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!!!

Our Advanced Skills Child Allyson

Jamie and I were looking at the progress of Allyson today and only have one more week until the official results. This is kind of like training for the Olympics as the work can be pretty difficult each day. Allyson knows the extra work she puts into this will be well worth the effort.

In one more week, Allyson is working to be able to Smile, Laugh and Hold the Head at a 45 degree angle. This would put her into the category of being able to do things that most kids have not mastered.

The smiles from Allyson are getting close. Jamie needs to be able to finish better on her jokes as Allyson does not seem to be totally sold on the humor.

Laughing will soon follow as soon as we can get some solid smiles out of her.

She has great strength with the head and I think that we will have no issues with Master Skill #3 when the official results come out next week.

Beyond all those measures, Allyson has mastered the skill of getting proud parents who love her so much! She has us learned to work us over and become an expert in the ability to get our attention with everything she does.

She's Stylin' Now!

Emily LOVES to play dress up. She loves it so much that we would find her wearing interesting outfits at 10:00 at night while she was supposed to be asleep. We finally put locks on her drawers so she would sleep instead of changing her clothes. But occasionally she gets "open drawer day" and this is the kind of outfits she puts together. I think she gets her sense of style from her daddy?! This one is actually very mild, the skirt actually matches the shirt somewhat. Her favorite outfits are very crazy. But she thinks she looks beautiful and that's all that matters!

Allyson's First Bath

Allyson's bath was a huge success and we plan to do it again as parents. Jamie prepared the water which was just right but we made the mistake of waiting too long. Allyson let us know right away that the water was too cold. So I came to the rescue and rushed some warmer water into her bath to complete a great experience for Allyson.

We couldn't give her first bath until the umbilical cord fell off which was last night. I'm not sure where it ended up and I'm just hoping that Emily did not get ahold of it.

Allyson is still eating a lot which makes us think that the size of the bathtub for Allyson may be outgrown very soon and we may have to upgrade her to the human size tub in the near future.

I can never get Emily to keep her "footy" pajamas on. She always wants to wear her princess dress up clothes to bed. But for some reason, last night she kept them on. So Ally and Emily had on similar pajamas. They looked really cute all cuddled up and warm. And this is a rare glimpse of Ally's eyes open. She really has very pretty eyes when she decides to wake up. I think it had to do with the fact that Emily was holding her. She already loves to stare at her big sister when she is around. I think Ally finds her more entertaining than the rest of us!

Big sister at last!

Emily's first meeting with her new baby sister was on January 11th and she loves her new little Ally. She wants to hold her a lot and her biggest concern is that Ally has no teeth. I think that really worries her! Both of them are doing really well and have settled nicely into their new roles as big and little sister.