Best Picture

Here is the BEST picture of both girls, both smiling, and both looking super cute! I am thrilled with this shot. It was taken yesterday at Scare on the Square, and it is in the frame that Kaylee decorated.

Scare on the Square

Last night we went to "Scare on Square". Here is Ainlsee with her bucket, she had a death grip on that thing the entire time. She learned really quickly when I said "say trick or treat", that that meant she was getting more candy. She would turn her head so fast to find where the candy was going to come from that I thought she might break her neck in the process.

Kaylee getting her nails painted

Ainslee is not so sure about the clown, I think she was offering her the bookmark she decorated to go away. She certainly wasnt going to offer any of her candy!

Mommy and Ainslee behind the awesomely dressed Flinestone family! The crowd was just crazy, barely room to move around.

Kaylee and Ainlsee with their good buddies (Bo and Cruiz). Bo is only 2 months older than Kaylee and Ainslee is 2 months older than Cruiz.

Mommy and Kaylee in the broom race

Ainslee would sneak a taste of her candy when we werent looking, and she didnt care if the paper was still on it. She would eat that too!

Kaylee walking with my mom. My mom made both of the girls' costumes, and did a FABULOUS job! I forgot Kaylee's wings, so last night she was a "wingless bee", but still cute!

Tonight is Trick or Treating in my friend Bethany's neighborhood. Their tradition is to have chili before going out, so we are joining them tonight for that. Should be another fabulous time!

Sled Dog

I have been watching as my body grows bigger and bigger.......and NOT because I am pregnant! It is like it is in slow motion watching a spare tire develop around my waist line! And it is disgusting! Im quite sure my husband has noticed it as well, although he would never admit it! My clothes arent fitting, I can feel a difference in my energy level, among other "problems". So I decided to do something about it. I am starting, for the first time in my life, to "watch" what I eat. And I dont mean, watch as the food goes from my plate to my big ole mouth! I am being more conscious of what I eat, my portions, and frequency. I have never been the one to participate in fad diets, or counting calories, but for some reason I feel my body is not as forgiving as it used to be. And considering my complete lack of activity I really cant blame it. For my entire life I was an exercising machine, going from one sport to the next competitively, and then it all STOPPED! I remember wishing and waiting for the days where i didnt have practices and games everyday, now i wish i had something to keep me active (besides chasing childre). So I am also starting to exercise a bit more. This poses as quite a problem since we dont have any exercise equipment, a gym membership, or a double stroller. So the only way I can get the girls around is in the wagon. Any of you tried pulling 70+ lbs in a wagon........well it aint easy! The hardest part is walking with one arm behind you pulling the wagon, and your feet constantly hitting the front of the wagon. I decided to modify our wagon. I made the handle a bit longer and attached it to a belt that I wear high up on my waist. This way I have both my hands free, I wont hurt my shoulder, and my feet wont hit. I took the contraption out for a test drive Wednesday. My plan was to walk at least an hour, and NOT flip the wagon over. I am very pleased to say that I didnt flip the wagon, but sadly we were shy of my hour mark. The girls wanted NOTHING to do with being in the wagon for 10 minutes, let alone 1 hour! But besides that it worked fabulously! The hills were tough and I mean T.O.U.G.H! like the last one in front of the house, I could totally feel the burn. Going downhill wasnt as easy as expected either, my body wanted to go faster, but i feared the wheels might just come right off that wagon. Either way we made it home safe and sound.......maybe my next wagon modification will include some sort of child entertainment. Any ideas?

Today was my 2nd "trial" run with the wagon. When i say "run" i dont mean RUN! I (semi)speedwalked, except when i jogged down the hills. But this time I was armed with snacks, which if you know my girls REALLY helped matters out a BUNCH! So while they lounged I was able to get in a bit of a workout, and im telling you I can tell the difference now more than EVER. I think I just might get addicted to this working out thing. I wish I had more time to do it!

here they are lounging and eating

Yes it was like 48* this morning, and WINDY! I would much rather walk in those conditions than 100+

And here is the contraption, YES that is a strap to an old soccer bag (I think from high school) that I am using as a belt, and the strap from Marcus' old tennis bag as a handle extension.

and here is a close-up of the contraption, well at least it is supposed to be. i had to take these pics with the timer on the camera, and it wasnt necessarily easy. But see what I mean about my gut and thighs? And I cant say "they are soccer thighs" anymore, I havent touched a ball in years! They are plain ole disgusting, and I am going to fix that! and you can see where the title of this post came from, I felt like a sled dog the entire time. And Im sure I got some funny looks from the cars that went speeding past me.

oh and when I get home I try and do some abs on my big giant exercise ball thingy. But man that thing has gotten h.a.r.d! I vividly remember before we got married doing my ab workout on the ball and I would do somewhere between 300 and 500 reps a day. Now I am lucky to get 40 reps in without falling out on the floor. Maybe I just need a little more practice. Oh and the look on the girls faces when I am attempting the ball is enough to make anyone laugh, they are like "what the heck does she think she is going to do on that thing?" SO FUNNY!

Cedar Hill Farm (more pics and videos)

I think Ainslee was about 2 hours late for her nap at this point, as you can tell by the look on her face. But I had to include this one because it is a rare picture of Marcus AND he is smiling!

Here is Ainslee standing next to the height measurer thingy. She is sort of slumped and didnt have her feet back, so it is hard to tell how tall she actually is.

The girls got to ride the ponies a couple of times each. They each LOVED it. This is the video of when Marcus walked around with them (obviously), but when I walked around with Ainslee the next time, the look on her face was priceless, because I didnt hold on to her, I let her do it by herself. And she thought she was big stuff!


Here we are on the little train



This video is a perfect example of why I am not able to get a good picture of the 2 of them together. I really dont know how to do it! Neither of them are ever looking at the camera at the same time.......EVER! Even though we didnt get a good picture, we sure did get a laugh from their lack of cooperation. I am open to any and ALL tips from moms, photographers, ANYONE!

Reading to Kaylee's class

Yesterday I volunteered to read to Kaylee's class. When I was a teacher and asked parents to read, I always liked the ones that came and did some sort of activity or something that involved participation with the children. Whats the point of spending10-20 minutes driving to the school, walking in, and signing in, to read to the class for 3 minutes? I never could quite figure out why those moms did that. The ones that came in, sat down, read the book with very little expression, and left; were NOT exactly what I was looking for. And it certainly didnt grab the attention of my 18 4 year olds. Soooooo I decided that I was going to read to Kaylee's class, have them participate in the book, and then do an activity pertaining to the book. I chose The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. He is one of my FAVORITE children's authors! And I thought it was perfect leading into Halloween too. Anyways, so I found 2 animal puzzles (that we already owned) that had the EXACT same animals that were in the book. When I sat down to read to the children, I let each child pick one of the puzzle pieces, tell me the animal, and place it on the floor in front of them. Some listened.....others not so much! I explained that when they heard their animal sound they had to come put their puzzle piece back into the puzzle. Then I began reading, I had the children participate by making the animal sounds with me and telling me which animal was which. They all were able to correctly put their puzzle piece into the puzzle. And it went marvelously! I wanted to spend more time talking about animals, but time did not allow for that (they almost missed their gym time). After the book we marble painted a spider web. While the children waited their turn, they sang me their Halloween songs. It was amazing to see the differences in abilities, the ones that were able to listen and follow directions. The ones that could sit and wait their turn. The ones that actually looked as if they knew what was going on. And I am very pleased and proud that Kaylee was one of those children. She might not be the greatest of listeners at home, but she sure does listen very well in the classroom. And THAT made THIS momma VERY HAPPY!!!

It was SUCH a delight to be back in the classroom. The memories came flooding back of MY classroom, and for a minute I got a little choked up. I miss those children! I miss the feeling you get when you teach a child something new! I miss the sparkle in their eye when they figure out something they have been working on! But for now I dont miss it enough to leave my babies everyday and return to the classroom! However, it does make me wonder if homeschooling could be a possibility in our future.

And I wish I had some pictures to show you, but I didnt think to bring my camera, and even if I had I dont think I would have had time to get any shots. I will be reading to the class about once a month, so next time I will remember the camera and show you what those little darlings can do! I already have 4 more books/activities lines up.

FedEx Family Day

(Here are the pics and videos from my moms camera)

The girls sitting in the jump seats of the 777, Kaylee really thought we were going so fly somewhere. She was quite disappointed when we told her we were just looking at the plane.

Here's the family waiting to board the 777

And here we are in front of one of the MASSIVE engines

The girls wearing their flower balloon hats

Kaylee admiring the painting on Ainslee's arm

Matching 'arm art'

Kaylee driving the plane. She couldnt quite get the pedalling part down.



Ainslee driving the plane despite the look on her face she DID enjoy it!



Kaylee climbing up the ladder to go down the slide

Saturday Sickday

Last weekend we went to "Family Day" at Marcus's work. They had 8 hours of family fun including, moon bounces/slides/obstacle courses, face painting, balloon artists, airplanes (including the 777 which we went in again), hub tour, other "kiddie" activities, and FOOD! We spent a couple of hours doing all the fun stuff, the girls were given some junk food, and we had a wonderful afternoon. That night Kaylee called for us about 5am, even though I had been awake (trying to go back to sleep) for the past 2 hours i sent Marcus in to check on her. And boy am I glad I did! She had gotten sick all over her bed. Marcus started cleaning up, before he even came to get me. We tag teamed and got her all straightened out and back in the bed. About 30 minutes later she woke up again, thankfully no more surprises for me, but I decided to just let her stay awake. I gave her a nice long hot bath, and we started our morning. She wouldnt eat much all day, which was fine by me, and by the end of the day she was acting herself again. I concluded that the "sickness" was due to the junk she had eaten (without having a proper meal) as well as all the jumping/playing around.

......Fast forward to yesterday.......

We had a birthday party for a friend of mine's son. I sent Marcus with the girls to that party while I attended the baby shower of one of my best friends from high school. Marcus had strict instructions to limit the amount of cake/junk for both girls for fear of another exciting night. Let's just say that about an hour after we put Ainslee to bed I heard a strange moaning sound coming fro her room. I decided to check on her and the second I opened the door, I screamed for Marcus. It was everywhere. Bless her little heart she had moved to the other side of the crib and was trying to go back to sleep. So we tag teamed again and got her all cleaned up. I realized that I left her extra yellow blanket (the one that she is completely attached to, and cant sleep without) at my mom's house. So I decided to go steal Kaylee's (even though it is green, it is basically the same blanket) from off of her. We get her all settled down, teeth brushed, new sheets, new clothes, new blanket and about 5 minutes later she does it again! so now BOTH blankets are dirty! We quickly started a load of wash and tried offering her a replacement blanket. She would smell each one and rejected them all. She finally took one, but wasnt thrilled with it. We got her to sleep on us on the couch while we waited for the wash to finish, every time I felt her stomach convulse like she was about to do it again, I freaked out. I do NOT do well with throw-up! Finally the blankets were dry and she acted like all she wanted to do was sleep, I started walking back towards her room, and she did it AGAIN! ALL over the freshly clean blanket! Marcus and I were stunned! Then I decided to just give her a bath, sometimes the hot water can calm an upset tummy. And she really enjoyed the bath! After all that we were able to get her back to bed with Kaylee's blanket and she slept all night without any more problems. She woke up much differently than Kaylee had the week before. I couldnt give Ainslee enough food. She wanted to eat everything! Once again I concluded it was probably the excessive amount of junk as well as all the activity that got each of them sick.

I was counting my blessings after these 2 experiences....
1. That both of them are ok, and the "sickness" only lasted 1 day!
2. It happened on the weekend, when Marcus could join the "fun". I sure would have hated for him to miss that!
3. They didnt get sick on the same day!
4. They didnt get sick in my car!
5. I wasnt sick when trying to deal with sick babies!

But now Im really concerned with who is going to be THIS Saturday........me or Marcus? I hope this trend does not continue!

Cedar Hill Farm (take 3)

Last weekend we took our Annual trip to Cedar Hill Farm. This is our 3rd year for our family to visit the farm in October. Here are a few of the pics we took.

Here is Kaylee measuring in at 3'7". We have a pic of Ainlsee in the same spot, but it is on my mom's camera so I havent had a chance to get my hands on it yet.

The hay maze.... you can only make right turns, no left turns allowed. Here is the fat momma trying to figure it out. You can see Ainslee and Kaylee in the background, they have made it farther than I. But I think they got their lefts and rights confused a couple of times. Ha!

Here is my dad trying making his plan of attack

Ainslee says, "go that way momma"

We have a family pic in this spot from last year too

The girls LOVED the pony rides......can you tell?

This little girl LOVES her Abba! I mean R.E.A.L.L.Y loves him!

Giving Uncle Joe a kiss

On the train

My family, minus John who is away at college

It was a GREAT DAY! Hot and dusty, but great!

Fall Apple Project

I finally decided to actually put my 5 years of college to good use with my own children. I have an Early Childhood degree, worked as a 4K teacher for 5 years, and I havent even used any of it to teach my girls. Call me lazy.......I know I am! There is NO EXCUSE! But now I have turned over a new leaf (pun intended) and decided it is time to teach my children the way I taught all those kids in my class. I mean Kaylee knows her animals (and sounds), colors, shapes, body parts, she can find her name (sometimes has trouble when other words start with K), she is pretty solid with number recognition, but she doesnt know the letters of the alphabet, she CANT write her name (which I learned today that many of her friends in her class can!), I dont think she can even SPELL her name, and she cant write numbers. This makes me sad, I dont feel like she needs to be the best in her class, but I certainly dont want her to be the last, or struggle to keep up with the other children. I have made a deal with myself to try and squeeze in as much "teaching" as possible. We are going to start with her name. Hopefully next week. I have games/ activities planned, and hopefully she will enjoy the learning. My only problem with her is her attention span. She is so busy! Maybe I can wrangle her in and get her interested in learning. That's the plan at least!

Monday, I decided to do an apple lesson with the girls. I have done this activity with my 4 year olds MANY times, so I tweaked it a bit and we had an entire lesson geared for them. We made the paint, talked about apples, and their colors, we tried to teach Ainslee the colors (she knows yellow and red now), then we cut the apple to find the "surprise" inside........a STAR! Both the girls were very excited when they saw it. Then we painted away, actually we ate first, then painted, I mean who wants to eat apples after they have paint all over their fingers?

Here is Ainslee eating her apple

(naked from the waist up, much easier to clean that way)

Kaylee eating hers

(yes she is still in her PJ's)

the apple seeds

When I asked Kaylee what would happen if we planted the apple seeds, she said "it would grow TOMATOES!" I chuckled, and asked her again, and she said "it would go apples" (in a not so enthusiastic voice). What can I say the girl LOVES tomatoes!

we used non-organic apples for this project, so we had to peel them before eating them. The skin is SO tough when they are not organic! But who wants to waste good expensive apples on a paint project? We will save those to be eaten!

The supplies: 3 colors of homemade paint, 3 apple halves (not sure why the 3rd missed out on the picture), 3 forks to hold the apples, plates, and paper.

Kaylee's finished product

Ainslee's finished product

We finger painted on the orange piece of paper. Ainslee does NOT like getting her fingers in the paint........can you tell?

Overall the lesson went really well! Both girls stayed interested and focused the entire time. The only problem was this was the first time I had made my own paint, and I made it a bit too runny, so the stars barely showed up. Besides that it was fantastic, and so much fun!

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Yesterday I did another project with Kaylee (while Ainslee napped). We searched the yard for fallen leaves and then we did a leaf rubbing. After we rubbed the leaves, I mixed them up and had Kaylee match them to the correct leaf. She loved this activity too. We also finished painting our bird house, which now needs to be hung outside. Fall is such a GREAT time of year! I love how the weather is finally starting to cool down, fall is one of my favorite seasons!

What is REALLLY going on?

Any of you "long time followers" might remember reading this post. It seems that Marcus seems to always make huge "life changing" decisions whenever i/we have something big going on in our life. I guess he just doesnt want to feel left out......wink.

After saying all that, i have to tell you that Marcus accepted a new position at FedEx. He didnt really apply on this position, I guess he was kind of told/asked to take it. Which in my eyes cant be a bad thing if the right people are telling you what you "should" do. So anyways, Marcus started the said position last Friday. So basically we havent seen (or heard) from him in as many days. While we try to adjust to our new family schedule, I keep wondering if this post will come in to play anytime soon. that sounds bad, I had trouble with the wording of that, but I typed the first thing that came to mind, so let me explain. Marcus always has to interject his "big news" right before or after MY big news, so this time, he has a BIG change, and I am waiting to see what my BIG news is going to be! I guess in my boring life about the only excitement would be a baby! Time will tell!

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Other things i have been wanting to tell/share with you all.....
-Ainslee is growing SO fast (as all of you moms know), she has added a few more words to her vocabulary including calling Kaylee "yea yea", which has to be the cutest thing ever, behind the fact that she already defends and protects Kaylee and hugs and kisses her each and every chance she gets. Like the other day my parents had both of them and was about to put Kaylee in time out when Ainslee started crying and pointing to the time out spot saying "no no yea yea!" It is so cute how she already wants good things for her big sis.
Oh and other new on the Ainslee front......tooth number 10 broke through last night! I know #10 tooth came through about 8 months ago for Kaylee, but Ainslee I swear is the SLOWEST teether on the planet! Just the edge of one of her molars poked through the gums and I bet it will be at least another 4-5 weeks before the full tooth is in! Kaylee would bust out 3 and 4 FULL teeth in like a weeks time. So this is new territory for me. Ainslee is still loving all foods, although she does go through the typical "phases" no meat today, no veggies the next. Oh well, she is growing just fine, and is a happy little booger!

-Kaylee is LOVING school again this year. Although Im not exactly sure if it is all the candy/sweets she has been getting there or the fact that she gets a break from me. Each and every day I see new words popping up in her vocabulary and I say to myself "I should blog about that" and every time I dont write it down then I end up forgetting what was "so cute" and I never blog about it. UGH! Why dont I learn? So instead of mentioning some of the funny/grown up things she says I will give you a little "physical" description. She is OFF the charts y'all! She has grown 7 inches since her birthday in January, so that's 7 inches in 9 months, and puts her at a whooping 3'7". She wears a size 12 shoe (with VERY little room to grow). She weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 lbs. She fits comfortably into size 5 (or above) clothes. The pronunciation/enunciation this little girl has astounds me EVERY day! I just love listening to her talk, well I love it most of the time! Her most favorite word in the ENTIRE world is WHY! And I swear if I never hear that word again I will be the happiest person alive! She is still having major bed time issues, which have resulted in this mommy nearly losing her mind!

-and me.....Im still here, barely! I have had a sort of "craving" to go back to work. Nothing that I would ever act on any time soon, but that sense of "man I miss that" type thing. So the fact that Kaylee's teacher is looking for help in the classroom is just the right thing for me. I have decided to help by reading to the class (at least once a month), doing a craft/activity with them as well, volunteer to head up the book orders, as well as volunteer my time to help with the class parties. Man after listing all that I am wondering........just WHY am I paying so much in tuition for me to basically be the teachers aide? I feel bad that I have not done any sort of "school stuff" with the girls. And i have tried to make it a priority to do more with them, but something always gets in the way. I need to stop making excuses! I'll keep you posted on the "lesson plans"/ activities i have planned for the little munchkins.


I hope you all have a FANTASTIC weekend, we have a huge one planned! Tomorrow is filled with gymnastics and story time with 5 friends (and mommy friends), Saturday is devoted completely to family time with daddy, and Sunday is our annual trip to Cedar Hill Farm.