2013 Recap (plus 2014 so far)

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I updated this! My last blog entry was a couple weeks before I started my Master's program, so I'm going to go ahead and blame it on that. Our family is GREAT. The girls are getting bigger, taller, prettier, smarter, sweeter, etc. every day. Elizabeth will be turning 5 in about a month. Allison is well into her 2-ness. Allen and I are getting pretty old too, but we won't get into the numbers.

Not much specific to report as far as milestones go. Allen is still working for the State nursery and doing his landscaping on the side. He has a lot of loyal customers that love him. He already has people calling to reserve him for the coming season. He is busy enough to make a profit, but has a little time to see us in the summer which is an improvement over the first few years of his business when he was gone pretty much all the time and had to put everything back into the business to build it up. 

I only have TWO semesters left of my Master's program and I am very excited to finish that up. I enjoy the classes. It's nice to use my brain again for things other than classroom management, Spanish, and figuring out what to make for dinner. I have worked hard and have a 4.0 so far, although let's not hold our breath on me keeping that. I teach adult education Spanish classes in addition to my full time Spanish teaching. It's fun to teach Spanish to adults.  Other than work, more work, and school, I don't have much free time, so I choose to spend it with the girls. I read a lot of books, paint a lot of fingernails, get invited to tea parties, get to watch "fashion shows" and other such fun things which are the best parts of my days.

Elizabeth is in her second year of preschool. She loves it and does very well. They give a Kindergarten readiness assessment at the end of each year. Elizabeth passed hers last year when she was barely four, so she is really ready to start Kindergarten in the fall. She talks a lot about how she is going to get to go to the same school as mommy. (The school in our town is a K-12 school. She will be in a different building, but it's on the same property. My classroom is across the playground, so I will get to spy on her a lot.) She is still my little princess. Playing dress up continues to be a favorite activity for her and her little buddy Allison. She also loves to read, draw, color, play PBS kids, run around, ballet, T ball and other sports. She is a great helper and likes to help with chores and taking care of her sister. 

Allison is totally a big girl now. It's crazy looking at my kids and not seeing babies. Allison has a lot in common with her sister. She plays dress up with her and lets Lizzy treat her like a little doll basically. She also loves to read, tea parties are usually her idea, loves stuffed animals and snuggling. She LOVES puzzles and will do the same puzzles over and over and over again and Allen and I are often privileged to help her. She pretty much does everything Elizabeth does, so they have a lot of fun together. Although, sometimes Elizabeth gets a little tired of having a shadow, so sometimes there's conflict there.  

Here are some pictures from the year that show a little of what's been going on.

 Elizabeth had a fairy birthday party for her 4th birthday.

 We took a few car trips this year to Idaho Falls and/or Utah. Sometimes that was followed by a flight to AZ or NM. I wish I could say they were this peaceful the whole time, but I can't.

 Allen enjoys working in the yard, and he usually gets a couple helpers to trail along behind him.

 Allison is my little buddy. She likes to be near whatever is going on, even if it's just sitting around.

 Allison had her 2nd birthday party. We did a fall/owl theme. I posted a bunch of pictures of that on Facebook. This is from the little party we had for her on her actual birthday.

 Did you read the part where I said she likes to snuggle? I wasn't kidding. She has a few favorite blankets that are essential for snuggling. 

 Allen had his 34th birthday this year. (I wasn't planning on divulging his age, but it's right there on the cake.)

 Allen puts a lot of time and effort into his gardening. He has this box thing (there's a name for it, but I forget) and he can get a lot of starts going before it warms up in there. They were working on this last weekend.

 We got a cat last summer. Lizzy had been asking for a while. He's great with the girls. He puts up with headlocks like this without scratching them (usually.)

The girls are best buds. One of my greatest joys as a mom is seeing that my kids love each other. I feel very blessed that my kids are the type to openly and often express their love to their family. Many times out of nowhere, one of them will go up to the other and give a big hug and say "I love you" or "You're my best friend." It melts me every time.

It's been forever...

I think I kind of maybe forgot that I had a blog for a while, so here is a quick update. We are still in Montana. We are still happy. And my kids are still CUTE. Maybe even cuter than you remember.

We had a great year last year. Allison has been growing so fast, I can't even believe it. She started walking at 10 months, and starting running at about 12 months. She does well at keeping up with her sister. They are best friends. Elizabeth is definitely in the running for best big sister ever. She cheers Ali up when she is sad, shares toys, shares snacks, plays games, sings to her, etc. They very rarely fight, but even when they do, they make up quickly. They are so fun to watch. I love being their mom! Work has been going well for Allen and me. He hasn't been laid off at the Nursery much, so that's been nice. I have really good students this year that are making my job much easier than some past years, and I started grad school TODAY! We are very excited about things that are happening right now. We are enjoying our family as it is now and where we are now. Continue on for cuteness...

 

 Elizabeth got a Cinderella doll with matching dress from us for Christmas. She is very much a girly girl and loves princesses, dress up, dancing, all that jazz. I did not know the dress would be that short... If she gets any taller, I will need to add some length to that thing.

Ali is such a funny kid. She likes imitating her older sister and being silly. Here she is wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses. She knows she is hilarious.

 

 I got sick of her hair being in her face all the time and cut her bangs. I didn't intend for them to be this short, but she squirmed at just the right moment and this is the result. I cried the first day, but it's grown out a little and now we like it.

 She's my buddy.

 Elizabeth has learned how to take pictures with the camera... I get pictures like this and pictures of toys in her room.

 We got some free bowling passes for Christmas, and put them to good use over break. I had to convince Elizabeth that she should be happy to knock down any pins and she shouldn't expect to knock them all down every time. I think she got used to Wii bowling and expected this to be about the same...

 We also went to the Children's Museum over break. Ali is finally old enough to really enjoy it.

My kids are beautiful.

Allison on the Move

Allison started crawling about a week and a half ago!! She's getting really good at it!!

Sooo....

I uploaded a lot of pictures! Why? Because I can, I suppose. They are random and not necessarily in order, but they are cute.

On Easter, I had a friend come over to take Easter pictures of the girls.

Elizabeth was in a silly mood that day, so we couldn't get a normal pose or a normal smile, so I ended up with a lot of pictures like this:

 Allison was much more cooperative, but she was in a tongue phase, so it was impossible to get pictures of her without her tongue sticking out. Which is okay, because she still looked super cute.

 She was not very patient during her sister's photo shoot...

 Elizabeth is such a big girl! She is really good at playing independently, although she definitely prefers playing with mom and dad. She still LOVES to play outside. It has been her favorite thing since she was a baby.

 On Easter, I made special pancakes. Liz LOVES pancakes, and she loves colors, so we made Easter pastel-colored pancakes. She, of course, had to help. She's actually a pretty good helper. She can pour things in without making a mess and she is getting very good at stirring. More than anything, I think she likes being allowed to sit on the counter.

 We had an Easter egg hunt at my sister's house. As you can see, Liz got a pretty good haul. This is about halfway through. By the time it was over, her basket was overflowing and my jacket pockets were full too.

 Thanks to the seamstress skills of my mother in law (thanks Katrina!) Elizabeth has a SUPERHERO cape! She is Super Lizzy and she runs around like a super girl. While the cape is on, she pretty much stays in character, running around the house and "saving" us if we need any help. The other day she had the cape on and she kept running in and "saving" Allison from getting into things she's not supposed to.

 Allison has been pretty mobile for a couple months now. Up until recently, she didn't crawl, but would roll over and scoot in order to get what she wanted. She is a face maker. Just like her sister.

 Lizzy loves to dress up and pretend and make faces. Here she is a mean pirate.

 Allison is an excellent eater. She still eats baby food, but we've started her on some solid foods. She can demolish a roll pretty quickly.  She is also quite fond of bananas and strawberries. And yogurt! (I know that's not a solid food, but she loves it.)

 Here's more evidence of Liz loving to play outside. Here is a view of about a third of our backyard (the back fence is about ten feet behind that pile of grass in the background). She loves to run around back there. Especially if she is chasing butterflies or being chased by Allen or me.

 A while ago, we went to the circus. I accidentally left my camera in the car, so I don't have any circus pictures (except on my phone-I have an awesome one of Liz riding an elephant-which she still talks about) so I took one in the car. The face paint and the over-priced dolphin are our proof of circus fun.

 This is Allison wearing one of my favorite outfits Lizzy had. Liz rocked it with pink tights, but Liz was this age in the fall. It was too warm for tights this day. Check out those chunky thighs!

 Lizzy is going to be in a ballet camp next week, so I had to get her some ballet attire. She was so excited, she had to put it on right away. And I put her hair up in buns so she would look like a true ballerina. I didn't take a picture of that, but I took this picture the next morning, so the buns are nice and messy. She already has some ballerina moves. If you ask her to do it, she does a quick little spin or jumps in the air. Sometimes both.

 Allen taught Elizabeth how to work the camera, so Liz snapped this photo of Allison participating in one of her favorite activities: messing up my clean laundry.

 Elizabeth got her FIRST haircut last week. Yes, my daughter didn't get a hair cut until now. Yes, she is over three. I had planned to give her a haircut when she was a year old, but her hair wasn't very long, and by the time her hair was long enough to cut, I liked the way it looked, and I didn't want to. Her hair is so curly, it scrunches up about three inches shorter than it really is, so I wanted to wait until it was long enough to still be long when curly.

 Liz is quite the daddy's girl. (She's a mommy's girl too, but if daddy's home, and especially if he's doing something outside, she's a daddy's girl.) Allen was making a garden spot with a friend's tractor, and Liz had to help. She had a grin on her face the whole time. About 30 seconds after I took this picture she said, "Daddy. I am getting sleepy. I need to go ni-night."

 My kids are so cute.

Exhibit A.

 Elizabeth has always been an active sleeper. Whenever I check on her at night, she is usually in some weird position and/or location in her bed.

 Allison likes to be tickled. That is what is going on in this picture. But it looks like she is rocking out to some heavy metal or something. She's not.

Allison Update

Allison will be 6 months old on Monday! Time has been passing so quickly. I found a 0-3 month onesie in the bottom of the diaper bag the other day, and it was so freaky to think that she was that small just a short time ago. Allison is definitely a very good baby. She doesn't fuss too much. (I am probably jinxing it right now... She fusses plenty!) She has been eating solid foods for a couple weeks, and she has gotten pretty good at it. I would say 95% actually gets eaten, which is pretty darn good if you ask me.

Allison has had the ability to sleep consistently through the night since she was about 2 months old. She just chooses not to exercise that talent all the time. She goes in spurts. She was sleeping through the night until I went back to work. Then she stopped. After a couple weeks, she was sleeping through the night again, but then I told someone that she was consistently sleeping through the night, so she stopped. She was sleeping through the night until I had my surgery, then she stopped for about a week. She is back to sleeping through the night every night, so we'll see how long that lasts. I know it sounds crazy, but my kids seem to have a sixth sense for when I am counting on them to do something or when I have bragged about them doing something. Because once one of those things happen, they stop.

 

 I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but Allison has a section of hair that is long enough to put in a pony. Or in this case, to wear a crown attached to a comb.

 In the last few days, Allison has gotten pretty good at sitting up. I think it helps that she has been practicing in toys such as this. She can sit by herself for anywhere from 3 seconds to 2 minutes. I still sit close by her to catch her when she topples over, but I don't have to save her nearly as much as I did a couple weeks ago. She has also started showing interest in particular toys. If I put her on the floor and spread six different toys around her, she will turn herself to go after a particular one. She is not totally in control of her movement, however. I have had to save her during tummy time a couple times because she backs herself up against the couch or she rolls into her toy box and can't figure out how to get away from it.

This is not a picture of Allison. I took this today to illustrate how curly Lizzy's hair gets. This is after a bath and with me doing absolutely nothing to it. It's mostly ringlets on the bottom and farther up her head it gets less curly and more wavy/frizzy.

Elizabeth has been doing great also. (I should talk about her too, right.) She is an excellent helper with her sister. She talks to and plays with Allison when I am trying to get things done. Allison absolutely LOVES her big sister. Liz can make Ali laugh easier than anyone else can. She makes faces and sings her songs, and Allison adores every minute of it.

Liz had her 3 year check up the other day. She was in about the 85th percentile for height, and I think the 60th or so percentile for weight, and the 50th percentil for BMI. Doc says she is going to be a tall girl. That makes me happy because I am NOT tall for a girl, and when I married my tall husband, I was hoping it would help give my kids more hope for height.

She ended up having to get a shot, and I prepared her for it in advance. I told her that the nurse would use a needle to put medicine inside her body and that it would sting. I told her it was okay for her to cry but she didn't need to, that she could just say, "Ow! That hurts." When she got the shot, she got kind of a shocked face and looked at me with a "What the heck, mom!" kind of look on her face, but she just flinched a bit and said, "Owee." And that was it. I was so proud of her, and she was proud of herself. She talked about it for the rest of the day. "I got a shot, and I didn't cry. I just said 'Owee'. I'm a big girl. I didn't cry."

I have a lot of fun with her. I've been home the last couple days for Spring Break, so I have been able to spend more time with my girls and it has been great. Liz and I listen to the Tangled soundtrack probably 5 times a day, and certain songs prompt some pretty awesome dance parties. She is so grown up, it is crazy. She is a little negotiator. She has certain things that she definitely knows how to work us over on.

"I need three cheese because I'm three."

"I went pee pee and poo poo in the potty so I get to watch a show." Oh really?

I will voluntarily give her something or let her do something, and she gloats about it. "See mom. I told you I wanted to take a bath."

Me: "Lizzy, don't jump on the couch." Her: "Okay. But I can walk on it, okay? I will just walk on it."

She has even learned to do the head cocked to one side, hands curled under her chin, batting eyelashes, "Pleease, can I..."

I know I am being played, but it is so cute. I don't always give in. But sometimes I sure do. And when I don't give in, it is really hard to stand firm with a straight face.

Elizabeth is THREE!!!

Elizabeth had scattered birthday experiences due to the fact that I had surgery to have my gallbladder removed on her birthday, but I think all factors combined provided her with lots of fun and feeling like she is important and loved.

 The night before her birthday, I baked her a quick cake so we could have a little birthday party as a family. I felt really bad that she was going to have to wait until a week after her birthday for her real party, so I wanted to do something. We did cake that night and did presents the day after my surgery/her birthday. She loved it, of course. Candles are her favorite part. Any time she had a piece of cake, we had to put candles in it and sing happy birthday again. And we had to light the candles. If I forgot, she would say, "Mom. I need a piece with fire on it."

 Finally, she got to have her party. We did a princess party. Girls had the option of coming dressed as princesses. Elizabeth was dress in a beautiful purple princess dress, but about fifteen minutes in, when I wasn't paying attention, she took off the princess outfit and put on something more comfortable. T shirt and sweats. Like mother like daughter, I suppose.

 This is the cake my mom and I made. It wasn't too fancy, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm really glad my mom was there to help me. I was still pretty sore and tired from surgery. There is no way I could have done it without her. We made the inside different colors (inspired by Better Homes and Gardens). Since it was a princess party, we picked colors from Lizzy's favorite princesses/her favorite colors. Cake was primarily purple (her favorite color and Rapunzel's color), yellow (Belle's princess color-her favorite princess), and pink and green because those are her other favorite colors. Yes, she can have more than one favorite. Just ask her. But purple is her most favorite.

 All the girls got princess tiaras to wear and the one boy got a prince crown.

 There were party hats too. Allison was kind enough to model those for us.

We gave Elizabeth a couple little presents on her actual birthday, but we saved her big present for the party. As you can see, she got a Jeep. We've been hiding that since black Friday. She was really excited to get it. It is so cute to see her cruising around in that in the yard. We're still working on steering.

Winter Fun

 I took advantage of the winter clearances and got some matching shades for the girls.

 Liz has reached her girly dress up stage. Here she is being a movie star.

My Grandma passed away last May, and we went to her house to check on pipes and things. While we were there, we took advantage of her excellent sledding hill. I was pulling Liz and her cousing Jonathan up and down the hill while Allison slept in her carseat nearby. (Don't worry. She was well bundled and covered up.)

 I feel kind of mean for posting this, but it's just so cute. It's not a full sledding experience until someone gets a face full of snow.

 I have gotten hand-me-downs from a few different sources at different times the last few years, so I had to go though and sort them. It was a huge day and a half project. Allen snapped this when I was at the end of day one.

I don't know why this went in sideways. It was right side up. I don't know how to fix it...