Oh Christmas Tree

A week or so ago, (OK 2 weeks ago), we decorated for Christmas. So I thought I would finally post some pictures of the girls decorating. Ally got the honor of putting the star on, much to Em's dismay. We told her she's done it all the years before and it was sissy's turn...that rational didn't help. And to be honest, we should have let her do it because Ally seemed more nervous about Mike dropping her in the tree than the joy of getting to put the star on. Emily insisted on wearing some sort of dress to decorate. She originally came down with her fancy dress from last year, but I made her change.

Ally had so much fun "trying" to put the ornaments on. She would go over, grab one, run to the tree and say "I can't dood (do) it!" and would hand it off to us, run back grab another one and start all over. Rylee was working just as hard to take off the already on ornaments and break them. She still has a thing for the ornaments. Although now she's figured out to run when she hears me coming.

Mike always sings "Oh Christmas Tree" when we decorate and it happens to be on their Barbie Christmas Carol CD. You know you have all girls when Christmas is sung by Barbie. So I thought I would combine the girls version of the first two lines of the song...how they think it goes. And also "We Wish You A Merry Christmas Ally style.

"Oh Chwistmas twee, oh Chwistmas twee how lovely are my brushes. Oh Chwistmas twee, oh Chwistmas twee, how lovely are my brushes."

"We wish you a merry chwistmas we wish you a merry chwistmas we wish you a merry chwistmas and a happy new you!"

Family Pictures

Since my mom hasn't posted them yet, I thought I would show you the pictures we took of the grandkids and grandparents. Oh yeah, and me too.

My dad has this picture of my mom, myself, Emily and Ally that he loves. We're all wearing white shirts and the girls are wearing dresses. He wanted another one like that but with Rylee in it too. I bought him a frame for fathers day for that picture but we never got around to taking it. So this weekend we added Devon and dad and took some pictures. I wish Mike could have been there too but work doesn't allow time off right now. I thought they turned out cute and you might enjoy them.

Potty Rules: According To Ally

Ally has been fully potty trained for a while now, and here are what I think are her potty rules to follow:

1. You must ALWAYS strip down to nothing before going potty, unless of course you are wearing a nightgown or a dress that you don't know how to pull out of the way...then it's ok to leave it on.

2. Never admit to mommy that you are capable of putting one item of that clothing back on. I need her to fully dress me each and every time.

3. It's ok not to sit too far back on the potty, it's fun to watch it fly over the edge onto the ground sometimes. There's no need to report that when it happens, wait for it to be a surprise for the next persons foot!

4. I'm pretty sure the 11th command is NEVER EVER flush the toilet.

5. There is absolutely no need to put the lid down, Rylee likes to play in the water so I'm just providing entertainment. Plus the yellow water is more eye catching!

6. Always tell them you have to go potty after they put you to bed, I'm still newly trained enough that they have to give in and let me get up so as not to ruin the progress made.

Good luck to all the future potty trainers out there! I would love to hear your toddler stories and if you think boys or girls are messier!??!

Where There's A Will, There's A Way

Doesn't she look sweet! And she is but she's also willfull. She knows the word no, it's whether she chooses to obey that is the question.


This is the Rylee during the day...determined to get what she's after and today happened to be Emily's computer. There's always been a chair pushed in to the desk but today she figured out how to scoot the chair out and push herself up on it to play with her favorite thing in the world, (other than the "real" telephone), the computer mouse. I kept taking her down and telling her no. So I decided to fold up the chair and lean it against the desk so it wouldn't be a temptation for her. Left the room only to find her doing this...

And the next thing she attempted was to fully scale the chair to get up on the computer desk to play with it. She is so determined. We decorated for Christmas, and no I'm not kidding-Mike is just as determined as her! Well, Rylee took one look at all those cool ornaments hanging on the tree and is, again, determined to get each and every one. With Emily and Ally they never bothered the tree, but not Rylee. She doesn't care how much trouble she gets into, it is totally worth it to her. Mike and I have a mental tally of how many broken ornaments there will be this season!

On a side note, she had her 15 mo. checkup this past week. She of course looked great. I really don't think they find otherwise unless they had a previous medical problem! She is finally on the growth curve so that's a plus. She weighed in at 20 lbs even, with all her diaper and clothes on that is. I guess now she's old enough to get on the real scale! She was 30.5 inches tall, I think, that parts a little sketchy. It's either that or 31.5. Anyway, she's growing great!

A Few Fun Things...

This is just a little post of some of the fun things the girls have done...more for my memories down the road but the pictures are cute.

The first pictures is of family movie night Sunday. We bought Polar Express in 3D. The glasses didn't work too well so we ended up watching the regular version but that's ok. Ally really liked the movie and has insisted on watching it ever since. I think it was her first time watching it. We plan on picking a new holiday movie each Sunday until Christmas because there are so many good ones out there.

The second picture is just a funny one of Rylee after finishing a half a graham cracker with chocolate frosting. The girls wanted a treat so each of them got to have one. I think by the looks of her, Rylee liked hers!

I'm trying to catch her with Rylee's "pucker up" face she always makes. Ally can get her to do it the most often. But you know how the camera's have a little delay before they take? Well, she's done doing it by the time it snaps, that and she's already figured out, at the old age of 15 mo., that you can see the picture on the digital camera so I can barely take a picture without her coming around to see the picture.

Date Day

Mike and I had our normal date day except for one thing...we didn't spend it excercising all day. We decided to mix it up and go to the movies. But don't worry all you fellow competitors out there, we didn't go for the popcorn!

We saw The Changeling. I personally think it was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It was over two hours long and it kept my attention the entire time.

It was an intruiging, yet very sad, true story of a woman who's son went missing in 1928 that eventually opened up to a police scandal, a cover-up, and a cereal murderer. I was very captivated and it left me not only wanting to see more but to learn more. I came home and read a little more about what happened.

Don't get me wrong, it was not a feel good movie but I think knowing it really happened made it intruiging. I think it was written and directed very well. I could definilty feel the emotion in every aspect of each actors character.

I definitly recommend this movie.

My Three Bee's

In case you can't tell...in order it's Emily, Ally, and Rylee!

The Princesses and the Bee

I'm a little late on the Halloween post but I thought better late than never.

We had a nice, yet wet, Halloween. Thursday, Emily got to wear her costume to school and have a costume parade and a little party. It happened to be rainy and cold that day and Em's costume wasn't the warmest. But, I figured she wouldn't die and she didn't want to wear a shirt underneath so off she went...and she was fine. She also looked very cute as her favorite princess, Ariel.

Allyson got to be her favorite princess also, (and the best part was that we already had the dress!), Cinderella. She was so excited to be wearing her dress and the black chocker just like Cinderella.

And Rylee was our third little bumblebee. Emily wore the costume at 10 mo. old, Ally at 9 mo. and now Rylee at almost 15 gets to wear it. It wasn't her first Halloween but it still counts. She looked really cute and surprisingly didn't touch the black on her nose. When I did Em's when she wore it, she wiped it right off.

Emily had Friday off of school so we relaxed that day, went to Nana's for a while and came home and at 6:15 there was a small break in the downpour and we went trick or treating. There weren't a lot of people home but we managed to get the motherload of candy somehow. I think the people who were giving out candy were handing out handfulls because there weren't a lot of trick or treaters. Plus, we only had about 3 trick or treaters so we had a huge bowl of good candy left over. So for this weeks "dieting" (yeah right), I had a plate of choc. chip cookies calling to me along with leftover cupcakes from school and all that yummy candy. So terrrible!