A Day at the Zoo

Brynlee has been begging to go to the zoo for weeks. It rained on the days that we wanted to go and it was hard to find a time when someone could go with me and the girls. Joel didn't want to go so I turned to my mom and my sister Alesha to come help me out. We finally decided to go last Wednesday. It turned out to be a hot day but we decided to go anyways. At the last minute my mom couldn't come but Alesha was game and we were able to convince my brother Josh to come too. It was fun to spend the day with them and I really appreciated their help. It took all three of us to keep track of my two kids.

As so as we saw the first animal Annalyn was thrilled. She wanted to get down and try to hold every animal she saw. I am not sure why I even brought the double stroller because neither of my kids would stay in it.  Annalyn would get really mad when she wasn't able to hold those animals. When it was time to leave each display she would throw herself on the ground and cry. It was pretty funny.

As soon as my kids saw the carousel they started begging to get on it and I gave in and paid the dollar so they could ride. They both really liked that and were not ready to get off once it was over.

Before we went to the zoo Brynlee kept talking about seeing dinosaurs at the zoo. I kept telling her they didn't have dinosaurs. I was shocked to find out that just for the summer, the Boise Zoo had all of these mechanical dinosaurs all over the place. Brynlee was so excited. Even though she said they scared her; she said the dinosaurs were her favorite part. Brynlee also loved the slides they had. I think both of my girls would have played on the slide all day if I would have let them.

We did get to go to the butterfly exhibit which is really neat. One of the butterflies kept landing on my shirt and Annalyn really wanted to grab it. We also got to feed the goats. Annalyn would throw a fit to feed them but I couldn't get her to open her hand all the way so the animals kept biting her finger which would make her cry. It didn't stop her from wanting to feed them some more though. Funny girl. She was getting really tired at this point and I ended up letting her have her soother so she would quit fussing. Alesha bought an Icee to share on the way home and it cooled us all off for the card ride home. Then we stopped so we could each get a sno cone since it was so hot.

Overall we had a lot of fun and I am glad I got to spend the day with my siblings and my girls having fun at the zoo.

Annalyn's 15 Month Update

Little Annalyn sure is growing and her little personality is really starting to shine through. And boy does she have personality. She can understand almost everything I say and she is starting to communicate the things she wants. She is quite stubborn already and very persistent. It is hard to distract her from the things she wants. It is crazy to me how fast she figured out what she likes and what she wants. Here are a few more facts about little Annalyn.

Height: 29 3/4 in (22%) It looks like she isn't going to be tall.
Weight: 22 lbs 9 oz (68%) She gained several pounds in the last few months.
Head: 18 1/4 (69%)

Teeth: 8 - On the day she turned 15 months She had 6 on the top, including two molars that just barely broke through, and only two on the bottom. Since then she has gotten three more on the bottom and she is working on another bottom molar. That makes 11 teeth that have broken through so far.

Sleep: Annalyn still takes two naps a day and sleeps through the night. Her bedtime is at 7 and she wakes up around 6-7 on a typical morning. Then she takes a nap in the morning (usually 1-2 hours long) and one more in the afternoon that is about the same length. She falls asleep in her bed on her own and most of the time she goes to sleep without much crying, if any. This has been a huge blessing.

Eat: Annalyn is still a pretty good little eater. She especially loves sweet and I would have to say that her most recent favorite food would have to be popsicles. Every once in a while she will use her spoon or her fork but not very often. She loves to drink out of big people cup and she would much rather eat or drink whatever Brynlee has. As soon as I put food on the table, Annalyn crawls up there and helps herself to whatever she can find. She still likes to be held and cries most of the time while I am cooking so I would almost rather have her up on the table than crying at my feet.

Talking: Annalyn can say several word and do some signs. She will sign "please," "all-done," and she can sign and say "more."She says mama and dada and she has said all of these word a few time : "hot" "Te" - (teeth) "wawa" - (water) "ba" - (ball) "baba" -(bubble) and shoes. When I try to get her to say something she can usually say the first syllable. There are a few more words she has said once or twice but she would rather point and grunt until I get her what she wants. She can scream really loud so she is kind of hard to ignore. She will sign "please" if I don't get it for her right away and then I usually give in. She makes the funniest sounds. And she is really loud. She loves to hear herself. There have been many car rides where Annalyn "sings" or blow raspberries or babbles the whole way home. It is quite entertaining.  

Favorite Things: Annalyn likes to find her belly button and show it to people and she will show me her tongue. She runs away when I try to get her to identify any other body part. She loves to play "peek a boo" and she will try to walk around with blankets or buckets over her head so I will play it with her. She laughs so hard that I can't resist playing the game with her. She likes it when we sing to her and she likes to play "Ring-Around-the-Rosies." She loves balls, bubbles, balloons, babies, and stuffed animals.  She also loves real animals and she doesn't hesitate around them at all. She likes to chase our chickens and catch them. (she has caught them a few times but she doesn't really know what to do with them after that. It is pretty funny.) She gets really mad if the chickens run away from her. She really likes the little four wheeler Brynlee got for her birthday and she has already figured out how to make the thing go. She loves to play with Brynlee and do whatever her big sister is doing. She loves to put on Brynlee's necklaces and carry around her purses.

Things she can do: Whenever it is time for the prayer, Annalyn is quick to "fold" her little arms. She is a serious climber. She can climb to the top of our slide and slide down it all by herself. She loves to be on top of the table. Earlier today, she even climbed into her high chair while Joel was in the process of cleaning off the tray.

Annalyn really wanted some of the pictures on my fridge ( a picture of my sister Alesha and a picture of my cousin Jakobee.) so she kept whining at the door. I didn't want her to ruin my pictures and the alternative ones I tried to give her didn't cut it. The next thing I knew she had pushed a little chair over to the fridge and she was trying to reach up there to get those pictures. She was really mad when she still couldn't reach. I kept distracting her but as soon as she was in the kitchen, she would head right for the pictures. Eventually I gave in and she packed that picture of Jakobee around all afternoon. She also kept putting it in her mouth.

Annalyn loves stuffed animals. It is funny because she tends to pick one or two that are her favorite and she will pack it with her wherever she goes. Whenever we go to visit grandma Verna she searches through her bag of animals and finds the mom and the baby zebra and she will pack them with her everywhere she goes. She also likes to wrap up her babies and Brynlee's barbies with blankets and wash cloths. Today she kept wrapping her little bear up in napkins. It is the cutest little thing.

Annalyn goes to Relief Society with my mom every week now at church while I teach primary. A lot of the times she will sleep for my mom. I am just glad she goes to her and doesn't cry. It is a big improvement for her.

Annalyn still gets eczema on her cheek all of the time. It is mostly on her left cheek where it is the worst. It will go away for a few days after I put Vaseline on it and then it returns a few days later.

The day after Annalyn turned 15 months, her big sister gave her a haircut. Poor little girls now has several little bald spots on the top of her head. I guess it is a good thing she didn't have a lot of hair up there to begin with. We bought her several hats but she is not really liking them that much. She did keep one on all day at church so I am hoping she will get used to them. They look really cute on her.

Annalyn is so fun and we all love her so much. She really makes our world so much brighter. We are mighty grateful that this little girl joined our family.

Brynlee's Cinderella Birthday

Brynlee has been talking about how she was going to have a pink and blue Cinderella birthday party for months. Ever since she went to her friend's party in March she has been talking about her birthday that would be in June. Her enthusiasm really got me excited for the event and I had a lot of fun planning her little birthday party this year. I think everyone who came had a lot of fun. The hardest part for me was deciding who to invite. Joel didn't have big birthday parties when he was growing up so he thought the whole thing was a little bit too much. But you only turn three once per lifetime and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to celebrate and throw a party for my girl. We ended up inviting three girls from church and five of Brynlee's cousins. We gave all of them an invitation inviting them to attend a royal ball in honor of Brynlee's third birthday and it had this picture on it.

I started off Brylee's birthday party by having everyone come inside. There we found a sign from the Evil Stepmother with instructions of three different things everyone had to do before they could go to the ball. The first thing they had to do was to decorate a crown. I made them out of some foam and a poster board and I had the kids put their name on them and use watercolors to decorate the back.

Next everyone had to feed our chickens. Basically they just had to throw some chicken feed into the cage. The best part about this is that it kept all of the chickens in their cage and away from all the party guests.

Then we had to use some fairy princess sponges and fill up a big bucket of water. I had everyone work together to get water in the big bucket. As soon as it was full (well, at least it was almost half way full) the royal train came to take everyone to the ball.

Joel took everyone for a train ride for a while around our yard. Everyone loved that part. Eventually he brought everyone up to the Royal Castle. Joel ended up making this huge castle out of ply wood and setting it up in our front yard. I just wanted him to use the old reading castle that he made when I was teaching school but he insisted that we needed something bigger so he made this giant pink one. (And he told me I was going a little bit overboard for a three year olds birthday party. HaHa.) I had fun helping him to paint it one night while the girls were sleeping. I am hoping he can make it into a playhouse now because we are not really sure what to do with it. I wanted to have it hidden under some blankets so everyone would be surprised when we pulled up in the train; but it was way too big to hide.

As soon as everyone walked into the castle I had some Cinderella music playing. And what do you do at a ball? You dance of course. So we all danced and did the limbo. Then we danced to Brynlee's favorite song that we do at the library, We are the Dinosaurs.

After that we had to knock down our beloved castle pinata that we made. I hid a glass slipper in there that they had to find. Unfortunately the slipper got broken in the process of breaking the pinata open. Brynlee and I tried to make a pinata with paper mache and a balloon but we tried it two different times and both times our balloon popped. The first time it popped right as I was putting on the last piece of paper mache and the second time it popped when I was half way done with the second layer. It was a lot of work, not to mention it was really messy so we scrapped that idea and instead I made a pinata out of an old diaper box. It was really strong this time. I think each of the kids got like 20 hits and they barely made a dent in it. They did knock off all of decorations so then we had a plain old diaper box floating through the air that we were trying to knock down. I helped Annalyn hit it and we got a hole in it, but eventually we had to have my brother Josh come in and finish the job. It took him several hits to get some of the candy out and then we just dumped the box over and let everyone come get the candy.

After all of the excitement with the pinata, it was time for cake and ice cream. This was one of the parts Brynlee had been talking about the most. She really wanted a Cinderella birthday cake. My grandma helped me make one. In fact, I have to give her almost all of the credit because she did most of the work. I wish I had a better picture of the cake but it looked pretty good. At least, Brynlee was super impressed, and she was our main critic. We also made several little doll cakes and she got her own little doll cupcake. She loved that. In the end there was too much going on and she didn't really eat any of it. Annalyn ate all of her cake though. She even licked her bowl so she would be sure to get every last bit.

After cake and ice cream, Brynlee opened up all of her presents. She was really spoiled with all of the gifts. She got some dolls, nail polish, lots of dress up clothes, some bubble things, a game, and a little four wheeler from my dad.

As soon as all of the presents were unwrapped, everyone went on another train ride and then played in the front yard until it was time to go home. We had lots of fun. I sure am glad I got to share this day with so many great people. Especially with my two little princesses. My little fairy princess, and my Cinderella princess. Thanks to everyone who came.