Peter Pan

O.k., I know this is really bad, and as a parent you shouldn't let T.V. be part of the bedtime routine, but I just can't help myself. Little KK has fallen in love with the Disney movie Peter Pan. Every night she will come up to me and say, "Mommy, want watch Peter Pan!" How can you say no to that! Besides, she only watches for like 15-20 minutes and it calms her down. If you don't put Peter Pan on she is a nightmare to put to bed. She really likes her chosen routine.

On that note I have to ad another cute little quirk I discovered about KK's personality. Lately, she has been taking money or toys and lining them up side by side next to each other in a row. It is so cute and so methodical. It started out with coins, then the next day she grabbed plastic spoons and made like three rows of 6 spoons perfectly lined up. Today she lined up frogs next to each other. Maybe she got that engineer personality from her Daddy. ;-)

Tonight when we were having our family dinner, I told hubby that Aly's friends Nick and Kai were going to be going to Aly's preschool next year. Aly got excited because she really loves Nick. I had to burst her bubble by telling her Nick wouldn't be in her class. She started crying and said, "But I love him so much and I want him in my class." I had to explain to her that Nick would be in the 3 year old class and she would be in the 4 year old class. She said, "That's o.k. Mommy, I will just do the 3 year old class again with Nick." Anyway, she was sad to learn that she couldn't be in class with Nick. Hopefully, over time she will get used to it.

My new Saturn Outlook

Yes, we finally did it!!! After months and months of research and contemplation we finally went out and bought a 2007 Saturn Outlook. This car comfortably seats 8. I can even fit inbetween both carseats. I am excited to have a family car that we can bring family and friends in. Of course I am being completely anal and barely driving it. I want to keep it new and preserve that first tank of gas they gave me. We have put 166 miles on it in a week. 77 of those miles was coming home from the dealer. I have only driven it twice--part way home and one trip to the grocery store. Hubby has driven it 3 times--part way home, a trip to home depot and a trip to the hardware store. I prefer him to drive when we are together as a family so I don't have to have any "driving tips";-)

Here is a picture Aly took of me in front of the car. Pretty good job for a 4 year old with no camera skills.

Blackberry Pie

Remember all of those berries we picked from Summerfield Berry Farm the previous weekend? Well, we couldn't eat them all so hubby asked if I would make a balckberry pie. So, Friday afternoon I made a delicious pie. I was gone playing bunco Friday night and we didn't have any icecream so we didn't end up having the pie till Saturday night. Check out the girls eating their pie! Hmmmm deliciouso! Hubby even said it was the best pie he has ever eaten!!!!

Garden pictures

Here are a few pictures we took of the girls in the backyard. Isn't Ed's garden nice! I hope these pictures give you an idea of what a beautiful yard we have. We are hoping to try again tomorrow to take some more pictures of the girls as these didn't turn out as well as expected.

The Ups and Downs of Parenting

Well yesterday we were on an emotional high!!! KK peed in the toilet again and we were so excited. The rest of the day she tried quite a few more times but it didn't happen. That's o.k. though, at least now she is willing to sit on the toilet.

Last night she went to bed at 11:15 and woke up once at 3:00 a.m. and then got up at 6:30 for the day!!! I really could use some sleep. Where are those night time nanny nurses? Ha, ha, KK wouldn't go to anyone else at night anyway. I hope this stage passes soon as I am getting overwhelmingly tired.

Today I had to run to the grocery store and since little miss KK woke up so early she fell asleep on the way to the store. I wasn't able to wake her up so I decided to try out one of those carts with the infant seats. Guess what? She slept the entire shopping trip. It was soooo amazing. I felt so relaxed. Aly always behaves so it was nice for us to just walk down the aisles in peace and quiet. KK is usually screaming because she doesn't want to sit in the cart and just wants to be held. This always stresses me out so I usually end up forgetting half of the things I needed. So, it was nice to have a sense of peace for once!

To nap or not to nap, that is the question

Many of you probably remember me complaining about KK's sleeping issues. Well the past two days have posed a new dilemma. KK went to sleep Monday night at 10:00 p.m. She then woke up at 6:15 a.m. and had one nap from 2-4 p.m. I think I had went to sleep at 11:00 p.m. that night and KK woke me up at least once or twice during the night. So, I definately didn't get enough sleep.

Well, last night she went to bed at 9:30 p.m. Do you know what time she woke up? Can you believe she woke up at 5:30 a.m.? I totally tried to get her back to sleep but she wasn't having any of that. I think I went to bed around 10:30 and she woke me up twice last night. Yet another night of not enough sleep.

Personally, I think I like it better when she doesn't nap. Strange that a two year old only requires a total of 10 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. If she doesn't nap she typically sleeps from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. This gives me an opportunity to try and get in 8 hours of interrupted sleep but I find that much better than 7.

So what do you think? What would you prefer? A child that sleeps 8 hours at night and naps 2 hours during the day, or 10 hours at night and no nap? I bet you this girl will totally be a late night party girl when she is older, boy am I in for some trouble!

Mommy and Aly's best friends visit.

Just about a year ago Mommy's best friend Amy moved to Montana to be closer to her family. Amy's daughter Taylor was Aly's best friend. While their move broke our hearts we have kept in contact with them daily. We were lucky enough to have an overnight visit with them last January and yesterday we were able to see them the whole day.


Aly was soo happy to see Taylor and talked about it for days before her arrival. The morning of she got up at 7 a.m. and the first thing she did was ask when Taylor was coming over. Neither one of us could contain our excitement anymore so finally at 9 a.m. I called Amy begging her to come over. Apparently she was just out driving around with the kids killing time till she could come over. Within minutes of the call she was here and we were all very excited.


Amy and I share a special bond because we were pregnant with our second child at the same time. In fact, her son Timmy was born just 5 days before KK. So it has been so much fun to watch our children grow up and see their development. Taylor is 9 months younger than Aly and has really been the only "girlfriend" that Aly has made a special bond with.





Here they are together at last!








Here are Timmy and KK together. You know when they were born Timmy was 3 inches taller and 3 pounds heavier? He is still between 1-2 inches taller and a few pounds heavier but KK is really trying to catch up. ;-)





I just had to post this sleeping picture of Timmy. They were at our house from 9-3 and he had to take a break for a nap. Isn't he cute!


After they left we met them at the park at 5:30 to play for an hour before heading over to Round Table. Poor Amy doesn't have a Round Table in Montana so it is a must stop place when coming through here.


At Round Table my girls were not behaving. Aly got a time out in the corner. You know what was really funny. One of our friends daughter, Elizabeth came over to me and said, "You can't do that to her!" I thought it was soo cute that she was defending her friend.


We left Round Table at 8 and sadly said goodbye to our friends. Till next time. We will miss you deeply!

Berry Picking

I am a few days behind on my posts. With all of the company we have had and me not getting enough sleep I have been going right to bed after KK so I haven't had the energy to make a post. I am going to try to catch up today.


Sunday we went berry picking with Grandma and Grandpa T. We went to a local berry farm called Patrick's. Man are they expensive. Look at the little white bucket Aly has, it costs around 20-25 dollars to fill the bucket. It is actually cheaper to just go down to the fruit stand and buy one of their fresh made blackberry pies. I know, it is all about the experience. I am not sure who had more fun, the kids, or the grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa picked two buckets worth and grandpa really learned how to pick just the right berry. Here are some pics:





I call it, "Guardian of the bucket." Aly loved to carry the bucket around and KK was just as happy as can be picking berries and putting them into Aly's bucket.




KK loved just walking in between the aisles and trying to assert some freedom.




Here is a picture of Aly and Grandpa trying to find that big, sweet, delicious berry.



Here is Aly reaching up to pick a berry.



At the end of berry picking we went to a large grassy field to cool down. The girls played with some balls. Here, Aly is taking a rest. Can you see the berries on her face? She must have ate more than she picked!

Family Day

Today was a day filled with family and fun! Hubby's side of the family was here visiting which included his Dad, Step-mom, brother and wife, along with their six kids. We had a huge water balloon fight and a water gun fight as well. I escaped in the kitchen getting the meal prepared and let all of the fun stay outside;-) KK didn't really want to be outside getting wet so she stayed inside with me watching Dora so I could prepare the food.

It was a long exhausting day and I look forward to going to sleep. I think both of our children will be asleep by 10 tonight. KK normally has been staying up till 10:30-11 but I got her to sleep by 9:30 and hubby is working on Aly as we speak!

I forgot to tell you that Friday I was so lucky that I was able to run errands without the children. Their grandparents watched them for me and I got to jump in and out of my car at each place without unbuckling and re buckling seat belts. It felt so freeing. You know what was even more amazing? When I left I said good bye to KK and she waved her hand and said, "Bye, Bye, see you later." It felt so good to see her happy. Normally she cries and throws a fit when I leave.

If I have a chance tomorrow I will probably post some pictures we took in the yard of the girls. Hubby has the yard looking very nice with flowers in full bloom so we thought it would be the perfect time to put the girls in dresses and try to get some good shots. I think we only ended up with two or three. Hopefully we will have a chance to try and take pictures again while the garden is in full bloom.

Last batch of pics from the beach

There were just soo many of my favorite pictures from the beach that I had to post more. KK loved playing in the sand.






I think I told you in an earlier post that Aly loved playing with the seaweed and asked me to tie it to her waste so I just had to show you a pic of that.






Also, isn't the one of the guys playing playdoh with the kids cute?




KK loved jumping waves with Daddy.



The last picture is the one that made mommy so happy and so sad at the same time. A mini-milestone for Aly. Saturday night she decided she wanted to sleep upstairs with her buddy Nick and have a sleepover. (We slept downstairs in the basement which was only accessible from outside stairs). They have actually been asking to have a sleep over for the past couple of months but I wasn't ready to have her leave our house so this was a happy compromise!

Kite flying

I just had to post some pictures from our first family kite flying day. These pictures are from our Dillon Beach trip last weekend. The kite was given to Daddy as a present for his birthday from Aly. Can you see that the kite is a frog? Yes, we are turning into a frog loving family. Check out how much fun we had. We all took turns flying the kite. Even KK had a turn! Oh yeah and guess who was the only one who let go of the kite? Yes, I dropped it, but fortunately it was when I was bringing it in and it was close enough that it just fell to the ground.

Pizza Day

KK let me put a barret in her hair today and it looked so cute. I had hubby take a picture so I could post it here.

We went to Round Table Pizza this morning so the girls could take a tour and make their own pizza. Aly loved to tour and especially loved making her own pizza. KK didn't care much for making the pizza as she did not want to touch the cheese or the pepperoni. It was pretty funny. However, when it came to eating the pizza KK was very excited and Aly didn't really care to eat it. I took a pic of both of the girls making their pizzas.

If I have a chance tomorrow I will try and post some more pics from the beach and tell a little bit more of what we did.

Wish me luck getting sleep tonight. Last night KK was up somewhere between 3-4 times!!!

Extreme cleaning

Today was an extreme cleaning day. I spent nearly 8+ hours cleaning and doing laundry. The bummer part is I only got the downstairs done. Yes, I still have the upstairs to do. I did a very thorough job though, cleaning things I don't normally clean like the doors of the fridge, the freezer, etc. Of course this was no fun for the kids and they were loosing their patience with my extreme cleaning marathon.

On a positive note KK ate dinner in her own chair at the table. She loved the salmon I made and ate all of it. It was so refreshing to have a family dinner and have KK happy in her own seat. Aly was still negotiating over what she had to eat on her plate. She only ended up eating the broccoli. She didn't like the salmon or the potatoes.

KK is starting to say two sentences at a time. The cutest thing she is doing now is saying Mommy after most things. For example she will say, " O.k. Mommy, or Yeah, Mommy." It is really cute.

We have company coming here Thursday through Sunday so that should keep us really busy. Tomorrow will be a busy day as well since the girls get to tour Round Table pizza and make their own pizzas. After that they will be going to gymnastics. Hopefully I will take the camera and be able to get a few good pictures to post.

Here are two more pics from our trip I wanted to post. The first one is Aly and her friend Nick playing with seaweed at the beach. She loved dragging the seaweed around and at one point had me tie it around her waste so she could drag it behind her. The second picture is of KK just having fun at the beach.

Our Trip to the Beach

Well we went to Dillons Beach on Friday. Our trip started out a bit rocky! We got to the KAO in Petaluma and were shocked to see the campsite. It was sooo teeny tiny and we couldn't believe they claimed there was room for a tent. Needless to say we got a refund and were lucky enough to join a friend at their beach rental for the weekend.


Here are a few pics from the weekend. My favorite part was finding the starfish at low tide. It was soo much fun and as you can see my girls had a blast too.

P.S. You can click on the pictures to view them bigger.

BEETLES, BEETLES, and more BEETLES

Oh my goodness! Well, we have been needing crickets for our frogs and these past few days have been very busy. Needless to say, neither hubby nor I got a chance to get them. So hubby says, "Why don't we just go outside and catch some beatles for them." I am thinking to myself---sure, have a great time! Now, hubby said he would get them but I thought, well, since he will be playing volleyball tonight, maybe I should just take the kids out and see if I can catch a few myself.

This really excited Aly. She grabbed her bug box and was all ready to go. So she tells me all the ways we can catch beatles. "Mommy we can look under rocks, and logs, and bark. That's where Daddy finds them." So I say o.k. let's start with the rocks. I turn over a few rocks and finally find one with a beatle under it. Right then I am thinking, o.k., now what? I don't want to touch those beatles. Now Aly is very into nature so I am thinking, maybe she might want to catch them. So I ask her. She says, "No Mommy I will hold the bug box, you can catch them." So I find a plastic bag on the ground and decide to use that. Of course by this time the beatle is gone so I lift up some more rocks to see if I can find more. I find another one and use the plastic bag to get him. Now, I must look pretty funny chasing a beatle with a plastic bag but I was already getting the chills even trying to catch him with a bag.

This method of catching beatles doesn't seam to be working very well. The beatles are too fast and the plastic bag makes it hard to catch them. So I am complaining to Aly and she says, "Mommy, why don't you just use tweezers like Daddy does?" Tweezers, what a good idea. Man why didn't I ask her earlier. So I run in the house, get the tweezers and catch 4 more beatles rather quickly. You can learn so much from a four year old, can't you!

Tired yet again

What a bummer. These last three nights KK has been sleeping bad again. She is cutting her top molars and it has been very hard. Mostly just at night though. She has been up everynight between 1-3 and can't go back to sleep until after I give her a dose of motrin. She has typically stayed awake for at least and hour. With me being up that long, I have a hard time getting back to sleep.

We had a bit of sad news today. We were supposed to meet a friend and her son at the beach. Unfortunately she had to cancel. I was really worried about telling Aly because it is one of her best friends and she was really looking forward to playing in the sand with him. Do you know what she said when I told her? She said, "That's o.k. Mommy. I love you and Daddy, and KK the best anyway and I will have a fun time with my family! I love my friend too, but I love you guys the best!" These moments are what makes parenting so fullfilling.

You know what is really cute. I asked Aly if she could pick out her clothes for camping and she got really excited. I told her to pick out 4 shirts and 4 shorts/capris. She is in her room right now picking out her clothes. So far she has brought me 3 pairs of shorts and 2 pairs of capris. How cute, my little girl is growing up. See, they are ready for a lot more responsiblity than we typically give them!

Did I tell you that KK can sing the first two versus of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? She is so cute. The words are always 100% pronounced correctly but you can understand what she is singing.

Yesterday ended up being such a bad day that I didn't have the chance--or the enrgy to come on and write. Bummer. Looking forward to our time at the beach. I will take lots of pics.

Teething????

KK slept horrible again last night. She was up somewhere between 4-5 times again. I was so ready to give up at 5 a.m. this morning and let her just stay in my bed but you know what happened? I pulled her in bed with me and she climbed down and said, " come on, let's go" and went to her bedroom. Pretty funny huh! So I took her back to bed and put her to sleep.

I think last night's sleeping problem could be KK getting her upper 2 year molars in. She hadn't been eating well at all the previous days. She seamed better tonight though. Wish me luck! It will be interesting to see how she sleeps when we go camping. I am going to try and buy those glow in the dark bracelets so KK and Aly aren't too scared. Last year when we went camping Aly was scared of the dark and those bracelets helped.

KK is totally talking up a storm now. It is so cute to watch her. She mostly just talks to herself or the walls, or the toys. ;-) I bet you she is going to be one of those girls that never stop talking--like her mother--he, he. I always got in trouble in school for non-stop talking. I bet she will end up getting in trouble for that as well.

Aly on the other hand likes conversation but she doesn't have to constantly be talking. She seams to be more like her father. She loves the outdoors and loves science as well as nature. They have such a strong bond right now. It is fun to see them together.

As a parent do you ever look at traits in your children and wonder if they come from you or your spouse? Do you only want to claim the "good ones" and pass the "bad ones" off to your spouse? It is pretty funny because both of our children are very strong willed. I think we both take credit for that as parents, but the funny part is that they have different levels of their will power. KK has to always have control of her environment. She wants to make the decisions and she wants do behave on her own terms. She seams more difficult to control. So it gets me asking myself, is she more like me, or hubby? Aly wants to be a leader, she wants to make the rules and have others follow them. She will listen eventually, but has to test the limits at least once. Is Aly more like me, or hubby? WE both have controlling natures and they are very different. Will our children help us see more of our own reflections? What do you think????

KK's last music class

KK had her last music class today. I think it has been her most favorite activity we have done. She likes it much more than gymnastics. Her favorite part has been playing the violin with the teacher. She lets the students that want to move the bow while she does the notes. KK loves moving the bow and it is fun to see when she goes fast and when she goes slow. Here is a picture of her with her teacher:

























Aly has been getting herself into quite a bit of mischief lately. Her newest thing has been to sneak things. Today she decided to sneak candy so I told her the new consequence was that we were going to throw away what she sneaks. Prior to that she decided to sneak some paint and made quite a mess at the table and on the chair. The chair is covered with off white speckled fabric. Luckily the paint was washable and I was able to get it off.

Here is the cute picture I took with Aly yesterday:

New Haircut

I keep forgetting to say that KK has only woken up one time each night for the past four nights. YEAH!!! I am definately feeling more rested. I am sure you are wondering if I have done anything different. I did try turning the nightlite off in their room. I only have one in the hallway. So maybe that made a difference? I also kept being consistent about putting her back in her bed everytime she came in my room. (I only had that one relapse that night she came in 5 times) So hopefully KK will continue sleeping better and someday not even get up at all. It is amazing what a good night sleep does to your patience level;-)

Yeah, lucky me, I was able to get a haircut today. I just went to the local cheap beautician but I think it turned out great. I will say though, I was pretty nervous when I walked in because the hairdresser that I had looked like a 50 year old biker chick. I am glad it turned out well. Hope you all think so too. I was able to get a cute picture with Aly too but I don't want to post too many pics today so I will post it tomorrow.









BTW the curl you see in my pictures is natural thanks to my second pregnancy with KK.

Movie Day

Well today was my lucky day! I was able to go see the movie Licensed to Wed with a friend. It was a really good movie. You know how with some movies you are just sitting there wondering when it would be over? Well that never happens with this movie. It keeps your attention the whole time, has a sensible storyline, and keeps you laughing. If you have the chance, this movie is a must see!

After getting home from the movies we had a family water gun fight. Well, mostly hubby and I were chasing eachother around and Aly was trying to squirt us. She took my big water gun over and traded me for her simple little gun. That made squirting Daddy really hard for me. We all enjoyed it though and it was a good way to cool off from the heat. Our clothes pretty much dried within twenty minutes.

Family dinner at the table was a nightmare. KK just wanted to sit on my lap, which I no longer allow her to do. So since I wouldn't let her sit on my lap she screamed the whole time and skipped dinner. Aly didn't want to eat anything but the corn on her plate so she was constantly trying to negotiate what she could eat and getting upset that we weren't giving in. Dinners like these make us question why we are trying so hard to have family dinners. We certainly don't have these problems when we let them sit by themselves at their little picnic table.

The Developing mind of a 4 year old

Well first off I have to start by telling you a funny comment we heard today from Aly's friend Nick. We were watching him for a few hours today. He brought some cheese puffs and when I handed him the bag he said, "Each one you eat goes right to your butt and it gets bigger and bigger and pretty soon your butt will be too big to fit on the toilet seat!" He is only 3 by the way, very funny.

Now I have to jump to something Aly said to her Daddy tonight. They were coming into the house after playing squirt gun fights outside. When she came through the sliding glass door and into the kitchen she wispered to her Daddy, "Daddy, Let's just sneek some icecream sandwiches and not tell Mommy." Pretty funny that a four year old would say this to her Daddy. She has recently started sneaking things from the pantry. #1 Clue I know, I find her hiding under the kitchen table eating something. Daddy has found her with a wrapper up her shirt. I guess eventually we will have to get more serious on the subject. When I have found her sneaking candy I have just put it ontop of the fridge. Perhaps I need to start throwing it away or something more drastic.

Check out my outfit!

I have to start this post out by showing you a picture of the outfit Aly chose to wear yesterday evening. She has recently became independent and finds her own clothes and matches them according to what she thinks goes well together. Well, the cutest part about this outfit is the frog socks that she just had to wear. My friend Amy bought them for her for Christmas and didn't realize at the time that they were for adults. Aly doesn't care, she thinks they are knee socks. The other thing that makes the socks so funny is that they are thick furry fleece socks. Yesterday it was 100 degrees out.

Today we got a phone call early this morning asking if we could move our satelite installation appointment up to today. I was really happy because we weren't suppose to get it until next Wednesday and today hubby was off so he could help figure out where to put it. Well the satelite guy arrived at 10:30 this morning. Guess what time he left? Can you believe he didn't leave until 4:30? I couldn't believe he was here for 6 hours. I felt so bad for the guy. First he tried the roof of our three story house, then he tried the tree that my Dad originally got us our satelite signal from, and finally he found a signal on the RV carport next to our house. He kept telling us the whole day, "I will not leave until I get you a signal, I have never failed!" Boy was he right. We are now enjoying much more service for much less of the price! If you live in my area you should definately request this guy!

I just have to add this last photo I took of KK yesterday. It was so cute and I couldn't resist!

Fireworks in Placerville

I can't believe what a waste of time the Placerville fireworks were. I swear they only lasted five minutes. I am so glad we didn't pay the ten dollar fee to go into the fairgrounds. We went up to the Placerville library parking lot and watched for free. I couldn't believe how quick and simple the show was. It was not worth the thirty plus minutes it took us to leave and get on the freeway.

Earlier in the day I took the girls to the Pollock Pines parade. I would say 70% of the parade was cars or trucks driving advertising their businesses. It was pretty funny. Quite a country bumkin kind of parade. They threw candy to the kids so KK and Aly really enjoyed that.

Hubby was off work and spent all day between yard work and pimping his jeep. I have been with him since 2001 and this was the first time in six years he has washed his jeep. He even shampood the seats. It looks pretty nice now! He said he wants to eventually lift his jeep and get bigger tires.

Kids do the darndest things

Yesterday I ran into Raley's to get one of their yummy Tri-Tip sandwiches. I am waiting in line looking at the chicken strips and when I look down KK has taken off her shorts and diaper and is half naked right there in the middle of the store. I was soo embarrassed. I couldn't believe she had done that. I guess I had it coming and it was only a matter of time. She does it at home all of the time. Her diaper was wet so I couldn't easily put it back on. I had to put her shorts on with no diaper. Of course once I got to the car I put a new diaper on her. Hopefully this won't happen again. I better keep a constant eye on her in public.

Today I spent time making a photo book for Aly for her first year of life. It was so hard to dig up all of the disks that we had her photos on. KK will be much easier because by the time she was born I had taken over burning photo's and most of them are on DVD's. I think her entire first 15 months of life are on one single DVD. I know the rest are still on my computer so I am guessing that book will go quickly.

Some exciting news came today. My brother was able to switch weekends for our trip to visit him so we can go to hubby's company party at the State Fair. I am so excited. We went last year and had a great time. I am guessing now that KK is older it will be more fun for her as well. I am glad that hubby is willing to go. Normally he doesn't like to go to company functions. This week marks the 5 year anniversary for him at his company. The good news is he now earns and extra week of paid vacation. The bad news is he really doesn't like his job.

I hope to post some more pics in the next week. My goal eventually is to post pictures to go with one or two posts a week. Hopefully we will be doing enough things during the week to be able to post pictures about them.

Here are some recent photos I have taken.

Well a few weeks ago I tried to get some nice photos of the girls in our backyard. Aly was pretty easy but I never ended up getting a good one of KK. I will post the best one of her I got. I also got a really cute Adam and Eve pic of Aly and her friend Nick in our backyard. I thought it was cute!

KK did it!

Yeah, for the first time KK held her pee and let me take her to the toilet and she went right away. We were soo happy! We did the potty dance and gave her a couple of M&M's. I am not sure if she got our excitment. It has been nice over the past two weeks to see her learn how to realize when she needs to go and learn how to hold it. Now I just need to get her on the toilet at the right timing and go from there.

KK got up twice last night. I didn't sleep well anyway. I had a hard time falling asleep. Too much on my mind. It will be nice to fast forward to the day when she is sleeping all night and not waking up. Aly sleeps all night in her bed and doesn't wake up.

Yesterday was just filled all day with chores. Very boring. Saturday was mostly the same way except for the fireworks show but we didn't even leave for that until 6 p.m. I sure hope the whole 5 days off that hubby has for the 4th of July weekend won't be the same. It is not good for the kids or for me. It makes things pretty lonely if you know what I mean;-)

KK has her playgroup today and Aly will be going to a friends house to play. It is nice for her to have time with her friends away from her sister. Since she is out of preschool for the summer she misses that time with other kids away from home. I have been rotating her around to different friends houses each week that KK has had her playgroup. So far she has played with Maya, Nick, and Nathan. KK's playgroup ends I think in two weeks.

The fireworks were AWESOME!

Last night we went to Cameron Park Lake for their summer spectacular. They always hold it the saturday before the 4th of July. We got their around 7:15 and found a spot shortly after 8. We had the most perfect spot ever! I felt like the fireworks were being displayed right to us. The show was amazing and Aly was in heaven. She absolutely loved it and said she wanted to go again as soon as possible. KK liked parts of it but at times she seamed scared at the noises that it made.

We didn't get home last night till 11:00. Aly fell asleep in the car but KK was still bright eyed when we got home. She actually protested going to bed. Last night she only got up once though at 5 a.m. so she must have been really tired. The two nights previous she has woke up twice a night and I brought her back both times. Hopefully in time she will sleep through the night and not need to wake me.

Yesterday I finally charged the video camera and we taped Aly signing, "You Are My Sunshine." It was really cute. I was trying to tape a joke I do with them but it didn't work out so hopefully Daddy will have some time to hold the camera while I do the joke.