Alyssa

So if any of our readers remember, I posted about Alyssa's multiple cavities back in September. The long awaited surgery date finally came and went. It was quite a hastle getting her cavities filled. She was too scared to let the dentist look or touch inside of her mouth, so we ended up having to take her to the hospital(where they could put her under) to have it done. Because it was done at the hospital, we had to get our medical insurance company involved also. It was such a pain getting it all worked out. Then, her first surgery date had to be postponed because she got sick a couple of days beforehand. We are glad to finally have it done and to see her in less pain. She did really well with all of it. They ended up having to pull one tooth out, put crowns on two teeth, and fillings in the others. We felt so bad about the tooth they pulled and it has taken her some time to get used to the spacer that is in there. Now we are just hoping for her to start losing her teeth earlier than we expect her to so she doesn't have to have a mouth full of silver for too long. She was pretty excited about the tooth fairy coming and getting the tooth that was pulled out.

Here are a few pictures that I found on the camera that Alyssa took of herself. It makes me laugh to look at these because I remember when she took them. She was laughing so much about how silly she looked in each picture.

On a side note, we rescheduled Alyssa's preschool Birthday Snack for tomorrow which would explain why we are getting hit with one of the worst storms St. Louis has seen in 20 years.

Randomness

I found these pictures on the camera and didn't really have a creative post to do with them, so here they are, just because I like them. This was taken as a request from Alyssa since they were in their matching jammies.

Alyssa must have taken this one of us and since there are hardly ever pictures of just the two of us, here it is.

More of the matching jammies.
We love these little girls so much.

Snow Princess

After our snow storm that brought at least 8 inches of snow the girls were begging to go and play in the snow. The first couple of days were way too cold, but the third day was a little bit warmer and sunny. So on that day I took them out to play. The snow was really good for doing this.
Ashley walked around and ate the snow while Alyssa helped me build our snow princess. The snow packed almost too good as it was pretty hard to get the rocks, pebbles, and carrot to stick in for the face.

Besides building the snowman, we had fun throwing snow at each other and sledding down our very small hill in our front yard (Alyssa is too scared of the steep hill in the backyard).

Birthday Snack

At Alyssa's Preschool, each of the kids has a day in which they get to celebrate their birthday. On this day they get to bring in a snack to share with their class. I got a call back in October asking me when we wanted to bring in Alyssa's Birthday Snack. At the time, I wasn't sure that we would still be here in January, so we chose the second to last day of Preschool in December before the Christmas break(the last day being their Christmas Party and program). We chose a snack that Alyssa likes a lot and that is egg-free for the girl that is allergic to eggs in her class. We also put a little Christmas spin on it because of the upcoming holiday. Here it is before we added the eyes and buttons.

We showed up to an empty parking lot that day, not realizing that school had been cancelled due to a little bit of ice the previous night. We spent a week and a half working on eating all of the rice crispy treats. So on the first day back to school, I set up another day for Alyssa's Birthday Snack. Her teacher and I decided on Jan. 11th. This worked out great for us because Alyssa wanted cupcakes this time and it happened to be the day after Ashley's birthday. These were the ones that we used for Ashley's party, but we used the same one's for Alyssa's class minus the Dora figures and candles. On the morning of the 11th, we woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground. This time, I learned from my mistake and checked for school closings first thing in the morning. We ended up eating cupcakes every day for over a week.

So the next time I dropped Alyssa off for preschool, we rescheduled once again for the following Thursday (today). We watched the weather all week to see if we would bring another snow storm to the area. This is what we woke up to this morning.

This time I learned even more from my mistakes and left the snack like this until I knew that school wouldn't be cancelled.I don't know if we dare reschedule again. We feel so bad for Alyssa because she is so excited to have her Birthday Snack with her class. We have just had bad luck with this whole snack thing. Hopefully we will have a chance to do it before we move in March.

Ashley's 3rd Birthday

Last Monday, Ashley celebrated her 3rd Birthday. We were fortunate to have Danny home with us that day. We enjoyed a fun day together. Here is Ashley showing off her newest accomplishment (holding up 3 fingers, if you couldn't tell).

Alyssa wanted to get in the picture when she saw me snapping shots of Ashley. I love when they put their arms around each other.

Originally, I had planned to have a friend party for Ashley sometime during the week of her birthday at McDonald's and to save her actual birthday for family stuff. However, when I started thinking about who we should invite, I could only think of one friend that she would really want to come. As a result, I changed my plan and decided that we would just invite the one friend to join us at Chuck E. Cheese's, one of Ashley's favorite places to go. The three kids had a blast together.

Here are Ashley and Haydn enjoying a roller coaster ride. I love how Ashley has her hands up like it is a real roller coaster and Haydn is holding on tight to his seat.
This was a favorite ride for the kids and the parents. The kid loved it because they got to go on it all together. The parents loved it because it only cost us one token for all three of them.
After the tokens ran out, we let them pick out some prizes with the tickets that they had won.
That afternoon, we let Ashley open up all of her presents. She loved being able to open presents again. We made chicken nuggets for dinner (one of Ashley's favorite things to eat) and then had cupcakes and ice cream after dinner.

Ashley is so much fun to have as part of our family. There is never a dull moment with her. She has so much energy and never stops moving. Since she turned three after the first of the year she gets to stay in the nursery at church for one more year. She is tall for her age and towers over all of the other kids in there. Some of her favorite things are anything Dora, the Cat in the Hat, her stuffed Puppy, her baby, and her blanket (she has quite the collection of animals that she insists on carrying around with her everywhere she goes. She calls them her "friends").

We refer to her as our lunch girl because she eats most lunch foods very well, but doesn't hardly eat breakfast or dinner. We have had so much fun watching Ashley grow and learn new things these past three years and we look forward to many more years of fun with her as part of our family. We love you Ashley!

Girly Girls

Alyssa got a make-up kit from her Aunt Shannon for her birthday and she absolutely loves it. She puts on the make-up at least twice a day and usually dolls Ashley up at the same time.

Very cute, but we had to ban the nail polish when Ashley decided that she was big enough to paint her own nails(and many other things close by). Ashley's favorite thing to do is put on the 12 different kinds of chapstick that they got for Christmas.
Last week when the girls were finally both feeling better (and me too), I gave them a bath to wash all the sick off of them and put them in their new matching dresses that they got for Christmas. They looked so cute that I couldn't resist taking a picture of them. It also helped that they were sitting down at their table being very sweet to each other.

We are so glad to be done with the sickness that went through here and to be done with giving Alyssa medicine(which she HATES). We enjoyed a quiet welcoming in of the New Year and look forward to what this year will bring us.