Allie’s 3rd Birthday Party

Ok, you’ll scroll down and really see that these are out of order.  Oh well.  I blog on!

Allie’s birthday lasted a couple of days this year.  On her actual birthday we made the crown seen above…

  made a breakfast of bacon and mickey mouse pancakes…

  braided her hair, per her request because she wanted braids like Princess Fiona from Shrek…  (Now I know it’s not exactly her hair style…but we had to work braids in somehow and this is what I came up with), and watched Elf.  That is what Allie wanted to do, so that’s what we did!

Her birthday was on a Thursday, but we had her birthday bash on Saturday.  That meant I stayed up super late…like 4am late…frosting cakes Friday night.  I am quite the procrastinator and can’t start things until the last minute.  So I started baking cakes and cupcakes at 10pm.  Allie wanted so badly to stay and be a part of it all, but she was exhausted so I pulled out her princess couch and she watched for a while before falling asleep.

Last year Allie had a Cinderella cake with gluten-free pumpkin carriages made out of cupcakes.  This year she had Ariel with a gluten-free ocean :)  I L-O-V-E the star tip!!  It makes for a really easy yet good looking cake.

We all ate way more of the blue frosting than we should have, as you can see by the blue tongues.  Brookie didn’t get any frosting this year though :)

I also had this Bundt cake available for anyone that didn’t want blue or red teeth.

This face cracks me up.  It’s like she is mesmerized by the cake…or is it the fire?

We had quite the turn out!  Thanks family and friends for celebrating our Allie Mae with us. 

Allie’s 3rd Birthday

This posts are out of order…I know.  But at least I’m finally blogging, right?

Allie turned 3 this year on the 16th of October!!  Where did the time go?  I can’t believe that I have a 3 year old! 

We love Allison so much.  She brings such a fun personality to our family.  She loves to sing, dance, play with Brooklynn, let Brooklynn suck on her toes “because it tickles Mom!” (obviously she does this when I’m not looking and I tell her to stop when I catch her), color with markers and cut with scissors, wear only her underwear (this drives me bonkers, but the minute we walk in the door she is stripping and taking her hair ties out, argh!) and play with stuffed animals and dolls.  We often hear her playing with her dolls and animals and it is a crack up to hear the things she has them say to each other. 

She is such a smart little girl and we are learning quickly that we have to be careful with what we say around her.  The other day the curtain rod fell down.  I was frustrated because I had flowers drying on it and clothes too.  I let, “Oh crap!” slip out when it fell.  Two days later when I was finally putting it back up (don’t be hatin’ we’re busy around here :) )  Allie said, “Mom, I saw this fall down and I said Awww, crap!”  Oops, let’s not say that Allie. 

Allie likes eating mac n’ cheese, quesadillas, spaghetti, apples, corn, peas, green beans, pop tarts, fruit snacks, granola bars, marshmallows, and absolutely loves sour cream and salad (not together though).  Allie always talks about how excited she is to start pre-school.  She really keeps us laughing with how dramatic she is about everything. 

The other day on the TV there was a commercial for an iPhone.  Allie watched the whole commercial and then whipped around to look at us and with her hands clasped together she begged, “Please, please will you buy me an iPhone Mom and Dad?  Please!”  She loves playing with my mom’s and Rick’s.  She, all by herself mind you, can turn it on, put in the security pin (so much for security, my mom showed her the code once and a week later she was punching it in herself), play games, take pictures, listen to music, and occasionally we have to stop her from buying things online. 

The other day she was getting some ice out of the ice machine on the freezer and some spilled on to the floor.  She walked by the table where Nick and I were sitting and said with her hand in the air, palm facing us, “My bad Mom.” Then gave a totally fake breathy laugh and said, “I’m sorry Mom, that was my bad.”  She is quite the drama queen and it cracks us up.  We could not imagine life without our little Allie girl. 

This morning she ran up to me and gave me a hug.  As she was squeezing me she said, “I love you Mom!  You are my best, best friend!”  Please oh please let her remember that when she’s older!  She makes us laugh whenever she wants to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks because she calls it Alvin and the Chick Punks.  Too cute to correct.  She loves to quote movies and her favorite line to quote with me is from Fox and the Hound.  She has me say, “You’re my best friend Copper!” And she says, “And you’re mine too Todd.”  Then I follow with, “And we’ll always be friends forever, right?”  She ends with, “Yeah.  Forever.”  Allie Mae I really hope we are best friends forever.  You can always bring a smile to my face.   

As I type she is begging me to let her pour salt into her hand.  She assures me, “I am not going to eat it Mom!”  And when I ask why she wants to put it in her hand she replies, “So I can hold it and rock it to sleep Mom!”  She tells me this while cupping her hands together and rocking them back and forth. 

We love you Allie Mae!  Thank you for being our little girl and such a good big sister to Brooklynn.  We are so blessed to have your strong spirit in our family!

lllllllllmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(Allie’s contribution to this post)

Brooklynn’s 4 month check-up

Photo courtesy of Allie

Brooklynn’s 4 month check up the beginning of this month went perfect!  She is getting to be such a big girl!  We love her so much!

It cracks me up how she can fold herself in half.  And you can kind of see how long her hair is getting!  So see…I’m not such a bad Mom after all for shaving it :)

Her stats as of 4 months are:

Weight: 15lb. 12oz.  90%

Height: 26 1/4 in.    97%

Head Circumference: 17 in.   95%

Yay for percentages in the 90s again!

Halloween

Well it’s about time I blogged about this!  This year Allie was super girl (she loves PBS kids Super Y, so she wanted to go as Super Allie) and Brookie was the green M&M. 

 

We started the Halloween season (is that the right word?) by going to a Halloween party at Martha Stewart’s house…oh I mean Jaime’s house (aka Martha Stewart’s protégé).  We love parties at Jaime’s!  I wish I would have taken a picture of the outside of her house.  HUGE spiders complete with spiders eggs everywhere and a life size man completely wrapped in spider’s web and hanging upside down.  Jaime does not spare any details :)  Thanks Jaime for a fun party!

The spread…and this was just the sweets spread, not the meal she had also prepared.

Martha inspired pumpkin decorations and gluten-free cupcakes! 

I just love these girls!  They are so good to my girls!

And thanks Mike for sitting with Allie outside for most of the night roasting marshmallows and chatting about whatever it is 3 year olds have to chat about :)  Allie loves you!

 

The day before Halloween we finally bought and pumpkin and carved it.  If you do it too early it shrivels up outside!

Allie’s making the same face as the pumpkin!

Brooklynn was also very helpful by providing her usual grins and squeals :)

Our pumpkin wasn’t super creative, just the usual Jack-O-Lantern face, so Allie added a few of her finishing touches.

Gotta love that kool-aid mustache

 

Halloween night we went trick-or-treating with my cousins in Mesa.

We started out the evening by visiting Craig, Jaime’s mom.  She is so sweet to my girls and they love her!  We consider her one of the girls’ grandmas, so naturally we had to stop by her house and trick-or-treat.

 

Chris wore his plumber costume again.  Allie had no clue who it was at first, but she soon realized it was Chris and laughed because she could see Uncle Chris’ bum :)  His costume says McKrackin Plumbing: We’re #1 when it comes to #2. 

Don’t mind how blurry the picture is :)  This is the famous Talking Pumpkin!  Allie and the other kids talk about him all year.  A man my mom’s family has known for years owns this house and sets up a Jack-O-Lantern with a speaker in the mouth.  The man stands in his cul-de-sac and talks to the parents as their kids walk up to the door to get candy.  As they walk by the pumpkin the man talks into a microphone he has in his hand and his voice is heard from the speaker in the pumpkin.  The pumpkin thanks the kids by name for coming to see him and comments on their costumes and how much bigger they are than last year.  The Talking Pumpkin is a HUGE hit every year! 

 

Schnepf Farms Pumpkin and Chili Festival

Well we said we weren’t going to do it again this year…but we did.  This year was actually a lot better than this year because we took advantage of the things that DIDN’T cost extra.  We still spent way more than we should have, but Allie had a blast!  Unfortunately Nick and I, like last year, went later than we wanted to and by the time we got on the train it was after 6:30 and so it was “spooky”.  I was a little peeved that the ride was so scary for kids as this is a family festival, right?  Poor Allie lost it when a girl dressed in a really scary costume with a ton of blood makeup on her face jumped out of the trees and screamed right in Allie face.  Then the girl followed along side the train next to Allie while dragging a foot.  Most of the train ride Allie was crying with her head buried in Nick’s chest so she wouldn’t see the other scary “actors”.  However, in their defense they do tell you that after 6:30 it will be a scary train ride and so it is definitely our fault…but really…does it have to be that scary?  Can’t someone in a pumpkin costume jump out of the trees and say BOO! ?  Other than the train ride Allie loved it!

Brookie had a ghost painted on her cheek and Allie got a pumpkin like last year.

Allie went down the HUGE, LONG slide several times and we rode on the bee, too.  Why go stand in the long lines at Disneyland to ride Dumbo when you can go to Schnepf Farms and ride a Bee that goes up and down?

This was by far her favorite ride!  As you can see :)  She got to ride in it all by herself and it would move up and down when she pulled on the lever.  She was so proud of herself!  She rode it three times and we finally had to drag her away to something else. 

Nick is always such a fun dad.  Allie loved climbing to the top of the haystack and jumping down to Nick!