Pictures of the New House

The long awaited photos of our new house!

The outside of the house from the front. Notice my clean and organized garage!

The Kitchen. Loving the Granite. The Dishwasher is so quite that you would never know that it was on. This makes it nice to watch a Giants game in the evening as the only noise you hear is Barry Bonds hitting HR's! We have some taller Bar Stools on order.



Our Dining Room with the Tall Table and Tall Chairs. Great for playing Texas Hold'em! Looking forward to Winter with the Fire-Place and Leather Couch! The only thing missing will be the Giants games on TV this Winter. The good news is that we have the TIVO to watch all 162 games over again this Winter. You think the players only watch video to get better? Wrong, as I have to watch video of the Giants to learn how to become a better fan!




Up the stairs we go! Make a Left and you'll see as much as the loft as we could get in the photo. Great to relax as we have a nice computer area up here.



Emily is very proud of her room that she put together all by herself :)

Ally's room looks almost exactly like the old house!

Our Bedroom, Walk in Closet to the Right of the bed. The TV is mounted on the wall. The cords will be hidden behind the dresser.

Below you'll see the Master Bath in our room and then Emily and Ally's Bath-Room to the right.

Come by and Visit Anytime. We have room for two to sleep upstairs in the loft or Two to sleep down-stairs in the living room!

All moved in!

This past weekend we were finally able to move in to our house. We got our keys Wednesday and started slowly moving stuff. My mom and I came in Wed. and Thur. night and painted the girls rooms. They turned out really cute. I'll post some of Em's room soon. Ally's room looks the same as it did at the old house.
It was a little crazy because Emily got sick on Wed. and then Ally and Mike on Friday. So We were all running around with colds but Everyone seemed to do okay so we moved on. But it was worth it because all the boxes are unpacked and everything is in its place and we are just enjoying it now. It was nice to move on a holiday weekend as we get an extra day to relax before we get back to the routine of day to day life. And yes, it must be said, I never want to move again! Although I'm sure we will, but I can pretend that we never have to pack and unpack a house again. And by the way, the only bad thing about having a house with stairs is moving into a house with stairs. Up and down for three full days is exhausting. If it weren't for all the fast food we ate during the weekend I would have lost 5 lbs!
We also just want to give a quick shout out to those who helped us move. There was no way Mike and I could have done this by ourselves and your help was wonderful and we are so thankful to have all of you as friends and family. Thanks again! And to any of you who move in the future, count us in! Just not in the next week or two.

Pictures of the girls

Mike finally had a few minutes to show me how to transfer our images from our new camera onto our blog. so here are a few cute ones. The first is of Emily and Mike washing our car. She loves to help him, but mainly gets herself all wet. The second is of Allyson standing up, her FAVORITE thing to do. It's funny because she just started crawling a couple weeks ago and the only crawling she wants to do is to go to something that she can pull herself up on and stand there. She looks SO proud of herself when she finally gets up, which is getting faster and easier each time. I'm thinking we'll have an early walker for sure! She also crawls to things she isn't supposed to have and when we tell her no, she sits down and dissolves into tears with a broken heart. It's very cute, even if she doesn't think so!
The bottom two are of Emily on her first day of preschool. She was so excited and when I dropped her off, she just ran into the room and didn't look back. She is also the Only child that when I come to pick her up cries. The other kids come running MOMMY MOMMY and throw themselves into their parents arms. Not my child, she tell me to go home again! But I guess that is a good thing! She has already learned a bible verse and seems to be totally involved and enjoying it.

Big Week For Allyson

Ally totally skipped the scooting phase and went strait to crawling. She started cruising around yesterday and she is able to pull herself up on some things. Plus, she learned to say papa and mama this week. I can't believe how fast she is growing up!

Did you know Peter Pan goes to church?

Emily had a cute "revelation" at church on Sunday. It takes a little background to give you the full idea of what happened, so bear with me!

Our friend, Rebekah, who goes to church with us, was recently Peter Pan in a play at our local theater. She has a beautiful voice and actually has natural red hair. So she got it cut pixy style for this play, ( I was very impressed what she was willing to do to fill this role to the best of her ability). She is also very petite and was perfect for Peter Pan. So naturally we got tickets to the first show and got almost front row seats. Emily had a blast but as most of you know, Emily is pretty much scared of everything and that included Peter Pan. She was fine with "him" during the play but when Rebekah came out so we could tell her what a great job she did, Emily didn't want to go near her.

So a couple weeks passed by and it happened that with vacations and church activities that Rebekah didn't sing very much during the Sundays between the play and this past Sunday. So when we got to our church on Sunday and she was up front waiting to sing, Emily was literally clinging to my dad with her head buried in his shirt, we were all scratching our heads trying to figure it out. We thought that maybe it was because we were in a new building but during nursery she was fine. As soon as nursery ended and she went back into the gym, she started freaking out again. As soon as Rebekah came up to her and told her that her dress was pretty, Em stuck her fingers in her ears and ran the other way, almost in terrified tears. We weren't sure what was wrong with her. But later nana figured it out. She realized that the only time Emily was scared was when Rebekah came near her. And at the beginning of church she kept telling my mom that she was trying to get to daddy, but refused to go see him. And since Rebekah was singing with Mike that day, she was standing right next to him. Later that night, my dad asked her if she had seen Peter Pan recently. And she said "Yes." So he asked her where and she said she had seen him at church and that she didn't like him.

Poor Rebekah, who has known Emily forever, will always now be known as Peter Pan and Emily will probably be scarred in church for a long time. Who knew Peter Pan went to church?

Family Update

Mike and I recently bought a much needed new camera. It's a great camera and came with a great picture program. But I haven't figured out how to get the pictures from the camera to the BLOG. So, I'll just give you a quick update on the with our Family and put Mike to work tonight.

As most of you have been wondering, our house will be done and ready to move into on September 1st!!! YEAH!!! We have our new address and phone number and will send it out via e-mail in the next few weeks. We also traded our gas guzzling van with a more efficient car. We bought a new Chevrolet HHR. It's really cute and just perfect for our little family. We decided that a car is plenty of room since we are pretty sure we are happy with just the four of us, sorry all of you grandparents out there! I guess it's up to our siblings to continue providing grandchildren.

Allyson is growing up very fast, as usual! She has been sitting by herself for quite some time and it's rather challenging putting her to bed because she immediately pops back up and plays. But she put's herself to sleep. She is also super close to crawling, going so far as to take one small crawling step. But she hasn't quite perfected it yet. She even pulled herself almost to a standing position today at the doctors office. I personally think she'll walk before Emily did, but I've been wrong before! She is still a very happy baby and loves to squawk and say blah blah blah. She still isn't saying mama or dada though.

Emily is getting excited about preschool. She starts two weeks from today and has proclaimed that she doesn't need to wait that she is now tall enough to go.

The girls and I just got back from four days on the coast. My friend Jen has a girl Em's age and a baby Ally's age and we took all four girls over to the coast by ourselves. He parents have a permanent travel trailer over there. We had an awesome time and didn't want to come home. It was wonderful to get away from the 115 degree heat. We stayed very busy with the girls but overall it was still very relaxing. The four kids entertained each other so it was actually easier than being at home and being the single woman entertainment committee that I usually get to be. Then Mike and I took the girls to the Giants game on Sunday. They both seemed to have a lot of fun, and a miracle occured...the Giants actually pulled off a win.

Anyone need insurance? Mike's business is going really well. For any of you who live near here, you should come and see it. It looks really good. Mike and I have spent many hours framing and hanging pictures. He seems to really like it there, in fact so much that most days he gets ther at 7 and gets home at 7! Maybe we should use the same decor at our house! Kidding aside, it is a lot of work for him but I think he has finally found his niche in life and we are truly happy that he has had this opportunity.

I hope you have all enjoyed our long update. A lot seems to be changing and happing in our life but I tried to condense it down for you all! I'll get some new pics of the house, car, and girls asap. And in a couple of weeks a very cute little girl on her first day of preschool!

Just an Emily update, it's been a while.

I'm loving Emily at three, (for the most part!). She says the FUNNIEST things every day. I wish I could remember them all. But this one is a nightly routine so easy to remember. When it gets close to bedtime we always tell her to put on her pull up, (we aren't quite night trained), and her pajamas. She runs into the bedroom and is gone for a long time so one of us goes and checks on her. Usually what we find is a naked girl looking for, what would you guess?? No not pajamas but shoes. You see, according to our little girl, socks and shoes are essential to bedtime. You can't put on pajamas unless you have socks and shoes. We've tried telling her that she doesn't need them, but anyone who knows Emily knows her one track mind. By the way, she TOTALLY gets that from Mike, like you wouldn't believe. They are two peas in a pod. So on go the shoes and socks. The funny part is, she never looks matching and she cracks me up. Tonight, as you can see, she is wearing black Patton shoes, red socks, pooh pajamas with a black t-shirt she decorated on top. And some nights she'll come running down the all totally naked and upset because she can't find the other shoe that matches the one in her hand. And no matter how much you tell her she doesn't need to shoe and to go get dressed, she will come back until she finds the other shoe, so we learned not to waste our breath and to just get up and find the other shoe for her.

On another note, her new word is lasterday. We think it means yesterday but we aren't entirely sure. But in Emilyland lasterday happens a lot.

Emily is now totally potty trained and mommy is SOOOOOOOO happy. So true to our word, she gets to go to preschool starting August 21st. The preschool we enrolled her in is at a church that is very charismatic. We figured they are the most equipped to handle our enthusiastic daughter. I'm sure they'll claim her as their holy spirit filled holy roller!! She is really excited. I think she'll really enjoy it, she's only been asking to go to school since she was able to talk. Unfortunately, I don't know how she'll take it when she realizes she won't be able to ride the bus to school. That would be the ultimate dream come true for her!!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E- You betcha'!

For the past week Emily has been saying "You betcha' " to us for anything we ask her to do. For example...

Adult: "Emily, you need to put her plate in the sink"
Emily: "You Betcha' "

Adult: "Emily, You need to get dressed."
Emily: "You Betcha' "

And she does this hand motion with it. She has been saying it off and on for a long time, but the last few weeks has intinsified. And she says it with such enthusiasm. "YOU BETCHA' MOMMY" We've wondered where she got it and finally Nana figured it out one morning. It is from the mickey mouse club that the disney channel plays every day. Mickey Mouse always says, "You Betcha' " and does that hand motion. It is really cute, if not a little over done. We wouldn't mind her finding a new phrase to use once in a while. But we usually laugh anyway.

The other funny thing we figured out about her is that when we will say "kids" she will always say..."and girls". We found that "kids" means boys to her. So there are always kids and girls at the park. Not boys and girls, but kids and girls. She LOVES girls to play with so the boys don't really even get recognized, their just kids. But girls, now they are worth mentioning. I was watching her at the water park today, she never really goes up to the boys but she always makes a little girl friend. I didn't think cooties affected boys at so young an age!!

Ally 6 month update

Ally turned 6 months on Monday and to celebrate that momentous occasion I took her to the doctor for an hour and 15 min. visit with some shots at the end. She was very grateful I'm sure! Anyway, she weighed in at 16lbs 0 oz. and was 28 inches long. She is exactly 1lb bigger than Em was at this age and 1/2 an inch longer. I thought she was going to be shorter than Emily but I guess Ally is bigger over all. Although, I think Ally will slow down as she still doesn't think baby food is necessary, not even the fruits I thought she would love.

We also learned an important lesson on Sunday night. Nana had made cake and Ice cream and everyone was out on the porch eating it and Ally was the lucky recipient of 2 tiny bites of ice cream which she immediately spit out. Unfortunately within minutes her face swelled up and broke out in huge hives. It looked horrible and freaked me out. So definitely no more sneaking bites of ice cream for Allyson.

Just Some Cute Pictures

The first picture of the girls in the bathtub was the first bath that Em and Ally took together. I decided doing two separate bath times was not good time management so I bought the bathtub Ally can sit in with Em. They both loved it and entertained each other, another bonus there! It was really cute to see them playing.

The next two pictures are at my brother in laws wedding this past weekend. Mike, Em and I were all in it. It was a beautiful wedding and of course Em made it a laughing experience. Right when the three girls, (Emily and my 3 yr and 6 yr old neices), were about to go down the isle, her cousin Abby stopped abruptly and Emily, who was holding her hand, tripped. She decided to use that time on the floor to start making snow angels. When she got up again, she did make it down the isle, (running and holding her dress up to her knees), but she made it down. Overall, the three girls did really well. They looked adorable and I think had a lot of fun. But at the end of the day...it was great putting them to bed!

Bananas for Nana

My mom LOVES the jars of baby banana food. When Em was a baby she hated the bananas. So when we had Ally she was hoping that Ally would love the bananas so she could feed them to her and have an excuse to sneak in a couple of bites. So yesterday I bought a jar of bananas in the a.m. and waited until Nana got home to feed them to her. And as the picture shows, she didn't care for them either. She spit out pretty much every bite, we even tried mixing them with oatmeal and ended up throwing away a whole serving of oatmeal she would not eat. Poor nana, there are no banana babies in this family!!

YUMMM!!! Squash

Ally has finally found that food isn't half bad. She will eat peas, squash, mixed veggies and sweet potatoes. She is definitly more picky than Emily was. I keep trying to tell her she can't enter the yummy world of fruit until she masters the veggies, but she doesn't seem overly concerned! She would still be very happy with just me feeding her! She's funny because, as you'll see in the second picture, she always sticks her tongue out as far as she can when she is opening her mouth for a bite. It makes it a little tricky to keep the food in! I was going to wait until 6 months to feed her solids but I waited to give her a bottle and now she WON'T take a bottle whatsoever. So we started early and I'm glad we did because it took her about a month to get it. Emily is very curious about what Ally is eating. She has to try everything. She never likes it. Though most of the time when you ask her if it was good she says yes, but kindly declines another bite!

Ally also rolled from tummy to back 2 days before her 5th month. Daddy was very excited that she did it before five months, he was very concerned about that. Come on Ally, don't you know daddy has you on a schedule?? Plus, if we put her in a sitting position she can sit by herself for a long time. She loves that. I think she'll love it when she is mobile. She is showing signs of being a busy baby, you might start praying for me now!!

This ones for you Kari...

This is Devon missing Mommy!!

Here are the pics of the girls swimming...

Ally's Pictures

If you want to get a sneak peek at Ally's latest pictures, here is where you can go...

To get started, click below and enter your Customer Name (jamie littau):
https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTP20901048008JCP
or go to http://www.smilesbywire.com and enter the following:
Customer Name: jamie littau
Access Code: LTP20901048008JCP

I think they turned out really cute. Click on each individual picture for a bigger and much clearer view.

Emily and Ally's first swim of the Summer

My parents, the girls and I all got passes to our water park this year and today was the first day we went. I went shopping and got the girls matching swim suits, they are so cute! I'll have pics up next time we go but the camera ran out of batteries before I could snap one picture. Anyway, there is a kid area there with 3-4 small water slides and last year Em loved them. This year when we first got there she refused to go down any of them. I eventually drug her up to the top and pretty much "helped" her down the slide. When she got to the bottom, she couldn't get back fast enough to go again. I eventually pursuaded her to try all of them and she was in water slide heaven. Plus, as an added bonus for mom and nana, she completely wore herself out without wearing me out! My mom and I got to sit on the sidelines with a sleeping Ally and kick back. Ally, on the other hand, was okay with her feet in the water until another kid splashe two tiny drops on her and it was all over. If we even started to lower her in the direction of the water she would sob. The five minutes in the water wore her out and she was a sideline baby the rest of the time. But that's okay. It's totally fun watching Emily giggle her way up and down the water slide with, as she calls them, "all her friends".

Where's The Fire?

This morning, Emily, Ally and I were walking out of the classroom our church meets in to go outside to the nursery building, which is a modular next door. Anyway, I got caught up talking to someone and Em ran ahead, or so I thought. As soon as I could break away I ran to the nursery building and all the way back to the classroom we have it in. And to my dismay, no Emily. I ran back out and walked into the building where the classroom to our church was, and I asked those around me if they had seen Em. Just as I finished asking, the fire alarm in the huge 2 store library/classroom wing went off. My first thought? No, not that a fire has broken out but that Emily has done something. Call it experience or mother's intuition but I was correct. WAY down the hall and around the corner Emily had pulled the fire bell. The bell was followed by loud screams, so Joel, Leslie, and I ran down the hall at a sprint. She was terrified at what she had done. She hung on to poor Joel for dear life when he got to her. The fire department had to come out and turn the alarm off, which by the way is ear peircing we've found out. This week church started over a half an hour late. I hope we didn't single handedly get ourselves booted out of Simpson for good!

I'm sure you have seen enough of my blogs, but...

I thought this was so cute. She is really not feeling good from her shots and the little bear was the only thing that would make her happy. She just sat there and held it. She is really enjoying blankets and animals lately, something which my girls have in common! This bear was supposed to go to Tricia from Kari, but Em fished it out and I didn't find it until after the box was shipped. Sorry girls, but Ally is enjoying it if it is any consolation.

Four Month Update

Ally had her four month check up today. It went really well. The doctor says she looks wonderful and is very strong. The nurse was surprised she could stand up like she does. She gets a lot of practice with that, it's her favorite position when she is in our laps. She loves to stand and smile. We even put her in her walker and she is able to hold herself up, she thinks it's great. She weighed in at 14lbs. 8oz. and was 26 inches long, which puts her in the 75th percentile for height. Em and her are pretty close, Ally being a little more round. At four months Em was 25.5 inches and weighed 13lbs. 6oz. But we love Ally's thunder thighs, they are so cute!! She is now also cleared to eat cereals and yellow/orange veggies. However, someone should explain that to her because she doesn't think she needs anything but what mommy can offer. But we'll keep trying. She also got 3 shots, and all in all she handled it very well. As soon as she pulled the last shot out she stopped crying. I think Emily took it harder than Ally, it freaked her out a little. Although, I think a little part of her was just glad it wasn't her. She hates shots of course and made it known that she didn't need any! By the time we got home, both girls were very happy and ready to play!

A conversation with God...

Last night Emily was in bed and she kept telling me she was scared. I think she could hear the suspensful music from the movie Mike and I were watching. So after the movie I went in and laid down with her for a minute. She started chatting as usual and the subject of the morning came up. She said, "mommy, God will bring up the son in the morning and then we can get out of bed." I said, "Yup, but it isn't time yet." and she said, "Mommy, Jesus is coming back soon." And I said, "He is." And so I asked her why is Jesus coming back. And she told me, "because he loves us and wants to be with us. He is going to come down from heaven and get us." VERY surprised she not only knew that but was telling me very adult like, I told her that she was right and asked her who told her that. And she looked at me, Like Duh mom, and said, "Jesus did". I said Jesus told you that? And she said yes, and even pointed to where Jesus was when he told her. Then she went on to tell me how Jesus lives in Heaven and loves us and then repeated the whole thing about how Jesus will be here soon. I was shocked. We talk about how Jesus lives in heaven but haven't gotten as far as he is coming back and so forth. I've asked around, my parents, nursery workers, family etc. and no one explained that to her. I'm not totally sure who taught her that. Maybe someone will enlighten me on that end! Anyway, I've learned we should never under estimate what God can help our children understand. And you never know, maybe God did talk to her!!

Mike has been begging me to let him give Ally baby cereal, so I finally broke down and let him try. She is almost four months, and the doctor said four to six months is the time to try. Anyway, the first picture is her first bite and the second is her reaction. She wanted nothing to do with it. She wouldn't even open her mouth for it. She just stared at us like "No, don't even try." She is really a nurser, she just took a bottle on Monday night. We went to the Jesus tour concert and didn't want to take her. So she was kind of forced to take a bottle, luckily she did really well. It was a big step for mommy to be able to finally leave the house for short periods of time!! The third pic is just one I thought was cute. Mike couldn't believe that I was actually going to let her wear her adorable little "do-rag", I thought it was cute and I got a lot of comments from other women.

That's all for now...Ally goes into the doctor on Tuesday so I'll write with all her new info next week. Just to let you know...she's a chunk!! She'll be taking down Emily soon, if she can catch her that is!!

Mike's Tests

Mike just recently had to take two tests for his securities licenses, series 6 and 63. I'm not sure that I've ran into anyone that passed them the first time but Mike did. He took one on Monday and one this morning and got over 86% on both of them. So he did really well. I'm really proud of him, he worked really hard for these. Now I think he can finally concentrate on the agency with full force. Watch our Redding!!

Anyone in need of a mutual fund now? =)

First Laugh

Today was one of those mornings that wasn't going well. I wasn't in the best mood. Ally had woken up at 5:00 a.m., (did I mention I'm really not a morning person?), and it kind of went down hill for me after that. Nothing I really had a right to be aggravated over, but I was anyway. Around 8:15 I was changing and dressing Ally and she was still a little fussy, (It think she is teething judging by the drool and fussyness), so to try and get her to smile I blew a raspberry on her chest and got a really cute laugh...her fist laugh. I repeated it several times with the same response. It took my bad mood instantly away, how could it not? It was so nice to be able to hear her first laugh, reserved for mommy alone. She has been trying to laugh over the last few weeks but has not quite gotten there, I think God knew I would need it this morning and saved it for me. What a blessing to hear her laugh! Sorry Nana! I know you've been working overtime trying to get that first laugh!!

Easter

We had a great Easter this year. The weather turned out to be somewhat decent and so we were able to enjoy part of the day without getting soaked. Emily really enjoyed getting her Easter basket this year, she is really getting old enough to enjoy holidays. Allyson, as you can see from the car seat picture, was totally excited that morning!! Emily got princess fairy wings in her Easter basket since she loves to dress up and so we put the Easter basket out on the table after she fell asleep. That way she would find it in the morning. Unfortunately, Mike found her around Midnight with all the lights on in the living room, dead asleep on the sofa with her wings on. I guess she found it a little early!

Some pictures of Ally, Emy, and Devon...

To update you on the girls...Ally is continuing to get bigger and bigger! It seems like she changes weekly. She is really developing a personality now. She is very sweet and loves to be talked to. She is now sleeping ten to eleven hours at night. Yeah! She also loves to sit up in your lap and look around. She pretty much will do anything you want her to. She is getting very strong in her neck and legs. She can pretty much stand and hold our hands now, she really likes that. We call her bubbles because her favorite thing to do is make bubbles come out of her mouth. If she isn't doing that though, it's because her tongue is out. I think she is like a snake, all of her five senses are in her tongue! I've never seen a child with their tongue hanging out as much as she does! It's actually really cute! Emily is doing good too. She is very excited since Mike and I got a gym membership and she gets to go to "school" as she calls it, (it's their child care). She has a blast doing that and it's all she wants to do. They also have a pool and she is like a little fish. She hangs on to one of those noodles and swims around with no floaties or life jacket. She won't let anyone help her! The cute little boy in the picture is their cousin Devon, he is getting bigger too but Ally could still take him!! He is a very quiet baby and very sweet. He loves to be held. We got to watch him last night and that was a lot of fun. Poor little guy, he's surrounded by women! I hope you enjoy the pictures. You have to check out Ally's cute chuncky legs in the picture where she is sitting up, they are so cute! I love them. Emily was so skinny we never really got much of that with her.

What a way to wake up!

This morning Mike yells into our room that Emily had gotten into something and it was EVERYWHERE! I come running into the living room and found Em looking like this. She had gotten into the Nivea cream that we use on Ally and pretty much covered herself with thick layers of cream. And not only was she covered but Papa's new chair was covered and some spots on the carpet. I guess she got bored waiting for us to get out of bed and the cartoons weren't cutting it this morning. It was into the shower for Emily, much to her dismay and we had to run to the store for carpet cleaner.

Pictures...

The first set of pictures taken of our girls will be mailed out in the next few weeks. I took them to JC Penny's to have their pictures taken. They turned out really cute and they were worth the work that it took to get them! It felt like a circus. My plan had been to get them done Tuesday by myself but due to scheduling errors they had to reschedule. So I decided to go with Saturday so my mom or Mike could go with me. All I can say is that I'm pretty sure God looked ahead and saw what pictures would be like with two girls and took pitty on me, and made it so I had to reschedule when someone could be there to help me. Emily, who normally LOVES getting her picture taken and will do anything that the lady asks without hesitation, was all over the place. She would go limp, laugh like a mad woman, and do anything but sit and pose for a picture. Ally, who never cries, screamed almost the whole time. I was literally using my finger as a pacifer for Ally while my mom held Emily in place and the photographer would count to three and we would all let go and pray the picture turned out good. Thankfully we did get some cute ones. It's funny to see yet another contrast in my girls. Em has loved the camera from the get go and so far, Ally is not a happy camper in front of the camera! Anyway, we'll send them out as soon as I get them and I hope you enjoy them, it might be a while before the next batch!!

Green bay packer and paintball pro!

Joel and Leslie, some friends of ours, watched Em today while Mike and I had an appointment. While she was there she did many girly things like being dressed up in his Greenbay packers Jersey and scarf. I think she must be pretty special to get to wear it as Joel is a HUGE fan. Mike is okay that she is wearing Green bay and not Chicago Bears as long as he doesn't try to make her a dodger fan or something. That would be a no no! She also got to play paintball. She has decided that she likes paintball very much. I was told she did rather well too! She seems to be enjoying herself. So much for dolls and barbies! But then, we didn't expect too much on the girly side as the doll she does have sits and collects dust for the most part.

Ally's room, well, old room

Here is a picture of Ally's nursery for those of you who never did get to see it in person. It turned out really cute! That was the hardest room to pack up. But I will say that by the time I got to it I didn't mind it being packed up because I was tired of packing.
Mike and I both said we would recreate it at the other out. We were told my realitors that her room was the favorite out of any room in our house.

Babies babies babies....

Congratulations to the two new babies in our small circle! Isabella Corrine born 02/09/06 weighing 8lbs 0 oz. 20 inch. long and Josh and Kari's baby boy,(finally a nephew!), weighing a tiny 5lbs. 12oz. 19 inches long and born at a perfect 4:48 p.m.. It was great we got to hold him and then go to dinner!! And Kari was excited because she got to watch American Idol!!

She's Smilin' Now

This is Ally's first smile caught on camera. She is really starting to show her personality a little more each day. If she would wake up more often then we would probably see a lot more smiles. She is such a happy baby when she is awake. I hope to work at getting a few more to put on. She doesn't really have her eyes open that wide here. She is beautiful when she smiles though. Her favorite place to smile is on the changing table of all places. That is where she seems to be her happiest. Go figure!

Like mother like daughter

Yesterday Mike and I were busy in our own projects during Ally's naptime and Emily's quiet time. And yes, this is another story about when my daughter was SUPPOSED to be having quiet time. Anyway, one of my mom's favorite stories about me was when I was about 2 years old and she put me down for a nap. When she came to check on me a while later I had taken a glass of water, wet the walls and furniture and then proceeded to plaster baby powder over the water. Unfortunately by the time she realized what I was doing it had all dried. Well, yesterday Emily did pretty much the same thing. She found powder and put it all over our bed and headboard. She was covered and so was pretty much everything else. Thankfully she didn't find any water but just powder. Still a huge mess to clean up though. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree! I would have gotten pictures but at the time I didn't find it funny at all. It wasn't until later when I realized that I had done the same thing when I was her age that I was able to laugh.

Update on girls...

Below are new pictures of the girls. The one with Emily in a skirt was her going to a friends birthday party. It was her first party without mommy or daddy. She was very excited. She kept telling us that she was going to the party and mommy and daddy were going to stay here. She had a blast and I was told did very well. But the mom scraped off the blue frosting from her cupcake so she wouldn't get it on her cute clothes and I heard about it all night. I don't know why she bothered, Em had pizza all over her shirt from the dinner she served!
The other is of Em feeding Ally, something I try to do as it allows her to be involved and feel special. And the others are of our growing little one. She is wearing an outfit that was a favorite of mine when Em was her age, actually a tad bit older, Em was smaller. Ally is doing well though. Still very easy going except in her car seat. She isn't too thrilled with that. But her cry is cute and we don't get to hear it very often. She is really starting to smile more and get a personality.

Pictures of our girls....

And Daddy's working at home....

As most of you read below, Mike is now self employed and that means he is working at home a lot. Yesterday a client called while Em was having "quiet time",(yeah right), in our room. As Mike was talking on the phone a little girl got on the line and was asking him if he was going to come watch a movie with her. Believing it was the clients little girl, he didn't want to offend her so he kept up a lengthy conversation with the little girl, telling her he was really busy right now and couldn't come to her house. Finally she stopped talking long enough for Mike to ask his client if that was her little girl. To his surprise, she said no. It turns out Emily had grabbed our other phone and was talking his ear off and he didn't even know it was his own daughter! He was so embarrassed. He had talked to her for a good 3 minutes. I was folding laundry on the couch at the time he figured out it was Em so I jumped up and made a bee line for my room and sure enough, there was Em, sitting on our bed happily talking to daddy and his client on the phone. I was laughing so hard I couldn't do anything but take the phone and hang it up very quickly. I think we all have to get used to a business being in our home for a while!

New Day and Congratulations to Everyone!

This morning marks a new transition in the lives of Jamie and I. Most of heard, but today marks the 1st day in the start of my goal I made a few years ago to be self employed. I am working today as an insurance agent and now own my own business! So, I'm under a new name, of Farmers Insurance.

I'm really happy in getting a chance to do what I'm doing. Looking at my life and the transition reminds me of the transitions that everyone else has...

* Mom and Dad are purchasing a house
* Tricia and Brian are having another baby
* Jeremy and Amy are getting married

You could see the excitement in my eyes about what I'm doing but the juices flow through my body when I get a chance to think about everyone else. I'm so happy for everyone and it is so cool in getting to see everyone so thrilled in life when I hear the exciting stories of the development leading up to the closure of each event.

But there is one thing I've learned through my life, we are in it together in the good and bad times. This is one of those times where a lot of scary but exciting things are happening with everyone. So as I reflect on today... congratulations to everyone and I'm so incredibly happy for everyone. All for one... and one for all!!!