Ashlyn's First...

trip to the ice cream truck. Funny thing about this is that she was talking about the ice cream truck and how it NEVER comes to our house, because we live in a gated community, just an hour before we saw it at the park that we happened to be at for Daisy Scout photos.

Here is Ashlyn with her best little friend, Grace. They are two peas in a pod. Seriously could not be more alike, except that Grace is not nearly as shy as Ashlyn. But then again, not many kids are.

Oh how she was SO excited to have her first ice cream from the ice cream truck. It was rather endearing. There is just something magical, to a kid, about getting an ice cream from the ice cream truck.

A fun night out

We went out with Tina and Danny on Saturday night to our FAVORITE place to eat....The Cheesecake Factory (and I held a moment of silence for my Encino Gals. We SO need a GNO there). We got there kind of late and then had to wait about 30 minutes. Tina and I thought it a "good idea" to look at the calorie content of each slice of cheesecake while we waited and salivated over the yumminess of it all. You would have thought it might have deterred us from getting one, but no...of course it didn't. We started out with some YUMMY raspberry lemonade and fried macaroni and cheese for appetizer. OH MY GOODNESS! That was some delicious mac and cheese. Probably took a year off my life, but I think it might have been worth it. I can't believe I've never had it before. Anyway, we ordered our meals and chatted.....and chatted....and chatted....and talked about how we might be able to make a late movie. Well, after watching the time for our movie to start come and go, we finally asked where our food was? Come to find out, it had just BARELY been put in. Hm??? The manager was really cool about it though and offered us all FREE cheesecake for making us wait so long. We did not hesitate to say, "OK"!

Red Velvet Cheesecake. Talk about an amazing combination.

Tina likes to take pictures of me eating. I don't know why.

So I told her it was my turn to take one of her eating. Cute huh?

Then she thought it'd be great if we climbed up on top of that horse and took a picture. This is as high as our now tight jeans would allow us.

It was such a fun night. I didn't even mind that the food was late and we missed the movie because we had such a great time chatting. Till next time!

More attempts at a nice Sunday picture

Do you guys ever try this? Before church that is. Your kids always look so nice and neat and put together. Hair still intact, shoes on, faces clean. I often try to get some pictures. This is what it usually ends up looking like though.

But seriously! Tell me how cute my kids look. Ooooohhh...I JUST LOVE THEM! I know... I am biased.

First tooth

Yup it finally happened. Ashlyn lost her first tooth. It's been wiggly for a while now and her adult tooth had just recently started to poke through. So I knew we needed to get that thing out soon. I told Ashlyn to wiggle it every day, multiple times a day. It kind of gave me the heebie jeebies to be quite honest. But when it came down to it, I was the one to pull it out(probably only because Paul was gone with a church assigment). I know, I know.....I'm SO brave! Haha.... It was getting so lose though that I was worried it would fall out in her sleep and she would swallow it or something. So after some prodding, I was able to convince her to let me try and get it out. Amazing what a potential visit from the tooth fairy will get a kid to agree to! So I made a slip knot in a string of dental floss and after MANY attempts, finally got the floss around that little tooth. And you know what....it came RIGHT out! She was scared to death that it would hurt, but once it came out, I had to actually tell her that I got it. But then it started to bleed a little and that kind of freaked her out. I guess I should have prepped her for that. A tissue (or two) cleared that up pretty quick though and she excitedly went off to find something to put her tooth in. We decided on a "hello kitty" change purse. It blended in PERFECTLY with her "hello kitty" sheets, so you can imagine how easy it was for the tooth fairy to find that little pouch that night. But that little tooth fairy was successful, and in the morning Ashlyn was delighted to see that a dollar bill had replaced her tooth. She did ask me though how a little tooth fairy could carry a whole dollar bill. Luckily, she quickly answered her own question and said, "OH with pixy dust". Of course. She also thinks that the tooth fairy uses her old teeth to make that pixy dust. I didn't correct her. I thought it was cleaver of her to even consider what happened to her tooth after the tooth fairy took it away.

Sorry if the pictures gross you out. I had to document it. Honestly though, they'd probably gross me out if it wasn't my own child.

I swear she has the TINIEST teeth ever. Her dentist comments on it every time we go in the office. So funny!

American Girl

I have walked past this store at The Grove COUNTLESS times. Never even thought to go in. Well, last weekend I went there with my friend Rebecca and my two girls, and OH MY GOODNESS! It is doll heaven. I have seriously NEVER seen such hard core doll lovers. There was a doll beauty salon, doll hospital, doll ear piercing station, doll cafe, and doll exhibits EVERYWHERE! It was incredible. My girls wanted every single one of them and excitedly ran from room to room to see the next doll. It was very cute, until Leah started whining when I told her we weren't getting one (do you know how EXPENSIVE those dolls are? The cheap ones are $100.00. Seriously). Anyway, it was fun to walk around and look at everything. In the end, I let the girls both pick out a "miniature"(and much less expensive) doll to take home. They seemed happy with that. Afterward we went to a fun little restaurant called "The Farm", right there at The Grove. Another place I had never gone into on previous visits. But honestly, if I had Brandon with me, I wouldn't have gone. It was a yummy little brunch/lunch place. Rebecca and I had a very delicious omelet(our own, not shared), while the girls enjoyed their favorite....cheese pizza. Lastly we rode on the trolley around The Grove and then headed home. It was a fun day and nice to be with just my girls and Rebecca. I'm excited to do more girly outings in the future. Thanks for the fun idea Rebecca. It was a great day!

On the trolley. Ashlyn was NOT happy with me that we didn't go up to the top. Ended up being a good thing because they make all the people on the top get off at the Farmer's Market. But because we were at the bottom, we got to ride the trolley back. Made for a much shorter walk back to the car. Especially since once we got to the parking lot, I realized I had not even paid attention to where I had parked. Not what level I was on or ANYTHING. That is SO not like me. I don't know what I was thinking. But thanks to Rebecca, who told me to push my panic button, we were able to find the car after only three levels. haha....I'm such a dork sometimes.

Around here lately....(well, before the rain started)

Leah started ballet. It's a really cute class. They do fun things like pretend to go on a quest to find the princess castle. They dance around and get to carry wands and wear tiaras. Leah loves it. But when I asked her if she liked ballet or gymnastics better, she said gymnastics. I can't say I wasn't surprised. Gymnastics is more her thing. We'll probably go back to it after this class is over. But at least now she knows which she prefers.

Did you see the double rainbow after the rain a few days ago (if you live here that is)? It was SO amazing. The pictures don't do it justice. The first rainbow was SO bright and vivid. The other one was lighter, but still very seeable. (Yes, I was driving while taking pictures. Shame on me...)

Me and Brooke are visiting teaching companions. Brooke always comes up with fun things to do for VT. I love it. This month we went with Michalle on a hike around Placerita Canyon. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and the kids had a lot of fun.

This lady volunteers here and comes once a week to take the owl on a "walk". It was showing off for us. Pretty cool huh!

Can you believe the SIZE of this dog? I've never seen one SO big. And once again, the picture does not do it justice. It was like a small horse. It's an English Mastiff and it holds the guinness book of world records for being the dog with the greatest weight (at 343 pounds). It is also the same type of dog that was used in the movie "The Sandlot".

And here he was, just walking around the mall right by our house.

Called out by my 6 year old

I was helping Ashlyn with her homework tonight. She had to put 10 words in ABC order. That has nothing to do with this story really except for one of her words was "good". Ashlyn has had a really hard time getting her d's and b's straight. She always switches them up. I think it's a common mistake for a 6 year old as I've seen her classmates do the same thing. But still, I must admit I have begun to lose my patience with it. So tonight when she wrote "goob" instead of "good", I sighed and said, "your D is backwards AGAIN". She looks at me and says, "Mom, you don't have to get so frustrated with me. I'm just learning".

OUCH!!! Okay, Okay, I'm sorry Ashlyn. But let's try and remember next time okay.

Sheesh! Nothing like being called out by your SIX year old.

Disneyland Round 2

So I mentioned we bought annual passes to Disneyland. We got the cheapest ones, which means they have lots of black out dates. So I sat down and figured out days we can go this year. I know, I'm a dork. But I figured if I wanted to make the most of them, that's how it'd happen. Ashlyn had THREE weeks of school off for "Winter" break, so I took advantage of that last week, and went again with the kids. I brought along one of my favorite people, Tina, who also has passes (and four kids). So all together, there were 2 adults and 7 kids. We must admit, we were a little nervous to not have our hubbies with us, but we thought we'd take it slow, bring our own lunches, and just play it low key. It ended up being a GREAT day! We had so much fun. The kids were good. We got on a good number of rides. And we still made it home before major traffic hit.

This was the SPINNING tea cup.

Tina took the "non" spinning one. Or rather, the kids that didn't want to spin had to go with Tina.

Brandon can be such a ham sometimes.

On "It's a Small World". It was still decorated for Christmas, which was SO fun. I think this is my girls favorite ride.

We rode in the monkey cages on the circus train, cuz that's what we are....monkeys.

Brandon LOVES Tina's oldest boy, Braden. I don't blame him. He's a great kid.

I think this was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Poor little Ashlynn (Tina's daughter, for those who think I just spelled my Ashlyn's name wrong) did NOT like this ride. I felt so bad for her. She kept her head down almost the entire time and then came out crying. It was a pretty dark ride. I don't blame her. I'm sure, in time, she'll start to love it though.

Had to ride the carousel of course. Plus it helped that there was NO line.

Lunch time. We decided it'd be a lot easier (and cheaper) if we brought our own lunches instead of trying to buy it all there. So we parked ourselves as a nice little bench and dug in. It worked out great.

Don't know why this picture is sideways, but I'm too lazy to fix it. And yes, I put a leash on my boy. If you know him at all, you understand why. I prefer to call it a "harness buddy". I saw those cute little monkey backpack ones all day at Disney and wondered why I had this dorky looking one that really did look like a leash. So I set out to find a monkey backpack. And I was successful. They were just at Target. Go figure. So I'll have it for next time.

We opted to walk in to the park from the parking garage, instead of taking the tram. There was really no option. We couldn't have unloaded everything, and our kids, and folded up our double strollers to get on and off the tram. It wasn't a bad walk though. Just took about 15 minutes. But Ashlyn was tired of walking. Leah and Brandon were in the double stroller. I tried putting her in the middle of them, but Brandon would NOT have it. He kept pushing her out of his space. So I tried putting her on my back. Tina of course took a picture of it, right as I started to say, "You better not take a picture of me". But I'm kind of glad she did. Good for documenting purposes. Ashlyn didn't last too long on my back anyway. I had to have one hand to push the double stroller and she was complaining that it was too hard to hold on by herself. Oh brother! We made it home, with one short pitstop for drinks. We'll definitely be going again. With Tina of course. Or any other friend that has passes. I won't go by myself. I'm not that brave. Plus, it just wouldn't be that fun.