Like Big Sister, Like Little Sister

The other day while I was doing dishes, Alyssa says "Mommy, come take a picture! Ashley is lining up the crayons." Sure enough, I go look and see this.
Anyone remember this picture from last May?
Do all kids do this? I don't know. But both of our girls do.

Swim Lessons

I know that the pictures are all really dark so I hope that you can still see what is going on in them. Alyssa started the "Learn to Swim" program at our local rec center this month. She has four other kids in her class and she loves going to swim. In this picture they are playing the monkeys teasing Mr. Alligator game.
Her favorite game that they play is the Easter egg hunt in the shallow end. She is in the "Turtle" level so each of the eggs have a little turtle in them.

They got to go down the slide for the first time in her lesson this week and she loved it.

Shortly after swim finishes, she will start soccer which she is also excited for. We hope to fit in the next level of swim classes after that and before swim season starts for the summer. It is making for some busy months ahead.

Happy Valentines Day

This is the first time that we've done this and Alyssa had lots of fun. I've never been a big fan of Valentines Day, even with the wonderful Valentine that I have every year, but I found some cookie cutters and sprinkles at the dollar spot at Target, so I thought it would be fun to make some cookies with Alyssa. I let her start rolling the dough out.

And then I stepped in to help out a little. We both cut the cookies out.

I frosted the cookies and Alyssa put the sprinkles on. She loved doing that and as a result some of the cookies had more sprinkles on them then frosting.

Here is the finished product. I just wish we could think of more people to give them away to.

Happy Birthday Danny

Danny's birthday was on Wednesday and we nearly had to postpone our birthday celebrations due to a stomach flu that Ashley must have picked up at church. Fortunately it only lasted 24 hours and she was back to normal on Wednesday morning. Even more fortunate that none of the rest of us got it. Danny came home a little bit early from work that night and we watched him open his presents.

After presents, we took the girls over to our friends house so that the two of us could enjoy a night out together. We tried a new BBQ place and the food was delicious. We were suprised to find out when we got there that it was mostly a carry out place, but we took advantage of one of the three little tables in the place and ate there. After dinner, we went and walked around the mall. We went back to our friends house to enjoy cake and ice cream.
Later in the week, Danny got what was probably his favorite gift (and one that I couldn't pick out for him). I think he is looking forward to trying it out sometime in the near future.

Weekend Visitors

Uncle Bobby and his girlfriend, Sarah, came to visit us this past weekend. We enjoyed having visitors and meeting Sarah. Sadly, we didn't pull the camera out enough. Here are the only pictures we got with them. We took them to see the St. Louis Arch.
It was really cold out, so we spent some time below the arch in the museum in order to warm up. Here are the two brothers together.

We spent most of our time relaxing at the house, playing games, and eating. We were glad that they were able to come and visit us. The girls enjoyed having new people to play with.

Princess Party

Alyssa got invited to her first non-parent birthday party last week (non-parent meaning without either of us because the parents of the birthday girl were there). It was a princess party and this was the outfit she chose to wear.

I don't know why she insisted on the pink shoes and the purple dress because she has a pink princess dress AND purple shoes, but this had to be what she wore. She had a lot of fun at the party and loved picking out the gift.

Daddy's Little Girls

The other night when Danny came home, the girls were so excited to see him. They usually are excited to see him, but he hasn't been home as much as normal this week, so I think they were even more excited. They were watching "Dora", so he sat down with them. Alyssa was cold becaus they had just gotten out of the bath, so she wanted them to use her new blanket.

I just thought it was so sweet to see them sitting together under Alyssa's blanket. They stayed like this for quite awhile, which is very rare with our daughters. They usually don't stop moving for anything. Those little girls have this Daddy wrapped around their little fingers and one of my favorite things to see is the three of them playing together.

Ashley's 2nd Birthday

Ashley turned 2 on Sunday. We had a small celebration with just the four of us. Here is Ashley opening presents.

She mostly got new clothes (She is bigger than Alyssa was at her age and doesn't fit the winter clothes that we had leftover from Alyssa).
She loves Dora, so we made her some cupcakes and put Dora figures on top of them. She also picked out some Dora party plates.
Here is the birthday girl enjoying the first bites of her cupcake.

Here is Alyssa with Ashley after Ashley has enjoyed digging in.

All About Ashley
Ashley keeps us busy. She is constantly moving, and falling a lot as she goes. Most of her time goes into destroying order in the house. She loves to watch "Dora the Explorer" and has a hard time starting her day without it. She loves books and won't keep them on the shelf. There is almost always a pile of books next to their bookshelf upstairs and the basket downstairs where we keep their books.

Ashley has a serious foot fetish and is constantly falling to the floor next to our feet and grabbing them while yelling "FEET!" This happens wherever our feet may be (walking around in the kitchen, on the floor next to the couch, under the table, etc.) We don't know why she loves feet so much, but it really makes us laugh whenever she attacks them.

Ashley is a lot of fun to have around and we have all enjoyed having her as part of our family these past two years. We look forward to many more years of fun together.