The Alexanders

Colt Michael Alexander–A Birth Story

2011-08-30T18:46:00.001-07:00

I have been meaning to sit down and write Colt’s birth story for 2 months! If I don’t do it now, I know I will forget. The details are already hazy!

Wednesday, June 22nd was the third day of Vacation Bible School for the girls and I. That morning, we got ready and went to the church like we had every other day that week. I had a doctor’s appointment at 10:30 am, so I left the girls at church and went. I had been having regular contractions so often that I felt sure I had to be pretty dilated by this point. But, no, I was still a 2 and only 50-70% effaced. I was SO ready to have Colt that I almost cried. I think the doctor noted my stress and she tried to “stir things up” so labor would start. She told us if we hadn’t gone into labor that we could come in Friday and she would make it happen. By the time I left the doctor’s office and picked the girls up from VBS, we were headed out to the parking lot at noon. On the way to the car, I had a couple very hard contractions. Even though I had been having tons of contractions the last month and lots of them regular, none of them really hurt. But this one did. And so did all of the other contractions that came every 5-8 minutes for the next 4 hours. By 4:00, I told Craig to come home. Diana made her way out here to watch the girls. We arrived at the hospital by 5:00 and signed in. We had to wait in the waiting room for about 30-45 minutes before they came to get us in the room, and during that time, I paced the hall to keep the contractions coming because if I sat down they sometimes stopped and I was afraid it was false labor. I did NOT want to be sent home! My parents were on their way here and I wanted to have this boy TODAY!

So we were put in a room and got evaluated. The contractions were sporadic and the nurse thought the patterns were consistent with braxton hicks. Inside I was like, “NO!” They were so painful! But they called my doctor and I got admitted. My blood pressure had been high that morning and the doctor knew he was going to be big. So I guess she thought it was probably real labor or if not, it needed to be! I was a 3 when I was first checked not long after we had arrived, and probably around 7:00, a doctor came in to break my water. She checked me right before and I was a 5, so we told my parents to hurry. Progress! And with no pitocin. I got my epidural and got to feeling much better. But an hour later, 8:00, I was still a 5, so I was afraid I was stalling out. My parents still were not here, but we told them to take their time. I really didn’t think he would be here before midnight. However, an hour later, a little after 9:00, my parents had made it, and I was hurting in a little spot on my belly. The nurse finally checked me and I was a 10! 5 cm in an hour! Whoa.

So they hurriedly called the doctor and told me to lay on my side and keep my legs together. What?! He was basically crowning and I had to hold him in. The doctor arrived within 15 minutes I think and seriously, in one push, he was out. 9:41 pm and on a Wednesday! Something cool…all 3 of our kids were born on Wednesdays! He was pretty cheesy and had a bruised upper lip and a bruised ear lobe from coming out so fast! The cord was also around his neck when he first emerged, but Craig said the doctor quickly flipped it off of him and he was fine. Maybe that was why I had been having so many regular contractions but still no labor! Anyway, Colt weighed 8 lbs and 9 oz, my biggest baby yet. The hospital said he was 20 1/4”, but a few days later, my pediatrician measured him at 22”. I think that was closest to accurate. He was a long guy. Praise the Lord for a healthy and beautiful baby boy! Honestly it was strange to have a boy after having two girls, and it probably took me a day to fully get used to the idea and feel totally bonded to him. But at a very specific moment on the second day, I told Craig “He’s mine. I feel so connected to him now.” People say there’s something about boys and their mamas…I guess I am finding that out! More to come soon I hope! Big sisters, coming home, and all that.

My girls…

2011-06-03T15:14:00.001-07:00

Life with these two girls is wonderful. We certainly have our crazy days and plenty of spankings to go around, but the funny, wonderful moments make it all worth it! Here’s some of what these girls have been up to…

Avery…

Avery has just finished up her first year of homeschooling! She has done SO well this year! We did a Pre-K core curriculum, but added on Kindergarten math, K reading, and K language arts. It was perfect for her. She is reading awesome for her age. She can sound out words and decode little story books like a pro. Her math skills really are amazing. She learned to tell time on a regular clock, add and subtract double digits without borrowing, figure perimeter (yes!), recognize and name geometrical shapes like sphere, cylinder, etc., and much more. She worked on handwriting through copywork and learned about periods, question marks, commas, exclamation marks, and even apostrophes. She wrote some in a journal which I will treasure forever, and lots, lots more. I am so proud of her hard work and she seemed to enjoy every minute of school! I can’t wait to get our curriculum for next year!

Avery is still an awesome big sister. I know she will be SO helpful once Colt gets here. She insists on hugging and kissing my belly and saying good night to her baby brother every night. She prays for Colt’s health and safety every night. She can be a little bossy to Bailey, but hey, that’s what big sisters do, right? She is helpful to Bailey when Bailey will let her be. She is still very obedient and loves to please. She is so loving toward Craig and I. She will say things all the time like, “Mommy, I love you all the way to the sky!” or “Mommy, I love you as far as the moon!” My favorite is when I look at her during the day for no reason and she’ll give me this sweet little smile and sometimes a wave.

She took gymnastics all year and once a month, the moms could come in for Watch Day. She would look over at me a lot and give me a thumbs up and a smile. She learned so much and even though she was the youngest in her class, I thought she did excellent and knows a lot of gymnast terms that I do not. She continues to be such a joy and I love watching her learn and grow and hit milestones that I can’t believe she is already reaching.

Bailey…

It’s amazing to see the accomplishments Bailey has made this year since she has turned 2. She talks like a 3 or 4 year old…probably because she’s always listening to her big sister. She listens a little, but she talks A LOT! A while back, she started asking “Why?” I think that started way earlier than it should have! And then it turned into “Why because?” So cute. She wants to know about everything and is very inquisitive like her sister. She moved into a big girl bed at the end of April when we got the girls bunk beds since they are now sharing Avery’s room. She did much better than I thought. She has only gotten up once that first night, and while she does take longer to fall asleep, she has really done well transitioning from the crib to the bed. Another huge accomplishment has been her recent decision to pretty much potty train herself! I would let her sit on the potty anytime she wanted, but she would never go. I figured I wasn’t going to push it. With Colt being born soon, I didn’t really want to deal with it honestly, and I just figured we’d tackle it after things calmed down this summer. But one day a few weeks ago, she sat on the potty and surprised me by actually going! That was it! She immediately started doing all of her business in the potty starting that day and has only had one or two small accidents since then! She has been in big girl panties for a couple of weeks and I couldn’t be more proud of her! I guess there is one big advantage to my strong-willed girl!

She does continue to be strong-willed and loves to test my limits, but when she’s not doing that, she can be pretty sweet. When Craig or I spend alone time with her running an errand or playing at home while the others are gone, we always talk later about how good she is when she’s by herself. She is a joy to talk to and ask questions to. I love to ask her “Who made you?” She will say, “God,” and then follow it with, “And God made my fingers, and my eyes, and my legs, and my hiney….” Oh funny girl! She still loves to suck on her pointer finger on her right hand when she has her dee-dee, and I am not planning to take that away anytime soon with a new baby right around the corner. I am hoping this will be another transition that will go easier than expected, but I think she will have a little adjusting to do with not being Mommy’s baby anymore. I am loving watching her grow up, and can’t wait to see what else God has in store for this family!

Colt’s Nursery and…the belly!

2011-06-03T14:43:00.001-07:00

OK Colt…this picture is only for you! You know how when it’s your first, you want to document every month of your growing belly? Well, by the 3rd, you don’t want any pictures of yourself. I mean none. But I don’t want Colt to feel left out, so just for him…I had Craig take this picture of me. It’s seriously one of the only ones of this giant belly.

And here’s the little cowboy nursery…everything finally finished except the mobile over the bed. Come on Colt…we are ready for you!

Washing the car and the slip and slide!!

2011-06-03T14:37:00.001-07:00

Recently the girls got to go outside and wash the van with Daddy (which really means play in your swimsuits while Daddy washes the car!), and afterward they got to get the slip and slide out! They had a blast on it and it was so fun to watch them! It has already been pretty hot around here, mid 90’s, so here comes summer!

Even Daddy got in on the action! Although he didn’t last near as long as the girls. Diving on your stomach is really meant for kids…it’s painful!

Apparently Bailey thought it was an appropriate time for her rain boots…crazy girl!

Avery’s Lost Tooth

2011-06-03T14:29:00.001-07:00

The third week in May, an exciting thing happened in our house! Avery lost her first tooth! At her dentist appointment back in April, the hygienist asked Avery and I if she had any loose teeth. We both said, “No.” Well after checking her teeth, she informed us that actually both of her bottom teeth were loose! I was shocked! I did not expect this until next year at least! She just turned 5 people! So that exciting morning while eating eggs, Avery accidentally knocked one out with her fork! It’s a wonder she didn’t swallow it! She had been wiggling the loosest one for a while, but I didn’t think it would come out this soon! So we had to make a tooth fairy pillow that day to put her tooth in and for the tooth fairy to leave the money in. A lot easier than putting it under the pillow in my opinion. :)

The tooth fairy left Avery $3 and a note of congratulations! She was very excited! The funny thing is, Avery’s friend Chloe lost her first tooth that exact same day! So now they have holes in their mouths together. Ha ha!

Isn’t this picture hilarious?

Awana Cubbies

2011-06-03T14:12:00.001-07:00

Avery has been a part of our Awana program at church since she turned 4. The 4 and 5 year olds are called “Cubbies” and she has attended on Wednesday nights, saying her bible verses to earn patches for her vest, and learning lots of bible stories. A couple weeks ago, all the kids had an award ceremony, and Avery also earned her last patch to complete her vest. I am so proud of the work she has accomplished!

At the beginning of the awards ceremony, all the kids got to go up on stage to sing. For the first whole song, Avery just stood there with her tongue in her cheek/lip (which is what she does when she’s embarrassed), but the second two songs, she finally got into it. :) What is it about your child getting on stage to do anything that makes a mommy get a huge lump in her throat and tears in her eyes?

The Cubbies lined up on the step as each one got their award.

This is Mr. Smith…an older man in our church who helps with Cubbies every week. He is so sweet and the kids adore him!

Avery with our Cubbies leader, Mrs. Angie. Avery loves her! Here is her totally completed vest! Way to go Avery!

Baby Shower for Colt

2011-06-03T12:06:00.001-07:00

After MUCH deliberation, we decided to name our little guy Colt Michael Alexander. Craig’s dad actually suggested the name a while back and it kept coming back up until we decided to go with it. So Grandpa gets credit for Colt’s name. My dad’s name is Michael, so that’s where the middle name comes from. Therefore, Grandpa and Pop both have ties to their grandson’s name. I love it. In the middle of May, some of my sweet friends threw me a baby shower for Colt. It was so weird getting boy things! All we know around here is bows, frills, and pink and purple, so it has been kind of nice to have a change! The nursery is done in a cowboy theme, so that’s the theme the shower was in. It was adorable!! From the awesome cake to the super cute diaper cake, to the jars we drank out of, everything went perfectly with the little cowboy theme. Thanks to my sweet friends (and sister-in-law) for making this a special day!

Most of the Hostesses

Grandmas, an aunt, and a big sister who got the privilege of coming since it was during little sister’s naptime.

This is the AMAZING quilt that my mom made for Colt. I absolutely love it and it’s big enough to be his bedding when he moves to a twin size bed! Thanks so much Nona!

Easter 2011

2011-06-03T11:43:00.001-07:00

Beware, this is a huge post.

Easter festivities began with our church having a community wide egg hunt. We usually join the big one in Jenks that is put on by another church in town, but this year, having a new facility and trying to do a lot of community outreach, we had our own! There were TONS of people there despite the rain which forced us to move it inside. Oh well, the kids still had fun! There were games and inflatables, and of course candy-filled eggs! AND LOTS!

Had to put the above picture in there…it’s hard to see, but I wanted to document this rare moment of Bailey letting Avery hold her hand. So sweet. I love it!

They broke the kids up by age groups and let them fill their baskets with as many eggs as they could carry! It was crazy how many eggs were there.

Avery stuffed as many eggs in as she could!

I had to take a picture of her by her Pre-K Sunday School class. Her class was so big that they outgrew the preschool area and got moved upstairs with the K-6th graders! And they had to split the PreK into two different classes by last name. Insane! There were like almost 30 Pre-K kids in there at times. She loves going to church and asks frequently how many days until church day.

Later that night, we dyed Easter eggs. I am not a fan of this at all, but I hate to rob my kids of the fun because they love it. Here are some silly pictures from this activity. For some reason, Bailey was in a VERY silly mood!

I think it was later that night or maybe the night of Easter that Avery and I went through the resurrection eggs where I tell her every part of the story of Jesus being crucified and rising from the dead. She is so smart and is able to tell me pretty much the whole story herself. I am always amazed at what she retains and is able to retell me later. Even a year later!

Here are the girls getting their Easter baskets on Easter morning. We do not do the Easter bunny around here. I just feel like this holiday is too important to our salvation (well, hello, the whole reason for our salvation!) to throw a big bunny in the mix! There are enough distractions as it is. So they know that getting a basket with a few presents in it on Easter is celebrating that Jesus is alive! These pictures are pretty bad, but they each got a new plate, water bottle, a notebook and new markers/crayons, and a new chair each for outside. No more fighting over the one falling-apart kid-sized chair that we had out there!

After getting ready, we went for some family pics…oh the joys of trying to get a family pic with a camera using the timer and a half-broken tri-pod! Fun times I tell ya.

Avery’s Mermaid Party

2011-06-03T11:14:00.001-07:00

Avery had decided long ago that she wanted a mermaid party! She loves Ariel and all mermaids. She also wanted a swimming party. Well, that’s kind of difficult to do at the end of February/beginning of March, so after some searching I found a hotel in town with an indoor kiddie water park! It was highly recommended by some friends and so we went for it. Avery had a blast and loved swimming with her friends. They served pizza and drinks and all we had to bring were cake and balloons! It was rather nice to not have to clean the house for a party for once!

Avery turns 5!

2011-06-03T11:01:00.001-07:00

How is it possible that my first little baby turned 5 this year? That is way too old in my book and I can’t believe how grown up she is. Soon I will do a post telling about the girls’ development and what they are up to. On March 1st, Avery turned 5, and surprise! She chose muffins for her birthday breakfast also! That seems to be a theme around here with birthdays…not sure why! But it’s easy and I am happy to oblige!

She chose to go to Mimi’s Café for dinner that night because she loves to get their pancakes and fruit. She acted a little embarrassed when the waiters came to sing to her, but I think she secretly liked it.

It also just so happened that my sister and I had tickets to see Beauty and the Beast at the Performing Arts Center that night. We had purchased season tickets last summer and this one fell on Avery’s birthday. Staci couldn’t make it, but Nona was here, so she used the ticket and Avery had a very grown up night going to an evening play with Mommy and Nona. She had just gotten this Olivia doll for her birthday and LOVED it. She gave Olivia bows so she could be dressed up for the play, too. The play was a little long for a 5 year old (almost 3 hours), plus it was very late, but Avery enjoyed it and I loved giving her a special night with a very special privilege.

I love this beautiful girl so much!

Big Sisters and Little Brother

2011-06-03T10:49:00.001-07:00

I guess I never did a “We’re Expecting!” post on the blog. But in case there is someone reading this who has been living under a rock for the past almost 9 months…surprise! We are expecting our third child anytime now and it’s a boy! Unfortunately, Facebook has caused me to blog much more infrequently because I can give quick pictures and updates there so easily from my phone. Hence the lack of attention here.

Anyway, one of my friends gave me this cute Little Brother onesie for our new baby boy and I went and got the Big Sister shirts to match! I did not choose the best time for a photo shoot with the girls in their shirts, hence the tears and red eyes on Bailey. She was not into obeying at this moment. But here’s what we got!

Snowpalooza!

2011-06-03T10:43:00.001-07:00

February was filled with snow, snow, and more snow! Craig even got to stay home from work a couple of days because his office actually closed, which NEVER happens! It was kind of fun being home together and not being able to go anywhere! The kids got to play in it some and sled later when it was packed down a little more. I can’t remember now that it’s been so long, but I think we got around 14” of snow one time and two other big snows right around the same time. It was crazy to say the least, but the girls loved it!! We definitely were not prepared for the appropriate snow clothes that we needed. Next year we will try to think ahead and remember last year!

Mommy didn’t venture out much due to the pregnant belly. I just knew I’d bust it on the ice as soon as I tried!

Bailey’s Actual Birthday

2011-06-03T10:28:00.001-07:00

It’s funny how kids have such a hard time distinguishing between their actual birthday and the day of their party. I still was explaining it to Avery this year when she turned 5! On the actual day of Bailey’s birthday, January 14th, I let her pick whatever she wanted for breakfast and she chose muffins. She was hilarious when we put the candles in her muffins to sing to her. She kept blowing out the candles before we could even barely start the song! So I’d relight them and we’d start over! This happened at least 3 or 4 times until she finally waited for us to sing! It was too cute. Enjoy these cheesy pics of our little 2 year old.

There’s no doubt about it…this girl loves to eat!!

Bailey’s 2nd Birthday

2011-06-03T10:24:00.001-07:00

We celebrated Bailey’s 2nd birthday in January with a Minnie Mouse party! She really loved Mickey and Minnie around this time, so we went with it. She looked so cute in her Minnie Mouse dress and ears and had a blast playing with her friends, opening tons of presents, and of course, eating cake!!

We love you Bailey Mae!

Updates!

2011-06-03T10:02:00.001-07:00

Get ready for the great blog catch up! 5 months worth…yikes!

Robes and Slippers

2011-02-04T13:53:00.001-08:00

I love the girls in their robes and slippers! Avery got this new robe and slippers from my grandma for Christmas, so Bailey got the hand-me-downs. She doesn’t seem to mind since she loves Avery’s things anyway!

Christmas with the Alexanders

2011-02-03T17:59:00.001-08:00

The Monday after Christmas, we spent the whole day with Craig’s family. We always start with a breakfast of eggs, sausage, biscuits, and sweet roll at Craig’s mom’s. With 9 kids and 10 adults, we can in no way shape or form all fit at the table! So the kids pretty much get the kitchen table now and we adults stand around, or go in the living room or dining room. After everyone is finished, the presents are divided by family and this year we actually went one family at a time! Just the kids, but it was nice to kind of get to see what everyone got! The girls LOVE running around and playing with all of their cousins under one roof! It is pretty crazy as you can imagine, but fun, too. We are hardly ever ALL 19 together, maybe twice a year. (And pretty soon it will be 20!) Here are a few pictures from the craziness…

Yippee! Bailey got her own chair!

It’s really hard to get 8 kids to all look and smile at the same time! Especially when 4 of them are 4 and under. (Isaac was sleeping.)

Better

Bailey opening one of her lego sets with Grandma. Grandma is famous for buying legos. :) I guess she is used to it after having 4 boys!

Bailey’s probably 10th snack of the morning.

She still has hardly let go of that Curious George over a month later. Love that goofy smile she is trying to give me even though she has Cheerios in her mouth.

Love the bird legs. Avery insisted on wearing her new fleece footie pajamas that morning, and I knew she would get hot. (Grandma prefers a warmer temperature than the rest of us. LOL) So she had to change into her new Joe’s Tshirt to cool off, and of course, little sister had to follow suit. Monkey see, monkey do in this house!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for another wonderful Christmas!

Christmas with the Warlicks

2011-02-02T09:01:00.001-08:00

I convinced my parents to come to Tulsa for Christmas this year. It was fun having everyone here in our house! Even Aunt Jenna came and Aunt Staci stayed over a couple nights. This is always a huge task to go through Christmas pictures, and since I’m playing catch up, I won’t post as many as I could. This is maybe 10%! Here goes…

Santa brought the girls pillow pets and stockings full of goodies.

Avery was really excited about her Buzz Lightyear from Aunt Staci. For some reason she really wanted this and had been asking for it for quite a while!

One of the #1 items on the list…footie pajamas!

Digging into some more!

Nona made Avery this beautiful “Belle” dress! She also made her a Snow White dress and an Ariel dress! Thank you, Nona!

Another favorite: Supergirl outfit from Mommy and Daddy! This girl loves to dress up!

Nona and Pop got the girls farm overalls! This was also top of Avery’s list and they are definitely ready for the farm now…and now they can match Pop!

Repeat after me: my kids are not spoiled, my kids are not spoiled, my kids are not spoiled…

Thank you Nona and Pop for a great Christmas!

Cubbies Field Trip

2011-02-02T08:13:00.001-08:00

In the middle of December, Avery’s Cubbies group took a field trip! Cubbies is the PreK level of Awana’s at our church. Avery loves it! She memorizes verses every week for stickers and patches on her vest. It’s kind of like a Camp Fire or Girl Scouts vest where you earn patches by memorizing bible verses.

Anyway, the kids had all learned a few Christmas songs and they got to ride the church bus (Avery’s favorite part!) to the local nursing home to sing some songs. They had also been collecting canned goods to donate to the Jenks Food Bank, so they got to deliver that as well that night. Here are a few pictures and a video of the singing.

They really were precious in their angel halos!

Avery’s favorite part…riding the bus with her BFF!

Singing their hearts out.

Sleeping Bag Sisters

2011-02-02T08:01:00.001-08:00

The morning before my parents were supposed to arrive, we had the house all cleaned up. I had spread out Avery’s sleeping bag in her room because she was going to sleep there so Aunt Jenna could have her bed. (She was so thrilled to camp out!) When we finally had a down moment after cleaning, I found the girls in Avery’s sleeping bag in front of the window reading books! Agh! Be still my heart. Ha ha! Another sweet snuggly book moment!

Santa at Utica

2011-02-02T07:54:00.001-08:00

We took the girls to see the Santa Claus at Utica Square. Avery had her usual nervous, shy look, and Bailey was totally fine and excited until I set her on Santa’s knee, then she started bawling. So we got that picture, and then I had to get in the picture so we could at least have one of her not crying! Avery told Santa she wanted footie pajamas, overalls, and a pillow pet! Bailey didn’t really understand what she was supposed to say but when I asked her what she liked or wanted, we finally got “horse” out of her! (These are pictures of the pictures, taken with my phone…can we say Mommy has gotten lazy since getting an iPhone!)

New PJ’s

2011-02-02T07:50:00.001-08:00

Nona was so sweet to send the girls new pajamas before Christmas! Even though they were coming here for Christmas, she still sent them a package a couple weeks before so they could have new PJ’s. She hit the nail on the head with the favorite characters. Minnie Mouse and Ariel!

Gingerbread House Tradition

2011-02-02T07:37:00.001-08:00

Bailey upset because she wants to eat the candy already!

Bailey still eyeing the candy.

Avery had to perch on the table so she could reach.

Very serious decorating

I got a few sweet impromptu hugs…probably to butter me up to give her more candy!

Ta-Da!

I don’t know why around the holidays when we are taking pictures of traditions like decorating a gingerbread house or decorating the tree, I am ALWAYS sporting no makeup, comfy clothes, and a ponytail! (Maybe because that’s how I am 90% of the time!) But I had to post about our yearly tradition of decorating a gingerbread house. This year we tried to include Bailey, but she didn’t care a thing about decorating, only eating the candy! Shocker, I know. Avery loved it and really got into it! Daddy even helped…that is his snowman creation on the right hand side of the house. I love this tradition!

Sister Reads

2011-02-02T07:27:00.001-08:00

There are a few of Bailey’s board books that Avery knows every word to. She is already reading quite a bit, but a lot of these books are memorization! I loved finding them snuggled in the rocking chair with Avery reading a book to Bailey! I hope they both grow to love two of Mommy’s favorite things…snuggly blankets and books!

Thanksgiving 2010

2011-02-02T07:21:00.001-08:00

I am sorry to say that this is the only picture we took over the whole week of Thanksgiving that we spent in Texas (and this is from my phone)! We were there from Tuesday through Sunday and had a great time as always! The main downer was Mommy’s extreme nausea each evening/night. My morning sickness usually started around 6pm with the girls and lasted until I went to bed. But with this pregnancy, it seemed to start around 4pm. The week of Thanksgiving was probably one of the worst weeks for my nausea, but we made it through! That’s probably what I remember most from that week.

NEW BABY on the way!

2011-02-02T07:10:00.001-08:00

At the end of October, we found out we were expecting baby #3! We were very excited and had been trying for a couple of months. I actually had already taken a test that came out negative and a couple days later after Craig had gone to work already, I decided to try another one. Surprise! I called him to share the good news and we had to hold it in for about a week to make sure. I even met my mom halfway to pick up the girls (who had been at her house for a couple days) on the SAME DAY I got the positive test! It was so hard not to tell her but I didn’t want to tell her without my dad there, so I held it in. At the end of the week, after another positive test, we video skyped with my parents and all shouted, “We’re going to have a baby!” They screamed in surprise and were very happy! The next day we let Avery tell Grandma and Grandpa. It’s going to be grandbaby #10 for them! We’re all excited to meet this new little person!

Pretty Girls, Pretty Tree

2010-11-15T18:09:00.001-08:00

These are two random pictures, but I wanted to combine them. This is the girls yesterday before church. I just thought they looked so cute. And below that is the maple tree in our front yard. It is SHOCKINGLY red this year! I don’t know what made it so much more beautiful this year than any other we’ve been here, but wow! People have stopped in front of our house to take pictures of it! It’s absolutely amazing! The pictures don’t do it justice. :)

Watching Daddy

2010-11-15T18:04:00.001-08:00

I love silhouette shots. Not that mine are comparable to any photographer AT ALL, but I still love them. One of Bailey’s favorite things to do when Craig is mowing is to stand in the front windows and wave at him each time he passes by. He will wave to her each time and she says over and over, “Daddy mowing, Daddy mowing.” I said earlier that she isn’t into dressing up in the clothes as much as the shoes, but the tutus are a different thing. She can slip them on over her pants and go. She has really been wearing them a lot lately!

Dressing Up

2010-11-15T17:58:00.001-08:00

The girls have really been into dressing up lately! We moved the playroom downstairs and changed the upstairs into our schoolroom, and the girls have played with their toys SO MUCH lately! It’s amazing what a change it made just making their toys more accessible and just organizing them better and moving them to a different spot. I also moved the dress-ups in there and I love seeing them play dress-up!

Bailey doesn’t dress up a lot in the clothes, but she LOVES the shoes! I put them all in the same place, very accessible to her, and she changes shoes several times a day and walks around the house in them. It’s hilarious! Most of these shots are playing after bath time and before bed.

I thought this was cute…Bailey got tired and was ready for bed.

Fall Festival

2010-11-15T17:50:00.001-08:00

Our church had a fall festival, like they do every year, and the girls had a blast! Craig was working a booth and I was wrangling the girls by myself and trying to take pictures for the first part, so there aren’t a ton, but you’re probably ok with that! :)

PumpkinTown

2010-11-15T17:33:00.001-08:00

This year we actually went to a different pumpkin patch called PumpkinTown with our friends the Bakers. They are homeschooling, too, and are a lot of fun to get together with! Avery loves Peyton, and I’m sure everyone at PumpkinTown that day got sick of hearing her call to Peyton the entire time! It was, “Peyton, let’s do this! Peyton, let’s do that! Peyton, come over here!” and on and on! I’m so glad we have a homeschooling family to get together with for activities like this!

It was pretty fun and had lots of things for the kids to do. I had totally planned to go to Carmichaels like we always do, later in the month with Daddy, but alas, it didn’t happen. Oh well, next year!

Pre-Pumpkin Patch Shoot

2010-11-15T17:20:00.001-08:00

Taking pictures before going to the pumpkin patch…

Having fun.

Actually looking at the camera.

What? Actually posing for Mommy?!

Still sitting still?!

Hey, Avery. This is getting boring.

Let’s pick your nose!

No, seriously! Come on!!

OK, fine, I’ll pick mine.

I love you, Sister.

the FAIR!

2010-10-11T21:20:00.001-07:00

Avery waits every year for this. She LOVES the fair and would go every day that it’s in town if we were rolling in money! This was Bailey’s first year to get to go and I’d have to say, she loved it, too!

Both girls loved riding the rides this year, eating the delicious food, and I think the best part for them is the Kiddie Building. Everything in there is free and there are all kinds of things for them to play with, build, ride on, etc. Here are some of the best pics.

I would venture to say that one of their most favorite parts was the Park and Ride part where we parked at the mall and a school bus took us to the fair so we could avoid the horrendous parking there. It was their first time on a school bus and to say they were excited is a gross understatement! They may have even liked this more than the fair! I’m not kidding! Both of them have been obsessed with busses since they were old enough to notice them. Maybe it’s all little kids and big transportation vehicles, I don’t know. But mine love them! So here is Avery’s first bus ride. Too bad I didn’t get a pic of Bailey behind me.

playing in the kids building…

right up Avery’s alley… playing in sand filled with tiny seashells! (or treasures as she would say!)

the one sweet food I can count on Craig never passing up…a funnel cake…and the girls love to join him!

Avery rode a camel…her first time. The girl on the back was the next rider in line who was by herself. I would’ve ridden with her, but we were down to our last 5 bucks!

Riding the rides…the Fun Slide is one of our favorites! I don’t have a picture, but I rode it with Avery right before this. It was so much fun! I wish the tickets weren’t so expensive. I would’ve ridden it ten more times!

Kiddie roller coaster

First, let me say that Bailey is obsessed with horses. Well, namely, one horse. Rocky, the paint horse that was born to my dad’s mare 2 1/2 years ago. When we are at my parents, she says “Rocky, Rocky, Rocky” CONSTANTLY! She wants to always see him and wants to know where he is in the pasture and what he is doing. It is the first thing she says when she wakes up and he was even bumping Nona down from her number one place! (Her previous obsession was Nona! my mom.) Anyway, now she calls all horses Rocky and when she saw the carousel at the fair, she immediately gasped and yelled, “ROCKY!” She had to get herself onto one of those horses!! She was too little to ride a lot of the rides, but thankfully this was one that she could do with Daddy by her side!

Avery picked the Dalmatian.

Here’s another one Bailey could do if an adult was with her…the swings. Craig rode them with her once, then I did them with her later. I had had enough by the time that was over! Made me a little dizzy, but she really had fun. You really had to keep a tight hold on her, though, because she just doesn’t sit very still!

Avery was a couple swings in front of Bailey and Craig. She had a blast. I know this is a yearly tradition that will definitely create a ton of family memories!

Family Bowling Night

2010-10-11T20:39:00.001-07:00

Avery was invited to a bowling party last weekend, but it got cancelled due to the family getting sick. Avery was SO excited about this party, so I knew she would be terribly disappointed when I told her it was cancelled. Craig and I had talked about it before I told her, and we decided to just take the girls bowling, otherwise, I knew Avery would mope about it all night. That’s the way you make family memories, right? Ohh, do I ever have some of those now. :)

I love these pictures! Avery shot it two ways…backwards granny shot…

SO excited!

or she would set the ramp up and go all the way back to the tables, then RUN as fast as she could up to where Craig was holding her ball at the top of the ramp, and PUSH it as hard as she could (with tongue hanging out apparently). She was so funny and having such a good time, the people in the next lane were cheering for her and clapping. One time she tried to run down the lane to push her ball farther and her feet slipped right out from under her. You can guess what happened…smack right on the tushie! She was embarrassed but thankfully didn’t cry. She learned that lesson quick…no running down the lane!

Not sure why they are looking so forlorn below, but they really were having a great time! Well, Bailey not so much. It was past her bedtime and Craig or I held her a lot of the time. She wanted down and really would’ve been happy if she could’ve run anywhere she wanted and picked up anyone’s balls that she wanted. But of course, we had to restrain her. She kept running to the ball return of the people next to us and getting in their way and trying to steal their bowling balls. They were younger and didn’t mind at all, but bowling with a 21 month old is not ideal. :)

She did get to push the ball down the lane several times and had a little bit of fun.

But Avery had a blast!! And that’s why we really went anyway.

Aquarium Visit with Lanie

2010-10-11T20:16:00.001-07:00

If you live in our hometown, you can get a pass to the Aquarium for half off. It is SO worth it! The girls and I can go kill half an hour in there if we need to, or we can spent a long time if we have a boring lazy afternoon. It’s great if it’s raining or too hot outside. And pretty soon, it’ll be great when it’s freezing outside!

Last month, we went with our friends Mandy and Lanie! Too bad Bart was busy and couldn’t come, but the girls had a great time! Bailey LOVES Bart, Mandy, and Lanie. She will say Man-ee, Wan-ee, and she used to call Bart “Bop” but now she says “Bark.” She calls for them all the time throughout the week and thank goodness we are guaranteed to see them on Wednesdays at church, otherwise I’d have to take her over to their house at least once a week for a visit!

Anyway, here are several cute pics of the girls at the aquarium.

You can tell, I still love these girls in piggie tails.

I actually love the way their silhouettes look against the water.

They’re all getting SO big! How do kids grow so fast?!

If I didn’t have a death grip on Bailey, she TOTALLY would’ve jumped into that water with those turtles! She is fearless like her sister and Daddy. :)

New Addition to the Family

2010-10-11T20:00:00.001-07:00

We have a new addition to the family around here. One we have been praying and waiting for for a long time! Last year, we really decided that we wanted this new member, but it wasn’t in God’s plan until just about a month ago.

Who is it?

Are you curious?

Do you think I’m pregnant?

Sorry, it’s just our new MINIVAN!!!!

YIPPEE!! We have seriously wanted a minivan ever since Bailey was born. After putting two car seats into our Escape, it was fine just for us. But if we went on a trip or anyone else ever needed to ride with us, forget it. There was not enough space. After looking around at vans and seeing how much space there was, we really wanted one! And finally, after a promotion at work for Craig (whoo-hoo!), we finally had enough money to swing a bigger payment, so another minivan family was born! I always said, like most people, that I would never drive a minivan, but after having two kids, with plans for more, practicality won out. And we LOVE IT!

We love our Toyota Sienna. By the way, this is our family’s theme song right now…

YOU CANNOT WATCH THIS WITHOUT CRACKING UP! WE LOVE IT!!

Not There Yet :)

2010-10-11T19:40:00.001-07:00

Bailey is not potty trained. Not at all. :) But she LOVES to sit on the potty and she LOVES LOVES toilet paper! And she REALLY LOVES to tear off as much toilet paper as she can get away with and put it into the potty before I stop her. The problem is, she can’t just drop it in, she has to PLACE it into the water and her whole hand ends up in the toilet water. Gross I know. We have had many, many hand washing episodes around here because of that! The other day I caught her in my bathroom where she had put what looked like half a roll of toilet paper into my toilet and there was water splashed all over. I guess she had a high ole time playing before she got caught and got herself a spanking. :)

Hopefully all of this interest in potties will help her to be potty-trained right around two. One can pray for that, right?!

First Day of School!!

2010-10-11T19:26:00.001-07:00

Well, the day finally arrived. After a summer of waiting (and almost dreading from me), we finally cracked out the books on August 31st and began our homeschooling. I bought Avery some new school supplies to begin the year and even had a couple of new activities for Bailey. Avery was SO excited to begin! She had been asking me to start school literally every day since our curriculum arrived back in July! I was excited in a way but also pretty nervous about all of the unknowns. The girls were excited to show off some of their new supplies.

Avery took to school like a fish to water. She is such a sponge! She soaks up everything I teach her and wants to know more! She is especially great at math and reading. She is adding numbers 0-20 like a champ and writing them really great, too. She is writing words well and is reading small words. In a couple of weeks, we are really jumping into reading and I have no doubt she is going to take off. She has every step down except fluently reading a book, so I know she’ll fly through this. We are now on week 7 of school and we really love it. It only takes us about an hour and a half to do the whole day’s work. Sometimes we break it up and do some during Bailey’s nap and sometimes we take longer and add other activities in, but it’s great to be able to finish all of the lessons for the day in under 2 hours.

I found these great little blocks in the dollar section at Target (got 3 different shapes), and Bailey had fun trying to see how many she could fit into a bottle.

Later she put them in a bowl and even stacked some…

…but eventually we always wind up back to this. :) Dee-dee is never far away and never out of mind! When we finish our schoolroom upstairs, Bailey will have more particular activities just for her set up and Avery and I will spend time playing just with her and helping her to do purposeful activities.

I really should be already doing this, but for now, it’s too hard with a whole house to roam through and be distracted by. I wanted to get Avery really into her school before I focused on Bailey much anyway. She is happy to bug us for a while, then run amuck in Avery’s room. :)

Anyway, all of these pictures are from the first day of school and I really should be taking more, but things are going GREAT and I feel way less overwhelmed than I did before we began this journey. It will be so incredible to look back and see where we’ve come from and to enjoy the many memories we will make together spending so much time together and learning together. I know I will never regret this extra time spent with my girls. Some days I definitely want a break, but in the end, I know it’s the right choice for us and I am so glad God lead us here.

New (Old) Skates

2010-10-11T19:03:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago the girls and I went down to the Just Between Friends sale and we drug Aunt Staci along. :) She took the kids around the toy section while I shopped for clothes. After I shopped for a while, I went to find them and there was Avery clomping around in these roller skates she found. She begged me to get them and after some thought, I figured ten bucks is pretty cheap for some fun exercise for her, right? She skated around the house for a week after we got them and Craig took her out skating on the street. He’s awesome on his roller blades, so he was very proficient at skating backward and helping her along. Also, the skates are about 2 sizes too big, so hopefully she can get a lot of wear out of them! She LOVES these skates!

Boots

2010-07-24T10:19:00.001-07:00

Another lost picture from June… Bailey loves these old rain boots of Avery’s that I got out of the closet not too long ago. They are still at least a size too big, but she doesn’t care. She will say, “Boots, boots!” and either sit down and put them on herself, or if she has trouble, she will bring them to me to help her put them on. Then she clomps around the house like she is big stuff!

Here’s an old picture I found of Avery wearing these beloved consignment sale boots. :) She was 17 months which is the exact age of Bailey above. Bailey definitely has a little more chunk to her and more hair, but one thing Avery had then was bigger feet!

Cutie Pies

2010-07-24T10:11:00.001-07:00

I just found these pictures that had gotten lost among some others and not put in the appropriate folders on the computer. Back in June, the girls looked so cute before one of our days of Vacation Bible School that I had to snap a few pictures. I bought the fabric for Avery's dress when she was 2 years old (really!) and I finally made it into a dress for her. Thank goodness the panel was still long enough! I hate to brag, but these girls are so cute!

…and Bailey’s done. :)

Fourth of July

2010-07-11T20:38:00.001-07:00

Well it was kind of fun having the Fourth of July on a Sunday this year! We got to coordinate our clothes as a family (dorky?) and celebrate the freedoms God has given our country through the men who fought for us in the past and those who are in the present. Here are a few pictures we managed to get before church. {Thankfully we only had a 10:30 service or you people would probably not be seeing a single shot. :) }

Then I tried to get one of just the girls and here’s how they turned out: If you have little ones, I’m sure you can relate. :)

Curriculum Delivery!

2010-07-11T20:33:00.001-07:00

Most of you know that we have chosen to home school our girls. It is a very scary but exciting thought. So far that’s all it has been…thoughts…until now! This fall Avery would be attending Pre-Kindergarten in a public school if that’s where I was sending her. So instead we are beginning her schooling here at home! We decided to go with Sonlight’s curriculum. It’s a wonderful Christian literature-based curriculum from what I can tell. I have read a lot about it and after many hours pouring over the website and catalog, I made my selections for Avery and a few days later, the box was on the porch! I am so excited to see what God has in store for our family through homeschooling. I hope we are a closer family because of it! Here are a few pics of the girls already enjoying their curriculum…well the box! And we hadn’t even cut off the tape yet! :)

Avery really is always sweet to share her snacks with Bailey :)

Gymnastics Watch Day

2010-07-11T20:18:00.001-07:00

Once a month on the 4th lesson of gymnastics, parents are allowed to stay in the gym and watch what the girls have learned during the month’s lessons. Avery was the only girl in her class the whole month so it was fun to watch her show all her new skills and getting all of the attention. This month 3 other girls have joined so she is excited to have friends but I was kind of hoping for private lessons again. :) Oh well.

Here are some pictures from the watch day:

The balance beam (one of her favorites). She was doing hops on this thing, dips, high kicks, and even a forward roll! (with help)

The high bar

The uneven bars

Learning hand-stands

The parallel bars

The rings

At the end the teacher lets her go into the big gym (where the older girls do gymnastics) and she gets to jump on the large trampoline. That’s one of her favorites as well!

Shake It...

2010-06-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I put on the girls' pettiskirts to make sure they still fit and they had so much fun spinning around and shaking the ruffles side to side! Avery started it and of course Bailey copied her and did the same. They played in them for a long time! In fact, Bailey hollered when I tried to take hers off because she wanted to keep it on! (Shocker, I know.)

Swimming

2010-06-10T18:23:00.001-07:00

On Memorial Day weekend we went to Craig’s aunt and uncle’s pool. They have an awesome backyard and pool/deck area and they are so nice to always allow us to come and swim whenever we want. Bailey had gotten in the big pool last summer for a little bit but of course she doesn’t remember. She LOVED the water just like I knew she would. She didn’t want to sit in the floatie and she did not want me to hold her! Of course I did because she would’ve totally drowned! But she didn’t know that and wanted to swim around all by herself! Avery is doing really well learning how to swim but this day she just wanted to be free to go wherever she wanted so we had her wear a lifejacket instead of floaties. She loved it and was able to jump off of the board and do anything all on her own. Both of the girls are not afraid of water at all and absolutely love to swim. (So far I haven’t found anything of this nature that they aren’t afraid of!)

Gymnastics Girl

2010-06-10T18:15:00.001-07:00

Avery just started gymnastics this week and I had to take her picture before we left. She looked so grown up to me and cute in her leotard and shorts. She was the only one who signed up for this session so far so she was the only girl in the class! A 45 minute private lesson! I kind of hope it stays this way! She could learn a lot with private lessons! I am so mad at myself for forgetting to take pictures of her on the equipment, but when you have a wild 1 year old you forget these things! Plus Bailey and I had to wait in the parents waiting area and we watched Avery on a little monitor. So we were only in there at pickup time. The coach said she did awesome and was a fast learner. I wanted to say, “I know.” :)

Silly Girl

2010-06-10T18:11:00.001-07:00

The other day Bailey pulled out this big tupperware bowl and put it on her head while she ran around and played. She did this for like 15 minutes! Avery thought it looked like fun so she tried to take it off and take a turn for herself, but Bailey was having none of it. She hollered loudly (what’s new?) and got it back, plopped it back on her head and continued playing. I was cracking up! Whatever entertains them, right??

Reading Together

2010-06-10T18:07:00.001-07:00

One of the great benefits in the 3 year age difference in the girls is that now Avery can read to Bailey! A couple of months ago Bailey suddenly became obsessed with books when before she couldn’t have cared less about them! She would never let me read to her, at least no more than like one page. But now she constantly wants me to read to her and since all of her books are very simple baby books, Avery can read a bunch of them to her! I try to stop and read to her when she asks but if I just can’t right then, I’ll say, “Take it to Avery,” and Avery will happily read to her! I love how she plops down in Avery’s lap just like she does to Craig and me. I hope they both are obsessed with reading their whole lives just like I am! :) (Don’t roll your eyes, Staci!)

Workin’ at the Car Wash…

2010-06-10T17:29:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago the girls got their swimsuits on for an afternoon of washing the cars with Daddy! They had a blast! Bailey especially loves to play in water so she was in heaven. She kept trying to get in the bucket of soapy water, so at the end Craig finally let her! She did not want to get out!! I told him forget a pool, we just need to get some 5 gallon buckets and let the girls each have their own to swim in! That’s what my sisters and I always swam in at Mimi and Paw-Paw’s when we were kids and we thought it was great! We didn’t know any different, right? Of course Avery had to have her turn in the bucket, too, and Bailey was not happy about sharing her bucket! We are working on training this girl right…we really are! She just has a little extra learning to do than Avery did I think. :)

Anyway, here are some shots of the cuties in their bubbles and suits.

Seriously…

2010-06-06T18:42:00.001-07:00

I mean, seriously, do I really need to type anything? These are the cutest kids in the world! :) We love them so much.

This one I love. It so greatly captures Bailey’s orneriness with that mischievous little smile. I am LOVING her in piggie tails these days. It also greatly captures Avery in a stage where she loves to make silly poses for the camera. Some members of my family say that I did this a lot around this age. Hopefully no one will scrounge up any old pictures from the ‘80’s. That could be scary. :)

Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away

2010-05-30T19:12:00.001-07:00

Last month Craig and I took a cruise! Can you believe we were able to get away ALONE for a whole entire week?! Seriously. We did. Thanks to Craig’s brother Chris for a couple of Southwest Buddy Passes, we were able to fly for free to Ft. Lauderdale where we caught the Carnival Freedom which cruised to Key West, FL, the Grand Cayman Islands, and then finally to Jamaica. We had an awesome time! We left on a Saturday and returned on the following Saturday, and I didn’t really miss the girls too much until about Wednesday. By then I was really missing them and needing some hugs and kisses. But we made it through and finally got back home to them late the following Saturday night where we could not even wake them up from sleep to hug us! We tried, we really did, but they were zonked out!

Here is a recap of our trip:

Saturday we flew to Florida and spent the night in Ft. Lauderdale so we were already there the day before and had plenty of time to get to the ship and get everything done before they disembarked. (Yeah, we got the ship lingo down. Ha ha!)

I was not prepared for the size of the ship. I mean, I knew cruise ships were big, but my goodness. It is literally like a floating city! Or maybe a huge floating hotel. Anyway, it was awesome.

It was so much fun doing whatever we wanted and not having to worry about anyone’s eating schedule or napping schedule! We did eat a lot and take naps, but whenever we wanted to. :)

The ship had 11 decks I think and the below picture was deck 9, the open deck with a couple of pools and this awesome water slide. There was so much to do around the ship that you could be playing a trivia game with a group of people, laying by the pool, eating, gambling, drinking, dancing, playing putt-putt (I beat Craig severely each time we played!), volleyball, basketball, working out, or any number of other things anytime you wanted. Plus there was a real live show every night with incredible singers and dancers!

This picture was one of the lounge areas with a bar where there was almost always live music. There was live music pretty much in every lounge, bar, or club every night. It really added a lot.

The food and the service were both incredible. We had service in our room twice a day and at night when they turned down the bed and put chocolates on the pillows, they would make these cute little towel animals every time using my sunglasses which were on the desk.

We had a certain dining room to eat dinner in if we wanted to go somewhere nice and the food was SO good! We did have a table to ourselves but it was so close to other tables that we always ended up talking with the other people before long. It was more awkward not to talk! I first thought I would hate this and it would be too awkward but I actually enjoyed it and by the end of the cruise we were friends with one couple that we were seated by several times! It was cool to meet new people and hear their experiences on the islands and the ship.

Anyway every night the dinner was an appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert! And you could choose more than one item from each course if you wanted! It was already paid for, so go for it, right? One of my favorite desserts was this chocolate melting cake (like a lava cake), and I had to take a picture for Avery one night when they brought it to me with an extra ice cream and said, “Here you go…Mickey Mouse!”

Going with the food subject, one night we made a reservation at the incredible steakhouse onboard which was the only restaurant that you had to pay extra for. It wasn’t included in the price of the cruise but was only an extra $30 a person more so we tried it out and I seriously wish we would’ve gone another night! I ordered Surf and Turf, Craig of course got a steak, and we snapped pictures of most courses. It was SO SO good.

(Forgive our poor food photography skills!)

My Crab Cake appetizer

Craig’s Portobello Mushroom and Tomato appetizer

Craig’s steak (I think ribeye)

My Surf and Turf (I’ll have to admit that I didn’t like lobster as much as I thought I would. I thought I’d had it before, but I didn’t love it as much as all the other seafood I’ve had. Kind of tough.)

Craig’s fruitini dessert {they had fresh fruit everywhere on this ship and always an option for dessert so Craig was in heaven because this is his favorite thing for dessert. Isn’t that weird? I mean, sickening? :) }

A true dessert…the chocolate sampler, a different chocolate dessert in each little cup.

I seriously gained weight on this trip although I was too chicken to weigh and see how much!

So, on to excursions!

First we stopped in Key West. It was the first full day of the cruise and I felt like we had barely even explored the ship, so we didn’t do anything there. Just walked around for a couple hours or less and then got back on the boat. Here are a couple of pictures from Key West.

The next day was a full day at sea which was fun because there was more going on around the ship. Games, entertainment, etc. We felt like teenagers taking pictures of each other and ourselves all the time but when you’re on a trip by yourselves it’s hard to get pictures of both of you together unless someone takes pity on you and does it for you! So here are a couple of those from the week.

Too bad you don’t get to help pick the pictures when you’re not the blogger. :)

This was one of the elegant dress nights. This is as elegant as we get when you have to cram your nice dress and sports coat into a suitcase and have no iron!

We didn’t plan it but we did coordinate most every night! I guess old married couples start to do that. Ha ha!

Again so sorry you don’t get to help pick the pictures, Craig. Here Craig was trying to keep his eyes fully open for the picture. He sometimes (read: always) has a hard time with that! Notice again the yummy fruit he has.

OK back to excursions. The next day was our favorite…the Grand Cayman Islands. We had already planned a snorkeling/stingray trip ahead of time and we are so glad we did! We went on a smallish boat with a small group of people out to an area off of the Caymans where there was a natural reef area that was great for snorkeling! After a while of doing that, we drove the boat a very short way to Stingray City which was just a sandbar area where tons of huge stingrays are swimming around waiting for you to feed them. It was so amazing and I am so glad I did it. Craig is fearless and probably would’ve done it even if they were not tame. I was a bit scared but once I read about it and looked at pictures ahead of time I felt better about it. Plus tons of people do it every day so how bad can it be right? They showed us how to feed the stingrays and how to hold them. The tour guides even had names for most of them because they come out everyday and have gotten to know these creatures. It was amazing and I will never forget it! Below are some snorkeling and stingray pictures. A lot of these are taken with a disposable underwater camera so they’re not awesome quality.

An eel!

The guides showed us how to hold them. They were so soft underneath and Craig was really good at holding them for a long time.

Terrible quality but hey…proof that we had some alone time in the middle of the ocean! (Well, ok, pretty close to the coast, and surrounded by a hundred people and about 30 stingrays!)

We loved this trip and it was by far our favorite thing all week. The next day our ship docked in Jamaica and we went to Dunns River Waterfall. This is one of Jamaica’s most popular tourist areas. Unfortunately we had a second underwater camera that we took on this trip and we lost it the next day on the ship. Someone somewhere out there has a lot of pictures of Craig and I in the waterfall! It was so beautiful, though. It was a giant waterfall that ran down a long area of rocks. You start at the bottom and climb up the rocks and through pools of water until you finally reach the top. Jamaica was a little scary and had a lot of sketchy people, but I’m glad we saw the waterfall and climbed it, too. Because we probably will not be going back to Jamaica…ever. :) Here is an internet picture of the falls. Our tour group climbed it in a line and we all held hands to help people keep their footing just like in this picture.

The second part of this tour was lunch at a nice restaurant on the way back to the ship. They had a pretty nice waterfall there and a nice outdoor eating area.

The rest of the time we were relaxing by the pool or on the decks on the ship, reading and/or napping. We also learned to dance the cha-cha one night (yes I really got Craig to do it!), and enjoyed many games, shows, and dinners as I said before. Here are a few last pictures.

It was so nice to have a great view of the ocean while you ate!

Oh one last thing. On the second to last day, someone on board had a medical emergency and the coast guard helicopter flew out to our ship and dropped their basket to pick the person up! It was crazy and of course everyone was out to get a look.

A special thanks to Chris for the buddy passes and of course to Nona and Aunt Staci who kept our girls happy and spoiled rotten while we were gone! We couldn’t have gone without you all!

Easter 2010

2010-04-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

OK this is going to be a large post about all of the Easter activities we did and pictures that we took. Here goes!

The week of Easter, we went to my friend Christy’s house so the kids could do a few Easter activities. Christy read them an Easter book, they colored an Easter picture, and then we made resurrection rolls. In case you have never heard of them, you roll out a crescent roll (represents the tomb), roll a marshmallow (Jesus’ body) in butter and then sugar/cinnamon (the oil and spices that were put on Jesus’ body). You then put the marshmallow in the crescent roll and roll it up and seal all the openings. Bake for 10-12 minutes or so and when you open your tomb, Jesus’ body is gone! He has resurrected (or melted)! And then you can enjoy your yummy sweet roll. It’s a cute activity. After that, we went outside for an Easter egg hunt. Bailey really couldn’t have cared less about egg hunts this year! I really thought she would get into it, but no. Anyway, it was a fun time together with friends!

The girls even got to enjoy Coleman’s power wheels Hummer! They had a lot of fun zooming around the yard!

The below picture was right before Coleman gunned it and Bailey flew forward and ripped through her seatbelt! :) It was hilarious since no one was hurt!

Christy has this great Texas-shaped stepping stone which I love due to my true Texas roots! Yee-haw! I remembered taking a picture of Avery on the stone a couple years back so I had to take one of Bailey standing on Texas as well!

Here’s the one of Avery—I was hoping they were the same age, but Avery had just turned 2. Isn’t it crazy how much bigger Avery looks in this picture than Bailey—and they are only 9 months apart! Can Bailey really grow this much in 9 months?!

OK back to Easter…

The next thing we did was go to the Community Easter Egg hunt that is put on by one of the nearby churches (not sure which one). We have never been to this because we are usually out of town on Easter, so it was fun to go with the girls. A man went over the resurrection eggs with the kids and then they were let loose in different age categories to grab as many eggs as they could!

See, this is all Bailey wanted to do—roll around! She didn’t care about the eggs at all! :)

So that was Saturday, and that night after Bailey went to bed, Craig and I went over the resurrection eggs with Avery. In case you haven’t heard of those, it’s a set of 12 plastic eggs and each one has something inside with a corresponding bible verse. Such as, a silk leaf to represent Palm Sunday, or a nail to represent Jesus being nailed to the cross. You go through each egg from 1-12 and it tells the whole Easter story until you get to the end and the last egg is empty just like the tomb was! This is the first time that we fully explained to Avery everything that Jesus went through. From the beatings to the crown of thorns to the nails in his hands. She was pretty surprised by the details but didn’t seem upset or anything. I’m not sure that a 4 year old can empathize much with any of the details, so I’m sure (and hope) that with each year that passes, the story will impact her more. Please ignore these scary-looking pictures of me! :)

After that we dyed Easter eggs and this was our first time to do this! I guess in years past I either forgot about it or was afraid of the mess! I’m not sure which! Craig had to go somewhere so it was just Avery and me, and the only picture I got was of the end-result! It was pretty fun.

I was up really late that night making the girls stuffed bunnies. I had found this project a while back and kept forgetting to make them until, of course, the night before! I really wanted them in their Easter baskets, and to be “green” they were made from some of my old sweaters that I was going to get rid of! I will say that I flat out told Avery that their gifts were not from any Easter bunny. She asked me if the gifts were from the Easter bunny and I said, “No, they’re from me and Daddy to celebrate Jesus being resurrected! He’s alive!” She totally did not care about the Easter bunny and though I hope she doesn’t make some mother mad one day by ruining it for her kids, I do think that it is most important for her to focus on what really matters on this holiday, Jesus’ resurrection, which our faith stands on. So to celebrate, we gave them each a stuffed bunny, a book each, and a CD called Songs for Saplings. It’s a song for each letter of the alphabet and each one is a bible verse to music so it’s easier for kids to learn them! Also Avery got a set of dominoes, and Bailey got some new shirts.

And finally—thank goodness for a tripod!—our before-church pictures!

AND…the outtakes…

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If you’re still here—thanks for hanging with me this long! Phew! Probably the longest post in history! Happy Easter 2010!

First Water Play of the Season

2010-04-28T18:47:00.001-07:00

I always like to document our first water play of the season. Sometimes it’s the sprinkler or the water hose but this time we put water in our sand/water table and it was actually hot enough for the girls to put their swimsuits on and get really wet! They loved it! Especially Bailey! This is really her first year to experience summer since last year she was like 6 months old. Now that she’s walking everywhere, and almost running now, she is able to do a lot more…especially outside! She says “’side! ‘side! ‘side!” and wants to go out a lot! Jackson came to play with us on this day also and the girls always love having him over! Bailey just wants to steal his sippy cup and snack the whole time and Avery wants to be the boss and lead him around making him do whatever she wants! Sometimes he goes for it and other times not. :)

(Jessica, please don’t be mad about this pic! It was the only one I took of Avery playing in the water table! And just an fyi people…she had that baby 12 hours after this shot!)

Bailey has the funniest expressions! She really cracks me up!

See? (And check out those thighs! I love it!)

Another face…Bailey loves to “chalk” as Avery calls it. She says, “Mommy, let’s go chalk.”

And here she is once again chowing down on graham crackers, one of her favorite snacks!

And don’t worry—that’s a piece of graham cracker hanging down from her lip, not her tooth! :)

Mommy’s Point of View

2010-04-15T20:04:00.001-07:00

I just had to document my point of view for the last several months. Really since she could stand. Most of my life is lived like this. Really. I cook dinner like this, I clean house like this, I even go to the bathroom like this. Really. It’s true. I really, really love you Bailey, a whole whole lot…but I will be glad when your separation anxiety is over! :) I’m sure there will come a day when I will wish for this death-grasp…but as of now, I have had my fill. Thank you.

Texas Photo Shoot

2010-04-15T19:55:00.001-07:00

Last month we were in Texas visiting my parents. We tried to go take pictures of the girls in this big daffodil field but the gate closed at 4:00 and of course we got there at 5:00! I was so bummed but we just took some pictures of the girls in my parents yard. Not what I wanted, but we still got some cute shots. These are just a small sample of the many that we took!

Hunter Park

2010-04-10T20:43:00.001-07:00

I took the girls to Hunter Park last week on another really nice day. They have a huge field there so I thought we’d go there first so Avery could fly her kite and they could just run around and get tons of energy out before going to the playground area for a while and then home. Avery did fly her kite, but I had offered Bailey a graham cracker and she proceeded to plop down in the stroller to eat…and eat…and eat! This girl loves her graham crackers. I’m sure these pictures won’t interest anybody but the grandmothers! Most of them are of Bailey eating. I thought it was so funny how she just sat in that stroller not buckled or anything so she could eat her snack and she didn’t care a thing about running around until she was totally done! She was really getting into that snack, too. Just check out her face while she is munching away in some of those pictures! Hilarious. Avery had a great time flying her kite and running around, then playing in the diggy dirt. She also got to bounce her new basketball on a cement area and loved it until it rolled down the hill far away from her. She just stood in the middle of the hill and bawled her eyes out! I ran down and got the ball from a man who stopped his truck and got it for me. She cried for 10 minutes about it…she was so upset! Even after I gave it back to her and said, “stop crying! Here’s your ball!” She couldn’t stop…she kept saying “I didn’t want my ball to do that!” Oh I laughed (behind her back of course!) We did make it to the playground area but I only managed to take 2 of Bailey in the swing. And none of the basketball event! Having 2 kids at the playground and trying to take pictures is hard when you’re by yourself!

First Piggie Tails!

2010-04-10T20:01:00.001-07:00

Another documentation: Bailey’s first piggie tails! Her hair is plenty long to do piggie tails, and I love them! I had to include a picture of Avery at this exact age with her first piggie tails. I love to compare their looks!

Pretty Ballerinas

2010-04-10T19:52:00.001-07:00

Our little friend Emma turned 2 recently and she had a “tutu” party. Avery and Bailey dressed for the occasion so we tried to get a couple of pictures before we left because I thought they looked so cute! Bailey wasn’t being very cooperative so that’s why she has a grumpy face! Oh well, it is what it is!

Not sure why Avery is saluting, but aren’t they cute?!

Zoo Trip

2010-04-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

One day last month, Craig got to take half a day of vacation and go to the zoo with us! It was one of the first very warm days of the year. I underestimated the heat and dressed us a little too warmly. After a while there, I had to take off Bailey's shoes, socks, and pants so she was left with only a long-sleeved onesie and a little bit of diaper hanging out! I will admit, she totally looked WT, but she was getting so hot and I didn't know what else to do! I was a little embarrassed, but she didn't seem to care at all. We enjoyed the animals and being outside. The girls had fun and this was Bailey's first time to go to the zoo when she was old enough to enjoy it. I think the only other time she went to the zoo was when she was a newborn! Avery loves the zoo but I think she loved the popsicle she got in the parking lot from the ice cream truck just as much! :)

Avery's Maiden Bike Ride

2010-04-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a video from Avery's very first real bike ride on her new bike! She is a pro at her bike now and I can't wait to see her learn to ride without training wheels! Maybe in a couple of years! We'll see....

She Walks

2010-04-10T19:01:00.001-07:00

Wow this is so terrible of me, but I am just now posting about Bailey walking! She has been walking for so long now that I can hardly remember when she crawled! She took a step or two every now and then a little before her first birthday and maybe a little after. Then on Superbowl Sunday which was about 3 weeks after Bailey’s birthday, she took 5 steps in a row! We got that on our regular video camera so it’s documented, but I forgot to record her on our other camera for the blog until a month later! By then she was walking so well that it seems silly to even talk about it! But we must document it… so here is the video from March 7th—about a month after she was walking. I will say that when she finally started walking, she took off and never crawled again! And I thought it was cool that she started walking 3 weeks after her first birthday which was exactly the same as Avery!

Avery's Family Party

2010-04-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Later that same night, we had our family over to celebrate Avery's birthday separately. This way we could eat dinner, relax, and just visit while the cousins played. Craig and my dad grilled out hamburgers for everyone and we had an ice cream sandwich torte for dessert! (Along with leftover teapot cake, of course!)

Avery got so many nice things from her family. Lots of clothes and a train set (which she loves!) from Grandma and Grandpa, a swimming box (swimsuit, towel, coverup, goggles, and money for swimming lessons!) from Nona and Pop, a couple of DVDs, a wooden decorate a cupcake set (so awesome!), and a new bike from Mommy and Daddy. She is too grown up for her tricycle now and really has needed a bike for a while. We found her a blue and yellow bike since those are her two favorite colors and she is so great on it! Of course it still has the training wheels on, but I don't doubt she will be a quick learner and will have that thing figured out early on. Happy Birthday big girl! We love you Avery!

Fancy Avery's 4th Birthday Party!

2010-04-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

For Avery's friend party, we decided to have a "Fancy Nancy" tea party theme. If you don't know who Fancy Nancy is and you haven't read her books, you must check them out! If you have a little girl anyway. She is so fancy and loves fancy things. We have really enjoyed her books. And I love that she doesn't have a cartoon and Avery still loves her!
We began the party with a Fancy Nancy coloring sheet while we waited for all the guests to arrive. Once most all the girls were here, I read them the original Fancy Nancy book just to introduce her to any girls that might not have known who she was. After that, we went back to the tables and the girls made fancy hats to wear during the party. I found cute little straw hats at the Dollar Tree for a dollar each and gave them scrap ribbon, fake flowers, and sparkly foam stickers to decorate with. They had a blast and really enjoyed making their hats. They were so fancy and then they all walked around the house doing a fashion show for everyone. After that, we were ready for the tea party so the girls all came to the table decked out in a lace tablecloth and real breakable tea cups to use! (Salvation army finds!) They enjoyed the tea pot cake, grapes, and butterfly-shaped crackers with heart and flower-shaped cheese. They sipped pink lemonade "tea" and had a divine time. After the tea party was over, we headed back to the living room so Avery could open her presents. She got many great things from her friends like My Little Ponies, an art set, books, and other things to play with! Our last activity was on the back porch for some pianta fun! Craig actually made the main part of this pinata for me (I just covered it with crepe paper afterwards). I had so many projects throughout the week getting ready for this party, I designated this one as Craig's. He did a great job...in fact, too great! It was so hard that no one could bust it! The girls couldn't hit very hard and that was something we should've taken into account! But we eventually ripped it open and just poured the candy all over the porch. They didn't care at all but ran and filled their sacks with candy! (Thanks to my friend Emily for inspiring me to make this ourselves!)
After all the party fun had been had, the girls were pooped and most went home shortly after. Avery had a wonderfully fun birthday party and I hope she remembers it always! I know I will!

Avery’s Birthday

2010-03-24T20:03:00.001-07:00

In keeping with last year’s birthday tradition, we snuck in Avery’s room after she was good and asleep and hung a bunch of blue and yellow balloons from the ceiling. (Her two favorite colors.) When she falls asleep, she’s really good and asleep! She was really excited when she woke up on her birthday to a bunch of balloons everywhere! It was fun and she and Bailey loved them and loved trying to jump up and hit them.

She chose to have strawberry muffins for her birthday breakfast and got sung to by me. Bailey was supposed to be helping…but she didn’t sing much. :)

Birthday Eve

2010-02-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

Good night my little 3 year old! Tomorrow, Avery Grace, you will be 4 years old. It is so hard to believe you have already been in my life for 4 years. 4 years ago tonight, I was going to bed not having a clue how much my life was about to change the next day...all for the better! Maybe more challenging, maybe more busy, definitely harder, but definitely better. You make me want to be a better person, Avery. For you and your sister and your daddy. I love you so much and can't wait to see what this fifth year of your life has in store for you. I am so proud of the little girl you are. So sweet, so diligent, so loving, so smart, so clever, so protective, so helpful. I love you!!
Love, Mommy

Avery's Interview

2010-02-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

I copied this from my friend Christy's blog. I thought it was such a good idea, I had to see what Avery's answers would be! These are her actual words:

What's your name? Avery
When were you born? March 1st 21st [she's trying to say the year 2006 but said 21st instead. :) ]
How old are you? Three
Who is your mommy? Cheyenne's my mommy
What does your mommy do? work around the house and play with me and Bailey
Who is your daddy? Craig
What does your daddy do? play with me and Bailey and work around the house and he watches TV
What is your favorite color? yellow and blue
What do you want to be when you grow up? Supergirl. She flies around in the sky then when she wants to come home, she comes home.
What is your favorite food? watermelon
What food do you not like? sour stuff and spicy stuff. Like sour red juice (she means carbonated) and spicy soup.
What is your favorite animal? elephant because they have long trunks of their nose and they pick food up and they put it into their mouth with their nose.
Where do you want to live when you grow up? in Nona's house when she moves into a new house
What do mommy and daddy do when you go to bed? give me hugs and kisses and read me books and then work around the house
What does daddy say? Shocker (we all say this a lot and she uses it in totally perfect context!)
What does mommy say? tomorrow is church day, Avery
What is your favorite song? Deep and Wide
What is your favorite movie? Berenstein Bears
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? vanilla
Where is your favorite place to eat? Tin Star and Luby's
Who is your best friend? Chloe and my cousins
What is your favorite book? Berenstein Bear books
Who is your sister? Bailey Mae Alexander
Where did Bailey come from? the hospital and your tummy, too
What is your favorite thing to do? go swimming at Aunt Joyce's pool
What does Avery say? sometimes I say "Mommy let's go to Tin Star"
Where did Avery come from? your tummy

This will be fun to ask her again in a year or two! Hope you enjoy it...feel free to steal!

MOPS Valentine Day Party

2010-02-12T07:52:00.001-08:00

Every month our MOPS group tries to have a playdate with our kids. This month we had a Valentine party, and the kids decorated lunch sacks to collect their Valentine’s in, exchanged Valentine’s, and decorated a heart cookie to eat! They had so much fun! Avery was a Valentine princess and it was her idea to wear the tiara she got from Chloe’s party—it matched her perfectly for Valentine’s Day!

Wow, a rare picture of me with my girls!

Even Bailey got to color…well after coloring on her tray, she mostly just ate the crayon until I took it away. :)

Avery and Chloe decorate their bags.

Can you believe how old they’re getting?

The best part—eating the frosting!

Of course Bailey had to eat a cookie, too! You can’t ignore that request of “MO, MO, MO, MO” for long!

I’ll have to say that Avery didn’t savor it long—she shoved it all in because she was too upset about frosting being on her fingers. She wanted to wash her hands!

Trying to smile with a full mouth!

Valentine Project

2010-02-12T07:38:00.001-08:00

Avery has been pretty excited about Valentine’s Day this year. She has been more into doing art projects also over the last few months. (yay! I was beginning to lose hope! When she was younger she never wanted to do art projects or color. She would rather play outside and kick a ball around or run!) Anyway since it was snowing and we couldn’t go outside, we decided to do a Valentine project. She painted watered-down glue onto a red heart that she cut out and then glued tiny pieces of tissue paper all over the whole heart! I was proud of her for sticking with it the whole time until the heart was covered. Nothing too hard, but it kept her busy for a good while.

Now here’s the real reason for this post. :) Craig and I have decided to homeschool our kids and people always wonder—what do you do with the little ones while the bigger ones are doing lessons or projects? Well, here’s your answer…

Whatever they want! (Within reason of course!)

For some reason Bailey loves to get the pots and pans out, and yes…

…that is her eating the entire handle!

More Snow!

2010-02-12T07:25:00.001-08:00

It seems like we have really had a lot of snow this winter! Even when it hasn’t stayed around for long, it’s still nice to actually see it snowing…especially when the flakes are huge and beautiful! This past Monday it snowed again and Avery had a little fun trying to catch the flakes on her tongue. 5 minutes of fun—then it was back inside to warm up!

Bailey and Lanie

2010-02-10T15:03:00.001-08:00

Our home group had a Super Bowl party at our house. There were tons of adults and kids and we had so much fun! I only took a few pictures, but wanted to share this one of Bailey and her friend Lanie. Lanie is almost 9 months old and gets around quite nicely! They were really cute together “sharing” the toys.

Princess Avery

2010-02-10T14:50:00.001-08:00

Last week, Avery had two princess parties to go to! We called the princess expert, Avery's cousin Hayden, and borrowed a few ensembles from her. Hayden has tons of princess stuff! These are the two dresses that Avery chose to wear to the two parties. She looked so pretty and grown up!!

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The yellow dress was her favorite (of course) so she saved it for her BFF’s party. Chloe turned 4 and all the little girls were so cute as princesses! I let Avery skip her nap that day and I didn’t realize how tired she was! 5 minutes into the drive, I had a princess who was dead to the world!

Look how big she looks!

Sleeping Beauties

2010-02-03T19:29:00.001-08:00

We recently spent a few days down at my parents house while Craig stayed here. Since it was just me and the girls, I slept with Avery in her bed so I’d be closer to them. The first night we got back, Avery was really tearful that I wasn’t going to be sleeping with her again. I was afraid this would happen, but I had to explain that I had to sleep with Daddy. The only thing that finally perked her up was when I suggested getting a bunch of her stuffed animals to sleep with. She immediately said, “Yes!” and ran to her room to pick them out. She had about 10 in there and later after she was asleep I snapped a picture of her. What is it about pictures of sleeping children that are so innocent? Of course I had to snap one of Bailey, too.

One Sick Baby

2010-02-03T19:25:00.001-08:00

A week and a half ago, Bailey was very sick. Actually Avery, Bailey, and I were all sick, but Bailey got it the worst. Craig ended up taking her to urgent care on a Sunday and after a chest X-ray and an examination, we were told that she had the beginnings of pneumonia and an ear infection. Yuck. She was so lethargic that day and slept on either Craig or I all day. I hated that she was sick, but a small part of me loved having her sleep on me. If you know Bailey, she is NOT a calm child. She is not still for long and she would never fall asleep on me in a million years. She is a better cuddler than Avery, but still, she wouldn’t cuddle for this long. So we had to take a few pictures to remember. I hope she never gets this sick again, but I did enjoy the sweetness of it just for one day. :)

We stayed like this for a couple hours at least.

Seriously—she hasn’t done this since she was a newborn!

After she woke up, she lay in the floor with Avery for a while watching a cartoon. I love how Avery is holding her leg. They love each other so much!

Bailey’s Hair and A Comparison

2010-02-03T19:13:00.001-08:00

I am so amazed at how much hair Bailey has in the back at this age. Maybe I just don’t remember well but I don’t remember Avery’s being this long at 12 months. I love how long it’s getting (it really looks long when it’s wet) and I love how it’s curling just a little bit on the ends. Just wanted to document this.

Also, let’s do a comparison. Here’s Avery at 12 months.

And here’s Bailey at 12 months.

They do look a lot alike I guess. I never would have remembered that Avery’s face was a little chunkier. Their noses look the same to me, too. What do you think?

First New Appliance!

2010-02-03T19:00:00.001-08:00

Our kitchen was a little outdated (to say the least) when we moved into our house a year and a half ago. Much of it is now updated but there are still a few things left to do. One of the things on my list are new appliances. I realize that these are not priority and will most likely wait, but when the old dishwasher started putting a yucky film on all of our dishes, I was a little bit happy. The old one was also very loud and sometimes you had to put your hip into it if the right side of the door wouldn’t close. Craig completely agreed we needed a new one and voila! a new dishwasher was bought. I thought it was very cute how Avery had to get her tools and help Daddy work while he put it in. (Yes, he installed the whole thing himself! Apparently there is no task too hard for this man. If he doesn’t know how...he learns.)

The Climber

2010-01-25T18:33:00.001-08:00

Let me just say that Avery was never a climber. Looking back, Avery never did much of anything that she was not supposed to. :) She never got into much and she certainly never climbed on everything like her sister does. I hope the crib is not next! Nevertheless, she does entertain us. Here are a few pictures of her climbing and another couple of her other favorite thing to do…sit in things. Whether it be a cake pan, a basket, or a box, if she can get her hiney in it…Bailey will sit in it!

Climbing on a box at Christmas

Climbing on her new piano she got for her birthday

Climbing on top of a hat box (if it was open she would sit in it)

Again with the piano :)

The girls loved having their own tubs to sit in. Bailey sat in hers for a LONG time!

Thinking she was so funny sitting in the lid drawer.

Bailey Mae is ONE YEAR OLD!!!!

2010-01-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Bailey's first birthday with a bumblebee party! I thought of it after so many times of calling her a "busy bee." She is the busiest baby I know and gets into EVERYTHING! So the theme fit her pretty well. Here are the invitations we sent out.

Craig actually helped me make this birthday banner. It was minimal sewing and cutting letters on my Cricut.

Craig hung all of these balloons above the island and I thought they looked awesome.

The beehive cake was for all the guests. The hive was a yellow cake with buttercream icing and the bottom layer was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. The little fondant bees were all around the hive and some were flying on the ends of floral wire.

This was Bailey's little smash cake. She LOVED it!

Enjoy looking at these bee cake pops because you will never see cake pops at one of my parties again. :) They were terribly time consuming and not easy. They turned out cute and tasted great, but I just can't justify the time it took next time!

Each family took home a goody bag of honey (what else?) surrounded by some yummy Bit O Honey candy. I haven't had this candy in years and it was SO GOOD!

Bailey did great making a huge mess of her cake which is of course what we all wanted to see! Check out these adorable messy cake pics for yourself!

More party pics:

On Bailey's actual birthday which was Thursday, January 14th, Avery and I sang "Happy Birthday" to Bailey with a candle in her banana pancake. Bailey LOVES bananas and calls them "nanas."

She could hardly take that knuckle out of her mouth.

Excuse the horrible singing...just enjoy a little one year old being serenaded by her mommy and sister. :)

Happy Birthday Bailey Mae! We love you so much!!!!!

Lights at Rhema

2010-01-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

Every year Rhema Bible College puts millions of lights all around their campus. It's amazing and if you've never been, you have to make it out there. They're on from Thanksgiving to New Year's and we finally made it out there on the second to the last day. Avery has been when she was a baby but of course doesn't remember it, so this was like new to her! She was in awe and especially loved the tunnel which is their main attraction. Now they even have the lights in the tunnel and the ones around it moving to the music that's playing. It really was incredible!

Bathrobe and Bunny Slippers

2010-01-16T19:14:00.001-08:00

Getting into one of her favorite no-no places...the pantry!

It was a very cold December around here and one morning I had this little bathrobe over Bailey's pajamas. I remembered these adorable bunny slippers she had and good thing we put them on her because her toes were close to busting out of the end. I thought she looked so adorable and I had to document it with a post. Avery LOVES wearing a robe also and she puts it on over her pajamas pretty much every morning. She always has to pick out some fun socks (she has about 15 pair of different fun socks) to put on in the mornings and sometimes her slippers, too. We're a robe and houseshoe wearing family...what can I say? Even Craig likes to wear a robe in the winter.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-15T21:22:00.001-08:00

OK you're in for a doozie of a post. Get ready to catch up on the Alexanders' Christmas of 2009. It was Bailey's first Christmas! She was really good to stay away from the tree for the most part. I was afraid she'd have the whole thing knocked over quick, but we spent some time trying to train her not to touch the tree and she did pretty well. Our tradition is the Saturday after Thanksgiving (and Sunday if needed), we get out everything from the attic and put the tree up and all other decorations. If possible, Craig tries to get the lights up that same weekend. Here's a slideshow of us decorating. (Remember you can always click on the slideshows to see them bigger.)

A week before Christmas we headed down to Nona and Pop's to spend some extra time there before Christmas. We had planned to come home on Christmas Eve, so we had our Christmas morning with them on the 23rd. That way we could relax and not be rushed to leave. The girls (and Craig and I) always have a wonderful time there and always hate to see our time end.

My mom worked so hard this year on special presents for the girls. She handmade them each a Raggedy Ann doll. They are so precious and are total keepsakes for them to keep forever. The other totally awesome gift was a giant dollhouse that she and my dad made together for the girls! My mom made one for my sisters and I when we were young and several years ago at a garage sale, my mom sold it! She is a total purger and doesn't hang on to many things. (She'll tell you the same.) Anyway I warned her a while ago that since she now has two granddaughters, she was going to have to build them a dollhouse just like it since she sold the other one. I guess she listened! This one is great!! It's taller than Avery so I know they will play with it for many years to come. I wasn't really wanting Avery to get into the whole Barbie thing, so we found the Barbie Happy Family on Ebay and we're going that route instead. :)

We got to spend time with Aunt Jenna and Aunt Staci while we were there and the girls always love getting some lovin' from their aunties. The girls were totally spoiled ROTTEN while we were there not only from Nona and Pop, but from their aunts, their great-grandparents and even MY aunt and uncle. Seriously, our car was packed top to bottom, and side to side in the back end with every nook and cranny filled around our seats. We obviously had to leave the dollhouse and other big gifts to be brought up later.

All right, here's the best Christmas story of the year. Not. We knew there was a chance of a snowstorm on Christmas Eve in most of Oklahoma and definitely Tulsa. Well, come on. How many times does it actually do what the weatherman says? Hardly ever. We decided to leave on Christmas Eve as planned to head home. We left at 2 pm expecting to get home around 6:30 pm. After we'd been driving for about 3 hours, the storm hit. Not just snow but sleet, too. Bailey had leaked out of her diaper and I had to change her diaper in the McDonald's on the turnpike with no dry pants to put on her unless I wanted to dig under the mountain of stuff in the back. I didn't. So I wrapped her in a blanket and ran through the sleet with her pantless. None of us had coats on (again they were buried). The storm was getting worse and worse and we were driving about 20 miles per hour on the turnpike. Craig had to stop every 15 minutes or so to scrape ice off of the windshield. I was getting really worried. When we left that McDonald's we got something for the girls to eat and Craig and I planned to eat at home because we thought we'd be there in an hour. Ha ha. When we were a little over 20 miles from our house, we came to a complete stop behind traffic. Turns out a semi had jack-knifed on the turnpike and traffic was totally blocked. We. Couldn't. Move. It was CHRISTMAS EVE PEOPLE! Of course Craig (always the picture of calm) never showed he was bothered. He just patiently talked to people around us and scraped the windshield ever so often. We had the defroster on high to help keep the windshield de-iced so we had to roll the windows down a little because we were boiling! Avery kept crying and saying she wanted to go home. She thought WE were in a wreck and not just behind a wreck. Bailey cried and cried until we got her out of her seat and then squirmed so much we finally put her back in her seat and she fell asleep...thank the Lord. I was almost in tears thinking we could possibly spend our whole night on that turnpike. Finally wreckers came and cleared the wreck. We sat there for 3 whole hours. Once we got to go, there were cars littered along the roadway all the way home...tons of them. Thank goodness for our 4 wheel drive. Craig's dad and brother had just shown up on the scene to rescue the girls and I when we finally started to move. They escorted us home and helped unload the car. It was 11:30 pm. We had planned to get home at 6:30 pm but that didn't quite work out. I am thankful we were not hurt and that we didn't have to stay there all night. It was pretty scary, though. Needless to say, we basically put the girls in bed, scarfed down what little was in our pantry and tossed the girls' presents under the tree. No putting cookies out for Santa, no finishing up that last Christmas present that I hadn't yet completed, and no Christmas breakfast for us. We had been gone for a week and had NO groceries. So needless to say it wasn't the ideal way to spend our Christmas Eve. Don't get me wrong...it could have been a lot worse and I am so thankful for God's hand of protection. But I hope we never go through anything like that again...and on Christmas. The next morning we were exhausted, but the girls woke up like usual of course so up we were. The Christmas pajamas were dirty, and Avery wanted to wear her new Minnie Mouse pajamas from Mimi anyway, so Bailey got hers on to match. I can't believe we only took 3 measley pictures on our own Christmas morning with our girls, but that's it. Craig did video a lot more so we have that. Avery got a tub of dress up things, a sleeping bag I made her, and a stocking full of goodies. Bailey got a new growth chart I painted for her and some goodies in her stocking as well. I also made both of the girls sock monkeys. Later (like 2 weeks later) we found a scooter for Avery in the garage that Santa had forgotten all about! :)

Not long after we had had our own Christmas morning, we called Grandma and asked if it was ok to crash her house for some food. You know not many places are open on Christmas Day and like I said--we had NO food! So we spend the rest of the day over there and some aunt, uncles, and cousins all showed up throughout the day. The kids (ok and adults) opened their stockings that night, but we waited until the next morning for presents...yes, our 3rd Christmas morning! Grandma always makes sausage eggs and biscuits. And the obligatory sweet roll which was especially good this year! If you don't know what that is, it's a tradition in the Alexander house. This is not her recipe, but you can see a picture of what it looks like here. I have only mastered it once but I am going to try again next year. Once again, the girls cleaned up. They got a lot of much needed clothes. Avery got books, puzzles, and games. She is really into games and I enjoy playing them with her. Bailey got many cute, cute baby toys and she has had a lot of fun playing with everything. I am so thankful for how much our family is loved and it is so true when I say that we were all spoiled completely rotten this year! We are so truly blessed.

I won't go into all the details of our crazy Alexander Christmas. Let me just say that when 10 adults and 8 kids all get mixed up in one house for about 3 days, chaos can occur. Ribs can get cracked, lips can get nicked with razors, Grandpas can get stuck in grocery store parking lots, kids can almost get frostbite, and stomach bugs can cause throwing up. Ahhh, it was a Christmas to remember.

On a happier note, the snow was incredible and I enjoyed having the first white Christmas I can ever remember! Bailey Mae, your first Christmas was a white one! The kids (and dads and a couple moms) really enjoyed sledding and playing in the snow. Avery LOVES snow and was out like a trooper with all the big kids for all the time she was allowed. She went sledding with Craig and with me once. Unfortunately we went too fast and I rolled over her which caused her to faceplant into the snow. She didn't really want to sled with me after that...only Craig. OK I will end the biggest post I have ever written by saying Merry Christmas 2009! We can only pray Christmas 2010 is a little brighter!! :)

Avery's Letter

2010-01-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

A little before Christmas, Avery was drawing at the table and told me she had drawn a picture for her friend Chloe. She insisted she wanted to mail it to her, so I encouraged her to add a letter with it. I spelled out the words she came up with and she wrote all the letters herself. I am so proud of her writing abilities at her young age and her reading ability is already out of this world for a girl not even 4 years old. I've always known this girl was a smartie, but she still continues to blow me away!

Week in Texas

2010-01-12T20:33:00.003-08:00

A week before Christmas, we headed down to Texas to spend some extra time with my parents. A couple days after we got there, we went to pick up Staci at the airport. She got to fly down for a week so we made sure to overlap with her so we could all be together. We did a few fun things while we waited for the big day. Avery has to teach Bailey all of the things that you have to do when you go to Nona and Pop's house. For example, you have to dig in the diggy dirt, ride the little bike all around the house as fast as you can, get up at 7:00 and get in the bed with Nona and Pop and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on their TV, play in the button box (well Bailey can't do that one yet, she would definitely eat them.), and the list goes on and on. One new thing we did this time that my parents have been meaning to do for Avery for a while was to go on a hayride! My dad hooked up his hillbilly trailer (seriously, it's the pickup bed of an old truck with a trailer hitch added to it--HILLBILLY! If we weren't out in the country where no one could see us, I would be so embarrassed! He does have other real trailers, thankfully. :) Love you, Dad.) Anyway the hayride was fun and after that, Craig and I got to ride the four wheeler around the land. Craig and Avery usually do this or Craig by himself, but this time I got brave and let Craig take me where he wanted. He went faster than I usually let him, but I will admit--it was pretty fun. Mostly I just like pretending we're teenagers again since we get to sit really close and I am holding onto him for dear life. We saw all of my grandparents and they got to love on the girls. We always have the best time at my parents' house, but as usual it goes by WAY too fast! I will tell about the rest of the week in the Christmas post.

See? HILLBILLY!!

Hayride on the hillbilly trailer. It was pretty cold!

Even Mimi braved it and went on the hayride!

Our 4-wheeler ride. I might have felt like a teenager, too bad I don't look it. :)

Bailey's first time to sit on Pop's tractor. It's a big deal. It's tradition.

Trying on Pop's cap. Can this girl get any cuter? Seriously.

Nona and Avery showing Bailey how to dig in the diggy dirt.

Mimi and Paw-Paw playing with Bailey.

Mimi loves her great-granddaughters.

Thanksgiving

2010-01-12T20:32:00.001-08:00

Well apparently these are the only 3 pictures I took on Thanksgiving! We stayed in Tulsa this year and had a nice relaxing day spent at Craig's parents with his brothers, their wives, and their kids. It's a full, crazy house when all 4 of the brothers and their families are all over at his parents' house, but in a way, I love it. The kids love playing together and I love visiting and eating--and boy, did we eat! There's always way too much food so we munch and munch and then eat more of it for dinner. In between that, we're all in and out getting slices of this dessert or that dessert. It's fun and so begin the holiday pounds... :)

I still can't get over how much these two look alike. Ashton is still a tad taller but not by much. Everyone who sees them together says they could definitely be siblings!

We actually busted out a puzzle in the middle of the floor during the football game. SOME of us aren't die hard football fans no matter which game is on, but there aren't many of us. I got the best brother of the four of them--he doesn't really care that much about football. Oh yes, I got the best one. :)
When Bailey woke up from her afternoon nap, she actually sat very still in Grandpa's lap for like 30 whole minutes! Then Grandma got her and she sat with her for the longest time, too! I guess she was mesmerized by all the football! Grandma, this might be your football girl.

Gingerbread Men

2010-01-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

This year we did something new and I think it might be a new tradition! A few of Avery's cousins got to spend some extra time at our house the few days before Thanksgiving. Craig had been asking me to make gingerbread cookies for a while so I thought this would be a good occasion. I gathered together a lot of different decorating things like different sprinkles, raisins, mini chocolate chips, mini M&Ms, etc. Avery and I made the dough ahead of time but the kids helped me roll them out, cut them, and bake them. Ashley and I piped on some frosting while the other kids put on the decorations. It was really fun and I think the cookeis turned out so cute! We will definitely have to do this again!

Avery's SS Class Sings

2010-01-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

Well again this year, on the night of the Harvest Banquet at church, Avery's Sunday School class sang a couple of songs in front of the church. They sang Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E. Let me just say I was SO relieved this year when Avery actually sang! If you'll remember, last year she just stood there and stared and didn't sing a single word! I was aggravated mostly because she knew every word to those songs. But thankfully this year she came through and sang really well! Actually they all did. I guess one year makes a big difference. Here are a few shots of the kids. Unfortunately the video we took was on our video camera so there are only pictures to put on here.

Here are the kids waiting for church to start so they can sing!

Cheesing it up before the songs.

They did really well! I was proud!

Avery's Dancing

2010-01-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Avery is quite the silly dancer when she gets into it. I hope she doesn't get mad later on when she is older, but I have to post these videos of her dancing. One of them is sideways, I'm sorry. Later when Craig finds the right program, I will turn it and repost. But for now I have to plunge forward in my blog updating!!

This song is a YouTube video "Crazy Frog." It's been one of Avery's favorites to watch and dance to since she was a baby...weird, but she loves it! Check out this fancy footwork...and Avery, when you read this one day...I'm sorry. :)

This dance is mostly to document the flower pajamas, tutu, and sparkly Sunday shoes all together in one outfit! It also might bore you unless you are one of Avery's grandmas. :) I thought it was a cute little dance with some hiney-shakin' and hopping-on-one-foot thrown in for fun... Again, Avery, I'm sorry...I love you :)

Bailey's Dedication

2010-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

On November 15, 2009, we dedicated Bailey to the Lord. Craig and I vowed to raise her in a Godly way and to do everything in our power to turn her heart towards God. We love this little girl so much and our prayer is that she (and Avery, too) would come to know the Lord at a young age and that it would be genuine. We pray they will follow the Lord all of their lives and never turn from Him!

That morning at church, with most of our family in attendance, Craig and I with the girls went up on the stage. Pastor Rick said some nice things about us and Mr. Jamie our children's minister presented Bailey with a gift. She was given her own New Testament and a letter that Bailey is not to open until she is 18! Afterward, all of our parents joined us for lunch at our house. It was a fun day and one we will always remember!