Good Naps and Good Times

Allary has never been a good napper. I've always had to rock her to sleep (when she was a baby), or lay with her on her bed or at least sit in her room with her until she falls asleep. Many many people have offered me advice on the matter, and believe me, I tried it all. I tried for a week to get her on a definite schedule of an afternoon nap which resulted in her screaming her lungs out and banging on her door for 2 excruciating hours a day until I finally decided it wasn't worth it. So since then, she just naps when and where she wants, sometimes in the car, sometimes she crashes on the floor or the couch, but never for longer than 30-60 minutes. And I just had to learn to roll with it. But recently, and oh I can't even tell you how great this is, she has been taking naps lasting 2 hours, yes 2 hours all at once, in her very own bed! Seriously, no one who has kids that nap on a regular basis can understand how wonderful this is to me. I don't think I've ever had two consecutive hours at home to myself since she was born! I hardly know what to do with myself. Oh, and get this, all I do is take her into her room, read her and "Baby Simba" a story, give her kisses, and leave. Amazing, I tell you, after two years of struggling with the daytime nap, this is pure bliss.

(Sorry the picture is blurry, I didn't want to use the flash for risk of waking her up).

And of course, I love her when she's awake too.

All ready for church. She got this beautiful dress with matching shoes and hair bows from Grandma M. These are her favorite shoes. I have to hide them up high so she can't get them, trying to explain to her that they are her church shoes not play shoes. When she doesn't want to get ready for church, all I have to say is, "you get to wear your pink church shoes" and she is suddenly all for it.

We have had a few really cold days recently. Allary and I walked out the door one day to run errands and were met by a blast of freezing cold air. We shut the door and went right back inside to get coats. I took this picture cuz I thought she looked so cute all bundled up.

Allary and I have been trying to go to the park as much as we can before the last of the decent weather is gone. We invited her cousin Paige to go with us and I took some really cute pictures. Allary loves Paige and they are becoming good little friends. Allary was playing with her pretend phone the other day and I could hear her talking, she was saying, "Paige, what doing? Come play Allry, okay? Okay? (progressively louder) Okay? OKAY?!?!?" It made me laugh.



And last photo for today, my little rock star.

Last of the Disneyland Photos

We ran into Flick at California Adventure. Allary is kind of faking a smile, but this is the only photo we got with a Character where she is not crying or clinging to one of us for dear life.

We got a little rowdy in Toon Town, so they threw us in the slammer.

Allary loved the Finding Nemo ride. That's the sub in the background and you can barely see the talking seagulls, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Allary thought they were hilarious. We used our "early entry" pass into the park, ran straight over to this ride, and still had to wait in line almost an hour. It was worth it though. It's amazing.

The ladybug ride. She needed the binky and Daddy for comfort and reassurance.

We got pretty wet on the Grizzly Rapids raft ride.

Pluto. He really freaked her out. He put his nose right on her face and tried to play peek-a-boo. She told me afterward. "No Pluto Mommy, no like it, nose!"

I just think this is a cute photo.

Toon Town.

The Princesses. Allary knows all of them by name. Well, in her own words.
For instance, in Allary language, that's "Jammins, Nose Wipe, (the extras), and Seepy Booty."

The Main Street Fireworks were awesome! Allary was so tired, she fell asleep waiting for them to start (see next picture), but we woke her back up when they started. They had fireworks to go along with the audio from Disney movies and music, laser lights, and images projected onto the castle. A really good show. It is next to impossible to get good pictures of fireworks, but this is the best I could get.

Having so much fun can sure be exhausting.

I can't say enough how much fun we had. I am a little sad to think that Allary is probably too little to remember for very long, but at least we have the pictures, right?

And lastly, here is my whole family.

New Look

Aha! I finally figured out how to design my own background! Well, the designing wasn't actually the problem, it was the HTML. I took a few shortcuts and used templates and HTML codes and just changed out the parts that I needed changed. It took me 4 1/2 hours, but I finally got it. Although, I still can't figure out how to get the background image to stretch all the way across to the Right end of the page. No matter how I resize it, it stops right at that edge. Any ideas anyone?
So, what do you think of our new look?

More Vacation Photos

I didn't provide much information in my last post. We left for our vacation super early in the morning at 4:30am, well actually a little after that because Allary threw up before we even made it to the freeway. So we had to turn around and go back to change clothes and clean up and grab rags and wipes for a drive that at this point, was seeming impossibly and horribly long. We had to stop again in St. George at a Wal-Mart to grab more clean-up supplies and to fill a prescription at the pharmacy in our desperation to fix whatever was making Allary sick. After that, she really just slept most of the way, waking up only to throw up, and we only stopped when we absolutely had to. We finally made it there, and luckily, Allary seemed to get better after a good night's rest at the hotel. She didn't even seem sick for the three days we spent in Disneyland. There must be some magical spell over the whole place that blocks out all sickness. Because she was sick again in the car on the way home and the day after we got home. But, besides all that, we had such a great time. It's not often that we get to see Travis and his family anymore, so it was fun to get to do some things with them. Allary was a little trooper. She was a little nervous about some rides like Snow White and Pinocchio, but she never freaked out. The only times she really cried was when we would get close to the Characters. She liked them, but only from a distance. I think her favorite rides were the train around the park, Dumbo, It's a Small World, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. They had a really cute Playhouse Disney show in California Adventure that she really liked, too, which included appearances by Bear in the Big Blue House, Jo Jo, Winnie the Pooh and all his buddies, and Stanley. My favorite rides were Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, California Screamin, Tower of Terror, and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was fun to go on the Grizzly Rapids ride with everybody too, of course hoping to watch my older brothers get drenched. :) Allary talks about the rides a lot and about Cinderella and Mickey, but mostly she talks about her cousins and how she wants to go see Grandma and Grandpa again. And now for more photos...

Here we are in front of California Adventure.

This is me and Allary driving our car at Autopia. You can barely see her peeking over the hood. She kept saying "Weeee!" as we zoomed along at about 2 miles per hour. I guess being in a car and not having to be in a car seat could be pretty exciting to her.

Waiting to go on Peter Pan's Flight. See the pirate ships?

Some of the natives along the Jungle Cruise ride.

The rest of these are of the "Year of a Million Dreams" Parade.

Ariel.

Pinocchio.

Tink.

The stars, Mickey and Minnie. "It all started with a Mouse."

Believe it or not, I still have more to come...

Sweet Prayer

I don't have time to post more Disneyland photos right this minute, but I wanted to record this before I forget. This is Allary's bedtime prayer the other night...

Mom: "Say, 'Dear Heavenly Father.'"
Allary: "Dear Fadder."
Mom: "Say, 'Thank You.'"
Allary: "Taytoo. For Mommy, and Daddy...and Mommy, and Daddy...and Mommy. And Paige, and Trisha's house, and Paige.... And Bapa's house, and Mickey and ride Dumbo, and Choo Choo Train. And Trisha's house, and Paige, and Chase. And Paige and slides. And Megan and boat. And Bapas, and Bapas...." (she would've gone on forever if I didn't stop her.)
Mom: "Say, 'Please Bless us.'"
Allary: "Peese bess."
Mom: "To sleep good."
Allary: "To seep good...and ride Dumbo."
Mom: "Say, 'in the name..'"
Allary: "Name..Allry."
Mom: "No, name of Jesus."
Allary:"Sheesus...amen."

The Happiest Place on Earth

We went to Disneyland for a Barry and Connie Family Reunion. It was so much fun! I have always loved Disneyland, but it was even more fun to experience it through the eyes of my sweet little Allary.
I have a ton of pictures, so I will split them up into multiple posts.

Here we are meeting Mickey!

Waiting for Dumbo, her first ride.

She really liked Dumbo. She is holding the "magic feather."
When we got up in the air, she said, "Weeee! Yea Dumbo!"

She was asking to ride the "horsies" but was a little nervous once she got on.

When we rode the carousel again later, she was more into it.
Here she is with cousin Maddy and Dad.

The Monsters Inc ride at California Adventure was really cute and Allary loved it.

We heard Snow White tell a story and the kids got to decorate crowns with stickers.

Then we waited for the other Princesses to come out for the "Royal Coronation Ceremony."
Here's Allary excitedly awaiting their arrival.

And of course, Allary got to ride the "Choo Choo Train" around the park.

This may very well have been the highlight of the trip for her.
That's her, Tyler, and Grandma.

Another one of her favorites was "It's a Small World." Here we are in the boat.

Allary loved getting to see and play with her cousins. Here she is posing with cousin Haley.

Allary and Mom in front of "Rella's Castle" as Allary calls it (Cinderella's Castle).
I think it's actually Sleeping Beauty's Castle, but she likes and knows Cinderella better so I wasn't going to argue the point.

And, of course, the classic Disneyland photo spot.

To be continued...

Unsolved Mysteries

Allary's favorite thing to do lately is hide things. It is infuriating because every time I turn around she takes something and puts it in some obscure place and then she won't or can't tell me where it is when I need it. Here's a list of the lost objects to date:

1- about 10 binkies
status: still lost
2- a pair of shoes
status: one still missing, one pair found inside an empty wipes box
3- a few sippy cups
status: I just hope none of them had milk in them
4- my cell phone
status: found (for now) I had to go next door and ask my neighbor to call me until I found it in one of the trash cans
5- a whole bunch of candy
status: I have no idea. I came downstairs this morning to a very suspicious looking Allary who was moving a chair around the kitchen. I said, "What are you doing?" She said "Allary's candy?" I looked in the cute little bucket of Halloween candy that came in a package from Grandma and it had gone from completely full to completely empty. I asked her over and over where she put it and she won't tell me. Ugh. I know she didn't eat it because there would have been evidence of that on her face and hands. She's stashing it away for later, I'm sure.
6- a library book
status: found and returned after having to renew twice to avoid the fine.
7- about 16 oz of water
Okay, this is the most mysterious of them all. I was trying to get out the door the other day to go somewhere. I set my stuff on the little table by the door which included a full water bottle. We were ready to go and I realized I needed to return her library book (see item 6). After a few minutes of searching, I gave up and came back down to find Allary standing by the door, right where I left her. I reached for my water bottle and it was gone. I said, "Ally, did you take Mommy's water?" She replied, "Yes." I said, "Where did you put it?" She answered, "Trash?" Sure enough, there in the trash was my empty water bottle with the lid off. I didn't know she could unscrew the lids yet and so I felt the top of the trash to see if she had dumped all the water there. Dry as a bone. Hmmm. I asked, "Ally, did you spill Mommy's water?" She said, "Yes. Uh-oh Mommy." I know she didn't drink it because she didn't have that much time and because she is still not good at drinking from a cup so there would have been evidence on her shirt. I crawled around on my hands and knees all over the house feeling for wet spots and came up with nothing. I even checked in drawers, closets, anywhere she could reach. It's still driving me mad. I laid awake that night thinking there's got to be a puddle of water somewhere in my house, for crying out loud. Where is it?!?!
8- frosting
Okay, so this one's not so much mysterious, but a little funny.
I came into the kitchen to find some cupcakes on the counter with the frosting gone from the tops! Hmmm.
How curious. Then this came walking into the kitchen...


I had to laugh. :)