Little Gym and Gymnastics

January brought the close of Fall semester at Little Gym with Maddie and Mr. Braden our favorite teacher. It also brought the beginning a a 6 week community education tumbling class for Ashley. We bought Ashley her first leotard, and she changes into it almost everyday at some point. She did really well in class, watching a 4 year old try to do jumping jacks is good for laughter. Gosh darn it, she really tried!

Madison's 2nd Birthday

I can't believe she is 2 years old already! I think she still has multiple personality disorder. One minute she is so happy and playing nicely...the next minute screaming wildly and throwing punches. She looks at me devilishly as she runs from me at the store, them screams like a banshee when I capture her and buckle her in the cart. She adores Ashley...as long as Ash let's her do whatever she wants and never steals her toys. She has become QUITE attached to her white blankie, "B" as she calls it "BB" for Binky. "B" gets dragged everywhere on the floor and accumulates roughly 2 pounds of dog fur daily, then she rubs her face in it and snuggles...ugh. When I try to steal it away to wash it she screams like a crazy person. I tried going to get a second one at Target, but they only had it in pink. I bought it anyway thinking the background color would not matter. I was wrong, evidently it is too clean, too pink and too pretty for her. Ugh again.
She is finally starting to eat well. She gained quite a bit of weight between 18 and 24 months. She refuses to use a high chair, so apparently food tastes better in a big girl chair with no bib. We are working to just use Binky at nap time and bedtime, so far 1 week in OK. Maybe total removal this summer:)
She has become enchanted with the training potty. When we are at home I put her in pull-ups with no pants and all she does all day is pull them down, sit on the potty, wipe with TP, and pull them back up....ALL DAY. No actual pee mind you...I suppose it is still too early.
I told Dave before she was born I wanted my second baby to be more snugly...now I'm eating my words. "Hold me" are Maddie's favorite words 24 hours a day. Makes it hard to get things done when she wants to snuggle all day.
Maddie, even though you can drive me crazy on any given day, you also make me laugh as you dance in circles with your eyes closed and sing your loudest to songs in the car and wave your arms like you are conducting a symphony. You are my sweet baby and I love you.
These photos are her professional 2 year pics from Foto Fly in Draper. For $80 you a get a CD with all the images to use as you please. They do a fantastic job!
The second slide show is photos of her party at our house with the family.

Valentines Day 2011

Dave and Ash went to our annual HOA Daddy Daughter Date night at the community center. This year they danced, made candy bags and painted picture frames. Next year Maddie will be old enough to join them....Dave has always wanted a twosome;)!
Valentines morning we had heart shaped pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream...yummy.

New Years in Vegas 2010

We always go down to Las Vegas for New Years. The weather is better and there is lots to do:)...This year the weather was COLD, and WINDY. We still had fun driving to the new Hoover Dam bridge, playing games at Circus Circus and visitng with Mike, Katie and Taylor since they did not come to SLC for Christmas this year.

Christmas 2010

Christmas with both families close by can sometimes be CRAZY. Everybody wants time with us and the kids. We enjoy our families, however I want to start creating memories with just Dave and the girls....our own family traditions. This year we decided that for the 1st time we would stay home on Christmas Eve and just hang out in our PJ's, eat pizza and watch Christmas movies. Brilliant....until Deb got food poisoning. I started throwing up around 4pm and went to bed by 8pm and felt HORRIBLE. So much for our fun family night. Dave, bless him...set up everything for the next morning and was such a help. Thank you honey. By Christmas morning I was fine:) We had both sets of grandparents, Aunt Cathy and Grandma Gertrude up in the morning for breakfast, stockings and PRESENTS! The girls had a great time opening presents...and soon it was time for an afternoon snooze. After nap time we loaded into the car and headed to Dave's parents house for dinner, more presents and poker! We arrived home Christmas night around 11:30pm and happily slept late the next day, and stayed in our jammies all day.

Santa 2010

We were lucky this year to visit Santa at Photo By Emilie's studio! He was there on a Saturday and we had our own 15 minutes with him while Emilie snapped some pictures. One week later we had a DVD of our pictures for $25 and some excitement for Santa's upcoming visit.

Christmas Activities

My Dad works part time for Heber Valley Railroad, so were were able to ride the Polar Express Train this year during the dress rehearsal night before they open to the public. I bought the girls cute Christmas PJ's and we were off! Unfortunately it was about 45 minutes before the train left for the North Pole and Maddie was over the train seats in about 15 minutes. Even being able to walk around was not enough. We finally pulled out and they immediately brought out cookies and cocoa...a welcome distraction. A few minutes later Santa and Mrs. Claus appeared as we passes the North Pole..another welcome distraction. We stopped to tun the train around and it was downhill from there. Maddie was SO tired and cranky, I was coming down with a fever and a cold, and the train was so hot we had to pull the windows open. We left the train station to go get hamburgers for dinner then loaded everyone up and headed home. Maybe next year will be better:)
Ashley had her 1st preschool singing program. It was only 30 minutes long, but she participated really well and sang loudly...maybe Mom's passion for Drama is in her blood:)
We had a girls afternoon with Nana and Grandma Gertrude and frosted cookies for Santa right before Christmas. Maddie was more interested in eating the frosting by the handful than decorating. We had some great looking cookies that Santa ate right up Christmas Eve...way to go girls!

Thanksgiving

We had a fun weekend with Mike and Katie and Baby Taylor coming up to visit for the long weekend. We ate dinner with Deb's family,then headed to Dave's family. Deb did a little Black Friday shopping, then we met friends for dinner at Cafe Trio without the kiddos. We put the tree up Sunday and, then the weekend was over.

Mickey's Halloween Party

Ashley and I were lucky enough to fly down in October and go to the party at Disneyland. We stayed with Aunt Cathy (Dave's sister)and she joined us for the fun. When you buy the $50 event ticket it allows you enter Disneyland 3 hours before the event starts so you can have a little more fun for the price. The party went from 7pm to 12am, so we entered at 4pm. We rode a few rides, had dinner at the Golden Horseshoe, then headed over to Critter Country to get in line for the treats. Right at 7pm the candy lines open and you just wind you way between the candy stations and they give you huge handfuls at every stop. Not crap candy either...snickers, skittles, M&M's,twix...good brand name stuff....by the handful! We watched the special parade, visited with the princesses, then got in line for Mickey and Minnie. Then the fireworks started and so did Ashley's screaming. She has had a fear of fireworks all of her 4 short years, and tonight was no different. I immediate picked her and carried her over to a bench while Cathy waited in line to hold our spot. After 5 minutes of hysterical crying and screaming Ash looks at me and says, "Mom look how beautiful they are...they're not scary." And BAM, we are over our fear of fireworks. She watched the last 10 minutes, then we had our picture with Mickey and Minnie. Ash stayed awake until we left at midnight and fell asleep on the way home, what a trooper! Such a fun Halloween tradition, I hope we can go every year!

Halloween 2010

We had lots of fun over the 2 day Halloween weekend. We went to Dave's work to trick or treat on Friday. Then we headed over to Atria to visit Grandma Gertrude and Grandpa Bill to trick-or-treat and parade in front of the residents. On Halloween day we made Dave's famous chili and had the grandparents and cousins over for dinner and trick-or-treating. As usual in Utah, it rained Halloween night and was about 42 degrees. We were chilled to the bone by the end of the night, but we had lots of great treats!

Fall Activities

We did lots of fun things this Fall...my FAVORITE time of year! We saw the leaves in the mountains and hiked. We like to go to Silverlake right next to Brighton Ski Resort. It is beautiful lake with a neat wooden boardwalk that circles it. Makes for easy hiking with little ones who stumble easily. We went to Gardner Village to visit the witches,we also went to Little Haunts a kid friendly Halloween festival at This Is The Place Park. We went through a kids haunted house, heard a story read by a witch, petted baby farm animals, had our faces painted and trick or treated at each of the old historic buildings.