Fairy Princess and Easter Dresses

The newest solution to bathing the two girls together: pool toys.

Eliza lined all these shoes up for us... so funny!

The girls and Daddy in their easter git-ups!

family Easter pictures

Monday: fun fun fun! Alayna is going through a growth spurt and so she spent the majority of the day sleeping. Therefore Eliza and I got to do all kinds of mommy and me type thing. We played downstairs, made picture frames (with glitter and everything!), and then we made some magic fairy wands! Then we spent the afternoon using our wands to turn into all kinds of different animals that ran, hopped, and slithered, around my kitchen.

Tuesday: mastitus set in for me all over agian (Alayna thanks for the free time but from now on could you wake up to eat more than twice in a day). So due to the mastitus I just bummed around the house with the girls and had Ben pick up a perscription for me that evening.

Wednesday: Tuesday night we had a classic Colorado spring snow storm so it was questionable if we were going to be able to make it to loveland for Eliza's class but I was pretty motivated and got us up and off to Loveland anyway. Eliza loved having a snow day with the twins and her class ended up not being canceled like most things so we had a ton of fun playing for our last day of school. That afternoon I got my hair cut and the oil changed in the car. After changing the oil I accidently locked the keys in the car (adding to my crazy stress level). the nice guys at walmart spent a 1/2 hour unlocking my car (with 20/20 hidsight next time I'll call AAA). So now I was really stressed out only to go to get the girls, Eliza had had another accident for me to clean up and I was officially angry. We left my mom's house in a bit of a rush and left Eliza's blankie at her house so I listened to Alayna (napless) and Eliza (blankieless) cry for the 1/2 hour drive home. Then at one of the stop lights I leaned back to put Alayna's pacifier in her mouth and my seat collapsed behind me and wouldn't sit back up. GRRR! So the day started out great had a very long sour note and ended nicely with a visit from my mom (with the blankie and stuff)

Thursday: Mom, Eliza, Alayna, Grandma Merritt, and Aunt Abby all went on a crazy shopping adventure! We were on the hunt for the perfect easter dresses. After visiting every childrens store in the Foothills mall we finally found some that we really liked. Eliza's was found at a reasonable price but Alayna and Elizabeth's were ubsurdly price. It was when I got home that I realized the reason for the insane price was because it's 100% silk and dry clean only. At which point I decided I couldn't live with putting my very messy 4 month old in a $70 dry clean only dress. So the dresses are going back to the store.

Friday: I went to Ft. Collins in and effort to find another dress for the babies. I draged my mom along for the ride and we really enjoyed the time out shopping! We did find a great replacement dress that I ended up loving even more than the crazy expensive one! So after two days in a row of 4hours of shopping all of us were about ready to colapse in exhaustion. Eliza started getting a little bit of a cough that night but nothing to bad and Alayna was so wore out that they both slept like a rock that night

Saturday: Eliza spent a good portion of the night up coughing, Alayna didn't sleep great either and I was exhausted. I did get to dye my hair all by myself for the first time and it turned out exactly how I wanted! Other than that Ben and I cleaned and relaxed all day.

Sunday: Eliza is officially sick. She ran a fever all night long and coughed right a long with it. I even had to give her extra tylenol in the middle of the night for the persistant fever. So due to the cough and fever we went to Sacrament meeting and went home, took some Easter pictures and called it a day. The girls looked adorable and I can't wait to put them in their dresses again!

The End.

Alayna's 4 months!

my first doughnuts: Lesson learned it's much easier to just buy them at the store! :-)

Alayna's first taste of rice cereal. I love the face, she looks like sh'es going to cry if i put more in there!

Quick run down:

Monday: Alayna had her 4 month check up and shots... her stats are: height: 2'2.5" (98%) weight:14lbs 10oz (68%) head size: 16.73" (84%) So overall she's big but very healthy!! The doctor said she's doing great and is incredibly strong for a baby her age. She's also guessing that Alayna will be sitting up sooner than later. Her shots went ok and she didn't spend too long being miserable (thankfully). Eliza spent the morning with Grandma Merritt while we were at the doctors office and running errands.

Tuesday: We ran some errands and spent 90% of the day outside playing at the parks and going for walks. Eliza has really been loving being able to play outside. One of the parks we went to was an interesting challenge due to Eliza's tiny tiney bladder and locked bathrooms. Lucky for us there was a school across the street that let us use their potty. After that we went back to the park only to have a very very stinky (literally) lady sit down next to me and try to be my best friend (I was not interested). Her 5 year old son was a terrible bully and she did nothing about it. In fact when he prodceeded to throw sand at a 15month old she laughed about it... then he rubbed handfulls of sand in Eliza's hair and she laughed about it more... then when he threw sand in her eyes and she started crying she laughed a little more and said "I'm such a pushover for him isn't he cute?" I was not impressed. In fact I was flat out ticked! Parents who refuse to parent shouldn't be allowed to have kids. In the end we left the park with me in a terrible mood and we spent a good hour scrubbing sand out of Eliza's hair that night. Next time I wont be so patient!

Wednesday: We went to Loveland and had a great time going on a walk, Eliza's mommy and me class, and the park. The 60 degree weather has been amazing!

Thursday: We went to a baby shower all morning (so much fun) Eliza played with all the kids and I enjoyed all the time to laugh and chat it up with the ladies. We took advantage of our last day of good weather that afternoon with one more trip to the park.

Friday: welcome back winter. actually it wasn't very welcome at all in my house. Eliza was beyond ticked off that I wouldn't let her go play outside but it was blizzarding and cold. We spent the day inside having a movie day... We even went and got "The Princess and the Frog" movie (I give it a 5 star rating I loved it!).

Saturday: Ben went snowboarding with his dad all morning and I spent the morning making my first ever homemade doughnuts. It was a terrible pain in the butt; but I did finnish them and they tasted pretty good! If nothing else they looked pretty. Alayna had her first attempt at rice cereal that evening. Ben took some video that's pretty funny. In the end she mostly just choked on it a lot and I think I might wait a little longer to try again.

We went to church today and enjoyed all the time there. Eliza is loving nursery again so all is well! That was our week.

Friends

Eliza digging up some dinasoar bones at the museum

Ball racing! She could just barely reach!

Alayna has discovered her toes. She's always trying to get them to her mouth

Alayna has recently discovered the joy of toys. She doesn't quite have the muscle control or depth perception to get it every time but she's resourceful and figures out a way around it.

BIG mouth! Just like mommy and sister! (She got the whole peg in her mouth before spitting it back out)

The rattle is the current favorite. I think because it's harder to drop so she keeps it longer.

I'm not sure that it was even actually possible to fit one more thing into our week this week. But supprisingly it was so much fun I would do it again without thinking twice!

Monday: hung out at home... I shamefully let Eliza watch tv WAY too much that day so I spent the rest of the week repenting and doing fun things that didn't involve the screens! The real reason I let Eliza watch tv most of the day was because I'm finally turning my blog into a printed book! I have talked myself into the cost because of the great journal and I get a family scrapbook out of it too! And I'm on one of my scrapbooking binges so I figured I should use it wisely and get something in return.

Tuesday: Eliza woke up asking for 'friends' (translation: she wanted to go to her class and play with the other kids) So we spent the morning figuring out who could come over at the drop of a hat! Bethany Mott and Liliana came over to play. It was great social time for me and Eliza enjoyed having someone to play around (seeing as how they didn't really play with eachother but still enjoyed the company) That evening I went to my RS meeting which was "A Night in Navoo" very fun! Diane (grandma Merritt) was in charge of the evening and it went very well. The decorations were amazing (of course) and all the random facts were fun to learn too. That evening I also learned a random off topic fact: Onsies are designed to come off down the body as well as over the head. Therefore, no more dragging poopy cloths over Alayna's head with her daily blow outs!

Wednesday: My mom and I cashed in on some good cereal sales and Eliza and I went to her class. She loves that time. Due to time constraint my mom came to the class too but she stood out in the hall with Alayna and chatted with some old friends! Which was enjoyable for all. We had an interesting conversation afterward of how greatful we are for the Word of Wisdom in the benefits of slowing the ageing process. (aka we stay looking younger longer)

Thursday: We had friends over again. Carolyn and Laura came over for the morning. the girls painted catapillers and really enjoyed running around the house for the morning! I again got some good social time... Eliza was totally wipped out by the end of the play date and took a good LONG nap!

Friday:We went to Fort Collins to go to the Discovery center. It has been temporarily moved to the museum there and wasn't as fun as it usually is due to the lack of space. Plus Eliza was hungry and grumpy so that didn't really help either. After the museum we went to the park, fed Eliza and let her run like crazy!! She was much happier after that! I finally made it into Front Range (the community college here) to get things in order for me to be able to register for classes. Mostly that ended in lots of irritation and me not getting very far into the process. I really expected them to be more helpful but it really looks like I'm going to have to figure this out on my own. Such is life I guess.

Saturday: Ben took all us girls to Flat Irons Mall for the day. We didn't get to spend much (if any) time walking around because Eliza was much more interested in the play place, sand pit, and slides. We didn't really mind because it's always fun to watch Eliza play!

Sunday: Daylight Savings was today. I really hate changing the clocks. It's hard on me, my kids, and most importantly my patience levels. The Grand-Merritt's were out of town today so we had the girls at church on our own and I was reminded yet again how grateful I am to have them there to help. I also learned a hard lesson; do NOT take a newborn with you to help the potty training 2 year old use the bathroom. The result today was Alayna crying on the counter while Eliza tried to use the potty but apparently needed to watch at the same time so she peed all down her leg, soaking her tights, bloomers, and a good portion of the bathroom floor. (note: when using universal toilets make SURE your 2 year old puts their knees together!). Of course after Eliza's mess was cleaned up Alayna had pooped all down her legs too. So before Sarament meeting was even over both girls had bare legs and no shoes.

Brain Freeze

Mommy, Eliza and Alayna getting some loves!

Daddy and Eliza Rockin' Out!

Eliza showing us how to 'bust-a-move' while playing the guitar!

Brain Freeze: the result of consuming unusually cold substances too quickly thus resulting in sharp pain within your head. Often causing strange reactions (boucing up and down, howling, crying, and lots of laughter from everyone watching).

Eliza has a slushie on Saturday. I had supplied a spoon to eat it with because she bites her straws and nothing would come out. Ben (being the smart daddy that he is) warned her to not eat it too fast or she would get a brain freeze. Being 2, and lacking a full understanding of the phrase "brain freeze" Eliza proceeded to scoop large spoonfulls of slushie into her mouth. About 4 bites into it the full melt down ensued as she came to personally discover and fully understand the phrase "brain freeze". I believe she has learned her lesson.

Earlier this week Grandma Waite happened accorss a great deal on craigslist.org and bought a Wii that happened to also come with guitar hero (sweet!) so this weekend I took the liberty of borrowing it from her! Ben and I have been having a blast playing it and Eliza even gets in on the fun! (note cute pictures of Eliza rockin' out!)

Eliza is really loving her school class once a week in Loveland! It's going to be a sad day in a few weeks when it's over. I'm going to have to look into what classes the rec center here offers that she could get into once this one is over so that she can have that something to look forward to every week!

Alayna has offically rolled over (yes she's finally catching up to her cousins) I'm undecided if it's a good thing or not because I'm in NO rush for her to be moving around I already feel like she's growing up way too fast! The good news is that she's only done it once and mostly she's figured out how to scoot around on her back.

Friday we went to Loveland so that I could hog my mom all to myself and we took the girls and Kara to the Ft Collins mall to play in their indoor play area. All three girls had a really good time and I spent most of the time kicking myself for forgetting the camera. Oh well such is life.

And one final Hurrah... the weather if FINALLY starting to look good! Good enough that the girls and I have been on a few walks outside! Eliza loves them because she gets to just run and run free for an hour or so and Alayna tolerates them as long as I bundle her up (sitting still does NOT keep you warm in 60 degree weather).