Bath

One of Ashlyn's first words was "bath." It was the first time she really recognized she was saying something. She loved to say "dath" with a great big "d" and "th," her tongue curled out, and applaud herself. Here is the latest version of the word. And, yes, she is still proud of herself. Right before I shot this she said it perfectly...that's why I kept pestering her once I got the camera. She has also taken to nodding lately. Cuteness! By the way, she has blue hands, mouth, and clothes because she snuck over to the gingerbread house AGAIN, ripped off a candy cane and went at it!

All I Want for Christmas...

...is my one front tooth! Haley knocked out her tooth at pre-school. She was climbing up the slide and hit it on a "black thing." Her tooth fell in the snow and her teacher found it. She got a great big fat lip. She wanted her tooth back in, until it started feeling better and she was getting a lot of attention. Then she said "I'm a little glad about my tooth." All she wanted after visiting the dentist was a churro from Costco. The worker there gave her a free ice cream when he found out about her tooth. And the cashier at Harmon's gave her 2 stickers, Haley shared one with Ashlyn, so the cashier gave her another one, Haley shared one with her mom. Sweetheart. She even tried to share her money from the tooth fairy. We didn't let her. Well, the little cutie will have a hole for a couple of years! Now she thinks it's funny - touches it with her tongue, puts a straw through the hole in her teeth. Poor kid. It was hard to tell her everything would be okay when I was crying myself! It's so hard to see your child get hurt!

Santa!!!

This is the first year that Haley really wanted to talk to Santa. She used to admire him from afar. We didn't tell her that he was coming to the party. She was so surprised, enthralled, excited to see him. You can see the sense of magic in her face! Every so often she looks into the air and whispers things to Santa and tells me what they talk about. Who needs to send a letter when you can talk? Moments before Ashlyn was going to see him, she kept walking up and sitting at Santa's feet (probably so they'd take pictures of her). But, as soon as Greg picked her up to go see Santa...well...you can see what happened!

'Tis the Season

We have had a lot of fun so far! We made gingerbread houses. Ashlyn ate more than she put on the house, Haley thought of a great bridge, and Greg and I were pretty proud of our blue m&m river. I only burned myself about 5 times! I tried doing the ever stable melted sugar to put it together. Very hot. I think we'll do it differently next time!












The girls played in the snow until their cheeks were red and their gloves were soaking wet. Haley made a snowman that survived a week, even when it rained a lot and every thing else melted.

Decorating the tree took just about all day! Some lights didn't work, the tree fell over (partly on Ashlyn - wow, the fear in her eyes!), we repositioned the tree over and over, Ashlyn took things off as we put them on, and Haley just wanted to play pretend with all the nutcracker ornaments. Well, we finished and it was fun listening to Christmas music and having fun together. Haley had been asking every day to get our tree. She was very excited when grandma and grandpa brought it, even though she plugged her nose for about half and hour until she got used to the smell. We had to convince her it was a great smell! Ha ha.

Hogle Zoo

This was a fun day at the zoo! We knew it would be. Ashlyn loves animals. She jabbered in her language about the animals, trying to tell us about them. The leopard was so cool - he just paced back and forth in front of the window and looked people in the eye. The lemurs were curious about Haley. The gorillas, the big orangutan and his baby were my favorite. It was a little cold, but it was nice because the zoo was not busy...we could spend time where we wanted to. Yay for days off work!

Thanksgiving

It's a little late, but here's some of our holiday!

CYUUUUTE!

We got to go see the new baby Addison! She is sooooo cyuuute! Ashlyn and I flew to California to see the Howells. Some things we really enjoyed: E.T., the park at the lake, In & Out Burger, scones, cookie dough ice cream, the new family room, rewinding live T.V., the beautiful backyard, nice drivers, being on the news, playing with the kids, cuddling the baby, and being with our family! Thanks Mike and Suzy! And thanks to mom for watching Haley!

Gymnastics

Haley's first gymnastics class! She did great! Her coach was surprised at her nice straight legs and pointed toes. She loves it and is already begging to go back. That was just a class to see if she liked it. I guess we'll have to keep going.

Storytime at the Library

Haley enjoys the stories and Ashlyn enjoys pushing the stroller around in a circle...around..and around...and around...

Hot Hubbie

There are no pictures of my hot hubbie on here, so here's one!

A few more things you missed today...

Girl on a leash...family night treat...
Love you Greg!

Some things you missed today...

Going to pre-school..."helping" mom with dinner...ashlyn liking cabbage (in a way)...mom burning dinner while taking this picture (yes, as usual)...haley being cute (as usual)...never-ending laundry...playing dress-up...

Christmas Present (shhhh!)

Christmas Present (shhhh!)
Originally uploaded by erikaduckwitz

Testing...testing...

Thanks to Shanna for getting me onto this! Argh! Great. Another thing to get addicted to. Okay, it might be fun to try, so here we go. Here's the two little girls on Halloween. They had so much fun, mostly because of all the candy I'm sure! Haley loves any excuse to dress up like a princess and Ashlyn was the cutest little duck I've ever seen (she even does a very good waddle)! Haley was Barbie as the Island Princess, otherwise known as Rosella. She loves scary things like the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas" and going down Halloween aisles in stores, but if she sees someone real in a scary mask she will climb right up to the top of my head in 2 seconds, just like in a cartoon! Ashlyn loved trick-or-treating at the ward party, but at the houses in our neighborhood she got more and more scared of who was behind each door. And they were not even dressed up or scary in any way. She would cry and approach with caution, snatch a candy with shaking hands, and back away - always keeping one eye on the person handing out the candy. Funny. Greg and I were geeky as always. He was convinced I trashed his tradional mullet he wants to use for every costume, but I really couldn't find it. Really. I mean it. No, really.