Saturday, November 7, 2009

Birthday gifts and party

On Thursday, Randy and Juli came over to give Ash her birthday gifts. I can't even tell you how excited Ash was ALL day to get her presents! After all, at 7 years old, gifts are the most important thing about a birthday. :-)







Her favorite thing was the airbrush color wonder art kit. She played with it the whole evening and painted us lot of pictures. Preston kept trying to use it too...it's so hard to understand that this is HER birthday, not his! THANKS Gma and Gpa Call!! :)


My parents came over the next day (friday) to take Ash on a date to buy her present and get some dinner at Betos. Yum!

Preston and Ashleigh have been playing the tea set every day since she got it....they LOVE IT and Ash painted her wood clock last night. She did a great job.

Then we had a small family party, and Ash got some more great gifts.





And the "best" present of all--a new 2-wheeled scooter! :)

Then we had cake, cupcakes, blueberry muffins, and a veggie platter with Ranch dip.



And we all visited while the kids played. It was a great party and plenty of fun.




I can't believe my daughter is 7 years old!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Ashleigh turns 7


Today, my sweet Ashleigh turned 7 years old! Wow....I can't believe how fast 7 years just flies by! Ashleigh is constantly referred to as our "perfect child". She is compassionate, loving, empathetic, loyal, sweet, sensitive, affectionate, attentive, motherly, happy, entertaining, beautiful, friendly, Smart, thoughtful, etc... She was always the kind of child who obeyed the first time--if she did something bad, we would correct her behavior and she wouldn't do it again. (Wish Preston were like that, lol). She makes friends easily and has some best friends already. She loves school and loves learning new things.

From the mouth of Ashleigh:
What are your favorite subjects in school? Art, and listening center, and math.

What is your favorite color? Blue, red, and Green

What is your favorite thing to eat? Mac N Cheese
What is your favorite thing to wear? My Halloween costume
Who is your favorite neighborhood or school friend to play with? Jasna
What is your favorite activity/thing to do? Art
Do you like to do chores? No

Do you like to do homework? Yes
What would you do in 1 day if you could do anything you wanted? Either play with my friends or I would color
What is the name of your favorite book to read? "A Time for Everything"
When is your favorite time of year? I like winter, because of the snow

Do you have a favorite number? 7 is my number
What do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher or I would like to be a Chef

What is your favorite thing about being a big sister? That I get to be the boss of him every morning

What is your least favorite thing about being a big sister? I don't like when he takes stuff from me.
Who is your favorite parent? mommy, cause you tickle my back
What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? Going on a daddy-daughter date

Do you like sports? I do like gymnastics

What is your favorite dessert? blueberry muffins

Do you like drawing pictures for me? yes

I love my Ashleigh... for those of you who don't know, we named her after 2 people....
the first is a girl I met when Nick and I were first dating. her name is Ashley Sanders. We all went on a group date in Spokane and I had to borrow a skirt from her. She was warm, kind, sweet, friendly, and I felt like her best friend after only knowing her for a few minutes. She was (is) also incredibly beautiful with the most gorgeous hair!

The second is
Ashleigh Banfield. She is a pretty famous TV journalist and war corespondent. I first saw her in my late teens and was struck by her beauty, her confidence, her eloquent way of speaking, her intelligence, etc. When we had our Ashleigh, we chose this specific spelling because we wanted her "simple" name to be a little more unusual. And Nick and I secretly hoped that our Ashleigh would have the same personality traits, intelligence, and attributes as the 2 women we named her after. So far, it seems that she does, which makes us very happy. :)

I absolutely adore my Ashleigh and I am so happy that she is 7 years old and that we get to share her birthday with her!


Happy birthday, Ashleigh
we love you!

Christmas decor...x2

We changed our decorations a bit on the inside so I took new pictures. And Nick spent the day putting up our outside decorations as well. We (not surprising) are the first one's in the whole neighborhood to have our Christmas decorations/lights up. But today, I saw a neighbor putting up their outside lights too... Lol... such followers. ;-) Actually, it's nice to see them follow suit! Enjoy the pics and hopefully you will be inspired to put up all your own decorations too!










I stole this from another blogger (thanks!) I like it and I like to think that this is how Nick treats me. ;-) It's how all men should treat their woman! :)



"Listen, moe toto, you better treat this lady like a queen cause you my friend, you found yourself the perfect woman. If I was ever so lucky to find the perfect woman I would give her flowers everyday and not just any flowers, ok, her favorites are orchids, white, and breakfast in bed. Six loaves of wheat toast with butter on both sides, no crust, the way she likes it. I would be her shoulder to cry on and her best friend and I'd spend everyday trying to think of how to make her laugh. She has the most, the most amazing laugh. That's, that's what I would do if I were you."
Melman, Madagascar Escape 2 Africa

Monday, November 2, 2009

Finley Anne Mooney

I am excited to announce (on behalf of my sister) the birth of my newest niece.

Finley Anne Mooney
Born AT HOME
on Sunday
November 1, 2009
at 1:18pm
9 lb 12 oz
21 1/2"








Poor Emily was about 8 days over due, but Finley decided to arrive after only 3 1/2 hours of labor! I was able to be present for the birth of Bridget and Avery (Finley's older sisters), but since I live in Utah now, I couldn't be there for Finley's birth...boy did that make me sad! But, I am So glad everything went well and both Emily and Finley are doing well! I can't wait to meet her!

Merry Christmas to ALL

We may be a little weird, but Nick and I just LOVE this time of year and for us, Christmas goes way too fast, so to extend it a little bit, we decided to put up our decoration (a lot) early this year! Yesterday we spent the evening with the kids putting up the tree and decorating our house. We did a lot of our Christmas decoration shopping last year after Christmas was over to get everything for more than 50% off! We'll increase our decorations again this year by shopping after Christmas again this year! :-)

We let the kids decorate the tree (with a little help from Nick)




The end result....Pretty good, huh? ;-)

We bought most of these little village things last year--my grandma Leslie and Aunt Maree create amazing villages every Christmas...eventually we'll something similar, but for now, this is all we've got. (I still need to buy the cotton stuff for underneath)

I also bought this cute little nativity scene...my mom has lots of nativities in her house each Christmas. I have 2 now and plan to increase them too over the years.



We also decorated the little ceiling/ledge between our living room and kitchen. We bought those Nutcrackers, and my Aunt Maree gave the kids those toys on the right last year! :)
I love this time of year and I am excited that "Christmas" will be around in our house for more than 2 months! :) Yay!
I'll post more pictures once we get the outside lights up too. :)

Happy Halloween

Thankfully, both kids were feeling MUCH better on Saturday (I forced them both to take a nap, just to be sure) so they got to go trick-or-treating! Yipee! At about 530, I started getting them ready, but at 6pm I looked outside and noticed kids everywhere already trick-or-treating! Good grief! So, we kicked it up a notch and hurried faster to get ready. Nick had to work so we went his parents house so Juli could take the kids with me. We got there a bit before 7pm and about 1/2 the houses on the block already had their lights turned off! I am surprised every year here in Utah--I remember trick-or-treating as a kid until 10pm or later! Here, everyone is done by 8pm! It's so strange!
The kids, on the way to Gma and Gpa Call's house

Trick-or-Treat, G'ma and G'pa

The 2nd house we went to had this vending machine thing and each of the kids got to play it and win a prize. It was a fun twist to regular trick-or-treating! My kids loved it!! But, this was the first stop to Preston getting scared....one of the guys there had a mask on and it freaked Preston out! He did not like it at all and started crying. Even after the guy took the mask off and smiled at Preston, he did not calm down until right before his turn at the toy. He was a very sensitive boy that night!

Preston preferred the houses that only put out buckets of candy, so you didn't have to ring the door bells, but even that was scary for him at times--one door had a poster of dracula or something....scared Preston again! And one guy's house was the worst.....he had a couple of dogs, one of which ran out as soon as the guy opened his front door. It was a little thing, but Preston is afraid of dogs....I think I've been telling him not to touch them too much because he is allergic and now it's made him afraid! He cried and cried and cried and absolutely refused to go up to the next house...that lady at the next house was fabulous! She practically begged Preston to take her candy. It was really sweet. After a bit though, he was fine again and happy to "play this game"
Ashleigh was wonderful, as usual! She was shy....a little hesitant at times, but was polite, and kind, and perfectly mannered like she usually is. That girl is just so wonderful! I love her so much and often feel bad that Preston gets so much more "attention", when she is the one who is being so good! I remind myself daily to focus more positive attention on her rather than negative attention on Preston so she gets the rewards for being good. I love that she loves the holidays and loves trick-or-treating and gets so excited to go and be all dressed up. I think we'll have 1, maybe 2 more years of her being Snow White and then we'll have to find her something else. That costume sure has had a lot of good use out of it! (Thanks, mom Call)
The end of trick-or-treating! The kids with their loot. They only did 1 block, but I think they did good....
We hung out at G'ma and G'pa Call's house until Nick got home from work and met us over there.



Every time the door bell rang Preston ran to the door to give out the candy. I think he liked doing that more than the actual trick-or-treating! Lol... We missed daddy with us, but we loved having Juli with us and I think we all had a lot of fun. :)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!