A word to the wise...

If you're wearing mascara and cooking something in the oven at 400 degrees or higher, have someone else open the oven door!
Tonight I was making dinner and opened the oven door to take it out. My eyelids/eyelashes immediately melted together and burned my lower lids. NOT fun! But maybe a little funny...now...

GREAT Wolf Lodge!

For Kyle's parents' 60th birthdays this year they took us all to Great Wolf Lodge the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was a blast! All the cousins had a great time playing together in the water and out. Both Ashlyn and Maguire got much more bold in the water...not sure if that's a good thing or not ;) The adults had fun hanging out too. Grandma (Kyle's mom) even let her hair down...literally! She normally never lets her hair get messed up, but she jumped right in the fun and stood under the huge bucket that dumps 1,000 gallons of water. And she did it over and over again! What a hoot! The fun was, well...fun, but that was secondary to the blessing it was to spend the time together as a whole family.

Mac's fall "portraits" and Ashlyn not cooperating...

Annual trip to Robinette's

I had quite a few favorites from this day :) The kids loved playing on the wagon slide. I loved eating donuts. Kyle loved picking out the best pumpkins. Maguire loved eating pickles. Ashlyn did NOT love her caramel apple sucker yet again this year (why do we think that she'll like them each year??)! What a fun day...I'm already looking forward to next year's trip :)

Halloween

Big Girl Bed

We set up Ashlyn's "Big Girl Bed" a few weeks ago. We'd been talking about it with her for a while and finally it was time. Ashlyn does a lot better with change if she's able to help, so we made sure to make her a part of taking down her crib and putting her bed together.

She enjoys telling us where things go!

She likes it!

Ok, I'm all good...you can go now!

The first night Kyle had to stay in the room and in bed with her until she fell asleep. She woke up once in the night and needed me to lay with her for a bit. Then, for her nap the next day Kyle had to lay in bed with her again for a little while. That next night, though, she actually told Kyle to go to his room! Guess it didn't take long for her to get completely used to her "Big Girl Bed"! She's still doing great. She hasn't yet come out of her room. If she wakes up and we haven't come to get her, she looks at books or plays with toys in her room. So far so good!

Cousin Nathan!

My new cousin Nathan recently visited Michigan with my cousin Lisa and Aunt Marty. Marty and Stephen adopted Nathan from Russia in March. It's so fun to see the kids together--Ashlyn and Lisa LOVE hanging out together, and Nathan and Maguire had fun too--they're about 10 months apart. Last summer we found the girls matching swimsuits (see post from last summer), so this year we found new ones for the girls and also some for the boys. I think we've got a little tradition going! Nathan is such a happy smiley little guy. It was so fun to meet him! Marty's doing a great job being a mom. So much energy--how does she do it?!

I got my BuffMother tank top today. Here are a few pics that Kyle took. Look at that shoulder muscle! I'm making progress :)

Anniversary #5!

Eary in August Kyle and I celebrated our 5th anniversary by going to Sandusky, OH to go camping and to Cedar Point. We both love amusement parks and hadn't been to CP together. Unfortunately the first night it started raining right after we set up the tent. We had barely gotten the fire going and it started raining. We ended up cooking our hamburgers quickly and eating them inside the tent. Luckily we had brought the DVD player and some movies to watch. The next day was great! We went to CP and it was super humid and hot, but at least it didn't rain :) We had a blast going on all the fun coasters and just hanging out together. We stayed until the park closed, which Kyle had never done before. In the middle of the night we woke up to thunder and pouring rain! It didn't let up at all. We ended up having to take the tent down in the rain--Yuck! Oh well, all in all it was a fun anniversary trip!

Mac's First Haircut

Two days ago we took Mac for his first haircut at Snip-Its (www.snipits.com) -- a place especially for kids. He did a great job and was so chilled. I didn't really want to get so much cut off, but in order to blend it in they had to cut quite a bit off. He still looks adorable, but so much older now! And his hair is almost blonde...weird, huh? After he was done, they took a polaroid and attached it to a card with a certificate and a little ziploc with a lock of his hair. Good for the scrapbook ;) Snip-Its is pricey for a kid's haircut, but fun for the first-time experience!

Double JJ Ranch

We went camping with the Aasmans (John is the campus pastor at Eastside) at Double JJ Ranch a couple weekends ago...and we brought Ashlyn! It was just one overnight and the Aasman kids (Jordan, Jessie, Kaitlyn) were there, so we thought we'd try it out with her while Mac stayed with Papa and Mimi. We have an 8-person/2-room tent so we put her pack n play on one side and Kyle & I were on the other. Ashlyn did great! We had a fan going for noise, read her a couple books and she went right down. She woke up a few times during the night, but I think she does that anyway at home--we just sleep through it. As soon as it was light out, she was up for the day. She usually sleeps until at least 9:30! Double JJ is a great place to camp with kids. Everything is "Old West" themed and they have a great pool with a kids pool (water fountains, zero depth entrance, etc.) and a water slide. They even let Ashlyn go down the slide with Kyle and with her lifejacket on. She thought it was pretty cool, but once was enough :) They also have a petting zoo. With her fear of dogs we weren't sure how she'd do with the petting zoo, but she absolutely loved it! We'll definitely be going back to Double JJ with the kids :)