Third Birthday

How can my child possibly be three years old? I remember everything from pregnancy on like it was just yesterday! Having a sweet little baby that I was sure would wither away and die if I was out of eyesight and/or earshot for more than 60 seconds. Now we have a sweet little opinionated, lively little preschooler. Just doesn't seem possible to me...

Enjoying some gifts:



Love this of my Daddy and Abby, like they're thinking really hard about something...


Ashleigh and Abby with cousin Jayden


Abby enjoying some leftover cake Sunday. She even had it in her ears!


My children shouldn't be dressed like this on December 10th!!! It's 80 today!


This big honking cake took two cake mixes!!! Glad it turned out OK.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, I'm posting twice in one month...put it on your calendar. If anyone's still reading, that is. Not that I can blame anyone but myself for that.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I took some photos of the girls outside Sunday afternoon, thought I'd share....

Hello out there!!

If anyone out there is even bothering to check anymore, I'm still here!

Just been really busy and to be honest, just a little down in the dumps. Nothing serious, really, not in the grand scheme of things. It's just money, right? Kenneth constantly assures me everything will fine. And it will be.

The girls are doing great. Ashleigh is such a little girl now. Nothing really "baby" left about her. Except for her absolute refusal to be totally potty trained. That's making me crazy. But she is so sweet it's hard to stay mad long. Same goes for Abby. Like this morning, for example. She peed on me and then started laughing. How could I be mad at such a cutie? I just laughed with her, told her what a stinker she was as I put her diaper on and then quickly changed clothes. Got to admit, I'm ready for the time when the girls bodily functions aren't such an issue. Oh, I dream of the day when they just "go potty" all by themselves!!! (And for any parents out there, you'll understand this: I also dream of the day when I get to "go potty" all by myself!)

Ashleigh's third birthday is less than a month away!!!! How crazy is that?? It doesn't seem that long ago that she was the 9 month old and Kenneth and I were thinking we'd probably be a family of three. Now we have a preschooler AND a 9 month old! It's just nuts to me.

Enough of my rambling, how about I just show some photos?!?

From Halloween:



At about 6:30 on Halloween night, Ashleigh decided she wanted a costume change; to be a princess. Oh goody!!!!

Typical Ashleigh-always hamming it up!


Got some really cute shots of Abby at 8 months:


But for 9 months, this was about the only "decent" one out of the bunch:


But OH!!! The blackmail fun we'll have with the ones that look like this:



Another shot of the girls. It might be hard to get the "perfect shot" of them, especially together. BUT one thing's for certain. In years to come when we look back at all these photos, two things will be perfectly clear: They love eachother and we were always having fun!

Sweet Girls

Here are a couple of shots from the monthly photo shoot. I didn't realize until after that Ashleigh had food (I hope!) all around her month. Thank goodness for Photoshop.




Took Abby to the dermatologist this morning and got some prescription medications to clear up (hopefully) her ezcema. One of the meds is something similar to Benadryl, but stronger, according to the doctor. He said it should "help her rest" at night. I don't know if he could tell how sleep deprived I am or what, but I wanted to tell him I'd come back and give him a hug if it knocked her out! To say she hasn't been sleeping well lately would be an understatement. Lately, 5 hours of sleep scattered through the night is a "good" night's sleep. 3 hours is an average for me. I'm feeling a little zombie-like. It's worse than her newborn days!!!

Both girls are over their little stomach bug--I hope. I'm tired of all those unexpected surprised!

this & that

Here are a few shots of the girls on Labor Day. Everyone always comments on how happy Abby always is, smiling all the time-but why can't I capture that on camera? People will think she never smiled as a baby! And it's been awhile since I shared any photos of Ashleigh with her hair down & halfway fixed! She was thoroughly dirty from playing with sidewalk chalk, but I still think she's cute!



These photos are to demonstrate the size of my children. The photos are cute in and of themselves. BUT Ashleigh's friend Jordan is about 2 years older than her. And she's a normal size child--look how tall Ashleigh is next to her!! And Abby...those cute little PJs she's in? They are size 24 months!!! Do you see how well they fit??? She's still wearing some 6-9 month stuff in her regular clothes, but in sleepers forget it! I think they're going to be tall like their daddy.



Now for anyone who watches the Travel Channel: There's a show, I think it's called Bizzare Foods with [host's name]. Kenneth watches it some. And a few nights ago, they were on the coast in Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama. I was horrified that the guy was eating raccoon and oppossum in Mississippi!! YUCK, GROSS and YUCK some more. EEEWWWW. Not only have I never eaten those things, I didn't know people ate those animals. Like chitterlins weren't bad enough. And NO, I won't try those either. Nor will I eat frog, turtle or mountain oysters. Or regular oysters. If you don't know what mountain oysters are, don't ask. I wish I didn't know. OK, enough of that.

About 2 am after another bout of Ashleigh being sick in the middle of the night, we got in "Daddy's" recliner to watch cartoons. I didn't want to have to fiddle with the DVR every 30 minutes until she went to sleep, so I tuned in to Sprout-the PBS kids channel-because I knew nothing innappropriate would be on there. I'd never seen the Teletubbies or Boobahs, Boombahs, whatever they are. I might have been deliriously tired, but I'm sure that the people who make those shows are on drugs. Aging hippies doing acid maybe, I don't know. But Ashleigh LOVED it. A little too much because not only didn't she go to sleep, but kept wanting to talk about what was happening.

WHAT!!!

No way it's been a month and a half since I last blogged. Man, time really does fly, I suppose.

Things are the same as ever. Too much to do, not enough time. Want to be thin, but apparently not badly enough, because I'm not. My babies are growing and seem to be more adorable every day. I know it seems impossible, but it's true! Not that Kenneth and I don't get a little frustrated with them from time to time, but that's all part of parenting. Right? ; )

Since I really don't have anything of interest to say, I'll resort to my usual: PHOTOS!
Ashleigh loving "Baby Abby":


We can either hope her fashion sense improves, OR that she will be a trend-setter:


That's right! In the south we all learn to operate heavy machinery before we turn three. (I'm joking, for anyone reading this who's a little dense.)




She's already practicing mothering skills...if she'd just put that energy into face washing and hair brushing...


Her aunt and uncle gave her this little toy phone for her first birthday and it's still one of her favorites!


A couple of shots from our "6 Month Photo Shoot." Hard to believe she'll be 7 months old Saturday!!! And she is trying to crawl. She wiggles, rolls and squirms everywhere now, but she's to that phase of getting up on her hands and knees and rocking front to back. She'll be racing around in no time!



Couldn't resist getting a few shots of this! Looking cute and eating dinner was just too much to take! She had to nap before bathtime.


Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Ours was pretty good. Aside from me ruining a tire by running over what we guess was pieces of a broken toilet Friday evening. Saturday, the girls and I did grocery shopping, which totally wiped me out; Sunday we were all pretty worthless and Monday we had lunch with some "new friends" as I explained to Ashleigh. A girl I graduated high school with has moved to town with her family and she got in touch with me. It's really cool to get to know her, her husband and daughter because we didn't really hang out together in school. Now I think we'll be good friends. Funny how time changes things, huh?

Guess What?

Just realized I hadn't posted to let you all know:
Ashleigh had a piece of foam larger than a quarter in her nose!!! Oh. My. God. It looked like she'd taken a huge (for her) bite out of a pink Nerf-type ball, then shoved it up her nose. Aside from the fact we don't let her have anything foamy like that because she bites, tears and makes a huge mess of it, like a puppy, I can't imagine how or why she'd put it up her nose! So far the pediatrician couldn't even see it! The ear, nose & throat doctor, Dr. Ryan Simmons, was awesome with Ashleigh. He was even getting me prepared to have a procedure done in the hospital. Then he saw it, and out it came! And you couldn't even tell by looking at her that anything was in there. Mind-boggling.

Aside from that, all is well. Things at home and work are wonderful, except for finances, but isn't that always the case? The girls will be on different health insurance at the end of the month and on a cheaper policy, which will help a bit.

Enough of all the gab, here are some pics of my beautiful babies:

Pretty Little Girls

Can't believe my baby was 5 months old Sunday! Oh, and she rolled over for the first time on July 3rd!


Ashleigh loves ponies & horses. This is her with Lanie's horsey at their house on July 4th. I swear she was smiling when I took the photo!


These were taken Father's Day weekend; that's my Daddy. This was my favorite of them, maybe because he looks so happy! Most everyone says Abby looks like him. His response is usually that she has more hair.


That same weekend, Ashleigh got in the pool with my parents. I decided just to hang out with Abby and take photos. Imagine that!


And I thought toddlers were messy! HA!!!! When she was about finished eating, she took the spoon from me, and I decided it was a good time for a photo.


Today, Kenneth is meeting me and Ashleigh at the pediatrician's office. We thought she had a cold, but over the course of a few phone calls, the doctor has decided she has shoved something up her nose. (I'll spare you the gory details!) We catch her doing stuff like that all the time, so I don't doubt it. Wish us luck, this will be horrible!

Also, on a sad note, we don't have a cat anymore. Last week, I took Abby to the doctor (too bad I don't get a frequency discount!) and mentioned some scratches on the back of her head. They looked terrible. We weren't seeing her usual pediatrician that day, and the one we saw said the cat must have done it. I was surprised because the cat doesn't get near the children. But we couldn't believe she'd done it to herself. So Kenneth bought a flea collar, moved his food, etc. to the patio and put him out. After several hours, he was gone and we haven't seen him since. He irritated the crap out of me sometimes, but I sure do miss him. And it seems like now everywhere I turn people are talking about cats!!! But he still had his claws and was quite the hunter, so maybe he's just out "cattin' around." I sure hope so....