2010 Review

10 comments about 2010

Sidney got tubes, we all got a little more sleep.

The princess of the bunch turned 4 and became more of a diva than we ever thought possible.

We said goodbye to our first home!

The next day we bought a new bigger house and it comes with a beautiful view!!

Regan enjoyed gymnastics, dance, t-ball and swimming lessons which depletes our check book but brings smiles all around.

We kept stable employment (though not without a lot of stress).

Ryan became my very own pool boy and gave us some good laughs with his tricks

Our girls became excellent swimmers and experts at pool safety in a matter of weeks.

The baby of the group turned 2 complete with the best darn

Elmo cake I have ever seen and was potty trained just in time.

We continue to be blessed with the best family and friends anyone could ask for.

Here's hoping 2011 brings many more memories!

Energy-Round 2

We like to stay active and busy while burning off all that built up winter energy. So this morning, after a quick visit to the doctor and a stop to pick up some antibiotics for a suspected ear infection (more on that later), we headed over to Pump It Up to just P-L-A-Y!! Regan's eyes lit up as we entered the room with giant inflatable slides and bounce houses. It got even bigger when she saw room #2 with more of the same! With dad at work today, I was on double duty chasing these two girls; but boy, did we have fun!!

Sidney preferred the bounce houses over the slides; she requires a bit of help climbing the steep stairs of the slides but is much more independent in the houses. Poor kid has had a rough week with lack of sleep and tugging at ears. Unfortunately, (and fortunately) she has tubes. The pediatrician wasn't able to see inside her ears because of some build-up and he wasn't able to clean it out because she squirms and screams and there's a chance he could damage the tubes while attempting such a thing. He then told me it would require more surgery if he would damage the tubes....no thank you! Because we all suspect an infection, he was nice enough to write out a prescription seeing as though her ENT's office is closed today.

Back to the bounce house, Regan sure can get some good "air"!! She was practicing her gymnastics and what she has been learning to do on the trampoline. It's so fun to watch her incorporate her extracurricular activities into her everyday play! That's what it is all about!

Here's to a very quiet house over nap time.....I hope!

The great outdoors

It was finally a nice winter day and we went outside this afternoon to enjoy the fresh air. Being stuck indoors all winter can be draining for all of us I'm quickly learning. Sidney had a good time (that doesn't always happen!) but between gloves falling off, a few (unintentional) snow washes from her big sister and just being cold in general, our time outside was short lived.

As I was tending to a fallen glove, Regan was calling for me. She was stuck. And was not happy that I grabbed my camera before freeing her from stuck-ness.

Her crabbiness ended rather quickly and she jumped into making snow angels.

As we walked back into the house, Regan mentioned all the things we don't have to wear in the summer: "hats, jackets, scarves, mittens, snow pants, boots", and then stated "or socks"!
My girls despise socks.

We're doing well at enjoying winter, but dear summer, we miss you!

New toys!

With all the new toys around here, there is always something fun happening. The Ahlness girls gave each girl Color Wonder mess free paint. Let me emphasize MESS FREE paint!! Sidney thought it was so much fun and I did too :) We've had this same brand of mess free paint in the past and we weren't overly thrilled with it, but this toy is totally different. It's actually clear paint but goes on as a color and uses a special brush that lights up when dipped in the various colors of paint. Cool!!

This is their art/craft area of the house. Those 4 doors behind Sid

are now over flowing with arts and crafts projects just waiting to be done!

Sweet Sidney

I lost my voice last night (it's tough to do that much talking!) and I continue to sound rather horrible today. Sidney asked about my voice, and I told her it was gone; then my sweet little Sidney reached her fingers into her mouth, and moved her fingers to my mouth so as to give me her voice. Isn't she sweet?!

I love this girl.

Christmas with the families

It's a blessing that we are able to spend Christmas with both of our entire families and let the girls experience the fun included in all of the wonderful traditions. This year, like every year past, we started with a family photo in front of Grandma Sheri's tree.

After a lengthy church service, where the girls did amazingly well, we had dinner with Grandma Jan, Papa, and Uncles Ben and Jon. Then it was time for the highlight for the girls....PRESENTS!

They adore this new princess castle and when Papa started playing with Sidney's new Elmo puppet from the outside, they were beside themselves in giggles!

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast prepared by Papa, we head to Grandma Sheri and Pandpa Arnie's house along with Uncle Shane for the next round of PRESENTS!

Daddy had a wonderful time showing Regan how to walk our new family pet.

(don't tell Regan though....he's not a real dog!).

We take a quick break/nap and then headed out to the Ahlness' for time with family and playing with cousins. Thankfully, all 3 Ahlness girls enjoy playing barbies (in this case: Tangled) with Regan. She loves the extra attention.

Sidney took 3 bites of lefse and then realized "this taco doesn't taste good".

With only a 2 month difference between these two year olds, there's a lot of terrible twos right now!

And finally, wrap it up with a nice family picture with the Friederich's!

WE HOPE YOU HAD A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!

S.A.N.T.A.

Before bed last night, we set out a plate of cookies for Santa and sprinkled oats into the snow for the reindeer. We woke up to a fresh coat of snow and an empty plate of cookies this morning :)

And of course, presents under the tree!

Regan received a Leapster Explorer and is quickly learning how to play her new hand held toy. Daddy is really hoping this will keep her away from his iTouch; good luck dad.

Sidney received a baby doll that talks and laughs and sings to us! Aren't we just so very lucky!?!

Regan took some of her toys to the kitchen to play in hopes of getting away from Sidney...you can tell by her expression that it didn't work very well. But man, look at that workout hairstyle she has going on! She'd fit right into a 1980's aerobic dance VHS.

Sidney took her baby (and later also her book and silly bands) for a spin on her new 4 wheeler. She's not real good at steering yet; look out furniture (and walls and toes!).

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Thank you Santa!

Merry Christmas 2010!

Let the holiday fun begin!

"Tourtle"!!!!

For those of you familiar with this symbol, yes, it's on the side of a very popular gas station. We drive past this particular gas station 3 days/week on the way home from school. And everyday, Sidney points and announces "Tourtle"! (aka: turtle).

While I get that she might not know what to call a horse with wings, but turtle?! Regan's been working on telling her it's a horse, and today she finally announced it correctly.
It was cute while it lasted!

Dedicated "Pandpa" Arnie

Grandpa Arnie (or Pandpa Arnie as Sidney calls him) loves his Mondays with the girls as much as they love spending it him. I think he'd do anything for his two sweethearts, really, anything they ask of him. Today he pulled them all the way to the skating rink across the street in the sled, sans sled handle. ( This is a good thing because now he's adding a nice handle to the sled! ). When I asked Sidney last night what her and Pandpa Arnie were going to play today, she mentioned that he liked barbies and dolls, and then added books to the list too!

I bet he loves those things, right!? I know he does, because when he's playing with the girls, it means he's not crossing off some "honey do" list for me/Ryan! But my guess is he'd also do anything we ask of him, really, anything at all.

We love you Pandpa Arnie!!

Grandma Sheri and the girls did a lot of baking today also and left too many goodies here to fatten us up with all the cold and snow; just what we needed!!

S'mores

Yes, we did.

And this one could eat 5 of them....

while this one takes a bite and then digs out just the chocolate.

Last year we had a total of maybe 3 fires, I think this year we might hit 20+. Today it burned for over 8 hours and it was lovely. The girls know enough to stay back and we lay out a rug for a good visual. It works well and has made having fires much less stressful.

What picture do you prefer?

I miss summer!

Just a nibble

Admit it, we've all done it. It's just not winter if you don't at least take a small sample of the snow. It's really the only thing Sidney likes to do outside. Gross I know. We've had a lot of discussions as to what snow is ok to taste and what snow isn't. She doesn't really pay attention to our rules, and today she took off her gloves for her nibble.

Macy's Holiday Display

A yearly tradition for us is to bring the girls to the Macy's 8th floor holiday display downtown. Every year, the girls get to wear a pretty outfit and get dolled up for the event and this year was no different. Sidney in her ruffled pink dress and Regan in her floral ensemble, both clutching purses, looked like princesses as we marched up to the display. Of course, as it has been this winter, Sidney didn't let go of me for one second and clung to me for dear life. I tried to get a picture of just the two of them but Sidney wasn't having it; and I wasn't interested in a picture with a wail out of her. So you get this instead:

Regan just loves this display (it hasn't changed for quite a few years now). Last year, she asked to go see it without any prompting; this year, it didn't look familiar to her until we got off the elevator and then it was as if a light bulb had gone off in her head when she announced "oh yea, now I remember!".

She posed for every picture I took, and put her chin on her shoulder without a toothy smile. And I'm not sure why?, she has a gorgeous set of baby teeth!

This trip is not complete until Regan writes her letter to Santa; this year so simply asked how to spell her toy of choice and finished off with her signature. My heart melts every year as I watch her write her letter and then drop it in Santa's mail box. This year she was quite concerned about how Santa would know what Sidney would want!! Sidney had no interest in waiting for Regan to finish her letter and she/dad took off running around the gift store.

The girls also get to pick out a special (extremely over priced!) treat at the end of our trip downtown. The choice this year was a Mrs Claus frosted cookie for $4 and some change. Must have tasted great because they gobbled it up.

Finally, out of sight of any strange looking Elf, Santa or moving character, I succeeded in snapping a picture!

Energy

Let me start by mentioning that my girls don't like this bitter cold winter weather. Not a little. Not one bit. Sidney is simply miserable with just the idea of venturing outside to play, and while Regan tries to like it, she too isn't a fan of feeling so very cold. That leads two little girls to be full of energy, so much so that they were ready to burst today! Thankfully we are blessed to have this indoor play area nearby. It's 3 stories tall and has 2 bouncers and slides galore. Grandma Jan would freak at the sight of little Sidney climbing that high!!

We befriended an experienced little girl who showed us how to get to slides we just couldn't seem to find. Boy are some of them fast!! We literally went flying off the bottom of 3 of them!

Sidney wanted to jump her heart out tonight, so that's exactly what she did. I love the laugh on her face here. This whole night was exactly what both girls (and their parents!) needed. I cringed at the idea of all the germs, but I spotted all the Purell stations which were highly used by this family :)

For the love of donuts

I love the smell of a real bakery; then again, when you're a "carbatarian", it's like heaven! (Yes I've realized that my vegetarian lifestyle is a bit more like a carbatarian).

This morning I took the girls to a local bakery and they each picked out a fresh, sweet smelling donut. Actually Sidney picked out two because this gigantic one that matched Regan's choice, just wasn't what she was looking for after all. So she went back and asked for a cake donut with sugar, her favorite. Once she finished off the entire sugar filled, unhealthy donut, she started in on the original one!! Thankfully that didn't last long. And both girls are crashing now from their sugar high and hopefully taking a nice L-O-N-G nap!

Pardon the camera phone quality, it's all I had.

Flashback Friday

Winter 2009

Hearts

Regan isn't really interested in toys. I've mentioned this before, toys just aren't her "thing". But arts/crafts, that's a different story. We have markers and colors for every type of surface including dry erase, "magic black paper", the bath tub and of course the windows. Lately Regan has been working on drawing a Christmas tree as well as perfecting drawing hearts. I think she's doing an amazing job:

She drew all of them above. I had nothing to do with it and amazingly, Sidney left them alone too and didn't scribble over the top which tends to send Regan into a tizzy.

Story time

Sometimes being short, works to your advantage :) Logan fits perfectly under the dining room table where the girls brought her so she could read stories after dinner last night. Let's just say she looks more comfortable under there than Ryan does!