Thanksgiving weekend

We enjoyed a very nice dinner at Deb's parents house with her brother Craig and his boyfriend Ian. Ian lives in London...so he flew a long way for my Dad's famous mesquite smoked turkey! On Friday Dave braved the Black Friday rush and went to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop computer for $350. He entered the line at 4:15am and it was already a few hundred people long. The store opened at 5am and Dave managed to get the computer he wanted, then waited another hour and a half to pay for it. Deb and Ash slept at home peacefully during all the madness. It is definitely worth losing some sleep for a laptop that is half price off, however Dave pointed out that people in general are so pushy and rude trying to get every last thing they want. It definitely ruins the spirit of Christmas:( Deb shopped off and on the rest of the weekend and we also managed to get Christmas lights up before the snow falls. Deb set up all the decorations inside and Ash took them down as quickly as she could reach them. Needless to say our tree this year has only 2 boxes of shatterproof ornaments, which are all clustered on the bottom right side of the tree right where Ash "help" put them. It's definitely not an entry for the Festival of Trees however it was fun having Ash help and you can't help but laugh every time you look at the tree!

Disney On Ice

Last week Dave and Deb's parents took Ash to see Disney On Ice downtown. Deb and her parents rode TRAX with Ash and Dave met us there after work. As you can see she loved sitting next to her Papa on the train. At every stop she stood up and said "All done!" thinking it was time to get off. The seats were great and cheap being opening night..only $12 a piece and we just passed Ash from lap to lap. We let her drink Sprite which I think may have been the highlight of her night other than seeing Mickey and Minnie. We had our picture taken with Woody and Buzz and we had to pry Ash off of them for one quick pic...she wouldn't stop hugging and kissing them everywhere. This was our second Disney On Ice production and it was lots of fun!

Ashley's 2 year stats

Last week was Ashley's 2 year check up. She is 36 1/2 inches tall, 95th percentile and 29 pounds, 75th percentile. She has been these pecentages consistently since she was born....thanks Daddy for the height!! She didn't even cry when she had her flu shot...she was more interested in taking the band aid off and on and saying "ow Mom". She is really a good kid overall. As any typical 2 year old, she wants to do everything herself and screams NOOOOOOOOO very loudly when I attempt to help in any way. She still loves to play peek a boo and her favorite videos are Toy Story 1 and 2 and Cars...which guarantees us 88 quick minutes of quiet when we need it! She is enchanted with the whole process of going potty, but mostly likes to do the motions just because Mommy and Daddy do it. She is still aways from connecting when she has to go to actually going on command. I've resorted to being one of those mothers that let's Ash watch cartoons on the DVD player in the car just so I don't have to hear "Mama" four hundred times a minute.....believe me my sanity is on the brink some days:) She is quite loving these days and loves to kiss and hug who ever she playing with at random...we soak this up as much as possible:) We still do Little Gym and she is adventureous, however she wants to do activities on her terms and isn't quite as willing as she used to be to perform on command during class. During the name game she refers to herself as "me"...cute. We are anxiously awaiting how she will react to her new baby sister in March...stay tuned!

Ashley's 2nd Birthday

Halloween

Fun Halloween activities

Feeding Dad cookie frosting
Baby goat trying to eat Ashley's costume

Gardner Village

Charly, Garrett and Ash

Trick or Treat!

We spent last weekend doing a few fun Halloween activities. We went Saturday day to our community Trick or Treat party with our friends Charly and Garrett. The kids ate lots of candy and burned it off with a long playground session. Later that night Dave and I took Ash to Garner Village to see the animals at the petting Zoo and take pictures with the Witch decorations...as you can see we have no Witch pics...Ash was not in the mood. Perhaps next year:) The petting zoo was fabulous! The animals..goats, pigs, bunnies, Llamas, dogs , donkeys, ponies etc. are all really friendly. One baby goat in particular thought Ashley had green leaves to eat on her costume and chewed any chance he could get! I think we will try to to go again to the petting zoo when it is not so crowded.

Ashley's 2nd year pics

Look at those eyelashes..still going strong!
Classic Ashley smile

So perfectly cute!!

Well here's few pics from our professional 2 year pics taken at JC Penny at Southtowne. Can I just say that now I remember why I never went back there after Ashley's 6 week pics. We went on a a Saturday and as I showed up they were already 45 minutes behind. I happened to run into a friend of mine who is scheduled ahead of me and still is waiting. Then she tells me she wants the barn background like me and Penny's told her as she showed up to her appointment that it was only available certain days of the week....now hold on just a sec. I scheduled my appointment online and it says nothing about that background being available on certain days. Not only that, when I scheduled I very specifically told them in the comments section which back ground I wanted (the barn).. Not only that but when they called to confirm they never said one word to me about my background not being available. So those of you that know me know that this was not going to fly and now I had my friend Trish on my side to back me up...her experience was just the same. As you can see we got our background but the photographers were super annoyed at having to spend 5 extra minutes changing the background...boo hoo. So we make it in for pics one hour after our scheduled time and Ash is just about to meltdown as it is close to lunch. We then have to wait another full hour before we get someone to help us view and pick our pics. Ash is really close to losing it at any moment and is touching EVERYTHING!! Then I go to check out and I had forgotten that Portrait club members do not get portrait sheets for $3.99, you must print the coupon off at home and bring it in to get that price. So I explained that I would come back later that afternoon with my coupon to re figure my order...$130 VS. $60 with the coupon. The girl helping me looked at me when I told her this and said..."seriously???" Do they really think I want to pay full price when all I have to do is go home and print out some dumb coupon to save 60% or more?? Needless to say this is why I prefer Kiddie Kandids even though their prices are way more expensive.