Pumpkin T-Shirts

When we got the Family Fun magizine in the mail, the girls loved these shirts and wanted to make them. So here we are in our home made pumkin shirts. The girls had a blast dying them and drawing and painting pumkins on them. Chris did not want anything to do with the shirts. So he didn't get one. LOL

12 Years! WOW!!!

Chris and I just had our 12 year anniversary. I can't believe it. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were getting married and I was moving out of my mother's house. Time goes by so fast. I love my husband more than ever and feel so blessed and lucky to have found my soul

mate and to be sharing my life with someone so special. I feel even more blessed to be so happy and more in love with him today than 12 years ago. Life with Chris has been a huge adventure and I love every minute of it.






This is Chris and I a few months after we got married. Kaylee was a puppy (so cute) and now she is about to turn 12 years old and my heart breaks to think Sassy is no longer with us :(.




This is us the other day 12 years later and our 8 year old daughter is taking our picture.

Doctors Appointment

Both my girls had their yearly check-up yesterday. They didn't like the paper gowns that they had to wear especially Alexis. She kept saying I feel ridiculous. I felt so sorry for them. The both got shots. Alexis only got 2 and the flu mist. Ashlyn got 5 and the flu mist. They were very big about getting them. Them both cried and when the nurse was about to give Ashlyn her other 2 in the other leg she started screaming, I don't want any more shots, I don't want any more. Poor Baby :( It went much better then when Alexis got her 4 year shots. We had the doctor, the nurse, the nurse's aid, mommy and daddy holding her down and she still was a huge hand full. It is all over and as of now they do not need any more vaccinations until they are 11 YEAH!

The pictures were taken with my phone so they are not that great!

Ashlyn's Big Hair Cut!

Ashlyn has always screamed at me when ever I wanted to trim her hair. She would freak out! She said she doesn't want her hair cut she likes it long and it is going to stay that way. Well After Alexis cut so much off of her hair a couple weeks later Ashlyn decided she like it and wanted a big hair cut. She ask me to cut her for several weeks. I was waiting to cut it until after we had her 4 year pictures taken. So the day after we had her pictures taken off went her hair. She looks so adorable and so grown up. I can't believe this child is my baby.We cut about 8 inches off. Her hair was so long it took forever to get all the tangles out. Now it is so easy to brush and it looks so healthy.

The last 2 pictures is Ashy getting ready to go to ballet. When we got to ballet she decided she doesn't want to be there anymore and wouldn't go into class. She cried and screamed and through a huge temper tantrum and I had to carry her out screaming and yelling because she didn't want to go to ballet she wants to go to gymnastics but she doesn't want to go home either. So now that I have bought all the tap and ballet shoes and paid tuition and registration fees she will have nothing to do with ballet and she begged me to put her into ballet for a long time.

Playing Dress-Up

Messy Ashy

Before

After

Bird Nursery

This summer we had some bird friends decide to build a nest in my new hanging plants that are hanging from our front porch. I noticed right after I hung them up that there were doves flying in and out of them quite a bit. It wasn't long until I noticed that there were nesting material hanging out of the side of the plant. I am very much an animal person so I could not run them off. We watched them everyday and soon the birds were stationed in the plant all the time I never saw the bird leave. I hated to water the plants because I didn't want to scare off the birds. I had heard that if the bird feels threatened it will abandon the nest eggs and all. But I also didn't want to see my new plants die either. I would try to water on the other side of the plant and not completely soak the birds. The bird would get scared and fly away, but that is when I got to peak in the nest. There were 2 eggs laying in the nest. It was so cool! The daddy bird sits with the nest all day and doesn't leave until the night comes and then he is released from mommy bird and she sits there all night with eggs. The birds looked identical I am guessing that I always saw the daddy bird. When I would water the plants daddy would fly away. He would fly and sit on top of my neighbors roof and watch me and as soon as I would go in the house he would come back to his nest. I would try to limit my watering to only once a week and my plants did start to look bad. It was only a few weeks and I looked out of the window to check on the nest and we had babies. They were so cute! They were bigger then I was expecting. I don't know how they fit into such a little egg. They did not have any feathers yet just a little fuzz. As little as they were they did see me and they were very scared. They started wiggling and moving around. They sat in the nest and we even got to see them be fed. As days went by the parent would go away and be gone longer and longer. We did not get to see the birds fly out of their nest because we left for vacation during that time. When we came back I found the birds had grown quite a bit and were huddled together in the flower bed under the hanging basket that was once their nest. My plants did almost die there is not much left to them now, but I didn't have the heart to stress the birds out any more than I did. It was such a nest experience and the girls just loved it!

The start of a new school year!

Lexi started back to school this week. I can not believe that she is in 2nd grade. Wow how time flies. She cut 5-6 inches off of her hair. She was ready for something new. She looks beautiful and so much older with her new hair cut and not to mention her new front adult teeth coming in. We have not seen her with front teeth in a year.

Alexis is not real happy with school and this is real upsetting for me. She came home in tears yesterday saying that the 2nd grade teachers are mean and all they do is yell at the kids and she is afraid. She is amazingly smart and has always loved school. Last year she loved her teacher and didn't want the school year to end. Alexis doesn't like change and I am hoping this is just different and she needs to adjust. As she gets older school will get harder and the teachers are going to have more discipline and not tolerate as much. I am thinking that's all it is and she will be fine when she gets use to it. I hope that there is not more to it. Only time will tell. Please keep her in your prayers.

Ashlyn is doing wonderful! I have started to home school her and it is going great. She is so excited about it. She loved going to the store and getting to pick out school supplies with Lexi. She actually said "I am so lucky that I am going to learn to read and write like Lexi". It was so cute! She is picking things up really fast and wants to do school everyday. I am limiting it to only 3 days a week 1-2 hours a day. I want her to always want to do school and not get burned out. The 1st day of school when Daddy came home from work both girls were jumping all over him trying to get his attention. Ashlyn of coarse won. She was very persistent and excited about what she had done and learned with school. Ashlyn went over every detail of what we had done that day.

My baby is 4 years old!

Wow! I can't believe that my baby is already 4 years old. It just doesn't seem possible. She is a big girl now!

Ashy had a wonderful birthday! We stretched it out about a week. Her birthday was Monday the 21st and she got a puppy cake and presents from Mommy and Daddy. We had her party the following Saturday. Mimi, Aunt Crissy, Chase, Aunt Amy, Uncle Jeff, Cousin Abby,and cousin Lilly all came and stayed the weekend with her at her house. She was so excited and had so much fun. She got so many new toys she doesn't know what to play with first. They all spoiled her!

I had searched for a neat place to have her party. I had some things that I had come up with. I was telling Chris about them when Ashlyn walked in the room, so I asked her where she wanted to have her birthday party. She didn't even hesitate saying CHUCK E CHEESE'S! I have to say the girl knows what she wants. That made it easy for me, the hunt for a party was over and we had her party at Chuck E Cheese's. She still wanted a princess party she just wanted it at Chuck E Cheese's. I ordered a princess castle cake and did everything that I could in princess. The party was a success. She had so much fun! Almost every that we invited showed up. I am very surprised that she was not afraid of Chuck E Cheese, she even gave him a big hug!

Thank You guys for making the trip and coming to help Ashlyn celebrate her 4th birthday, it meant the world to her and to me. We had a wonderful weekend! It was very special for Ashlyn to have you all here at her house.

Happy 4th Birthday Ashlyn

Summer Vacation 2008

Summer Vacation 2008

We had so much fun at the lake this past week. It was so peaceful and relaxing. The forest and lakes were amazing. For the most part we were in a very secluded area. We were in the middle of a private horse cutting ranch that was in the middle of the forest. The cabin was great! It was furnished with everything that you would need and more. It was a very cute A frame type cabin with a balcony over looking the lake. We would sit on the balcony every morning and drink our coffee and take in the clean air.

We went hiking through the woods on many occasions and the scenery was so breathtaking. We walked for miles through the trails and it was so awesome. Hiking is something that I could do everyday. The girls were big troopers. They did get tired fast but that is to be expected. We saw deer, frogs, cats, dogs, birds, craw fish, fuzzy caterpillars, scary spiders, horses, clams, geese, and lots and lots of fish. We even rescued a small kitten that was stuck up in a tree.

Ashlyn carried around her little critter cage and always had something inside it. She loved the frogs and at times would have about 20 frogs in it. She called it her creatures and would say "you are my little pet". She would catch fish with her net and fill up her cage and have an aquarium. If Ashlyn was not collecting critters she was swimming. She loved to swim. She would sit there in the lake and play in the mud. When we would go inside at night to take a bath, under her swim suit and hair was completely covered in mud.

We did lots of swimming and just floating on rafts in the middle of the lake. Ashlyn even took a nap in the middle of the lake in her boat. She actually slept a while and got a good nap. The fish did like to nibble on Chris. He was always getting bit. The water was nice and warm, I could have taken a nap on my raft. Kaylee loved to swim. We had a hard time keeping her out of the water.

Alexis learned how to row with oars and loved to kayak. She got really good at it and could go really fast and go forward and backward. Chris loved the kayak too. He would take his fishing pole out and fish for a while from the kayak. The kayaks were very fun and very fast. They would fly through the water. Kayaking is something we will be doing again. Who knows maybe someday soon we will have a couple of our own.

We fished long and hard and we caught more fish. We were catching fish 2 at a time. I was grabbing the fish and getting them off of the hook. That is huge for me, I have never touched a fish and never wanted to. We fished with everything from rubber warms, cereal, dog food, watermelon, and hot dog. Hot dog worked the best. If the fish didn't strip the bait from our hook, we would catch a fish every time with the hot dog. I even caught a nice size catfish with a hot dog. Alexis was the first one to catch a fish, she was so excited. Ashlyn was even baiting her own hook and putting it in the water and catching fish all by herself. It was awesome, and the girls loved it. I caught a small fish about 5 or 6 inches long and put it in the water just hanging off the dock and I saw a huge fish swim up and take it hook and all. I believe that it was a bass. I tried to reel him in but he was so big that it broke my line. It was so exciting.

We had a blast and the vacation was a huge success. We were very prepared and organized and I think that that made it even that much better.