Happy Birthday Terry

We celebrated Terry's birthday the other day. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband. I don't think I would be sane without him. He can always tell when I am having a hard time and is willing to do the dishes or make dinner for me. He is always putting others need ahead of himself. He is a wonderful father, and my children absolutely adore him. I am looking forward to the Christmas break when we can be together without the stress of work or school.

Sleeping Time

Abbie has decided not to take naps anymore. As she told Riley the other day, "I am not taking anymore naps." It has been quite the adjustment at our house. Not only does she refuse to take a nap, but she has a hard time falling asleep at night. At first she was also waking up about every hour during the night, and than having a hard time going back to sleep. Everyone in the house was cranky. Things are getting better though. She still gets a little fussy around 4-5 o'clock in the afternoon, but after dinner she is full of energy again. Here are some pictures of Abbie sleeping.

Occasionally the kids refuse to go to sleep, so we have to take Riley and put him in our bed. The other night when this happened Abbie proceeded to fall asleep in Riley's Bed
This is Abbie and Daddy sleeping after church. One of the last naps Abbie took!

This is Abbie falling asleep at 6pm in her high chair. This was the during the whole phasing out of her nap time.

Those who know my daughter, know she loves books. She always takes at least one book to bed with her. There was a time she had about ten books with her at bed time. We quickly learned to limit it to just two books, or she would never go to bed because she would be to busy reading her books. The worst was when she woke everyone up in the house at 3 am singing Twinkle Little Star at the top of her lungs from one of her books.

ABC song

I was helping Abbie eat breakfast one morning and was singing the ABC song to her. The next thing I knew she was singing it with me. I didn't even realize she could sing it, so I had to get it on video while she still wanted to sing. The next video is of her counting the numbers on the refrigerator.

Halloween

He is some cute pictures of Halloween. We had a fun time. Our town does a big trick-or-treating down town on Main street with all of the businesses. So we went down town and than went to the trunk-or-treat at our church. You would think they would have been worn out by the time we got home, but no they were pretty worked up. We put in a fun Halloween movie and popped popcorn. The kids had a blast. Riley had the perfect teeth for his pirate costume, because he has recently lost is bottom two baby teeth.

Pumpkin Patch

Okay so I am a little behind on my blog page. I am going to try and get caught up.
For FHE the Monday before Halloween we made a trip to the pumpkin patch. The kids were so excited. They had been asking for quite some time to go their. I think we have a pretty cool pumpkin patch. They have a stack of straw and a slide coming down the stack. The kids love to go down the slide. Of coarse you can't go their without getting an ice cream cone. The kids have fun with the wagons they provide to put your pumpkins in as well. All in all we had a fun time. The next day we craved our pumpkin. We actually only got a small pumpkin we used to make a pumpkin pie, because a friend of mine gave us a big pumpkin from her garden. Riley had fun helping me make the pie and insisted we roast the pumpkin seeds. Which Abbie loved. Thanks Kristine for the recipe.

Mothers

Mother's of Wisdom

I have been having a couple of frustrating days with Riley. It seems that all we have done is argue. Today I was trying to clean-up the clutter in my house. When I asked Riley to help he refused. Which is a normal response, but I could just feel a argument coming on again. Luckily I was on the phone with my mom at the time. She told me to try and hide something in a toy or under it, and have Riley try and find it while he was helping me clean-up. It worked like a charm. He was excited to try and find the dime that I hide under the toys. He actually asked if we could do it again tomorrow by the time we were done.
I am so grateful to have a mother there to guide me along my stumbles as a mother.
Love you mom.

Abbie's Birthday

My Little Two Year Old





Well we celebrated Abbie's Birthday on Saturday. She is two years old now. Usually you hear parents say I can't believe my baby is two now. I actually was about to say that, but than realized that is not true. I have almost called Abbie two a couple of times over the past few months. She just tries to be such a big girl that sometimes I forget she isn't. At the same time she differently has hit what most people term the "terrible twos." Which in some cases is true, but it is also the wonderful twos as well, because they learn so much and start to do all these amazing new things. Needless to say I love my little two year old.
We didn't do to much on Abbie's birthday, because I was sick. I got a cold that wasn't to bad except for the fact that it zapped me of my energy. I just wanted to sleep. So, for her birthday, we opened a few gifts in the morning.
Then for dinner we took Abbie to McDonalds to eat. She is always asking to go to Mcdonalds. We let both kids choice a toy. They usually have to share or take turns. I thought she would love to have the little barbie dolls they had for the girls, but no she had to have a car. No matter what I try she just love boy toys more. After we ate, the kids went outside and played on the playground, sliding their cars down the slide.

This is a video of Abbie reading her sticker book she got for her birthday. If you look closely you will also see Riley pretend playing in the back ground. He actually does this a lot.



We than went home and had cake and ice cream and opened the rest of her gifts. Out of all of her gifts, Abbie's favorite was the care bears I bought to put on her cake.

Tagges

Okay so I guess I have been tagged a couple of times, so here we go with the first one.

Picture Tagged!
by Janita

1. Go to your pictures
2. Upload 4th picture from 4th folder
3. Post



This is a picture of Terry and Riley feeding bread to a Llama. This was when we went on vacation with Terry's parents the summer of 2005. We were staying in a vacation home in Sequim, Wa. They have a farm near Sequim that is home to retired animals. Some of the animals include bears, Buffalo, elk, etc. Anyways, you can go for a drive around the park and feed some of the animals bread. In some places you drive with the animals right next to your car. We drove right through some buffalo. In these places you are suppose to leave you windows up and not feed the animals. There was this car in front of us who didn't listen to the warning and the animals were swarming all over them. If you ever have the chance to go there, it is a great experience, and Riley loved it. Here is there web page for those who want to know more http://www.olygamefarm.com/

Here is the second tag

1. Things I love about my husband: He is the most giving person I know (he always puts every one's needs ahead of his own), his smile, his eyes, that he is smart, I could keep going with this one so I will stop there.
2. Movies I could watch more than once: Any Jane Austin movie, Calamity Jane with Doris Day in it.
3. TV shows I watch: Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser, Smallville, Samantha Who, Stargate Atlantis, Life and Knight Rider. These are the shows I watch when I get a chance or I am not reading a book.
4. Places I have been: New York City, Washington DC, California, Baltimore, Philadelphia.
5. Places I would like to go: Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Italy
6. People who email me regularly. Michelle, Julie, Beverly
7. Things I look forward to in the next year: Buying a new vehicle, Terry finishing his Bachelors, possibly having a new baby.
8. People I tag: Kristine, Ashley, Tina

Fall/Apples

Okay, when I started this blog I thought I would be great at keeping it updated. As most of you can see that has not been the case. My life seems to have been a little hectic lately. Which is probably the case with most of you.

I know a couple of people have asked what my birthday was like. I have been meaning to put an update about it on the blog, so here it is.

I had a wonderful birthday. It started out with Riley insisting I go back to bed so he could make me breakfast in bed. He also insisted that Terry help him make me a birthday cake. He wanted to give me my birthday presents right away as well, but Terry had to go to work. Terry told Riley they would give them to me when he got home. Riley wasn't very happy with this, so he spent part of the day looking around the house for my presents. Unfortunately he couldn't find them because Terry had them hidden in his car. Terry worked all morning trying to get Abbie to say, "Happy Birthday Mommy." He was unsuccessful with his attempts while he was home. Right after he left for work Abbie came running into the room and yelled, Happy Birthday Mommy. It was so cute. Later Terry took me out for dinner and when I got home we had cake and opened presents.

Riley has been watching a lot of Caillou. In one of the epasiodes Caillou does a magic show, so Riley wanted to do one as well. This is him dressing in up as a magician. He used his Batman Pjs becuase it has a cape, and this is the best hat we had for him to use.




Since Riley had a hat on Abbie had to have one as well.



We went apple picking last weekend. Riley has been begging to go. The kids had a blast. Now I need to figure out what I am going to do with all of the Apples we picked.

Our Family

Well we have decided to create a blog. We hope this helps our loved ones keep in touch, and not lose out to much on our kids growing up.
Just to update you on what is going on right now with our family.
Riley has had a few big milestones this past month.

He started preschool.

He is going to school Monday through Friday in the mornings. He loves school. Every time we ask him what he did at school that day, his first response is that he played with the lego motorcycle. If you can't guess from that, his favorite thing to do his play with his legos.

Riley also lost his first tooth.

He was pretty nervous about it, but once it came out he was excited. His Grandma Carlsen gave him a container to put his teeth in for the Tooth Fairy. He was excited to put the tooth in there. Unfortunately, Abbie was a little to curious about the tooth and wouldn't leave it alone. I had the tooth in Riley's container on the kitchen table. When I came into the kitchen later the tooth was missing. We look every where for the tooth, but couldn't find it. When I asked Abbie if she took the tooth she said she put it in her mouth. Later she told us it would come out in her poopie. Don't ask me were she learned that.
We are really proud of Riley. He has worked very heard all summer learning his numbers, so he could earn Lego Star Wars II video game. He finally was able to earn the game.

Abbie is growing up way to fast. She is like a sponge and soaks up everything. Because Riley has been working on his numbers so much, Abbie has pick up on counting and loves to count everything.

Abbie graduated to a toddler bed.

She thinks she is such a big girl now. We went and bought her a pillow and princess pillow case and sheet.

I finally finished the quilt I have been working on for Riley. It has taken me over a year to sew. Riley was excited to finally get the blanket on his bed.

Terry has started school again. This year has been less stressful, due to the fact he is no longer coaching. He misses the kids and the kids miss him, but it was the right move to make for our family. Every time he runs into one of the kids on the swim team the beg him to come back.