The Fire Station

Ashlyn got to go to the fire station for a preschool field trip and loved it...all but the hat. She wore it just long enough for this picture and then gave it to me. Emma tried it on too and was all smiles for all of about 10 seconds. I guess firefighter hats aren't any fun for girls. At least Ashlyn loved the fire station. Every time we've driven by it since the field trip, she has made sure that I know we are about to drive by her fire station.

Ashlyn

What a rough birthday! Yesterday afternoon, Ashlyn wasn't acting like her normal self and we realized she had a fever. I was hoping it would go away quickly but was pretty sure it wouldn't and I was right. She ended up with fifths disease and felt miserable.

Thankfully there were moments of brightness. She got to open her presents in the morning and got all four Frozen Barbies, which was just what she wanted. It was a great way to start the day.

The rest of the day was quite busy. Grandma and Grandma Bohman had their mission farewell and Dad had meetings in the evening.We knew it would be like that so we asked her several days earlier if we could celebrate her birthday with extended family on Monday. She thought that was a great idea until tonight. She really wanted to have grandmas and grandpas over. Instead we frosted cupcakes which seemed to take her mind off of things.

I thought she was pretty lucky, though. She got to eat cake and ice cream two days in a row! Fancy cupcakes the first day and.............

Ariel the next. And even though we had to uninvite her cousins (to avoid spreading the virus), she got to spend time with her grandmas and grandpa which put a smile on her face.

Some Things We Love About Ashlyn:

Her face is so expressive. Her eyes smile before her mouth does and they get big when she has something exciting to say. She is such a good big sister. She is always helping Emmalyn do something and loves to share with her, especially her food. She is very very smart and likes to tell us what she has learned at school.  I can't believe how well she knows her letters, numbers and shapes and she still has another year of preschool before kindergarten. 

Best Friends

These two spend a lot of time together with Kali and Sadie in school all day and there's nothing better when they're playing like best friends. I sure hope they feel that way about each other. So cute!

Tired

When we got home last night, it was bedtime. Ashlyn had fallen asleep in the car but I woke her up to go inside. A minute later, this is where I found her. She walked to the door, dropped and was out cold. I asked her about it this morning and she doesn't remember a thing. It was pretty funny.

Hair Cut

A couple of days ago, I found this stash of hair and knew right away what had happened. Ashlyn has been using the scissors a lot lately and a couple of times I found her acting a little fishy but didn't think much of it. She's typically pretty responsible with scissors, but this pile of hair says otherwise. I could tell from the different colors that this was hair from a lot of different Barbies and dolls. After finding about six of her sisters' dolls with damage, I stopped searching and gave her a punishment.

Then today I noticed this. Emma's hair has some lovely straight cuts making her hair very short on the front left side. I suddenly knew that some of the hair I found the previous day belonged to Emma. I remember thinking some of the hair was very soft and couldn't think of which of their Barbies had such nice hair. That's because it wasn't a Barbie's hair, it was Emma's.

Then it dawned on me that she probably cut her own hair too. I began questioning her and she immediately burst into tears and admitted to it. I began searching her hair and luckily couldn't find any serious damage. I think she cut hair to the length of her bangs so it blends nicely. I guess the silver lining is that I may end up with a hair stylist in the future.

Book Reading

Josh caught these two enjoying a little book reading together. They don't always sit still for us to read to them, but they were sure enjoying looking at books tonight.

Snow + Walking

Ashlyn has been watching some family videos of the older girls sledding and playing in the snow when they were little and now she is dying to go out and tromp through the snow and make snowballs. I don't like the cold at all and avoid being outside as much as possible. However, she has somehow convinced me to walk to and from preschool in the snow. So here we are, walking home from preschool in the freezing cold. It's far from my favorite thing to do, but I've done it a couple of times now because I know she's in heaven. I only wish it didn't take twice as long to get home. Pushing Emma in the stroller in the snow is a little tricky when the walks aren't shoveled, and Ashlyn spends the majority of her time playing in all the yards along the way.

Decorating for Christmas

I love decorating for Christmas every year. If it were just up to me I'd decorate on our first big snow storm because it reminds me that Christmas is coming. However, I usually wait until after Thanksgiving. This year it was Ashlyn's turn to put the star on the tree. I never realized how challenging that tradition would be. It's hard to lift the girls high enough to reach the top branch, especially as they older and bigger. And it's even harder to lean far enough that they can reach the middle branch, but the girls love it.

Turkey Hat

Ashlyn made a turkey hat in preschool today. Each feather has a picture of something she's thankful for. She informed me that the blue feather was a picture of me and that I'm yelling at someone because my mouth is open. I'm glad to know she's thankful to have a mom who yells at people.

Tape

Ashlyn is obsessed with tape. She is constantly taping things. She makes dresses for Barbies out of tape, her cards include tape, I find tape envelopes, she tapes pictures to the wall, etc. I've started buying the cheapest tape possible because I was going broke just trying to keep up with the tape supply to meet her demands.

Letters

Ever since Ashlyn started preschool, she has been obsessed with letters. She's always sounding out words and trying to figure out what they start with. She usually says it wrong and says something like, "'m' starts with your name", but she's getting the idea and I love it. Today I asked her to unload the silverware and when I walked in the kitchen, this is what I found instead...an "A" out of knives. Super cute!

Walking

Since Ashlyn is attending a preschool that is close to our home, we have the pleasure of walking there most days and this is the view I get--a little girl with a big backpack! She begs to walk even though half the time she changes her mind half way through the walk. I think I probably enjoy the walks more than she does. I don't feel like I get out of the house much these days unless I'm shopping which is near the bottom on my list of enjoyable activities. Emma also likes to get out but doesn't like to walk. I have to push her in the stroller or else I'm carrying her the entire walk. Ashlyn insists that she'll even want to walk during the winter. I told her that I won't want to but I promised her at least one walk in the snow so that we can make snowballs on the way. She can hardly wait.

Preschool

Ashlyn started preschool today. She was so excited that last night she asked me if she got to do her chores and then go to school. I said, "Yes!" and she grinned from ear to ear. I just hope she stays that excited about doing chores, although, I suspect that's not what she was so excited about. She's really lucky this year with preschool. The two older girls took preschool from my mom, but she and my dad have decided to turn in mission papers here soon. Because of that, my mom will only be teaching preschool through the end of the year and only for the grandkids. So once a week, Ashlyn will be headed to Grandma Bohman's house. I also signed her up for a preschool in my ward so that she would get a full year of preschool. So twice a week, she is going there. School, school and more school. The more the merrier, right!?!

Tired

Someone has been falling asleep in interesting places. I recently stopped making her take naps and often times during the late afternoon  or early evening, this is what we get. It's a rough life.

Stealing

Last night, while moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, I found a watch. We had seen it at the store the previous day while shopping. Immediately I knew one of the girls had hidden it in their pocket to bring home. All three of them thought the watches were cute and were begging to buy them. I refused because they cost $12.95 a piece (way too much money for a child's watch). After approaching the girls about the stolen watch, Ashlyn admitted to the wrong doing by saying she was sorry. I knew it was time to teach her a lesson and hopefully help her keep from making this mistake in the future. We talked about how we needed to go back to the store and tell them what she had done and that she would need to apologize. Then we would have to pay for the watch because it had gone through the wash and she would have to do extra jobs for me to earn the money to pay for it. Needless to say, she was pretty devastated by the situation and really struggled to say she was sorry. I almost shed a few tears making her apologize to the store clerk, but if you can't tell from the picture, she sure felt better afterward. She even lucked out because the clerk said we didn't have to pay for the watch if we didn't want to because it was still working. I was more than happy to give it back, although Ashlyn was a little disappointed.

Love

For family home evening tonight we wrote notes to each other to show our love. On my card, Ashlyn drew a picture of herself to show me how much she loves me and this is the face she said she's making in the picture.  If that doesn't show love, I don't know what does!!!

Puzzle

While Josh was gone at Woodbadge, I had the brilliant idea of putting together a puzzle with the girls. The only problem is that it was a 500 piece puzzle and we started it at 7:30 at night on a school night. At 9:30pm, I finally sent the girls to bed, but I couldn't stop. I've always loved puzzles. By 11:00pm, I was telling myself, "Just one more section and then I'll stop". Still no good. I did, however, give up before finishing the puzzle. But the first thing I did when I woke up was neglect everything else until the puzzle was finished. Thankfully it only took another half an hour. Ashlyn decided to jump in and actually put about five pieces in the right place. Maybe my puzzle-obsessive nature didn't go to waste after all and she'll turn out to be a puzzle pro.

Bike

Look who has almost figured out how to ride a bike. I'm glad we have one that's small enough to fit her. She is such a determined little thing that she got on it once and insisted on riding it around the block even though she didn't know what she was doing. Thankfully I convinced her to go down the street a little way and then turn around rather than do the entire block, otherwise it would have been a long ride with me doing most of the work while pushing Emma in the stroller at the same time. After a while, she started to get the hang of it. Unfortunately I forgot to explain how to stop and she started gaining momentum and ran into this pokey tree. Thankfully she's none the worse for it--still has a smile on her face!

Pigtails

After three long years, Ashlyn finally has enough hair to put into pigtails. She was so excited when I told her what I was doing to her hair. But by the end of the day, she was no longer excited about it. Not sure if it's because they were bothering her or if she just didn't like the attention.

Ashlyn

Our cute little Ashlyn is now three. She had been telling people for months that it was almost her birthday. Thankfully 90 days and 10 days is all the same to her. It didn't seem to matter that her birthday was months away when she'd ask, she was simply excited that her birthday was coming up.

She chose pizza for her birthday dinner.

And Aurora for her birthday cake.

Some of the things we love about Ashlyn:

She loves Barbies. Rapunzel is one of her favorites, but she calls her Re-pun-punzel. She also really likes Ariel and Sleeping Beauty. Her favorite color has been pink for a long time but she has recently added purple to the favorite list too. She looks forward to going to aerobics in the mornings so that she can play with her best friend, Asia. She also likes to run errands with me and is constantly asking how many more stores we need to go to. She's disappointed when we're done and always tries to convince me to go to one or two more before heading home. She also loves her cousins but is often confused and calls them her friends instead of cousins and tells us that she's going to marry them (boys and girls alike). She has such beautiful big blue eyes, but they disappear every time she smiles into squinty little lines, especially when you're asking her to smile for a picture. She loves her baby sister, Emmalyn, and is usually in her face until Emma screams or hits her. She is also very independent, insisting she can do everything by herself including what her big sisters do. She's constantly telling us she loves us and insists on repeating it until you repeat it back to her. In the car, she loves to say, "Mom, mom..." until I look and ask, "What?" Then she says, "I love you." and giggles. I've started doing the same to her and it's our fun little game. Last of all, she loves to sing and can actually hold a decent tune for her age. But my favorite is when she sings at the top of her lungs. She's kind of hard to understand and her singing is no longer in tune, but she loves doing it.