Ashley is 5!!!

First of all, Happy New Year, 2016!!! I'll tell you, that was the fastest year of my life. My grandfather Jerry always used to say that the older you get, the faster it goes. I truly think this is true. I remember being a kid, and my Aunt Lil said "enjoy being a kid, because it goes fast". At the time, time used to drag and go by so slow, and I remember thinking "what is she talking about?" Now I see. Now I have kids that age. And each year really does seem to go faster and faster, especially after having kids, and now with them in "school" and schedules. I feel like we were JUST outside swimming and playing in the yard, and now we've sped through school starting, Emily's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and now Ashley's birthday! So crazy.

2016 is already looking promising. It started off by going to the Poconos with our friends, Tiffany, Jon, Hannah and Sammy Cohen. The kids had their very first sleepover. Ashley stopped me and said "I'm sooo excited". She had read a book about a sleepover party, and has been wanting one ever since. We did everything the book included, minus painting nails (we didn't have it since we weren't home)...but we had a New Year's countdown, we had a pillow fight, we told/and read stories and had fun playtime. They loved it. The only con was that they were up at 5am!!! A little too excited I guess! The next day we went with them to an indoor water park. After they left, we spend half the day vegging out and playing games and toys at the Pocono house, then we went bowling, out to dinner where we surprised Ashley and sang happy birthday to her (totally caught her by surprise, it was priceless), then went to Chuck-e-cheese. I'd say she had a pretty special celebration, and a good start to the new year.
Another exciting thing in 2016 is that Matt and I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage. 10 years!!! Crazy. And we'll be together for 14 years total. For our special 10 year anniversary, we are going to ITALY!!!! I'm so excited. It's on my "bucket list" of things I want to do/places I want to see before I die. And it's probably one of the top things. So pretty cool. Kristyn and Brian are living out there right now, so we thought why not? Get to visit them and do part of the traveling with them, then part on our own. We're going to go at the end of August while the kids go with Grandmom and Grandpop to Wildwood. I feel a little (very) guilty about leaving the kids for 10 days, but they'll be away for 7 on vacation having fun themselves, and we have Skype so we can video chat with them luckily. But still....They'll be in good hands though.

So back to Ashley's birthday. Yesterday she turned 5. Half way to the double digits. She was so cute. I actually woke up before her, and when I woke her up she started to come down the stairs and stretched out both of her arms and said, "look, I can reach both walls now". And she pointed out how she is a little bit bigger, bigger hands, feet, etc. And she told us that soon she'll be losing her teeth. Lol. I think she's excited for that.

We had a fun time celebrating. In mid December, we had a joint party for the two of them at the YMCA. They had a Festival party with a bounce house, face painting, crafts, parachute, games, etc. I have to say, it was the best money ever spent. First off, I really am not a fan of hosting large parties. When I was growing up, my mom always made things SO special for us, and was so detailed about everything. It was wonderful, except half the time she was frantic and stressed out getting everything "perfect" and ready for parties. Which made us stressed. As much as I hated that part, I have sadly taken on some of that myself (not by choice, it's automatic/learned..still working on it). Not so much trying to make it perfect (I have decided I'd still like to have special, but doesn't need to be perfect or so detailed--I'd rather be a happy and present mom, than a stressed one trying to do it all), but I still feel "stressed" while cleaning and preparing ahead of time. So this party eliminated all of that, they did all the before and after prep work.
The main reason it was worth every penny though is because I actually got to enjoy and be PRESENT to watch my kids enjoying their birthday party. When hosting, I'm usually running around making sure everyone has food and beverages, I'm rounding up the kids to play a game or do a craft/activity. They handled all of that, so I got to participate with my kids, and just take it all in. I loved watching their fun and joy. It was so nice.

Then as I mentioned, to give Ashley her own special day/celebration, we did the weekend activities, then yesterday on the day of her birthday we had it decorated special, opened presents. She had school so we sent in goodies and they sang happy birthday to her. After she came home, we surprised her with a small cake and sang happy birthday before daddy had to leave for work. Then we played with her new toys, then we went shopping with her birthday money so she could pick out her own gift, then went out to dinner. It was a fun day.

In this past year, I have really watched her grow from a young "toddler" into a more mature toddler. She's mastering her emotions, less of those toddler behaviors, tantrums, etc. She is more conscientious about her actions, she is more thoughtful (i.e. she thanked us for surprising us with her cake, she offered to treat Emily to a gift with her birthday money, etc), she has become more focused and determined on mastering new skills, she is a sponge learning new things (she can even read some simple books on her own). She had some THREEnager behaviors that I'd like to forget, but she really is growing into a sweet, kind little girl. I look forward to seeing what FIVE will bring us (although I hope it doesn't go too too fast).

Happy birthday to my sweet girl Ashley. We love you so much!

Emily is 3!!!

So, Emily is now officially three. Three. I knew my babies would grow up. Older parents are always saying things like "the days are long but the years are short", or "don't blink, because you'll miss it". They aren't kidding. I feel like life is flying by. I remember taking my pregnancy test, and now here we are celebrating our baby being three. It's so crazy. I'm just so grateful to be able to be home most of the time to be part of it. I feel like it's flying now, when I'm here to witness most of it. I can only imagine how it must be when you're working and gone most of their day. I'd be so heartbroken to have it that way.

We had a nice time celebrating. We had the family together for Thanksgiving (well, most of it), so we thought that it would be a nice time to celebrate Emily's birthday together with the family. (We are having a joint party for Ashley and Emily in a couple of weeks with their friends). Unfortunately Emily was under the weather. The night before, I came home from work to discover that Emily had a low grade fever that evening. The morning she still did, but after her afternoon nap it had spiked to 103. I felt so bad for her, however having her cousin here to play and her family, she still wanted to play and laugh despite it. We had a Spiderman themed celebration, which was only fitting since she was Spiderman for Halloween and has been wearing her costume every day since then, including to help with the leaf pile. Haha. Just a little obsessed with Spiderman ;)

Three was a very big deal for her. It now meant she was "officially" a big girl. She's been wanting and waiting to go over to the "big girl side" of the classroom at the YMCA, and she was sooo excited to be able to (in fact, she reported that it was the favorite part of her day when she was first allowed to).

At three, there is no evidence of any baby anymore...She is fully potty trained (including night time for sometime now), no high chairs, no cribs or even toddler beds (she's been in a big twin bed for a few months now), she's going to school part time. She does so much independently (in fact, sometimes she wants to do more than Ashley even wants to, haha). The only things left of babyhood is that she still asks me to hold her a lot, and she likes to be rocked at night time.

I have to say, she is growing into an amazing little girl. She's so sweet, kind, caring toward others, fun, mischievous, brave, resilient, etc etc....There are some days when I feel like I'm screwing everything up and doing everything wrong, but then I look at my little girls and the people they are becoming, and I know I must be doing some of it right at least. They are happy and healthy, my two biggest prayers and wishes.

Aside from birthday celebrations, we are also moving into Christmas season. I have to say, this year is probably my favorite so far. The girls ages (especially Ashley's) makes it so fun and magical. Ashley was sooooo thrilled when our Elf on the Shelf, Chippy, returned. She's been hugging him, carrying him everywhere (even to bring to show and tell at school), playing with him, etc. It's so fun to watch. She's also been having fun playing with all of the Christmas stuff--mom/grandma gave us her old Santa and Mrs. Claus dolls that I loved growing up. It's been fun watching the girls with them, having fun playing with them and their fascination with them. Ashley is particularly fond of Mrs. Claus. It's also been fun watching them play with ornaments and toys, just as I remember doing as kid. It was fun to decorate the tree, and share the story behind some of the special ornaments we have. And singing Christmas carols in the van. And hearing Ashley sing Christmas carols/made up songs quietly to herself as she stares at the tree. It's so special to me.
The only thing that makes me sad/worried is that at less than 5 years old, Ashley is ALREADY asking questions. For instance, our Elf on the Shelf has earrings. Ashley pointed out that Chippy doesn't have earrings in the movie, and also wondered how he walked with his skinny legs. I pointed out how NOTHING is ever like it is on TV or movies, elves, people, life, you name it. Haha. Then we saw Santa when we went to cut down our Christmas tree, and she says "I think that was someone dressed up as Santa. I don't think it's the real Santa". Sometimes this girls is too smart for her own good. I'd be so sad if she loses the magic of Christmas at a young age, especially since it's been so beautiful and fun to witness.

Another fun experience this year has been getting a real Christmas tree. When Matt and I were growing up, we both got real trees every year. His family went and cut down their own tree, and my family would go to a tree farm and pick out pre-cut trees. I had such fun memories of doing that and singing Christmas carols on the ride home. We had bought a fake tree several years ago, but I wanted our kids to experience that and have memories of that too. We had a great time going and picking out a tree, cutting it down, seeing Santa and also the animals they had. As Ashley put it, it was "awesome". However, behind the magical moments captured in our pictures of picking out our tree and decorating, you miss the "behind the scene" stuff like getting home and having to spend an hour recutting the trunk and getting it in the stand, and then having the tree fall over and spilling water everywhere, having to fix it yet again, vacuum and clean up from the mess. Stuff that's totally annoying in the moment (especially when it happens just as your sitting down to relax for the first time that day), but hysterical when you look back on it. It's funny how you forget "those memories" until it happens again. I have to say, it was quite a hassle, but there is something nice about the smell and look of a real tree. Matt also went ahead and researched and bought this amazing tree stand after we had difficulty fixing it, and it was in in 20 seconds with no issues. So who knows, maybe now that it's easy we'll consider a real tree sometime again in the future.

Well that's about it. Other than that we've been living life. School, pt work, playdates, cooking class (Ashley), swimming lessons (Emily), fun mini-vacations :Great Wolf Lodge/Poconos in Oct, Halloween Parades and Trick or Treating, visits from family, watching and participating in Cheryl's 26 mile marathon in NYC, ice skating, bowling, trip to visit Grandpa and watch a Clemson Game/Kids Museum/Ropes Course, Bronx Zoo, Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities, etc...fun few months. Life is crazy, chaotic, hairy, fun, wonderful all wrapped up in one. And I wouldn't have it any other way.