Field Trip!!

Avery had her first real field trip yesterday. We went to Fairbank Farm for a tour and pumpkins!

Proudly displaying her pumpkin!

Cute pink pigs!

Sisters comparing their pumpkins!

The Girls xoxo

(Em didn't want to stop for a pic... Avery, on the other hand, will always grab on to Mommy for a pic!) I love my girls!!xoxoxo

Harvest!

We have been so crazy busy around here! Last weekend was the Harvest Carnival at our school, Multiple Intelligences Academy! We had such a wonderful time! The girls had their faces painted and loved it! The little ladybug and bumblebee stayed on their faces for about 3 days! I wouldn't dare try to wipe it off! :)

Such cute little bugs!

More Wedding Weekend pics!

On our way home from our big wedding weekend, we stopped at Smallwoods Farm and Fruitstand in Peshastin, WA. Avery's been coming here since she was a year old. This was the first time for Em (not the first time she's been here, but the first time she's been big enough to really enjoy the place!) now that she's a little bigger. They loved it!

Bug on the Chicken!

Emerson was so serious about trying to get this tractor (prop) started!

Beautiful colors everywhere!

Camping trip #2!!

Yep, we did it again! Our second camping trip began at Lake Wenatchee State Park. It was beautiful and the girls and Aunty Katie and I played at the lake for hours! We ended up not being able to stay the night there though, it was packed! We packed up and headed to Tumwater for our first (and only) night. We got camp set up, girls put to bed and at 3 am we were awaken by thunder and lightning! When the sun came up and the girls woke it was gorgeous out! They played by the river all afternoon!

Girls digging and making sand castles on beautiful Lake Wenatchee

My always-happy sweet Em!

Daddy and his girls on the beautiful Wenatchee River at the Tumwater campground!

Bug floating on the Wenatchee <3

Two beautiful girls! xoxo

Aunty Katie in the rain!
We ended up packing up and heading home one day early. Not much for the girls to do in the rain and Avery was no longer entertained by the time we played the 6th game of Go-Fish! Another memerable trip though!

Time at the beach...

It's not a great time in the Pacific Northwest for a beach visit the second week in November, but we had to take advantage of the weather (it actually stopped raining today and the sun shyly peeked out from behind the grey clouds) and get the girls and Webster out to run and play. We bundled up the girls and headed to the beach! We froze, Mark and I that is, but the girls and the dog had a blast...now that I'm home and warm, I'm glad we went!

Avery, her usual solemn self at the beach...she spends the time gazing at the water, throwing rocks and digging.

Emmy follows so closely in Avery's footsteps in so many different ways... she loves tossing rocks just like big sister!
Em swinging at the beach park
Our handsome boy Webster LOVED the beach too!
And a post about the beach wouldn't be complete without a shot of the Mukilteo Ferry heading off to Whidbey Island!

Trick-or-Treat!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! We did, that's for sure! Avery was a little lamb and Emerson was a little 'Who' from Whoville...we called her Emmy-lou Who!! The girls had a blast! Avery was a die-hard trick-or-treater, out til 8:30pm!!

Our "Little Lamb"...I almost couldn't find this costume in a toddler size

and she's wanted to be a lamb since this summer!

Sweet "Emmy-lou Who," our little "who" from Whoville!! (How the Grinch Stole Christmas??) :)

Ready to go!!

We actually trick-or-treated at the mall first because the weather was AWFUL! When we got home from the mall it was dark and the rain let up a little. Emerson didn't trick-or-treat outside, rather, she answered the door with my mom and LOVED seeing all of the kids in their costumes!

A 1st for Emerson

Yesterday we went to the Mill Creek Festival. Avery and Emerson shared a snocone...Em's first! Here's how it went:

Avery is the sweetest big sister...she enjoyed feeding Em!

A little shocked by the cold...

Then, happy as a clam! Loved her first sno~cone!

Our Girls <3

Absolutely crazy about them!

XOXO

Random... just trying not to get behind again! :)

Are these girls the cutest you've ever seen or what??!!??!!

Mommy and Avery being silly!

Have a super day!

Catchin' Up!

OK... so here goes! :) I've been away too long post everything that's gone on in our lives the last month... but here it is in a nutshell... a very small nutshell!
Christmas was wonderful at our house! Santa brought Avery a Thomas the Tank Engine Railway and a play kitchen!

Santa brought new clothes, books and rattles for Emerson. Mommy got an awesome gift from daddy that she totally wasn't expecting... a Nintendo DS! All I can say is I'M LOVING IT! (And no, that's not one of the reasons I've been neglecting the blog.) :)

And here's the newest member of our family...

No, the girls did not get a puppy for Christmas! My husband would have a heart-attack before that happened... so would our cats! But I guess they kind of did get a puppy - according to my brother. He got a mini-doxen and named him Jordie, after Michael Jordan. He is soooooo precious as you can see and such a good boy! My brother got him "so the girls could have him" he said, but he lives with Uncle Brian! :):)

Miss Emerson Paige turned 5 months on January 13th:

Just last week she started some solids... rice cereal and bananas! She is loving it and I'm so happy for her. For the last few months she's been on this really yucky formula that she has gotten used to but it's disgusting. Yeah, I tasted it.... I really feel for her, it's nasty. But it's been the only thing to help her poor tummy and each day she's become such a happier girl. So this was exciting. Seeing her love her "nanas" filled my heart with JOY! We call her the "EMINATOR" as in the Terminator!!! She is hilarious, she ROARS at us and is such a ham! She is crazy about Avery! Just today she played on the floor for 15 minutes on her tummy while Avery "cooked" food in her kitchen for Em:

Emerson is usually only happy being in mommy or daddy's arms! She does not like to be in the swing, exersaucer, Jumperoo, on the floor... NOTHING! So I was so proud of her laying here playing with Avery for that long! She is a sweetheart. Such a snuggler and lover! Em's sleeping very well at night. She goes to bed by 6pm and sleeps till 10-11pm then eats and falls back to sleep till about 6am. Mommy's getting a lot more rest these days!


One of Avery's favorite thigs to do is play the Wii with Daddy! She loves to watch us bowl and here she is shreddin' it up with daddy on his favorite game: Guitar Hero!!

She loves posing for the camera lately too!

There it is! Promise I won't stay gone for that long again! :):)

Fall Leaves!

Avery and I raked up the leaves in the front yard this morning while Em was sleeping. We had a blast! It took quite a long time cause my piles kept getting jumped in over and over again... but so worth it!!!! Who wouldn't want to jump in a pile of leaves... heck, I was jumping with her! :):)

The potty may no longer elude us....

... well it seemed that way yesterday morning. Yesterday, I changed Avery out of her morning diaper and put her big girl panties on her without asking her if she'd like to wear them or not. She objected at first. Then I showed her the new Dora stool she could use to step up to the sink to wash her hands all by herself when she finished pottying and that did the trick. She sat down on that potty and peed like she'd been doing it for years. She stepped up on the stool and washed her hands... and then it all went downhill from there. For the rest of the day she refused to go to the potty and I ended up putting a diaper back on her (after two accidents on the carpet.) What do I do??? Today she is wearing a pull-up but will not sit down on the potty. Will you guys leave me some comments for what I'm supposed to do??? I don't want this to be a fight of wills.... and now I know she's more than capeable of doing this and being successful at it! What's a mommy to do??? HELP!!!!

Halloween! {& crazy times!}

I absolutely hate getting so far behind with my blog posts. But the second I try to do anything someone needs something from Mommy! :) But everything is going great... the girls are beautiful and healthy and life is good! :) Halloween was interesting. A few weeks ago Avery picked out her costume. She was going to be Thomas the Train. Never though, from the day we bought the costume to Halloween night, would she put it on. ( I should have known better!) So, after watching child after child come to our door and leave with candy she finally said, "Mommy, I go trick-or-treating." I said, "Absolutely you can go trick-or-treating," (I'd only been talking about it all day and asking her if she'd like to go...) "Do you want to wear your Thomas costume?" Avery: "No, I don't want to wear my Thomas costume, but I go trick-or-treating." I asked her if she'd like me to draw kitty whiskers and a kitty nose on her face with make-up and she all but jumped through the roof with excitement and off we went trick-or-treating down the cul-de-sac with our little kitty dressed in normal everyday clothing.

And each night that has come since Halloween, when it gets dark, she asks if she can be a kitty and go trick-or-treating some more! Ha ha ha! Pretty darn cute if you ask me! So I explain that we only go trick-or-treating on Halloween night, one time only. So now, imagine how much turkey talking we do getting ready for the next holiday!! Life through the eyes of a 2 and a 1/2 year old is pretty exciting every day and I'm loving every second of it!

Here are our jack-o-lanterns and that Avery and Daddy worked hard on Halloween night! (Pics of Em coming soon...) :):)

I'm so behind...

I have so many pictures to post these days and can't seem to find the time to do so! Will somebody please tell me that my life will become more organized soon?? :) In the meantime, here's a few:

A sweet moment...

Happy Emerson... she is all smiles these days (just haven't caught one yet)!! I'm so crazy about her!

My big girl! I cannont believe she was hammin' it up for the camera the other day!

Emerson will be two months old tomorrow! Hopefully I'll do a little session with her tomorrow afternoon and get those posted! Enjoy these for now.... :)

I never thought I'd find the time...

...to make the changes I wanted to my blog! I started last night and just now finished! But hey, the girls are sleeping, I'm enjoying a glass of red wine, there's no noise whatsoever but the hum of the computer... needless to say, I'm very happy right now. (I really like my new banner!) ;) My girls and I were gone all last week to my parent's house in Eastern WA with my sister and her boyfriend who were visiting from Florida and now I'm trying to play 'catch-up'. It was well-worth the craziness I'm feeling right now though. My sister is beautiful and I savor every moment I get to spend with her when she's home. Avery warmed right up to her aunty and I took pictures all week of the two of them! Here's just a few from our week at Alta:

My sister Katie and her boyfriend, Bret. We were all on my dad's boat out on the Columbia River. It was gorgeous!

Avery eating HUGE blackberries at the fruit stand my mom works at. She couldn't get enough of these suckers! Look at that blackberry covered smoocher... I could eat her up!!

Emerson, who is one month old already (!!!) being snuggled by her Grammy. My mom and dad came to stay with us for a few days after Emerson was born. It was so sad for me when they had to go back to Alta when Emerson was 3 days old. My mom hadn't seen her since then and had tears in her eyes when I was snapping these photos. My mom and dad absolutely adore their two grand-daughters. I love how much they love them!