another sneak peek

We had a brief visit with half of the future Colorado Heldts over the weekend. They were in town doing all the pre-moving stuff and we got to spend a few hours with them over Pizza and water. Ahh... the good life. It has almost been two years since we have seen their three older children. We are SO excited to have them close by and get to know their kiddos better.

New Toy

For Easter, my grandma sent the girls a nice card with a little extra thrown in. I have had my eye on this teeter totter for some time, so I ordered it immediately. Walmart offers free site to store shipping, so it is great. You have a much larger selection and you don't have to wait in line at Walmart. I did have to wait, but there wasn't a line, just no associate.
This toy actually holds three kids. I think Ainsley will be able to use it pretty well on her own by summer's end, and for now it is great for Aubrey as a rocking horse-like toy, or great for them to share with supervision. Thanks Grandma, they love it. It will be an outside toy pretty soon, but I wanted to be more available as Aubrey learns how to use it.

New Trick

Yesterday Ainsley executed standing up from nothing. I know this will really help her with her walking. She generally crawls from wherever she falls, but now she can stand back up without a prop so she can just get back up and go for it. She is also using anything possible to help her climb up on the couch. She gets so happy when she gets up, even though I generally pull her right back off. It would be fine if she just sat up there, but she doesn't she keeps climbing on the end table or tries to climb on the arm of the couch. I guess it is a good thing we don't have mature trees. It would be impossible to keep her out of them.

What's for lunch?

"cream cheese is fantastic. Oh sweet goodness, where have you been all my life?"
Even though Aubrey is sicky, this is the one thing she would consider eating. She seems happy enough.
This is actually a different attempt at a bite. I have a feeling she will be in her chair for awhile.
"My mom makes the best lunch on the planet!"

Bummer

Ainsley is all better! It only took 6 days of having a very needy kid. Mike was "working" from home this afternoon so I could go to the doctor for a well visit and get my hair cut. He calls me as I am pulling into the hair place to tell me that when he woke Aubrey up at 5pm (4 hours after her nap started) she had a 101 temperature. Bummer. I thought we were all in the clear on this one.

On the mend

After 6 days of barely eating or drinking anything Ainsley had her first full meal this morning! I am so excited that she is getting better. It has been so hard knowing she is hungry and unable to eat and drink. The best part, the rest of haven't caught it!!! Doesn't she look like a ballerina in this picture?

He Has Risen!

I know you said "He has risen indeed." in your head!!! Happy Easter blog readers. We celebrated Christ's resurrection in the traditional ways. You know coloring eggs, receiving baskets of trinkets, and searching for eggs full of candy! In all seriousness, we had a nice morning. Mike was playing electric guitar this morning for all 3 services. That's right, our little theater church had 3 services and had over 750 people in attendance. How does this happen? God is so good. Unfortunately, Ainsley was still a little off today, she had a fever earlier in the week and has had a sore throat, so I kept her and Aubrey in with me for the service, and I left promptly after worship. The kids were driving me crazy, Aubrey actually ripped her dress with all of her not sitting still, and Ainsley just wanted to walk up the aisle. Hmmm, perhaps that's why they provide child care at church.

Anyway, Mike did SO good. They actually started with U2's Beautiful Day and Mike rocked it. The Edge (the electric guitarist in U2) would have been proud. This was definitely the most difficult set he has played since he switched to electric guitar 8 weeks ago. I was bummed to miss the message, since Pastor Doug gives more than a reading of Jesus death and resurrection. Mike said Doug "brought the thunder" and I am excited to see what attendance is like in the weeks ahead. There are a ton of people who have walked away from the church for one reason or another, sometimes something even as simple as a move and not feeling "home" at a local church. It is one of our churches passions for the community of Castle Rock to know God in a real and authentic way. It isn't important that they know Him through Plum Creek, but immeasurably important that they know Him and are living a life that brings Him glory. Hopefully a service like today's will act as a catalyst in the hearts of our community and bring families back to a church community and more importantly back to a right relationship with God. So if you are still reading after my God talk, then you get to enjoy tons of pictures of our Easter! Thanks for sticking around!!!

We colored eggs last night after Ainsley was in bed. Aubrey had a blast. Mike and I did too!!!
The kids in their Easter dresses. Thanks Sue! They fit great. Their faces are both scratched up, luckily they scratched their own faces and not each others.
Ainsley's reaction to a kiss from Aubrey. Poor kid, I cannot wait until she is back to perfect health!
Aubrey being adorable! She was so excited to wear a dress this morning.
The loot! Ainsley's is the smaller one with blocks and sand toys, and Aubrey's has a wooden puzzle, a few books, a bubble gun, water sandals, and a few other odds and ends. Basically anything I bought since Christmas went in their baskets!
The girls enjoying their baskets from Mommy and Daddy, no Easter Bunny at this house.Aubrey getting the candy out of her eggs after the hunt. She loved hunting for eggs, it was the high light for all of us!

the other CO Heldts

We are so excited. In about a month, 6 more Heldts will call the great state of Colorado home. After much prayer and preparations, Kevin and Brianna have decided to move to Denver. Kevin was out a few weeks ago for the final stage of an interview with a company in the nearby Denver Tech Center. Aubrey just loved her Uncle and she hasn't stopped talking about him. We are so excited that Kevin, Brianna, Anna, Yosef, Biniam, and Kaitlyn will be living within 30 miles of us! Our not so secret plan to move all of our friends and family to Colorado is going very smoothly. So do not come visit us if you are even a tiny bit discontent with where you live. If you do, be warned, you will be calling Colorado home in under a year!!!

Spring

I finally gave and allowed Ainsley to "play" in the backyard. I have been holding her hostage out there because she is still so prone to sticking everything in her mouth.
Aubrey is getting her Vitamin D dose after a gust of wind took her hat off.
She is so happy to be outside, I think we were all a little stir crazy.
I found a place I could leave her without worrying about her eating tiny pebbles. She actually just sat there for a good ling time.
Aubrey has been learning how to dribble a soccer ball lately. Here she is in action. I think we are going to love Spring!

Today's Real Post

So now that my kids have been asleep for awhile, and Mike is downstairs practicing guitar for Sunday, and I caught up to real TV on my show, I can do my actual post. Today was great. My kids were so adorable and I was loving on them so much. I am bummed that a few minutes of blatant naughtiness ruined my perspective on today. So here are a few pictures of my fun day.
Ainsley is constantly climbing up on this chair and standing. It drives me batty. It occurred to me today that she may just want to sit with her sis, but can't figure it out. She sat there for ten minutes, just laughing and drumming on the table top.
"Uh, Mom. This is a bit small for me. How long do I have to stay in here?"
"Now it is really getting cramped in here, I've got to figure out how to get on this couch!"

And here is what happens when I go to grab meat out of the garage freezer. Man, I can't turn my back for a second. She was actually vigorously bouncing when I took this. I'm glad I got the picture and got to her before she went over the top. Yes, she has gone over the top before!

Toddler Boot Camp

This was going to be a cute post about what good playmates my kids are, and how I am so grateful that I get to be here to experience it. I was going to post about how wonderful it is to see the little things and notice the light bulbs going off for the first time. But today, right now, I'm done. I hereby submit my resignations effective immediately, at least where Aubrey is concerned. That girl gets me SO fired up. I've been praying for patience and in God's purposeful way, He has put more on my plate and made it near impossible for me to be patient. OK Lord, I give, I CAN'T DO IT ON MY OWN, please step in here and give me wisdom where I am falling short!

5 months ago I potty trained Aubrey in a week. I jumped in with both feet and went for it. Within a week she was accident free, doing both functions on the potty, and we were all good. The problem, she has only used a public restroom twice, she refuses to go in unfamiliar locations, and to this day needs me to be much more involved in the process than I should be. I think I've also posted before that one week per month she is not potty trained, and then it clicks back in and we move on. Well, she has entered a new phase. She doesn't care if she pees in her pants, she just goes, takes them off wherever she is standing and plays naked. Most recently she has intentionally been wetting to get my attention. What? She can hold her urine, their is no question, she does it EVERY week at church for 2 and a half hours, and she held it for 6 at the zoo last week. Here are a few examples of her being deliberate.

- I gave her a time out a few weeks ago, she told me she had to use the bathroom, she had used it within the last half hour, I told her she had to wait 2 minutes, She peed in timeout! Needless to say, she got more than a timeout that day.

- She decided she needed to use the potty while a guest was already using it. I told her we needed to go upstairs to use the other potty, she told me she wanted to use this one. I told her she had to go upstairs or wait, she spread her legs and peed right there with me standing there.

-She has peed in Ainsley's room while I am putting her down for bed.

-She has peed several times after telling me to get off the phone.

The strangest part, she only wets underwear, very rarely in a pull up. So the last two days I have been trying to regain control of this whole situation (instead of putting her in pull up each day like I did for the last month). Yesterday she had the promise of a cookie for dessert if she kept dry all day. After dinner I told her how proud I was and that she could have her cookie after Ainsley went to bed. I then asked her if she needed to use the potty. She said no, ran into the other room to play with Ainsley and peed on the floor! Ugh, so I recanted, and took back the promise of a cookie. Today I told her I would give her half a cookie if she was dry after lunch and she could have the rest of the cookie after staying dry until dinner. She had her .5 cookie at 12:00 after using the potty. I've made her sit on the potty every 2 hours today. She peed on my floor at 1:22 while I was putting Ainsley down for her nap. Every time I take my attention off of her she pees to put herself back in the spotlight. I am hitting a wall here. I am going to reduce her liquids tomorrow and see if I have better results. I asked her to at least pee on the bathroom floor next time instead of my carpet. It is getting so old! I'm done with my vent, I am back to being a loving and devoted mother, which works out great because Ainsley just woke up!

UPDATE: When I went to get Aubrey up from her nap I found her on the potty. Perhaps the crestfallen mommy who put her to bed with a kiss on the cheek and a solemn face describing her utter disappointment at yet another bad choice sunk in this time.

the walking pictures...

I LOVE her face in this one. She is drunk with pride as she stumbles across the carpet!
Once she realized it was a photo shoot she put on her portrait face.
Aubrey's turn to walk and get her picture taken. She takes itsy bitzy steps in a slow controlled fashion. This is also her walking expression. My favorite part of the picture, notice what Ainsley is doing to Who-ha in the background! And the tears are a result of her being banished from the last two pictures.

that little stinker!

So I have mentioned before that Ainsley makes this constant whimper sound when she is teething, which seems to be ALWAYS! Well, I ran out to Target today to pick up a few things and left Mike to hold down the fort. He is working from home today so I guess it was his lunch break. Anyway, from the time I got home, Ainsley would whimper whenever I wasn't holding her, playing with her, sitting with her... I asked Mike if she was doing it while I was gone and he said "nope." So, the little stinker is whimpering not because of teeth, but because of lack of mommy. What in the world?

Bye Bye Dinosaur!

Aubrey enjoying a yummy lunch of Tyson Dinosaur Chicken. Yes, they are chicken nuggets, but they are all white meat, 98 percent fat free, and baked not fried. Here she is happily enjoying sucking the ketchup off the dinosaur.
She likes to roar at them and then tell them bye bye as she bites their heads off! I can't wait to see what she will do to a peep next weekend!

Another Yummy Recipe

I made another new recipe tonight, this time it was Beef and Cheese Manicotti. It was SO good. Mike isn't a big fan of ricotta, but I think that it was very subtle in this recipe. Mike actually won't get to try it until tomorrow, but I know he will like it too. I made the recipe into two casserole dishes so I can cook it fresh tomorrow night too instead of reheating leftovers. If you are looking for something new, give it a try!

And does anyone have a method for stuffing the manicotti? I used my fingers, which was really messy. Maybe putting the filling in a heavy zip lock, snipping off the edge, and squirting it in? Does anyone have a better method for this?

a glimpse into my world

A little bit ago Ainsley was practicing her walking skills, yes practicing. She will push her walking toy towards something, stop pushing and launch for her target, usually no more than four feet away, a lot of the times that's me. Anyway, in one of her launch sequences she lost her footing and hit her chin on the way down. Then she did the cutest thing ever. She pointed at her chin and started crying! "Look Mommy, this is where that mean ol' toy got me!" Or at least that's how I interpreted her pursed lip cry! It was so precious. I scooped her up and loved on her while quietly laughing at how fast her brain is picking up on things. It's so neat going through this pre-toddler stage again. I was so excited to see Aubrey learn big things that I am sure I missed out on some of the subtle things along the way. This time around I am acutely aware of how fast it is going and what is ahead for me so I am cherishing every little morsel I can manage!

Pictures for Daddy

"Dadee! Dadee! Dadee! wuh wuh wuh wuh, boo!"
"Cheese! Take more pictures for Daddy?"
Outtake #1
Outtake #2

teething and time change

These are not two of my favorite things. Ainsley has been teething non stop lately. She just had her third tooth pop through last week and now she potentially has four, five, and six coming through. For the last two and a half days she has been making this moaning sound around the clock and has had a hard time sleeping. Yesterday I gave her Tylenol, Motrin, teething tablets, and Baby Oral Gel all day. Nothing even made a dent in her pain. She just stuck her hands down her throat and whimpered.

I am certainly confused by the time change. My kids are visibly tired, they are waking up at the normal morning time, but then naps roll around and it's an hour early to them, but not the clock. Both kids are fighting me on naps and I am so tired. It makes for a really long day when your kiddo is in pain and no one wants to rest except me. Hopefully everything will be business as usual by the end of the week. Hopefully I'll remember what usual is by the time I see it again.

I hate when I forget really important things like passwords! I'm an idiot!!!

So back in the year 2000 my mom and I got a contract with Verizon. I canceled my coverage in 2003, but she kept her phone even though the account was in my name. She tried to get her own account at the time, but her social security number was being used by someone else, so...

Fast forward to February 2008. My mom's phone died. She couldn't do anything about it since the account was in my name. So she just got a new account and told me to call and cancel the existing one. As it turns out, I opted for a password once upon a time, and without that password I could do NOTHING with the account. They didn't care about my social or anything, this password was apparently the golden ticket of all things Verizon. So I tried to figure out what my 5 digit or letter password might be. I tried a plethora of options and was never right.

I finally got a kind lady who was going to bypass this crazy rule, but there was a catch, she needed to call me on one of the numbers on the account to verify who I was. Problem, one number was my parent's home number and the other was my mom's cell phone number that was no longer active. Ugh again. She told me it wasn't a numeric password, but wouldn't play 20 questions with me like I asked. So off to the local Verizon store I went to show ID.

It turns out our local Verizon store is actually a Go Wireless store and cannot access information on accounts. Fantastic. Now I was looking at an hour drive round trip to get this taken care of. Then I got sick, then Aubrey got sick, and then it was today. So I drove to my not so local Verizon store and told them I wanted to end service. They love that by the way! When I explained my situation they stopped trying to up sale me and simply asked for the mobile number and my ID. I had to ask. Please sir, what was the password? It was h...e...l...d...t! You are kidding me! I didn't even know Mike when I got the account so I never thought it could be my married name. Apparently it was added sometime after we got married when I called in to have something done. What a nightmare! At least it is over. My poor mom has to pay for two weeks of service that she didn't even have the benefit of. I totally feel like an idiot for not trying a 5 letter word that I know very well. I did try my maiden name, Keyes, but that wasn't it. The moral of the story, if you put a password on something, WRITE IT DOWN somewhere. Just another one of life's lessons that I continue to learn day by day.

Silly Kids

Aubrey noticed that there were Birthday hats in the cupboard when I was putting away the playdough this morning. I have no attachment to Birthday hats, so the girls put them on and played Birthday Party for some time afterwards. It's been awhile since Aubrey was at a birthday party, so I think she learned this from Elmo and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It was super cute.
After lunch I was approached about snacks. I assured the girls that their lack of eating at lunch time has no effect on snack distribution. So they solved their problem another way. Aubrey settled for fries and a hamburger bun and Jasmine is having a donut, cookie and an assortment of fruits and vegetables. I am really enjoying this imagination driven stage of Aubrey's play. I remember when I had an imagination, kinda...

I miss this face

AJ is a bit under the weather today. That is no fun for anyone. She is emotional and all girl. We made the best of it with movies and popcorn, but she has had a brutal headache and been pretty discontent with life in general. She threw one toy into a wall from about five feet away, got me in the mouth with a purse filled with puzzle pieces, and nailed Ainsley with a carrot from her play kitchen. Needless to a she has been difficult. Of course as I type this she is being super cute trying to win my attention. I want to keep typing to keep her being cute, but I know sooner or later she will get mad. so...

Oh Happy Day!

So today started out as one of those rotten, do I have the flu, kinda days. I feel like my patience has been pushed beyond reason and my tummy is all topsy turvy. Ugh. Then a certain little munch that I love dearly turned it all around. Ainsley Grace took, count them, 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... steps AWAY from me to a toy and started playing!!!!!!!!! Let the good times roll. We have a walker!

A few thoughts

The writer's strike totally ruined my love of Heroes. I cannot even remember what happened and now it's over until last season. I am not even looking forward to it anymore.

I stopped drinking soda at the first of the year. I don't miss it, and I used to have it everyday. Whenever I drink some, I wonder why I ever did.

I'm a little neurotic about my hair. I am convinced one side is slightly longer that the other and I am pretty sure that I will continue to check ten times a day until I get it cut again.

Mike's brother was here over the weekend. Aubrey calls him Uncle Daddy or Uncle Revin. She LOVES him and thinks he should visit more often.

I love Kohl's clearance rack. It was 44 degrees today and I just bought a few winter sweaters for 80 percent off because they filled the racks with tank tops.

I love having short hair. I can totally get ready with make-up and everything under a half hour!

Having two kids getting teeth at the same time is no fun. Watching a third who is also getting molars makes life interesting... and emotional.

I still have a snowman decoration up. I figure if we still have enough snow to make a real snowman, I can keep a fake one in the house.

Saturday at the Zoo... err Park

Today is beautiful! It is 70 degrees outside, not that windy, and all around perfect. The rest of the greater Denver area thought so too. In fact they beat us to the Zoo parking lot by at least 30 minutes. We got to the Denver Zoo this morning 30 minutes after they opened. We pulled into the parking area (behind the other 100 cars) only to find that it was full and they were redirecting cars to other parking areas. Well, after many attempts of pulling up and down aisles, it was apparent that there was NO parking within a mile of the zoo. How do you tell your 2 year old that she won't be seeing the animals after all? Apparently you tell her you are trying to park so you can see the animals to which she responds "park?" So park it was. Again with the 100 cars in front of us that also didn't get a spot! The girls had a great time and I am sure Aubrey doesn't even know what she missed, but I on the other hand am devastated. I was so excited to be going with Mike. I wanted to take the train, which we have never done, and I wanted to hear Aubrey use all of the words she didn't have 8 months ago when we were there. Mike assured me that we can still do all that next time, but it is pretty crazy to drive 45 minutes to go to a park! We did see cows, geese, dogs, and a statue of a gorilla and elephant at least. We also stopped at a new Pet Store and saw puppies on our way home. Oh well, you've gotta make the most of what you got! So here are some pictures of us not at the zoo!Aubrey and Daddy having a grand time on the swings. AJ gets really shy when there are other kids around. Daddy saved the day by swinging with her.
See Aubrey, Mommy told you that you would see an elephant today!
Ainsley loved this plane and the toddler swings.
Aubrey only loved the plane once she saw her sis handle it with glee!