Random Happenings

I have a bunch of random photos of things that have happened or things we've done recently, but none of them can be their own post, so here's a random one. These are again ALL cell phone photos, so the quality is low.

Kylee has made a BUNCH of friends in our neighborhood. There are so many kids here it's crazy. This little gal came over one afternoon and we did glitter toes and made paper dolls.

On Free zoo day in March we went to the zoo again. It was much cooler than when we went in November, which was nice. Ally wanted her picture taken by this cat thing, and Skyler joined her.

Ally's new favorite thing to do is take off her diaper. ALL THE TIME. One day I found this in the kitchen. Yes, that is POO. EEWWWW!!! Now everytime Skyler scrolls through the photos on my phone he says, "Look, mom! There's the poo!" He thinks it is so funny.

Ally has also discovered the joy of makeup. This is mascara, and it is NOT the first time she has done it. This one was not nearly as bad as the first time, though. Luckily, baby wipes make excellent water-proof mascara removers.

I got Skyler and Ally puddle jumpers from Costco, so now I don't always have to swim with them. I can just chuck those kids in the pool and watch from the sidelines. It's great! Ally loves it, and kicks herself all over the place saying, "I swim! I swim!" Skyler doesn't love it, but he's doing better. He likes to hang out by the side mostly, where he can hang on to the wall. Usually he warms up to it and wants to swim around more right when everyone else is ready to go home.

Ally has a habit of breaking into the pantry to get all kinds of snacks (twice I've caught her drinking syrup straight from the bottle). One day I walked into the kitchen and found this. Skyler said, "Mom, I put those there to keep Baby A out of the pantry." It actually seemed to work, so perhaps I'll let him create door blocks more often.

Since we live far away from our families now, our kids don't really know all the cousins. Shutterfly sent a code for free magnets, so we made one for each cousin to put on our fridge. I realized after I got them that I spelled Shaun's name wrong (whoops! Sorry Shaun), but at least now the kids can sort of remember the cousins. We quiz them on it frequently. They think it's a fun game.

We went to Burger King one day for lunch and the lady there gave the kids crowns (we've actually never been offered crowns, in all the years I've been going to Burger King, so I forgot they had them!). Skyler then proceeded to wear his EVERYWHERE for the next two days. He wore it to eat at Bajio, he wore it to shop at the Outlets, he wore it to bed...I think people thought he was a little strange.

Kylee is taking tennis lessons at some courts next to her school, so sometimes we go play at the park while she is there. Skyler and Ally love the baby swings.

We go free passes for the Children's Museum again right when Kylee was on Spring Break, so she finally got to go with us. She spent a lot of time in the "8+ ONLY - Parents not Allowed" room, so the other kids and I played elsewhere. Skyler and I made this huge house with the blocks.

Then we went to the vet and he took care of his pet dog.

Finally Kylee finished all her crafts and we went to the space area (my favorite!) to shoot some rockets. Kylee put on the space gear to shoot hers.

Ally was the cutest little astronaut you've ever seen. Skyler refused to wear the clothes but I finally got him to at least try a helmet.

Andy and I made it to our 12 Year Anniversary. Yikes. We are getting old.

Ally has been trying to ride the kids' scooters when we go outside, and it's too hard for her because she is tiny, so we let her use some of her birthday money from the grandparents to get a three-wheel princess scooter. She's amazingly good at it, and loves to go out and ride.

She also got this Minnie Mouse outfit. She chose it out herself, and wants to wear it pretty much every day. She walks around telling me, "I Mimmie! I Mimmie!"

One day Skyler really wanted to go to the playground (at like 10am), so we walked down there. It's like .25 miles from our house. We got there, and I sat on the bench and texted Andy to tell him that just walking to the playground made me drip sweat all over the place. About 8 minutes later Skyler came to me and said, "Mom, I want to go home." I asked, "Why?" He said, "Cuz I have sweat dripping on my shirt and it hurts my eyes." It was sooooooo humid. If you look close, you can see at least five streams of sweat on his face and neck, and a drop pooled on his eyelashes. So sad! We might have to just buzz his head.

Andy got nominated to run for class president, so I made him this awesome campaign poster. He ended up winning, and he attributes it solely to his poster. I told him it has more to do with his winning personality. :) Either way, congrats to Andy - Wolford Class of 2018 President! Woo hoo!

The other day Skyler was having bread and grapes for breakfast, and out of the blue he says to me, "Look, mom! I'm making the Walmart sunshine with my grapes!" Ummmm, okay?

Ally really loves skirts right now, and the other day she decided that Andy's bike shorts from the laundry pile made a great one. Of course, when she realized that they didn't really "twirl", she took them off. Skirts aren't fun unless they twirl.

In other news, she has FINALLY figured out how to smile for the camera instead of scowling!

And she likes to walk around in daddy's shoes. Fun times.

Easter

So I've discovered that I'm really terrible at actually taking photos when we do stuff. Many of my photos are just taken with my phone, and they are really bad quality! I've decided cell phone cameras just aren't up to snuff. Anyway, the week before Easter while Kylee was on Spring Break, we went to our friend's house and dyed Easter eggs. Kylee was with the big kids out on the patio, so I didn't get a photo of her, but the kids all loved it.

While we were dying the eggs Skyler dropped one of his on the floor. I told him he should just eat it, and helped him get the peel off. He took one bite and then handed it back to me and said, "Here, mom. You can eat this one. It's not tasting very yummy right now. And it doesn't smell really yummy, either." I guess he doesn't care for boiled eggs!

On Saturday our neighborhood had an Easter Egg Hunt/Easter Party. I volunteered to help plan it, and ended up being like one of three people on the committee. So, I asked Andy to take pictures of the kids finding their eggs while I was running things, and he didn't do it, so we have no photos of that. Ah, well.

The Easter Bunny came...

and Kylee got an alligator preserve painted on her face:

The Easter Bunny is not super frivolous at our house. He filled the kids' baskets with a few candy filled eggs each and a coloring book, and then just hid them in our living room. That slacker didn't even include Easter grass! He left a note at the bottom of the stairs telling them they had to find them. Ally's was under the computer desk, Skyler's was by the couch, and Kylee's was under the sink in the bathroom. It took them like two whole minutes to find them, but they were super thrilled with their new coloring books.

Somehow I didn't even take a picture of them in their Easter church clothes...so...whoops!

Ally is TWO!

Where in the world did the last 2 years go? I swear this crazy baby was just barely born, and now suddenly she is TWO!?!?

She woke up the morning of her birthday and opened presents first thing, of course. Check out that bed head. Her hair is so weird.

The good thing about 2 year olds is that you can spend a whole whopping $12 on b-day presents and they don't know or care! Ally got a bubble gun, a bottle of bubbles to refill said bubble gun, a purple tutu, and a pair of Minnie Mouse flip flops that she chose out and I wrapped up.

Kylee was on Spring Break the week of Ally's birthday, so after breakfast they went out to play with the bubble gun on the patio.

Seriously, it's like never-ending fun for kids. They shoot the bubbles, then chase and stomp them, then shoot some more. Over and over and over again.

We made a funfetti cake mix that we've had in our pantry for 10 years (okay, that might be an exaggeration. It's probably more like...9 years), and Ally picked this neon blue frosting with fishies from the grocery store. And by "picked" I mean that I said, "Ooooh, Ally, shall we get this one?!" And she said "Yeah."

She really had no idea how to blow out her candles, so I ended up helping her. The good news is that she did NOT scream in fear, as Kylee did for the first 7 years of her life, so that's something.

Overall, I think she enjoyed her day. We went swimming and had the whole pool to ourselves. We sang Happy Birthday a few times, and Ally then sang it for the next week. I'm not sure she really gets what a birthday is, but I think she felt special and had fun.

Kylee's Baptism

On Feb. 6, 2016, Kylee got baptized. We held her baptism at the church building in Naples (since our ward meets at a Middle School).

At first we thought nobody from our families would be here for Kylee's baptism, but when Connie and Sugi said they were coming to visit in February, we decided to hold her baptism while they were here.

Then grandpa Rich was able to fly out for it as well, so we had more family there. It was really awesome to have some family there. A lot of our friends from the ward (mostly Andy's classmates and their families) came as well, so it was really great.

Last year Costco had some really pretty white dresses for sale, and I almost bought one to save for Kylee's baptism, but then I figured I could just buy one this year. Then out of the blue Andy got accepted to school and we moved to Florida...so no white dresses. I looked and looked and looked online, but everything I could find either a) cost way too much; and/or b) was sleeveless (am I the only person in the world who still believes girls should follow the modesty standards even when they're young!?); and/or c) was dry-clean only. 

Then my aunt in Colorado offered to make her one. I was so grateful, and so excited. We found some photos online of some we liked, and took some measurements, and then she made this. It was perfect. It's so much more special, too, because it is unique. Nobody else will have this dress, and Kylee loves that it twirls. She looked so beautiful.

The church had an incredibly limited supply of jumpsuits, and this is the absolute smallest one we could find. Note that  the pant legs are rolled up to her knees, and the "short sleeves" go down to her wrists. It was HUGE! But, it turned out fine.

My friend Natalie has a cookie company and makes super cute cookies for all occasions. She lives in Utah but was able to ship us these. Kylee shared them with all the kids at her baptism, and they loved them. Plus, they were YUMMY. I'm not usually a sugar cookie fan, but these had a hint of lemon, and tasted almost more like shortbread to me.

Grandpa Rich gave the talk about the Holy Ghost, and brought a blanket that was made by Grandma KD's mom. It has her name and the date embroidered on it, and she loves it as well.

Overall, it turned out to be a great day. I'm so proud of Kylee for choosing to be baptized, and for being a good example to her little siblings. She really is such a great help with those kids, and they look up to her a LOT. She gets so annoyed because Skyler follows her around, copies her, and wants to play with all her friends, too. I just tell her it's because he loves her and wants to be just like her, so it's all the more reason for her to BE GOOD! :)

Disney World

After our family left Andy still had 4-5 days left of his break between semesters, so we let Kylee miss school for 2 days and we went to Disney World again. Not going to lie...we LOVE that Disney World is only 3 hours away. It's so easy to run up there for a long weekend! Skyler is constantly asking when we are going to go again.

We to Animal Kingdom on one of the days, and met safari Minnie and safari Mickey. Mickey did a dance with Ally, and she loved it. She calls Minnie "Mimmie" and Mickey is just "Mouse".

On this trip we FINALLLLLY got fast passes for the Snow White Mine Train. The kids have been wanting to try it every time, but we're not willing to stand in line for 2 hours to do a short roller coaster, so we haven't ever been on it before.

First try, Skyler and Andy got the front row, and Kylee sat with a random guy. Despite the fact that Skyler shakes like a leaf the whole time and looks terrified, he claims to love the ride, and went on it a couple times.

For those of you who want an interactive experience of this ride, here's the video they provide you after you ride. Caution: Watching this video makes me dizzy/sick, so prepare yourself.

For weeks Skyler had been telling me that when we go on "Splash Mountain with the silly animals" he is going to keeps his eyes open "on the bumongous waterfall". Then it came time to go on the ride, and as always, he tried to chicken out of going. Then when we were going up the hill to get to the drop he was shaking so bad I was worried he might pee his pants. But then last minute, just as we were about to go over, he yelled, "Mommy, put my arms up!" And sure enough, if you look closely at this photo - the kids eyes are OPEN. He's pretty brave!