Zoo Play Date

We had a play date at the Zoo this past week with our Ward. There weren't very many families that showed up, but we decided that was good because it ended up being really difficult to keep too big of a group together. Alyssa sure loved having some of her church friends at the Zoo with us. The St. Louis Zoo has free admission, but there are a few things that you have to pay for inside. One of the Moms that came with us was able to get free tickets for all of us to do some of the stuff you usually have to pay for(Her in-laws had a membership that was about to expire that they let her use for the day). One of the things that we got to do with the tickets was this goat petting zoo. Ashley was not afraid of the goats. She kept getting right in their faces. I was a little concerned that she was going to get her nose biten, but it never happened.
This was another part of the zoo that you have to pay for. Alyssa loved petting the snake. Ashley did too, but she preferred to squeeze it which I'm sure the snake didn't like.

We also got to take a ride on the train, which we have never done before. The girls loved doing that. The little boy in these pictures is 3 weeks older than Ashley. We're pretty close with their family so these three play together all of the time. They act more like siblings than friends.

We were a little nervous about Ashley sitting so close to the opening, but the three of them had fun sitting back there together.

It was a perfect day to go to the zoo. The humidity was low and the temperature wasn't unbearably high. We ended up seeing a couple other families from our Ward later in the day, but didn't even try to stay together with them.

We celebrated Casey's 4th birthday this past week. I know it sounds a little weird to celebrate our dogs birthday, but the girls love to do it so we give in every year. I think it may be because we all have our birthdays right in a row and then his is 3 months after that (when we are ready to eat cake again). Here is the cake that Alyssa helped me make for him.
Even though he is a boy, she insisted on pink icing. Here is the birthday dog with his cake.

Our happy family, minus me. Ashley would not take a decent picture so I had to pick the best of 3 taken in this pose(before Danny's legs had had enough).

Casey has been put on a diet since his visit to the vet last week, but we still let him enjoy, or should I say inhale, a piece of his cake.

We are so glad to have Casey as part of our family. The girls love playing with him and we feel a little more safe in our home with him around.

Ashley's Best Friend

Ashley has been really attached to Casey lately. She has started letting him in the house all of the time and then playing with him. She also likes to read her books to him.

I think he likes when she reads to him because it means that she isn't hitting him, jumping on him, putting toys or her blanket on his head, etc.

When Alyssa saw me taking pictures of Ashley and Casey, she wanted to be part of it also.
Its really cute to hear her play with Casey because she has the cutest laugh and she laughs as hard as anything when she plays with him. He's a good dog to put up with her.

Swim Lessons - Round Two

For the past two weeks we have had our evenings filled with taking Alyssa to her second round of swim lessons. This time we did it at the outdoor pool. Alyssa was in a class with 5 girls and 1 boy. Here they are lined up waiting for their turn to get in the water.

She says that out of all of the activities that we've signed her up for, swim is her favorite. The only problem is that she still has a fear of going underwater, or even putting her face in the water. I almost wonder if she has super sensitive ears because she cries in the bathtub any time the water goes over her ears.
After swim lessons were done, she started asking us every day to take her swimming at that pool. We haven't gone yet, but it has only been 4 days.

Her favorite games from this swim session were still the egg hunt and the monkeys/alligator game. Here she is lounging in a pool chair waiting for her lesson to start.

For how hot it has been lately, I sure wish we had a real swimming pool in our backyard for her to practice putting her face in the water. Ashley loves the water too and was so sad that she couldn't go swimming with Alyssa every night.

Terrible Twos?

Ashley has been going through quite a "Terrible Twos" streak (at least that's what we hope it is). She has a lot of energy and she uses that energy to do whatever trouble she can find. She thinks "Come here!" and "Don't touch that!" mean run as far away from us as she possible can. Lately I've been putting her down for her naps in her big girl bed and then closing her door(it has a child safety handle on the inside so she can't open it). I don't care if she plays instead of sleep, I just need at least an hour of peace to make it through the day. Well after a few days of doing this, she decided to do more than just play. She found trouble. Here is one of the things she started doing.
Who knows why she would choose to sleep up there instead of her comfortable bed. I say this because the next picture shows that she took her comfort items up with her which tells me that she climbed up there with the intention of falling asleep.

We solved this problem by moving the changing table away from the bed. She got stuck once with her hands on the changing table and her legs on the head board and never tried climbig up there again. She also gets into quite a bit of trouble when left alone with crayons. I know, you think I would learn my lesson and not leave her with them, but I don't always choose to give them to her. Sometimes she finds them in the cracks and crevices. Sometimes her big sister gets them down and then leaves them out. However, on the day that the next picture was taken, I had willingly left her alone with them and I learned my lesson.

I was indeed thankful for the Mr. Clean magic erasers that I picked up from the store. They removed the markings with little effort. And Ashley is now grounded from crayons for awhile unless I have the time to sit and color with her.

On a more positive note, Ashley is so much fun to have around. She has a pretty big vocabulary for a 2 1/2 year old and constantly amazes us with the things she says. She is constantly moving and seems to get bored with where she is at pretty quickly (if we are at home, she wants to go bye-byes. If we are at the park, she wants to go home, etc.) She has the blondest, curliest hair that everyone comments on wherever we go. She loves her big sister and the two of them are constantly copying each other. They are playing a lot more together lately and we absolutely love their laughter when they run around together and get along.

We just hope that Ashley grows out of the negative quickly.

Our Favorite Park

On Friday, we headed off to one of our favorite parks in the area. Many people around here call it the castle park because the playground looks like a castle. The park also has a splash pad to play in and they finally turned the water on a couple of weeks ago. Alyssa has been begging to go play in the water since the first day they turned it on, so we finally went.
Here is Ashley perfecting her climbing skills.

She is taking a rest after conquering the rock wall. She loves to wear my sunglasses and I've been meaning to get a picture of her with them.

Here she is climbing again. I had only taken my eyes off of her for like 10 seconds and that is how far up she had made it in that time.

Here she is at the top, and very pleased with herself.
Meanwhile, Alyssa was running around in the water getting nice and wet.

Here are Alyssa and Ashley playing together. It doesn't happen very often, but I really enjoy when they have fun together.However, shortly after that Alyssa found a new friend who happened to be wearing the same swimsuit as her. Notice the difference in skin color. Our poor kids are doomed to always have that pasty white skin that burns so easily.

Here is a video clip of the fun they had together. I probably should have gotten the Mom's number or email because Alyssa talked about how much fun she had with her friend for the rest of the day.

It was a fun morning out and nice to have them both so entertained for so long.

Splash into Reading

To kick off the summer reading program, our library held a "splish, splash, water fun" event this week. They said to come prepared to get wet, so that is what we did. I don't think the girls got a drop of water on them, but they loved running around in their swimming suits(and I didn't have to worry about them getting bubbles, chalk, and water on their clothes). Alyssa's favorite game was the one that you picked a rubber ducky out of the water and got a prize. The size of the prize depended on the color of sticker on the bottom(but the girls working it kindly pointed out the best duck to pick for each kid). Ashley's favorite game was drawing with sidewalk chalk on the library wall(which she so kindly tested with crayons once we got home). The other games included were bowling, fishing, sandbox play, a wading pool, beach balls, bubbles, and a drawing table. Here are a couple of pictures from the morning.

I love taking my girls to the library, especially when they put on fun events like this. Alyssa and Ashley had a lot of fun playing and were even more excited about all of the prizes they brought home.

Kool Kids

A while back we got Ashley some sunglasses that matched Alyssa's. We think it is so cute when they both want to wear them.

Mark Twain Lake

We finally went on our camping trip that we had planned over a month ago. Alyssa had two requests for the summer when it started to warm up: 1) Go camping and 2) Go to a baseball game. So we can cross one of them off the list now. The camping trip was a lot of fun. Here are the kids loaded up in the car. Casey got in that position whenever he was a little bit uneasy.

We had picked a campground close to a lake with the intention of being able to swim. At first we picked Lake of the Ozarks, but changed our plans when people from around here told us that Mark Twain Lake was much more family friendly. About an hour before leaving, Danny informed me that the beach at Mark Twain Lake was closed. The girls were pretty bummed about not being able to go swimming, but they quickly forgot about it when we told them how fun it would be to go hiking instead. Danny even printed out a hiking Scavenger Hunt and Alyssa loved pointing out all of the things on the list. We also tried out our hiking backpack and Ashley loved the ride.

Along our hike, we had a pretty nice view of the Lake. This was the first good picture spot.

We felt fortunate to find a nice view of the lake with a spot to set our camera for this family picture. Ashley wasn't too happy about being held back from climbing on the railing. She has no fear.
After our long hike, we enjoyed relaxing at our shady campsite.

Originally we had planned to stay Thursday night through Saturday morning. There were threats of severe thunderstorms on Friday night which made us hesitant to stay the second night. Our minds were made up to leave early when we started pulling small ticks off of Alyssa. We must have pulled at least 20 off of her body and at least another 10 off of the rest of us. We didn't feel completely free of them until after we gave Casey a bath on Saturday afternoon(we all had baths/showers before that). On top of the ticks, Alyssa also came home with a nice sized spider bite that made her arm swell up. In spite of the bugs, we still had a fun time and the girls loved sleeping together in the tent.

Our Four-Legged Friend

While doing yard work on Saturday, Danny and Alyssa found a little four-legged friend in our backyard. She was so excited to show it to Ashley...

and Mommy.

Danny put it in a bucket so the girls could sit and enjoy it for awhile.
It didn't like being caught, but the girls enjoyed watching it try and jump out. At one point it succeeded in catching it's front legs around the rim of the bucket and then after hanging out for a few seconds, it finally pulled itself up and jumped out. Alyssa was so sad that it was going to get away, so Danny caught it again. Here they are explaining the adventure.

Swimming

It has finally gotten hot enough to turn on our air conditioner and pull out our inflatable pool. I took these pictures on the first day that they swam in the pool and the water was still quite cold. I think that explains some of the facial expressions on the girls.
They both love that yellow floaty for some reason. They have been wearing it around the house and yard for the past few months and were both so excited to finally use it in the pool. As you can tell, Alyssa got the most use out of it since she is in it in almost all of the pictures.

I had to include this one because I was laughing for like 5 minutes straight after I saw it. I had no idea that Ashley was doing that when I took the picture. Kids do the funniest things sometimes.

On a sad note, I noticed as the week went on the the pool became more and more deformed. I didn't know the reason until I emptied it out yesterday and noticed that the bottom ring of air was totally deflated. It has a hole somewhere in it and I have no idea how to find out where.