Ashley discovers Casey

Ashley has really been getting around lately. She doesn't crawl on all fours yet, but she can move pretty quick with her army crawl. This morning, she crawled over to Casey. He must have looked like something that would be fun to grab. I don't think she realized that he could play with her. Here she is avoiding a good lick in the face.

Alyssa loves Casey and Ashley so she couldn't resist joining in on the fun even with her favorite Dora movie on.

I just loved this picture, so I had to include it. I love how Casey is bent down and looking at Ashley right in the face.

Our Pretty Princess

I had a really hard time finding a Halloween costume for Alyssa this year. Every time I would ask her what she wanted to be, she would tell me something different. We went looking at about 10 different stores one day and didn't end up getting anything because she kept telling me she wanted every costume I would show her. I finally decided that I would have to choose for her. My only worry was that she wouldn't wear the costume I choose. I ended up finding some Disney costumes at Target in the price range I was willing to pay, so I gave her the choice between Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella. She choose the Cinderella one so we got it. When we got home and tried it on, it was too big. I wasn't very happy about having to pin it up and still find accessories to go with it. Then I found the princess dress up clothes at Costco for not much more than I had paid for the Cinderella dress. The dress up set came with three different dresses plus accessories to go with them. I figured it was perfect because it would give Alyssa three choices to choose from and she could also choose her accessories. Plus, it came in a pretty box that we could add her other dress up clothes to after Halloween is over. Below, Alyssa is modeling the three dresses for everyone to see. This first one has matching purple slippers that are hard to see.

This one has matching gold slippers.

This one has a crown to go with it, but she didn't want to put that on. She is wearing a necklace, but it is hard to see.

Neewollah

Every year they have a free event for families at one of the outdoor shopping centers in West Des Moines called Neewollah (Halloween backwards if you are wondering). I took Alyssa to it last year and she loved it so we went again this year. We were fortunate to have Danny with us since he was working most of the day. Alyssa got to go trick or treating at all of the different stores. They also had a a wagon ride, face painting, coloring, and some games but we skipped most of it because we got there late. Here are the girls in their costumes.

They had a little miniature golf course set up which Alyssa has become pretty good at since we bought her her own little set of golf clubs. If you look closely in the picture, you can see the ball that she just hit through the hole.

Here is Ashley cheering her sister on.

Alyssa had fun and was so excited to eat candy after we got home. I think she was most excited about the cotton candy and her balloon.

Ashley is 9 months old

We took Ashley into JCPenny's to get her pictures taken when she turned 9 months old. She wasn't so sure about everything and we had a really hard time getting her to do anything but sit with a really serious looking face. It didn't help that the girl taking the pictures was new and just not as good as the girl that has always done our pictures there. Plus, they were having technical difficulties which only happened when we acutally did manage to get Ashley to smile. Below are the results of the photo shoot. (I'm obviously not very good at scanning since you can see white around all of the pictures. Sorry)

Here is one of her few smiles on camera.
Here is the full body shot that according to the lady showing me the pictures is good to show people who don't get to see Ashley in person very often (meaning pretty much anyone who reads our blog). Since it was October, I decided to get a few shots in her Halloween costume also.
Everyone that has seen her in her costume has commented on how cute she looks in it. I think it is her round face that makes it so cute.
Here are her stats:
20.6 lbs
28 3/4 inches

The Pumpkin Patch

We had a fairly nice day as far as the weather goes on Saturday and Danny had the day off, so we went to a pumpkin patch about 15 miles outside of Des Moines. We started off with the hayride out to the pumpkins.

Once we got to the pumpkin patch, we were allowed to get off of the wagon and wander around to pick out a pumpkin. Below, you can see the first pumpkin that Alyssa picked out sitting up on the wagon (to the right of Danny and Alyssa).
And here is Alyssa's second choice. She had a hard time walking through the thick brush so Danny needed to hold on to her.
And here is Ashley enjoying the pumpkin patch (or rather me taking a quick picture before she could get anything into her mouth).
After the hayride, we borrowed a wagon to pull our 17 and 21 pound pumpkins around. Alyssa wanted to help.And so did Ashley.

Alyssa got tired after a few feet of pulling and had to take a rest.

There were many other things to do at the pumpkin patch besides getting your pumpkins. Below is a hay bale maze that Alyssa probably went through at least 10 times.

We didn't get it caught on camera, but by the 6th or 7th time through, she started taking her time going through and she would stop and sit on every hay bale that she could throughout the maze. Here is a nice close up picture of her in the maze.
Here she is coming out of the tunnel at the end of the maze.
They also had some inflatable rides which she also did each one about 10 times. This caterpillar had a lump in the middle that she had to climb up and slide down while inside. Because of this, we had an older boy help her through it the first time. But after that, she went all on her own. And every kid loves the bounce house. She is a lot better at doing these now than she was on New Years Eve. That was the last time she had the chance to go in one.
Here is Ashley chillin with the pumpkins and hay. And yes, she did manage to put something in her mouth before I could take the picture (By the way, these aren't our pumkins, they were inside of a gazebo there set up for decoration). And this is what happens when you ask a stranger to take a picture for you. You can almost see us in the picture below.
We had a lot of fun and Alyssa cried a lot when we had to leave. She has asked to go back to the pumpkin patch a few times since then.

On a totally different note, just to follow up on our last post, Danny filled up for $2.35 a gallon today. We still can't believe how much gas prices have dropped in the last two weeks.

How Low Can You Go

As everyone in the country has probably noticed, the gas prices have dropped a lot this week. Last Monday there was an article in our local newspaper saying that here in Des Moines we had some of the lowest gas prices in the country. I had decided to take a picture of it to share with everyone. Little did I know then that our prices that were already under $3 wouldn't be as rare a thing by the end of the week to everyone. The picture below was taken on Wednesday.

Here is a picture taken on Friday.
And then there was Saturday's price.
On the way to church yesterday, I noticed that it had dropped down to $2.66. Isn't it great to finally see some relief at the pump.

On a side note, if anyone is wondering why our super unleaded is cheaper than our regular unleaded, it is because the super unleaded has ethonol in it which is a biproduct of corn, and fortunately we have a lot of that in Iowa.

Matching Jammies

We bought these matching jammies for the girls awhile back and finally had a night where they were both wearing them and in a good mood. It's so fun having two girls and dressing them in matching outfits. Alyssa especially loves wearing things "like Ashley." We're enjoying it because we are sure that before too long Ashley will want to do everything like Alyssa and Alyssa will probably hate it.

Here is Alyssa giving Ashley loves.
One of Alyssa's favorite things to do is to lay on the floor next to Ashley.
There's our happy Alyssa
and our precious Ashley.

Walking With Dinosaurs

On Friday night, we went to Danny's arena to see the show Walking with Dinosaurs. Alyssa has been so excited all week to go to Daddy's work and see the dinosaurs. We left Ashley home with a babysitter because the show went past her bedtime. Danny got us one of the luxury suites for the show with 17 tickets so I was able to invite some friends to come with us. Alyssa loved seeing the dinosaurs and would roar like the dinosaurs when they would come out.The popcorn was a big hit with all the kids and you can see that Alyssa was right in the middle of all the mess.
What a character she is. Each night as Danny has been getting home, he has given his backstage pass with a T-Rex on it to Alyssa and she loves it. That is what she has on her shirt.
Here she is sitting on the lap of one of the Young Women in our ward whose family came to the show with us.