Taking the Pacifier
So I am trying to decide the best way to get Ally off of the pacifier. She has bitten huge holes in her 2 favorite pacifiers, so I threw them away. She still has other pacifiers, but they aren't the favorite ones, so she gets mad sometimes when she has to use them. Do you have any ideas on how to ease your kid off the pacifier? I am thinking that if I do it now (while she can't take one all the time because she can't breath through her nose) it will be easier.
Thanks

3 years
Yesterday, Matt and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. With the kids being sick and a hectic afternoon, we decided to take them with us and go to lunch. So we picked up Matt from work and headed over to TGIFridays. It was a very yummy lunch and the kids were very well behaved.
Happy anniversary Matt.

Sick
I took the girls to the ped. today and they both have ear infections. With the ear infections they have runny, runny noses (so the bulb syringe is with me everywhere I go), coughs, and Cosette has watery eyes. Even though they are sick, you couldn't tell by how Ally acts. Cosette on the other hand wants to be held more than normal. Hopefully with them on an antibiotic now, they will get better fast.

Packages...

Everyone enjoys getting packages. Today when I went to get the mail, we had a box in the mail box. It was addressed to Cosette.

Great Grandpa and Grandma Smith sent Cosette a stuffed animal. It's so cute.
Here are pictures of the girls with their stuffed animals from their Great grandparents. Yeah, so I noticed Ally only has one sock on in the picture, at least she has clothes on.
Thanks Great Grandpa and Grandma Smith for the cute stuffed animals.

Some more pictures from watching the cranes.

Our faces were soo cold.

This picture was before I went and got our gloves.

This might also be why we are sick. Oh well, we had a lot of fun.
Thanks for a great weekend Grandpa and Grams Horn.

So as you can tell I am trying to catch up on posting pictures.

Last week Ally and Matt played in the leaves.

Ally had fun using the broom to spread the leaves, that were in a pile.

This box has been amuzing Ally for the last few days. I tell you, I think the girl is going to be getting boxes, paper, and bows for Christmas. It's amazing at how a simple box can mean so much fun for a kid. I remember making forts with refrigerator boxes. How fun!

Grandpa & Gram's cleaned up Aunt Kim's kitchen set.

Ally had so much fun playing with the kitchen set. It eventually got moved to the basement, where she had more fun with it.

Eating lunch.

When we were visiting Matt's family, Ally got sick and then I got sick. Whatever I still have, has really slowed me down. My appetite is definetely not what it was (that's probably a good thing). Other than Ally and I getting sick, we had a great weekend. I was almost brave enough to venture out to Walmart on Friday, but decided it wasn't worth it and that Ally really didn't need the item. I think she's going to get puzzles instead. I hope you all had a great holiday weekend.

The girls at Grandpa and Gram's house.

Cosette hanging out with Grandpa Horn.

Ally was playing in the entryway and had on Cosette's headband.

I guess we've made it a tradition now...

Last year we went to Pulaski County, IN and saw sandhill cranes fly in. You literally see thousands of them in the field and flying to the field. They fly in from every direction and it is so neat to watch them come in. This field is one of their stopovers. You can check them out here.

We had a good time even though it was freezing cold and rainy. We went the day before Thanksgiving. After watching the cranes come in, we went and had a yummy steak dinner at Kelsey's.

Headbanging in Sacrament Meeting...
Have you ever seen this? Well I saw it yesterday, during the opening hymn. It took place 1 row in front of me. Unfortunetely it was MY CHILD. Ally was sitting on the front row with my sister and my mom was sitting in front of them, interpreting for my sister. As soon as the organ started, Ally jumped off the pew, and started head banging. Then she started in on her dance moves. Luckily I don't think too many people saw her.

On Thursday's Ally goes with my sister to the rec center and they swim and play in play world (a bunch of tubes and slides, like McDonalds, but bigger and clean). I thought this would be a great time to try to get a good picture of Cosette in her blessing dress.

I thought this was too cute. She kept kicking her legs and giggling.
Another one I thought was cute. She LOVES her hands. She is definetely going to be a hand sucker over a pacifier baby.

2 pictures of Ally after she dressed herself

She found a swimsuit and pulled in on up to her waist.

She was very proud of her outfit. Her new thing is after she gets dressed she runs to her mirror and smiles and dances to herself. It's funny to watch.

Bath time fun

The girls love to take baths together. I think it's so
they can bug each other. Ally likes to dump water on
Cosette and Cosette likes to kick Ally.

Ally said her first sentence a few days ago. It was so cute.
She said and signed "peas more milk". She is learning so fast. She is 17 months old and the time has just flown by. She likes to try to dress herself. Last night she had a shirt around her waist (she puts everything on over her feet and pulls it up to her waist). This morning she had a swimsuit over her clothes. Right now at this exact moment she is trying to put both of her legs in one pant leg of her pjs. She is super frustrated as to why she can't walk without falling. She has definetely become more independent and doesn't like it when I have to help her do something.

Oh, Oh the Zoo!

Since today is a holiday (I'm not sure how it is considered a holiday since it was yesterday) Tahnee didn't have school (she attends a state school (for the Deaf)). She wanted to go to the zoo with us and I figured hey I might as well when I have someone else to run after Ally. I am oh so glad we went to the zoo today. We had AWESOME weather, hardly anyone was there, and almost all of the animals were out and up close to the fences. Great day to go.

Ally & Tahnee were brave enough to touch the sharks.
This is what Cosette did the whole time we were at the zoo.

a...tortoise.
oh..oh.. said Ally as she pointed to the penguins swimming below and then she said ow after that boy stepped on her fingers. That's a boy for you and he didn't even say sorry!
Wow! Wow! Ohhh! Dolphins mom.

If you look between Ally & Tahnee's heads you can see the ostrich.

2 baby giraffes
2 baby giraffes eating
the momma giraffe

the girl lion and the boy lion is on the other side, look closely and you can see him
the rhino
walking on the bridge after seeing the rhino, Ally thought this was lots of fun, especially when there were other kids to watch.

wild dog
I don't remember what this guy is called, but I'd never heard of him.
the elephant

red kangaroos
Ally watching the red kangaroos and Tahnee making sure Ally didn't get pecked by an emu. They kept trying to sneak up on her.

Chickens..Ally fed them some leaves. She was so intrigued.
Ally enjoys having a handle down low to help push the stroller (it's not really a handle for pushing, but great for her).
Brown bear was fun to watch. He was doing fun tricks in the water.

Ally's Sunday get up!

I love the shoes.

I love Cosette's hair. I tried to get a good picture, but this is the best I got. I'm not sure if you can see that her hair curls. When I comb it after her bath it does this really cute curl on top. I love it.

I have always told myself I would never let my kids just fall asleep wherever. On Friday we were going to pick up my sister and I decided since we had 10 minutes before we needed to leave, I'd go ahead and feed Cosette. When I got done feeding Cosette I looked over and Ally was asleep. I thought she was just laying down watching t.v. So I ended up carrying her out to the car.

I am going to rant a bit, I hope you don't mind. I woke up this morning to notice that I have hives, AGAIN, ALL OVER my body. After I had Cosette I broke out in hives and finally broke down and went to the dermatologist because I wasn't aware that I had hives at the time. He said that it was my bodies way of reacting to not being pregnant and they could last up to 8 weeks. Umm...okay. So then comes my 6 week check up with my OB and he said it was my bodies way of reacting to the hormone change. Again...okay. So now I am at 11 1/2 weeks post-partum and I am still trying to get rid of the first round of hives and now I have them again. Do you see my frustration? I am SOO itchy. I went back to the dermatologist for a check up 2 weeks ago and he said that I wasn't moisturizing properly. Yeah, so that is just his way of saying he's not sure why I haven't gotten rid of them yet. So I am following his instructions with how exactly to moisturize and it hasn't gotten better. Now I have hives from the first time, STILL on me and a new outbreak of them. I'm not sure what's going on, but it's driving me crazy. You can only scratch so hard before you bleed. UGH!

Ally and Tashina were playing under the crib and I caught them!

Short video of Ally hiding under her bed.

Long video of Ally and mommy hiding from daddy.

Cosette is 10 weeks old

Yesterday the girls and I went and had lunch with Matt at work. I had the girls in their matching sweaters and looking very cute. They were so good while we were there. When we got home I thought I should try to get some pictures of them and this is the only one Ally let me get. She wanted nothing to do with getting her picture taken.

I thought I'd try to take her 2 month pictures myself and I don't think I did a horrible job. It's always easier to get a good picture when they are super happy. Yesterday Cosette was just all smiles for about an hour. She kept smiling and laughing, so I had to take pictures.