Ashlynn is a little smarty pants just like her big brother! I often get people telling me that Dawson uses big words for a 4 year old. The other night while we were eating dinner I asked Ashlynn if it was good, she nodded her head and said "delicious!" Me and Dave were shocked! Did our 2 year old (mind you she just turned 2 a little over two weeks ago) just say delicious?! It was the cutest thing and we had a super proud parent moment. :)
Speaking of delicious I had made homemade mac and cheese that night, a new recipe, and while it was good I don't think I'll be using that recipe again... Ok so that wasn't the delicious part. I also made homemade baked chicken nuggets. We've had these before and always love them, I think I've been using this recipe for almost two years now. This time I decided to make lots and freeze the leftovers for the kids to have for lunch. They eat nuggets from home a couple times a week, I happy that they will now be eating a healthier chicken nugget made by me! I made two pounds of chicken breast worth so we're pretty stocked up for awhile. Me and the kids actually had nuggets again for dinner tonight because I wanted to see how they tasted once they'd been reheated in the oven and they were still really, really good! Delicious, actually. ;)
Dave and I recently became more motivated to get healthy again and start losing weight again. Over the last 9-12 months we've each put on about 35 pounds. :( We went through a lot of changes last year with Dave getting out of the Navy, moving back to Utah, Dave not being able to find a job for a long time, me having to go back to work, etc. Food is definitely a weakness for us and when things in our life got a little tough we turned to food. Not to mention that I work at Chick-fil-A and hello, their food is REALLY good! I've always loved Chick-fil-A! We are happy to say that we are back on track now! Our fridge is LOADED with fresh veggies and fruits, we haven't eaten out at all in almost a week (Saturday is when we started to get back on track), Dave has been working out, and no more soda, even diet! I need to join Dave in the workout department. It's hard to get back into the groove but I know once I do it I will be so happy that I did! *I just realized that me eating at work is kind of like eating out, isn't it? *lol* I've been taking a banana with me for a snack and then for lunch I've been having the chargrilled and fruit salad with berry balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Yum!! So I'm still eating good, even when I eat at work.
We also bought a juicer. We've only made apple juice and a carrot, spinach, apple, and strawberry juice so far. Both of them were delicious! We're hoping to get more veggies in all of our diets by using the juicer.
Anyway, I'll probably start talking about our weight loss journey more in our blog because I think it will help us more. :) I think I need to write more about me and Dave in general in here. I mostly talk about the kids in our blog, I think they will appreciate hearing a little about what mommy and daddy were up to years from now when they are older and are reading through our blog books. I love you, babies! ♥
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Just Because
The other night as I was checking on Dawson before I went to sleep he woke up a little bit. I climbed into his bed and snuggled with him for a couple of minutes and even though he had almost fallen right back to sleep I asked him if he wanted to get up and play cars with me. As soon as he heard that he perked right up and jumped out of bed to play. It was almost 10pm but I really wanted to spend some one on one time with him. He had asked me to play cars with him earlier that day and I didn't because I was cleaning up around the house and was keeping Ashlynn entertained. I felt bad that I didn't make any time that day to play with him and I wanted to make up for it. We had fun racing and playing for about 30 minutes and then I asked him if he wanted to go in mama and dada's room to watch a movie and have a sleepover. Dave was at work so I didn't have to worry about bothering him while he was sleeping. And of course Dawson was super excited! We watched The Incredibles. Dawson loved it (yes he stayed up for the whole movie!!! I was not expecting that *lol*) and asked to watch it again the next morning with Ashlynn. I can't wait until Ashlynn is old enough to join in on these impromptu special play date and movie sleepover nights! Do you think the four of us could squeeze into a queen sized bed every now and then? I certainly plan to try to make it happen. :)
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Our 6th Anniversary
Me and Dave celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary the other day. Dave got me some handmade iron wall coat hangers (iron is the traditional gift for the 6th anniversary). They are much nicer than they probably sound. *lol* And he also got me an iron dinner bell. I don't have pictures of them yet but I know once we are moved in and settled into the house I will definitely take pictures. I don't want to hang either of them up while we are in the apartment... hopefully we won't be here much longer! I got him a movie and some candy for an at home date night.
Arika came over to watch the kids while me and Dave went out. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and like last year we tried to order things that we normally wouldn't. Not seafood this time, though. Yuck! *lol* Dave got a $20 steak. Steak is something that he orders often when we go out... but not a $20 one! It was a Chargrilled Coulotte Steak. That doesn't mean much to me but if you know about steaks then maybe it means something to you. :)
Dave said the steak was good but not worth $20. The onion rings on the other hand were the best onion rings either of us had ever tasted!!! Soooooo yummy!!!
I ordered The Navajo Sandwich. Warm Fry-Bread Stuffed with Grilled Chicken, Avocado, Lettuce,
Tomato, Red Onion and Spicy Mayonnaise. It was SO good. I would definitely recommend that to anyone. It's huge, though, I could only eat half of it.
As we were waiting for our food to come Dave pointed out that some of the lighting looked like Cozy Cones (from Cars, Dawson's favorite movie).
They are upside down, but definitely cozy cones! After we got our food we asked for some fry sauce and they brought us out some in these cute little gravy boats. I told Dave it reminded me of the genie's lamp in Aladdin! I totally want to buy some now and have an Aladdin movie night with the kids. :P
For dessert we shared a piece of key lime cheesecake. We chose key lime because that was the flavor of our wedding cake.
After dinner we decided to go shopping. We hardly ever get to go shopping without the kids. It's so nice and peaceful to browse without the kids going crazy. We went to World Market, Ikea, and then Walmart. We'd never been to that Walmart before and it was HUGE!!! It had a lot more stuff than the Walmarts that we usually go to. I want that to be our regular Walmart from now on. :)
If was a fun night and it was nice to spend time with just each other. I get so wrapped up with the kids that I almost forget that me and Dave need to spend some time away from the kids, alone. That's something I definitely need to work on. I think date nights once a month is a good start.
Arika came over to watch the kids while me and Dave went out. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and like last year we tried to order things that we normally wouldn't. Not seafood this time, though. Yuck! *lol* Dave got a $20 steak. Steak is something that he orders often when we go out... but not a $20 one! It was a Chargrilled Coulotte Steak. That doesn't mean much to me but if you know about steaks then maybe it means something to you. :)
Dave said the steak was good but not worth $20. The onion rings on the other hand were the best onion rings either of us had ever tasted!!! Soooooo yummy!!!
I ordered The Navajo Sandwich. Warm Fry-Bread Stuffed with Grilled Chicken, Avocado, Lettuce,
Tomato, Red Onion and Spicy Mayonnaise. It was SO good. I would definitely recommend that to anyone. It's huge, though, I could only eat half of it.
As we were waiting for our food to come Dave pointed out that some of the lighting looked like Cozy Cones (from Cars, Dawson's favorite movie).
They are upside down, but definitely cozy cones! After we got our food we asked for some fry sauce and they brought us out some in these cute little gravy boats. I told Dave it reminded me of the genie's lamp in Aladdin! I totally want to buy some now and have an Aladdin movie night with the kids. :P
For dessert we shared a piece of key lime cheesecake. We chose key lime because that was the flavor of our wedding cake.
After dinner we decided to go shopping. We hardly ever get to go shopping without the kids. It's so nice and peaceful to browse without the kids going crazy. We went to World Market, Ikea, and then Walmart. We'd never been to that Walmart before and it was HUGE!!! It had a lot more stuff than the Walmarts that we usually go to. I want that to be our regular Walmart from now on. :)
If was a fun night and it was nice to spend time with just each other. I get so wrapped up with the kids that I almost forget that me and Dave need to spend some time away from the kids, alone. That's something I definitely need to work on. I think date nights once a month is a good start.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Ashlynn is TWO!
Ashlynn turned two last Tuesday! On Monday night I took this picture of her. Her last night as a 1 year old! I put her in her bed and piled up a bunch of her plush toys all around her. She has to sleep with most of the toys every night! I call her our plush hoarder. And me and Dave are totally enablers. ;)
I'm surprised she actually sat there and let me take a few pictures! She was really good about it. We made sure to get her some balloons to wake up to.
And Dave picked up some flowers on his way home from work and put them in her room. He gets home really late, I was already asleep when he got home so I was just as surprised as Ashlynn to see the flowers in her room the next day. He's such a good daddy. <3 p="p">
And we've decided to start a new little tradition for birthdays. As they get closer I will put a birthday printable in this frame along with a picture of the birthday girl (or boy) and this cute little Mickey figurine will come out. We're going to put him away after the birthday is over so we'll only see him for a few weeks a year, but I think that will make it even more special. :)
Here is the birthday girl!!! Daddy made her pancakes in the shape of princess crowns and put some sprinkles on them. She liked them! In this picture she was eating and dancing. (She was moving her arms up and down, it was really cute.)
And for lunch we went to Leatherby's! Me and Dave ordered food for ourselves but we let the kids just eat cupcakes and ice cream.
If you look closely at that picture you can see that Ashlynn has a little bruise under her eye. Earlier in the day she was climbing into her car and she must have slipped and face-planted in her car. :( Poor baby!
We sang happy birthday to her and she blew out the candles! She LOVES blowing out candles. As I was talking about her birthday to her the days before her birthday she would always say "candles blow!"
Another funny story about her cupcakes... a few weeks before her birthday I asked her if she wanted an Ariel cake or a castle cake with a few different princess figurines on it (I showed her pictures so she knew what I was talking about) and she picked the Ariel cake. So I was going to make the Ariel cake for her birthday party which was going to be two days after her birthday. So now fast forward to the day before her birthday. I was making her cupcakes so she would have cake to eat on her actual birthday. I told her that I was making them and she said "Ariel ones?" Uh-oh! I had just planned on making plain ones but I didn't want to disappoint her so we ran to the party store to buy some princess cupcake toppers. Good thing we had this conversation the day before her birthday so there was still time to save the day! ;)
Here she is enjoying her cupcake and ice cream.
She loves pickles so I gave her a couple from off of my sandwich... and she dipped them in her ice cream. haha
Here's my handsome with his messy face. He thought it was so funny that he got ice cream on his nose!
Ashlynn got to open one present on her birthday, we saved the rest for her birthday party.
She got her number two figurine!
We quickly put it up in her room with the others.
While we were in her room I decided to take a couple of pictures. It's not finished yet but it has changed a lot since the last time I posted pictures of her room. She will be in a white toddler bed when we feel like she's ready for a toddler bed and then her bed will match the rest of her furniture. She also got some princess wall stickers for Christmas that we decided to put up after we move.
Here is a view of her room from the door.
And a view from the other corner in her room. I can't wait until her bed matches everything else in there. I know this is just temporary but it bugs me! *lol*
Here is Ashlynn playing with her princess castle. She LOVES it (and I do too)!
Here are some pictures from her birthday party!! We had some family over and ate pizza for dinner and then let Ashlynn open her presents. She got a LOT of cool stuff! Let's see if I can remember it all... a Minnie purse, a Pocahontas barbie, a Rapunzel barbie, an Innotab, a camera, a summer outfit, a Minnie dress, a Cinderella dress up dress, some puzzles... I think that might be it!
After she opened her presents it was time for cake and ice cream.
We sang happy birthday to her and of course she was excited to blow out the candle. Yay!
Say cheese!!! (We should of had her say cake!)
Mommy and Ashlynn in her pretty Cinderella dress that Papa and Carrie got her.
And just because here's one of me and Daws. :)
She had such a great birthday! It is so fun to watch her learn and play and grow! She's such a smart and fun little girl. Of course around her birthday I always think back to when she born and the struggles that she had and I get really emotional just thinking about it. I wonder if that will ever go away? Of course I will always remember everything that she went through but I wonder when I will stop being so emotional about it. She is perfectly fine and healthy now and I know that. We are truly blessed. Happy birthday, Ashlynn. We love you all the way to the moon and back! :)
I'm surprised she actually sat there and let me take a few pictures! She was really good about it. We made sure to get her some balloons to wake up to.
And Dave picked up some flowers on his way home from work and put them in her room. He gets home really late, I was already asleep when he got home so I was just as surprised as Ashlynn to see the flowers in her room the next day. He's such a good daddy. <3 p="p">
And we've decided to start a new little tradition for birthdays. As they get closer I will put a birthday printable in this frame along with a picture of the birthday girl (or boy) and this cute little Mickey figurine will come out. We're going to put him away after the birthday is over so we'll only see him for a few weeks a year, but I think that will make it even more special. :)
Here is the birthday girl!!! Daddy made her pancakes in the shape of princess crowns and put some sprinkles on them. She liked them! In this picture she was eating and dancing. (She was moving her arms up and down, it was really cute.)
And for lunch we went to Leatherby's! Me and Dave ordered food for ourselves but we let the kids just eat cupcakes and ice cream.
If you look closely at that picture you can see that Ashlynn has a little bruise under her eye. Earlier in the day she was climbing into her car and she must have slipped and face-planted in her car. :( Poor baby!
We sang happy birthday to her and she blew out the candles! She LOVES blowing out candles. As I was talking about her birthday to her the days before her birthday she would always say "candles blow!"
Another funny story about her cupcakes... a few weeks before her birthday I asked her if she wanted an Ariel cake or a castle cake with a few different princess figurines on it (I showed her pictures so she knew what I was talking about) and she picked the Ariel cake. So I was going to make the Ariel cake for her birthday party which was going to be two days after her birthday. So now fast forward to the day before her birthday. I was making her cupcakes so she would have cake to eat on her actual birthday. I told her that I was making them and she said "Ariel ones?" Uh-oh! I had just planned on making plain ones but I didn't want to disappoint her so we ran to the party store to buy some princess cupcake toppers. Good thing we had this conversation the day before her birthday so there was still time to save the day! ;)
Here she is enjoying her cupcake and ice cream.
She loves pickles so I gave her a couple from off of my sandwich... and she dipped them in her ice cream. haha
Here's my handsome with his messy face. He thought it was so funny that he got ice cream on his nose!
Ashlynn got to open one present on her birthday, we saved the rest for her birthday party.
She got her number two figurine!
We quickly put it up in her room with the others.
While we were in her room I decided to take a couple of pictures. It's not finished yet but it has changed a lot since the last time I posted pictures of her room. She will be in a white toddler bed when we feel like she's ready for a toddler bed and then her bed will match the rest of her furniture. She also got some princess wall stickers for Christmas that we decided to put up after we move.
Here is a view of her room from the door.
And a view from the other corner in her room. I can't wait until her bed matches everything else in there. I know this is just temporary but it bugs me! *lol*
Here is Ashlynn playing with her princess castle. She LOVES it (and I do too)!
Here are some pictures from her birthday party!! We had some family over and ate pizza for dinner and then let Ashlynn open her presents. She got a LOT of cool stuff! Let's see if I can remember it all... a Minnie purse, a Pocahontas barbie, a Rapunzel barbie, an Innotab, a camera, a summer outfit, a Minnie dress, a Cinderella dress up dress, some puzzles... I think that might be it!
After she opened her presents it was time for cake and ice cream.
We sang happy birthday to her and of course she was excited to blow out the candle. Yay!
Say cheese!!! (We should of had her say cake!)
Mommy and Ashlynn in her pretty Cinderella dress that Papa and Carrie got her.
And just because here's one of me and Daws. :)
She had such a great birthday! It is so fun to watch her learn and play and grow! She's such a smart and fun little girl. Of course around her birthday I always think back to when she born and the struggles that she had and I get really emotional just thinking about it. I wonder if that will ever go away? Of course I will always remember everything that she went through but I wonder when I will stop being so emotional about it. She is perfectly fine and healthy now and I know that. We are truly blessed. Happy birthday, Ashlynn. We love you all the way to the moon and back! :)
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Random Questions with Dawson
I asked Dawson these questions today and I thought his answers were pretty cute. I'm going to ask him again tomorrow but for dada instead and see what he says. :)
What is something Mommy always says to you? To be nice
What makes Mommy happy? Giving her a kiss
What makes Mommy sad? If I don’t give her a kiss
How does Mommy make you laugh? Be silly
How old is Mommy? 15
How tall is Mommy? 5 inches (I'm impressed he replied with a measurement!)
What is Mommy's favorite thing to do? Make cookies with me
What does Mommy do when you're not around? Look for me (this made me laugh)
If Mommy becomes famous, what will it be for? Singing a song (impressed again that he seems to know what "famous" means)
What is Mommy really good at? Baking cookies
What is Mommy not very good at? I don’t know (I know, I know, that's a tough question! ;) )
What does Mommy do for her job? Work at Chick-fil-A
What is Mommy's favorite food? Salad
What makes you proud of Mommy? Baking cookies for me
If Mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be? SpongeBob
What do you and Mommy do together? We play cars
How are you and Mommy the same? Dawson doesn’t know (those were his exact words and after I typed them he said "hey that says Dawson!")
How are you and Mommy different? By not laughing together (??)
How do you know Mommy loves you? Because she hugs me all the time
Where is Mommy's favorite place to go? Chick-fil-A (No way Jose! Although I am very grateful for my job :) )
What is something Mommy always says to you? To be nice
What makes Mommy happy? Giving her a kiss
What makes Mommy sad? If I don’t give her a kiss
How does Mommy make you laugh? Be silly
How old is Mommy? 15
How tall is Mommy? 5 inches (I'm impressed he replied with a measurement!)
What is Mommy's favorite thing to do? Make cookies with me
What does Mommy do when you're not around? Look for me (this made me laugh)
If Mommy becomes famous, what will it be for? Singing a song (impressed again that he seems to know what "famous" means)
What is Mommy really good at? Baking cookies
What is Mommy not very good at? I don’t know (I know, I know, that's a tough question! ;) )
What does Mommy do for her job? Work at Chick-fil-A
What is Mommy's favorite food? Salad
What makes you proud of Mommy? Baking cookies for me
If Mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be? SpongeBob
What do you and Mommy do together? We play cars
How are you and Mommy the same? Dawson doesn’t know (those were his exact words and after I typed them he said "hey that says Dawson!")
How are you and Mommy different? By not laughing together (??)
How do you know Mommy loves you? Because she hugs me all the time
Where is Mommy's favorite place to go? Chick-fil-A (No way Jose! Although I am very grateful for my job :) )
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