up with something for potty training and drivers ed.

We bought a big old bag of M&Ms and put them in a jar labeled "Potty Prize" whenever she was successful on the potty she would get to hand out a potty prize to everyone that was home including herself. It didn't take long before she adopted the whole "one for me one for you" tactic. I didn't fight it though. We figured staying positive about the entire potty experience was more important than conserving the candy. On the second night she refused to put on a diaper with her pjs and she has been diaper free ever since. The first week was painful, with lots of accidents I was so worried that we were in for a repeat experience. However, I realized one important difference in my two potty training experiences. Kylie was running to me saying that she needed to pee while it was running down her leg. She recognized that she needed to go, wahoo! Then somewhere around day 8 it just clicked. It was so easy, well as easy as potty training ever could be for me.
Yes, we still have to remind her to go, but she rarely misses anymore. I am so excited.

I'm not kidding, she is a SUPER STAR!!!
.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Merry Christmas to all (to be continued...)

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas day. We certainly did.

I'm happy to report that everyone was surprised/thrilled about their presents at least once today.

Jon got tickets to a Mariners game.

Kaelyn found out she gets to start ballet classes next week.

Kylie got barbies and fairies all at the same time!

Alyssa got to eat wrapping paper. Err, I mean she got to open some presents too.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

I'm frustrated.

I'll openly admit that I don't watch much TV, but this month I find myself feeling a bit of a Grinch. Could it be because I keep seeing garbage like this:

Yep, completely thoughtless gifts. "I'd like it so you must like it too." Classic.

Then there is...

"No one ever wished for a smaller gift."

There are countless other commercials that I find very annoying and somewhat offensive. This years commercials aren't on youtube yet. My point is that with the bad case of gimme that kids get this time of year, the idea that only an expensive gift says "I love you", and the you might not get the gift you want so buy it for yourself now attitude are disgusting to me. That yucky feeling is all around in stores right now, check out the black friday craziness!!!

It leads me to wonder are we celebrating

Christmas

Giftsmas!

I hope that in all the craziness of this holiday season we are each able to feel the true spirit of Christmas. To reflect on the birth of our savior Jesus Christ.