Dancing Queen

It's finally time....Our oldest little girl starts ballet and tap class next week! This was one of the first things I dreamt of doing with her once the ultrasound tech said, "Looks like a girl!".

Addyson twirls around here, does plie's, and points her toes as if she's a ballerina :) So, I thought now was the time to sign her up. I went and got her ballet and tap shoes tonight, she'll be thrilled to try on those tap shoes for sure. I always enjoyed my ballet and tap classes as a child, I hope she will too!

The Backyard That Sealed The Deal

When we were looking at houses we had a few we liked, but we ended up choosing our house, the one with the biggest backyard. We have so enjoyed it! Every Spring we ask ourselves the same question, "Should we go ahead and get a pool this year"? Nope! Our girls love their yard so much and a pool would take that away from them, plus I'm so paranoid of having little kids around a pool, just me...

This weekend was a great one, we had The Pope crew over Saturday for water sliding, Slip N' Sliding, BBQ and S'mores. Lots of fun! The kids, minus Lane and Baby Bennett, were outside on the slide for 6 hours, crazy. It was wonderful because they ate good and fell asleep pretty easily last night, can't complain about that!

These are some of my favorite pics we got yesterday(look how BIG that sweet Baxter Boy is getting, such a good dog!).

And just because I've been in a baking mood lately, here's the recipe to some cookies I'm making later today. I'll be giving most of them away, no way my waistline could handle all of them;-)

Reese's Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies

1 c. butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour

2/3 c. Hershey's cocoa

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. (12 oz. pkg.) Reese's peanut butter chips

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips. Chill until firm enough to handle.
Shape small amounts of dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly with fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet onto wire rack. Makes about 6 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies.

S'mores...

...is there really any better way to kick off Summer? Happy Memorial Day and the start of Summer!

Just Another Thursday

Except for the fact that a fire truck, ambulance and policeman showed up at my house, *sigh*.

It was 1:30 and Delaney was just waking from her nap when I ran out to the garage to get something. I turned around to come back into the house when the door locked behind me. I'm a freak about locking doors because Ryan's always traveling. I broke out into a sweat and thought about how I had to leave the house by 2:00 to pick up Addyson from school, and that Lane was inside by herself(thank goodness she was in her bed, the safest place she could be). I go to my wonderful neighbor Shannon's house and she suggests I call the Sheriff's department to come help me. Within minutes I had all these emergency vehicles in front of my house and I'm also grateful that most everyone on my street works during the day so they don't see what's going on, except Shannon of course, she already thinks I'm nuts;-)

I can hear Delaney crying from upstairs while these 6 guys from the fire department are trying to help me. There's nothing like the feeling of being separated from your baby when she's crying and you can't get to her. Awful. They were trying to figure out which window to break to get inside when one of the men yells, "I'M IN!" Ahhh, such sweet words.....I run upstairs to get Lane and all she says is, "Cookie Mama, Cookie" Haha, she was hungry!

Ryan was out of town, of course, so when I tell him what happens he says, "Didn't this happen at our old house when Addyson was like 15 months old?? How can it happen again?" Ugh. No kidding, right?

Crazy day yesterday. Ryan says he plans on bringing the guys at the fire department dinner from Carino's soon, they deserve it!

Potty Time!

So today just after Lane finished her lunch she looked at me and said, "Poo Poo". I picked her up, sat her on the potty, and a few minutes later we had poop! I was surprised she actually did it, but for the past month or so she's pretty much been telling me when she's about to "go", so I thought we'd give it a try. I'm not in full potty training mode or anything, it just surprised me that it happened this early, Addyson was just over 2 when she started showing signs.

Yay Lane!

A Gymnist in Training

The gym where Addyson takes her weekly gymnastics class held their Spring Mini-Olympics on Saturday and Addyson got to be part of it! There were 8 levels of kids all doing their thing and it was lots of fun to watch. She participated in the bars, beam, vault and floor exercise. I thought she did best on the bars, but my Mom said her favorite was the beam. Unfortunately Ryan and Delaney didn't get to see most of it because she was napping at home. They arrived just in time for the awards ceremony, Addyson is so proud of her medal!

She seems to really love gymnastics and I hope she goes far with it, but if not that's fine too. This Summer I've enrolled her in ballet, so this Fall she'll need to decide which one she wants to stick with. We'll see!

***And no, Delaney was not cheering in the 2nd to last picture, she is about to go into full blown tantrum mode, I love this age, haha

18 Months Already?!

Say it isn't so! Our little Lane is 18 months old today, sniff, sniff....I took her in for her well visit and she's doing great! She weighs 28 lbs. and is 31.5 in. long. She's in the 75th percentile for height and 90th for her weight. Addyson was always off the charts for her height so it looks like our littlest might be just be the littlest ;-)

She's such a funny little girl, we enjoy her so much. When I hear her call out from her crib, "MAMA!" first thing in the morning, I can't wait to go in and get her, she's such a love...Lately she is really into phones; toy phones, real phones, cell phones, she loves them all. She loves books too. If you read her a short book she'll actually sit and listen to it, she won't sit long for much else! She loves Addy, as she calls her, and she wants to do just what sister is doing. If Addyson is outside, Lane is outside, if Addy is eating, she wants to be eating too, and so on. It's cute, in her eyes Addyson can do no wrong!

Her favorite foods are chicken nuggets, any and all kinds of yogurt, Life Cereal, bananas, Pirate's Booty, grapes, ice cream, pineapple, and spaghetti.

She's now old enough to attend nursery at church, YAY! Mom and Dad can actually get something out of Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society once again :)

Can't believe that in a few short months she'll be celebrating birthday #2, time is moving too fast......