08.28.10

I've been going to a kids' consignment shop for the past few months called Bigwheels 2 Butterflies...it's conveniently located right across the street from my lovely SuperTarget. They have the BEST stuff with incredibly reasonable prices and everything I find is in excellent condition--no stains, rips, etc. Most of the items I find are from Gap, Children's Place, Gymboree, and Carter's. Love it. Don't get me wrong, I love me some sale and clearance racks at Target and Carter's, but this is a great alternative, especially for someone like me who can't stomach paying full price for anything.

My latest finds:

A wool dress, two sweaters, a hot pink wool peacoat, three short-sleeve blouses, two long-sleeve shirts, two pairs of pants, leggings, a skirt, a Huskers cheerleading outfit, and sparkly black shoes. Fifteen things for less than 50 bucks. Amazing. The white Gap sweater was probably over 30 bucks alone at its original price. Anyways, love this store...moms, if you haven't already, go check 'em out.

Last night after dinner, we plopped Ayla into her wagon and took off for a walk through the trail in our neighborhood. I wanted to check out some new locations to take pictures. Several of these are posted on my other blog...sorry for the repeats.

Poor Kody was sooo worn out about half-way through our walk. He was in heaven though--he loves running through the fields.

Ayla was holding my hand while I walked next to her in the wagon...so cute.

This morning, we picked up Grandma and headed downtown to the Farmer's Market...it was a gorgeous morning to be outside. We roamed around for a little while and then went over to check out the trains by the Botanical Gardens. Ayla is into trains lately so we thought she would love them, but she was more interested in climbing the dozens of steps that were there. I am disappointed that I didn't have my camera with me...what was I thinking?

Evening sprinkler fun

After dinner tonight, Dean went outside to turn the sprinkler on. I glanced out there...looked at Ayla with a smile on my face and let her go outside. We didn't say anything about the water being on but within seconds, she turned and looked at us with a huge grin on her face and ran in. Such a simple little thing makes her so happy. She ran around the yard and driveway as she laughed and squealed. Dean and I couldn't help but giggle with her. She was soaked. I figured she was going to be in the bath soon after anyways and it was a good way for her to get the last little bits of energy out before going to bed for the night.

Bathtime!

Picking flowers

Ayla likes to pick the flowers in our front yard...maaaybe not the best thing especially if she ends up in someone else's yard, but I figure as long as it's our flowers, it's harmless. :)

It was another hot weekend...I'm so ready for it to cool down just a bit. It would be nice to be outside without sweating.

Ayla, I think, is hitting her "terrible two's". She really is a good girl most of the time, but she definitely has her moments. Lately, if I leave a room, instead of just following me, she throws herself on the ground and freaks out for me to pick her up. I try to make her stand up first so I'm not completely giving in, but sometimes I lose the battle. Sigh. I'm sure there are more episodes to come...

Ayla & Kody

This is one of my favorite pictures of Ayla and Kody...it was taken last August:

Fast-forward to this August:

As much as they annoy eachother sometimes, they're buddies. :)

Busy weekend

I usually try to post an entry every Sunday night, but last night I decided to hit the hay early. It was a busy, busy, busy weekend. I didn't even take any new pictures...the ones I am posting are from earlier in the week.

On both Friday and Saturday afternoon/evening, I was at a shoot for a commercial so Aunt Marla watched Ayla. On Saturday, Marla took her to the zoo in the morning and spent the next almost 12 hours with her! Thank you so much, Marla! You're awesome...and I know Ayla had a ton of fun with you those two days. :)

On Sunday, we went over to my parents' house in the a.m. to hang out since they had just gotten home the day before from ten days in Canada. From there, my brother, Surina, and I headed downtown to take some engagement photos for them...so cute...I will be posting several pictures on my other blog once I get them uploaded and edited in the next couple of days. Then we had family over for dinner in the evening.

So this weekend was just go-go-go...fun stuff, but I'm still pooped even after a great night's sleep.

Ayla likes to pile things on or near Kody...this time, she was tucking her babies in right next to him. He is such a good boy and just puts up with it.

"Ayla, help!"

Today, while I was making lunch (oh yeah, P.S. once again, I'm not working...my parents are on vacation in Canada for the week), Ayla kept saying, "Ayla, help!" She wanted to help by setting the table. She can now easily reach into the silverware drawer, so I figured it didn't hurt anything and let her do it. If it keeps her busy for a few minutes so I can make lunch, cool. When I turned around and looked down at her table, I saw that she had taken out virtually every single piece of silverware from the drawer. :)
This morning, Ayla had a Pamida shoot. Just like last time, I was a little nervous about it. She is your typical almost-two-year-old so I didn't know if she'd cooperate. She happily put on the outfit and shoes and right when I placed her in front of the camera, she smiled and said, "cheese!" I was really surprised...but as more time passed, she got more and more side-tracked. After about ten minutes of chasing her and putting her back on the spot, we looked at the pictures and thankfully they got the shot they wanted. We attempted outfit #2, but she just wasn't having it...wouldn't even put it on. Oh well, maybe next time! :)

Sizzlin' Hot

It's been disgustingly hot this summer and today was no exception...the temp was in the mid to upper 90's with a heat index of 105 to 110 degrees. Ick. Meghan, Chris, and Heidi came over in the afternoon for an indoor play date and somehow the guys conjured up an experiment that I remember doing as a kid--frying an egg on the sidewalk. What do you know? It didn't work. :) However, right before we headed out to dinner, they cracked another one on the metal generator in the backyard and when we came back home, it was semi-cooked. Meghan and I didn't get a close enough look, so we're not exactly sure that it really did happen. Is it even possible? Is there a Myth Busters episode on this? It was a fun afternoon and evening and the girls had a great time playing together...we had a few episodes of competing for that one toy while the other one had it, but overall, they did great.

08.03.10

Ayla is 22-months today...I'm floored that she will be two in a couple short months. This year has gone even quicker than the last. She is. So. Much. Fun. Still talking up a storm and learning all kinds of new words and phrases. Kids this age are incredible...their rate of learning is staggering. Her memory is insane. A couple months ago, I tried to get her to "pose"...I put my hands on my hips and said, "Pose!" Nothing. Fast-forward to a couple weeks ago and out of nowhere, she stood up and put her hands on her waist and said, "I wanna pose!" It's as if she tucks away all this info and saves it for later use.
My favorite new phrase of hers? "I love you, Mama." It is the best feeling in the world to hear her say that and to know that she gets what it means. She has become more lovey...hugs, kisses, and all. I love it.

She has also learned how to say "cheese" for the camera. It's not always a good thing because she looks like this:
And this:I've been wanting to make this blog into books for a while now. I looked at blog2print.com about a year ago but the way the layout worked, it would mess up all of my captions on my photos, so I gave up on the idea for a while. I got the bug again a few months later and tried another site where you could create gorgeous "coffee table" books but after playing with that site, I realized that I had to pick and choose pictures to go in certain spots and also had to resize all of my photos. I would pretty much have to redo everything. Eventhough the end result would be great, I don't have the time nor patience to do something like that. Plus, I wanted to include too many pictures for it to work. I pretty much wanted my blog, exactly as shown, put into a book so I could have a hardcopy of all of my entries. A couple weeks ago, I went back to blog2print and was ecstatic when I saw that they had revamped how I could do the layout. It took me about 20 minutes to create three books...all of 2008 and 2009. I received them in the mail and they're exactly what I wanted. Because all of my pictures are digital, I rarely get anything printed. I've been bummed that Ayla doesn't have an actual photo album...but these books are better than a photo album. Not only are all of the photos there, so are my words, feelings, and thoughts for that particular time. I became teary-eyed as I flipped through all of my memories. I know I'll continue to get these books made for as long as I have this blog. I am thrilled to have them and I hope our kids will appreciate them someday.

The Cabin 2010

Our annual trip to our cabin was a success! :) As always, it's great to see and spend time with family. This year there were 14 of us there. Ayla adapted extremely well to everything...I'm so proud of her. She had so much fun playing with everyone all week. She was a little sleepy-head while we were there...she'd sleep 12 hours overnight and still somehow sleep for more than a couple hours during the day. One day we even had to wake her up after three hours. Crazy.

She traveled well, all things considered. On the way up, we split the trip into two days. She hated going to bed in the hotel but eventually fell asleep. For the trip back, we went all the way in one day. I was a bit nervous about it (it's about a 9-hour trip) but the only time she became fussy was when she was ready to take a nap. We borrowed my parents' conversion van (thank goodness for that) so we were able to keep her busy with DVDs. I think I can recite Toy Story, word for word.

Striking a pose...

She loved playing in the dirt!

Quiet time with Papa

We took a trip up to Duluth, Minnesota mid-week and did some shopping and eating. We also checked out the Aerial Bridge.

During lunch, we took some pictures in a photo booth. Hands down, the best $3 I've ever spent. I lovelovelove the pictures!

Here are some close-ups...

On the Aerial Bridge...it lifts up when boats/ships need to pass through.

She totally runs like a girl. She is my daughter. :)

We had a family reunion at the end of the week...this is the whole clan!

Great week, great family...til next year!