Ash trying to Explain Christmas

My sweet at times daughter who LOVES to watch TV started saying "Oh my God" All the time! I was really embarrassed and tried my best to explain why we do not use that word. It was a little hard for her to understand since they say it all the time on her favorite show on the disney chanel. What do you do? I decided I needed to start taking her to church. I used to go as a kid and loved it. As I got older I got out of the habit, No more slaking! I have been a huge slacker at times in my life and this year I decided to make a change! Every new year I try to set a few realistic at the time goals. So we have been going to church this year pretty faithfully. Every Sunday I ask Ashlyn what she learned in Sunday school and she tells me her interpretation of the bible story they talked about. A few weeks ago she was telling me about Christmas and about how it is also "that guys birthday". She went on and on really excited about what she was saying, I was starting to get confused, "Ash, slow down..Who's birthday is it?" Now she is a lot louder "you know That guy, Jesus". She had the story right, but to refer to Jesus as "that guy" and so loud as we were still in church, all I can do is shake my head and run out of there fast! I still hear about it. A lady approached me on Sunday and said it was really cute, "hahaha,that guys birthday", I might think it was cute if someone else's child would have said it. Maybe I'm still a little too embarrassed....

We had our Christmas program on Sunday Ian had 6 lines and he totally had them memorized, he did so good! Ashlyn was an angel and had a bit of stage fright, all she did was shake her head no when it was her turn. It was still pretty cute. A funny story, They had their rehearsal on Saturday, they had 3 Angels all about 4 ish. The one little girl had on her wings and halo on for at the most 5 minutes. When it was their turn, this little girl screams "I don't want to be an angel, I want to be a chicken!" then walks around squawking like a chicken! I couldn't help but laugh. She didn't do it on Sunday, I think her dad talked her out of it:)

Christmas Pictures

I have had it in the back of my head for several months we need to get our Family picture taken, since Ashlyn turned 4, August. So a long time:) One day Last week Ted was messing around with his camera found the timer function and decided we could take one in front of the Christmas tree. It was a lot harder than he thought. He took over 20 pics and only 1 turned out ok. Someone wasn't looking or smiling. Ash decided she didn't want Ian touching her, crying, fighting some yelling a good hour of our day and still only 1 photo :)

Teeth....Tooth Fairy

Ian used to be terrified of pulling out his loose teeth. He would wait till it was dangling there to tell me it was loose, then try to make me pull it out, like it would be less painful! To be honest the thought of putting my fingers in his mouth totally grosses me out, then to pull the tooth out! No way!! So now, he just pulls them out like its nothing! good for me but it still grosses me out. Good thing I never attempted a career in the medical field! When we got home from church today he shows me his loose tooth, I tell him "EWWW gross, show Ted" he goes into the bathroom and pulls out his tooth and proceeds downstairs to show him. Not exactly what I meant! Boys are so crazy!

This is only the 2nd tooth he has lost at our house. The majority of the madness happens over at his Dads. My complaint is the tooth fairy he has over there. For Ians last tooth he got $50. Yep! Who gives their kid $50! Ian said his first tooth he pulled out the dear tooth fairy gave him $100!! I gave him 3$ for his tooth and he was totally cool with it, so Why?? I asked him what he does with it, he said it goes in his piggy bank..... It still is so strange to me that this happens! To my child!! That is one of SEVERAL reasons why I am not a fan of X-husbands:)

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we went out to Teds Parents house. We are lucky they don't live that far from us. It takes us a little over an hour to get there. Where they live they have a lot of land, so Ian loves to ride his quad. He can go anywhere and ride for hours. We spent the night out there and Ian woke up with Grand pap at 5am! I have a hard time waking him up for school at 8am and he woke up on his own, totally excited to ride his quad. Ted didn't get up till 6:30 so he was just chilling on the couch waiting, waiting and waiting. It had been raining the night before so it was a little muddy in areas, Ian thought this was even more fun!

When I finally got ready to take my morning run, I was trying to keep up with Ian:) Every puddle he had to ride Thru it again and again. His pants and quad were covered in mud. He was having the best time! UNTIL We were going around a corner and Ian saw this big puddle and decided to go thru it and got stuck! Back tires were spinning him deeper and deeper in this hole, yeiks! The only time I left my cell at home was the time I needed it, go fig. I didn't want to get my running shoes muddy, but I jumped on it and tried to rock it out, ended up stalling it and didn't know how to start it again. I sent Ian running to Grand paps to grab help as I stood there looking like the dummy that got it stuck. An elderly couple stopped to see if i needed help. I could hear the lady in the car " why on earth would you ride thru the mud in that thing!" I was totally embarrassed, my shoes covered in mud! What a mess!! Finally Ted showed up and pulled it out and Ian drove off ready for some more. He rode the rest of the day. I had to scrape the mud off his shoes before I could wash them off. He said this was the BEST Thanksgiving EVER!!

Teds Birthday

Ted turned 33 on November 19Th. I decided to make him a red cake for this special day. He is always bragging about how good his moms was and I thought I would give it a try. Making a cake from scratch is something I haven't done, EVER! A little advise if you are thinking of trying this in the future, It takes a huge bottle of red food coloring. I red the ingredients before going to the store to make sure I had everything, I noticed the food coloring and paid no attention to the amount. When I was at the store I saw the food coloring and bought a 4 pack with 3 other colors. Thinking there was no way it could use a huge bottle. Well it did, so i filled up my measuring cup with tho coloring that I had then added water to fill it up. Made sense to me at the time.

Now to the frosting, you had to cook it! The first half you cook on the stove then let it cool and finish it off later. For some reason it never really blended together. To me it was a mess! Ian thought it tasted like hard whipped cream. I had to put it in the fridge for several hours to harden up.

Now for the Ted test.... After the first few bites, he scraped the frosting off and left most of the cake on his plate. It was a little dry. The Kids loved it, especially Ian. This cake took me over 4 hours to make, Im not sure if there will be a repeat for next year, maybe?? :)

Ashlyn and My camera

Today I went to use my camera and it was out of Memory. I don't remember using it recently and I have a 2 GB memory card! After looking thru them trying to find out what I should erase so I can take a few more pictures and I came across Ashlyns self made photo shoot! There are over a hundred photos she took of herself, smiling, making faces, she even brought in a few of her dolls and stuffed animals to take pictures with! She is one crazy girl! Who does that sort of thing? When your 4??

San Diego, Ca

For Halloween weekend we went to San Diego. The weather there was really nice. We went to the zoo and to Sea World. I had been to the zoo but not Sea World. It was a lot of fun. It was cool to see Ashlyns reaction to what she was seeing. I think her excitement wore off on all of us. Teds sis and family met us down there on friday so she went to Sea World with us.











Ashlyn and Ted had never been to the zoo before and they both had a great time. All of the animals were out which was really cool. After about 4 hours of walking around I convinced Ted to take the bus around which took us to the last few areas a lot faster. for some reason Ashlyn kept asking if the tigers were going to eat her. I told her several times tha animals are in cages, They wont hurt you. I guess she didn't believe me until she actually saw the cage.








Sandcastles are the best part of going to the beach. Well for some reason I made it my personal challenge to build a super big one. It is actually quite hard and it just looks like a huge mound of sand for a long time. so while the grown ups enjoyed the waves I continued to build, for hours my new castle. It really was fun!!