Kid store

A dinner time conversation to remember.

S: They don't have kid stores

A: Then where do I get a kid?

S: Mike this all yours

M: "Mommies and Daddies make babies and when the baby is done growing they go to the hospital and the doctors take it out of the mommy's belly."

A: So I grew in mommy's belly?

M: Yes

A: So Rachel grew in your belly?

Ashley turns 3

I know we had her party on Monday but I still wanted her day to be special so we started it out with donuts, followed by a cupcake after lunch and then we went to Sammy's Woodfire Grill for dinner. They brought Ashley out a giant messy sundae with a candle in it an sang Happy Birthday. A few of the people eating around us even joined in.






Some of Ashley's favorites this year:

Color: Blue, Pink
Animal: dog
Favorite Princess: (Rachel said "Me"), Rapunzel
Favorite Cereal: Lucky Charms
Favorite Treat: Ice Cream Sundaes

Favorite Show: Calliou, Dora, Diego, Curious George
Favorite movie: Mary Poppins

Ashley's Stats:

Height: 

Weight:

Shoe Size: 8

Clothing Size: 2T/3T

Ashley's 3rd Birthday Party

Ashley turns 3 on Friday but we celebrated with some friends this morning at Bounce U. Ashley really wanted a Dora and Diego party so I made Dora and Diego cupcakes and party supplies, I made these cute Dora Backpacks as thank you treat bags but didn't get a picture. Ashley had a fun time bouncing and sliding and climbing. They had an hour before we moved into the other room for pizza and cupcakes. By the time the hour was up they were ready. Pictures from the day are below.

Nap Time Hide-n-Seek

So I came home from church to swap places with Shelly and figured I'd check in on the girls who were supposed to be napping. Rachel was sound asleep in her bed, but Ashley - where was Ashley?
It took me a minute, let's see how long it takes you:

1st trip to the movie theater

We took Ashley to see her first movie in the theater. We went and saw Brave at the AMC theater at Aliante Station. She was excited. Until the movie started. Brave has some scary scenes in it. She didn't like the mean bear. At one point she just about jumped out of her seat and cried. Then she had her hands over her ears trying not to watch it. So I had her come sit on my lap and Mike showed her how to cover her eyes if she didn't want to see it.  In the end she was asleep!

 We didn't do such a good job of movie selection but it's a Disney Pixar we thought it'd be a great first movie pick. Oh well, she enjoyed the idea of the movies, her popcorn, fruit snacks and pink lemonade.

Doggie

Ashley gave "Doggie" a horsey ride all over the house. She knew I wanted a picture so she'd pause and say okay mommy take a picture and then run away as soon as I was ready. The little stinker. She'd laugh and do it again. "Doggie" got another ride the next day and she'd leave him tucked in the top of her shirt for what felt like a really long time. 

Stuffed animals

Ashley in the pink castle hiding out with all her stuffed animal friends. There's hardly space for her! But Ashley loves her stuffed animals especially when you make them talk and move. Her bed is starting to be full of animals too. Troy is still her favorite but others keep making their way upstairs.

Hot pink toes for church

Pictures

Picture taken while watching Super Why on PBS. They have a character Princess P with the power to spell. She says, "raise your wands and draw the letter ___"

Showing off her new dress from Grams.

Ashley being Ashley- LOUD!

I turned on the Stanley Cup (hockey) for Mike and found Ashley watching it.  She knew Daddy wanted the Kings to win and would get excited if the puck would get close to the net.  "They almost got it, Daddy!"

We went for a walk on Sunday and I brought the camera wanting to get a picture of Rachel's chubbyness and instead got a photo shoot of Ashley. We only walked around the block but would stop anytime there was something she could sit on, pose next too, or walk on. She's so cute it's hard not to take her picture and don't you love the glasses?

Quote by Ashley

"Mommy your ruining my life" through mumbled whine after being told she already had breakfast and no she can't have my golden grahams.

Mommy had a little girl
whose mop was by her side
and everywhere that mommy went
that mop was sure to glide

Mopping today may have been pointless.  I would say watch out for the big mop and she'd say watch out here comes the little mop

Ashley's Aria

A few weeks back we had a hilarious afternoon where Rachel and Ashley made up songs to sing. This is Ashley's solo performance.

Potty Party Day

As crazy as it sounds I threw a Beach themed Potty Party just for Ashley.  The idea came from a book called "Potty Train Your Child in One Day" After the months it took with Rachel, Mike and I were willing to give it a try.  The premise of the Potty Party is that when kids hear party they are excited and want to participate and know that something is going to be fun. This puts out anything negative thoughts. With the theme set, Mike took a day off of work to take Rachel out for the day so it would be just Ashley and I. I choose a beach theme and we decorated.

We used paint drop cloths as sand, which were amazing because they don't absorb liquid.  We had another one leading to the bathroom past a concession stand. The pool was part of the ocean with a beach front entrance of course and filled with blue balloons for water.

The first half of the morning they get a baby doll that they get to train to be a big girl and go potty. She named her doll "Aubrey" and Aubrey did everything with us. 

 Aubrey is supposed to have 7-8 wet accidents and 1-2 poopy accidents.  I used goobers as poo and when Ashley found it she was mortified I wish I had the camera for that face. To make it even better I had set the dirty diaper aside to take care of later, but Duchess beat me to it. She ate it! 

Ashley has been so excited to potty train that she didn't want to wait.  When Aubrey used the potty the first time Ashley wanted to sit too and didn't want her diaper back on.  So our potty party sped up and the doll slowly got left behind. The key to success according to the author of the book is get them to drink as much as possible because the more they drink the more chances you get to go to the bathroom. We drank smoothies, juice, soda, had jello, and popsicles. 

Our big girl used the potty.  To keep her on the potty for a longer time we had plenty of books; beach themed and potty themed.  The favorites were "Everyone Poops" and "The Princess and the Potty". We played guess which ocean animal I am, painted nails with glow in the dark nail polish, blew bubbles at each other and even raced to see who could go first. 

She needed some outside time and went out to ride her scooter and who could resist taking a couple shots of her outside in panties? Obviously, not I. This was towards the end of the day. And daddy was bringing home McNuggets at Ashley's request.

I made cupcakes aren't they cute?  Thank you Sis Morris for teaching the beehives to make these!

but first we had to sing "Happy Potty Day". Yeah I know sounds crazy but I'll give you the results at the end.

She got potty day presents from Rachel and Daddy. Big girl earrings and panties.

We finished the party by throwing away all the diapers! Ashley is a big girl now.

The results:

Potty Party Day- we went through 4 pairs of panties. 2 floor accidents, 2 just wet, stayed dry all night

Day 2- down to 2 panties 1 floor accident (while a friend was over) 1 just wet, stayed dry all night

Day 3- No accidents, stayed dry all night

Day 4- No accidents (went to church for an hour), stayed dry all night

Day 5- no accidents (ran errands, including library), wet the bed

Day 6- No accidents (spent morning at Grandma's, birthday party, frineds house after party), stayed dry all night

Overall:

Huge Success

I don't have to tell her to go, she knows she needs to go and goes by herself and hollers if she needs help. 

Apple Pine

A couple weeks ago we're standing in the kitchen and Ashley asked if she could eat and apple pie.
 "We don't have any apple pie," thinking that it sounded good to me too.
 "Yes we do apple pine right there!" pointing to the pineapple.
"You mean pineapple, sure you can have some."
"Thank you for my apple pine."

I came home from the grocery store yesterday morning. As I was putting away the food Ashley got really excited and started jumping and shouting, "Oh thank you mom! oh thank you for getting an apple pine" I know by now that apple pine is pineapple and I find it super cute but I'm a mom that believes in correcting their children so other people know what they are talking about. Rachel has obviously picked up on this and corrected her, "It's pineapple, Ashley." "Yeah, apple pine, I said it right."

Oh well... ham was pink meat in my house growing up for as long as I can remember. I guess pineapple can be apple pine.

Then this morning she was showing me what was in her purse: a phone and paper tissue.  Yep it was tissue paper!

naptime

An hour into naptime Ashley calls for yelling, "I need to wash my hands!" I went into her room and looked at her hands and didn't see anything. Then I noticed the open container of Aquaphor.  Then I noticed how much was gone with small finger ditches in it. I started looking around to figure out where it all went.  After not seeing anything I dared to ask. "Ashley what were you doing?" "Painting" "Painting where?" I relplied trying to keep from freaking out when really I'm thinking Painting! Oh this is going to fun cleaning. Ashley points to the side of her dresser.  After cleaning it up I dared ask, "anywhere else?" "Over here (pointing to the front of the dresser, and here (the only other available side), and on Troy (her bear), and here (the Lazy boy!)

Well it could have been worse, it could have been actual fingerpaint. At least aquaphor is clear unscented petroleum jelly based lotion and after examining the damage it was too bad.  Troy just has his nose and eyes done- the non-hairy part so that was easily wipeable. The dresser is now shiny clean, and as for the chair I couldn't find anything!

Letter Review

Since we've been doing letters everyday for weeks now I'm having to get creative on different activities besides memory and go fish. For our review I put our letter magnets in a bowl of water and had Ashley pull out a letter from the water and run it to the matching letter from our letter mat.Rachel wanted a turn and after Rachel, Ashley went again.

Letter L

L is for llama

Letter K

A letter K activity we did was kick the tower with the letter K. This turned into kick over the k's and then kick them all. Even Rachel had to take a turn or two.

Our Comedian

Ashley is full of personality and lately we've noticed how she will intentionally do something in hopes of making us laugh. Unfortunately I haven't been that great about keeping up with recording them but here's one that happened this afternoon while at a friends house.

She was outside and came to the open sliding door to tell me she was poopy. (yes potty training is coming soon) I told her okay come in so I can change her. I look back to see why she's not coming in while I dug around for a diaper in my purse. She sees me looking and pushes her face and body against the glass of the door and says, "I can't get in!"

Nap time resistant strategy

After learning about bugs this morning I decided to use it as a way to get Ashley upstairs for naptime. I asked her what bug she was going to be and how she was going to get upstairs. She decided on a caterpillar so she could slowly crawl up the stairs. Well smart mommy decided to be a bird and try to eat the caterpillar. After giggles of delight and making no progress toward the stairs the caterpillar was caught. Some how after that we did make it half way upstairs before my caterpillar decided it was her turn to be a bird, so like a good mom would do I got on my hands and knees and let the bird chase me the rest of the way to her room. Now this is where the student outsmarts the teacher. We get in her room the bird eats the caterpillar. The bird goes "Hmph" and walks out the bedroom door back down the hallway with a my job is done attitude leaving the caterpillar/mom wondering when did she get so smart? Of course I won, she's now in bed asleep after singing ladybug songs and tucking her in with only the butterfly blanket.

Belly Noises

Most people when hungry say that their stomach is growling. Not Ashley her belly grumbles. When she's hungry she'll come over to you and say, "My belly grumbling." When she has had enough she says, "I'm done my belly not grumbling anymore"