Time in Colorado

We spent the week in Colorado with Chris' family giving thanks for many things:

great family

new park toys

warm weather

a date!

good food

a chase bank

lots of love

great sales

delicious soup

dogs

a christmas parade

"Tessa" (Santa)

time spent together

Caitlin loves her Uncle Nate and Bampa. She had so much fun the whole time she was there, she really didn't want to come home. She said "No go home" and "by Mom and Dad", as she took a seat in Bamma's lap. We convinced her that she would probably miss us, and she got in the car.

Ashlee loved her Aunt Amy, who had a talent for getting her to laugh. Amy will be a great Mom in April!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and loved all our time we had with the Will family.

sneak peak

I went to a bow party the other night. That is hair bows. A lady in my ward makes them and was having a clearance party. I found lots of cute bows, which include a couple of really cute hats. The hat she buys, and then makes a flower to go on the hat. I got a hat for Ashlee, since she has no hair still and can't wear bows, and a hat for Caitlin, just because. Thy are for Christmas, but that is the great thing about having young kids. You can show them their Christmas presents, even try them on and they don't know and don't remember!

Thanks turkey

We made a thankful turkey for family home evening this week. It was a fun thing for Caitlin to help with, but, truth be told, is was probably more for me. I needed an extra reminder of what I really am thankful for. It has been a stressful, and busy, and alone, and difficult time the last couple months as Chris was working so much getting his show up and is even still doing things with the show and getting things ready for next semester. Despite the trials, I am thankful for him and his job. He is amazing at what he does, and his students just love him. And I love him. Even though I am thankful for things all year round, I do apprieciate this time of year when I can be reminded.

staying home

After working full time for the past 5 years, I feel so lucky and grateful to be able to stay home with these 2 beauties now!

What exactly do I like about staying at home? Reading stories, singing songs, seeing their faces when they wake up from a nap, quiet time during naps, getting them dressed, doing Caitlin's hair, teaching, laughing, going on walks, eating lunch with Caitlin, feeding Ashlee and not pumping, seeing Caitlin's enthusiasim for learning something new and her excitement in helping me do anything, playing with Ashlee and seeing her smile at me, teaching the gospel, helping Caitlin learn right and wrong, hearing her polite manners, cooking, seeing 2 beautiful faces each and every day, playing, running, chasing and being chased, being home when Chris gets home, hearing "I love you Mommy" many times everyday.

I love you Caitlin and Ashlee

windy wyoming

Have you ever seen these wind turbines? Well, if not then come to Wyoming, they are all over the place here. And for good reason, it is soooooooooooo windy here. It is windy all over Wyoming, but I have always thought that Rock Springs (and Rawlins) are exceptionally windy. The wind has been blowing unbelievably strong since last night. It is suppose to be 20-30mph with 50mph gusts today and I would say it is at least that. We went to a play group this morning and Caitlin just about got knocked over by the wind twice. I just hope our fence is strong.

bunk beds

After putting it off with the busy summer and move, we finally ordered bunk beds so we could move Caitlin to a big bed and out of her crib. The beds came on election day in 5 boxes, and the mattresses came in another 2 boxes. Chris had such a busy week, last week, putting his show up that we didn't get the beds put together until the weekend.

Caitlin slept in her bed for the first time last night. She was so excited she wanted to go to bed at 6pm. When she did go to bed she stayed all night and called to us in the morning to come and get her. She also went right to her bed at nap time because she was so excited to take a nap in her "big bed".

She says that the crib is Ashlee's crib, so I would say she made the transition really well. I am now very glad we waited until now, I'm sure it would have been a struggle if she was younger.

Chris's Office

This is my new office. I love it. And I love my new job. The kids are GREAT to work with.

spiders and such

We got a couple of great post Halloween finds- a witches broom and a child witches hat. At 75% off they were each about $0.50. Caitlin had a lot of fun playing with them before I put them away for next year. I taught her how to cackle like a witch and ride the broomstick, but she was more interested in sweeping the floor with it.

I pointed out to her that there was a spider on the top of the hat, which she thought was pretty neat. But then she thought she saw spiders all over the floor and started hitting them with the broom. She cried and wanted me to get one of them, which was just a piece of string. Caitlin has a fear of bugs in the house ever since she saw a huge cockroach in our NY apartment days before we mover, who can blame her really.

A couple pictures of Ashlee. The right picture is my attempt to capture her excitement when she wakes up in the morning and I go in and get her out of bed. Not that great of an attempt but she sure is always so happy and excited to see her Mom in the morning.

And lastly, for all those who were just dying to hear how opening night of Chris' show went. Well.........it was fantastic. The show I mean, there were some technical glitches which come with opening night, but the show was great. The set and costumes looked amazing and the actors were great. The show was serious and funny and sad and just really enjoyable. He put together a good show and I enjoyed every minute of it. I would get you all tickets to see it if anyone lived in Rock Springs, or even lived close enough to make the trip.

Opening Night

Chris is teaching musical theater at Western Wyoming Community College. He loves everything about it, especially being able to direct. He has so many ideas and theories about acting and putting a show together that he can finally put to use. About 6 or 7 weeks ago (I can't remember for sure, it just seems like a really long time ago) he started his rehearsals for the first show he gets to direct as an actual college teacher- Into the Woods. This is a musical about many fairy tales that all come together and meet in the woods. After all those weeks of hard work it is opening tonight! Congratulations Chris! We love you and are proud of you.

(diclaimer: that is not actually the Into the Woods picture they are using, I just found this one online because the WWCC picture wasn't available)

Book Worm

Caitlin absolutely loves books. I would say she has a healthy obsession for books. She has always loved them since she was a little baby. If we read her a book she will sit still and listen, even if we read her 100 books she would sit right there and listen. She also loves to read them to herself. She loves books.

Her favorite place in Rock Springs is the Library. We go once a week to toddler story time and we check out books. However, if on any given day Chris asks her what we did she we undoubtedly say "we went to the library."

One of her favorite books is Brown Bear Brown Bear. She is often heard, while reading a book to herself, saying "Yellow duck, yellow duck what do you hear? I see a brown bear looking at me." Close enough. I decided today that we would make a brown bear book that she could read. And, of course, I was able to find black and white pages of the book on the Internet (what did we ever do without the Internet). I had fun helping her make her book.

Caitlin colored each picture and I helped her apply the fun color texture.

ZZZZZZZZZ

Ashlee slept all the way through the night!! She went to bed at 6:30pm and didn't wake up until 6:45am. This was about the age Caitlin was when she first slept all through the night. Ashlee will be 3 months old on Friday. I feel so rested having slept for many hours uninterrupted. Thanks Ashlee!

A Blessing

We blessed Ashlee many weeks ago, I am just slow at blogging about it. We blessed her on October 12th. She looked like a little doll in her beautiful white dress.

Yes, that is a smile. She smiles so much now, and it is about the cutest baby smile ever, with her cubby cheeks. She seems to like to smile most for Mom, and she even had her first laughs last Saturday. I couldn't help but laugh also. Baby's smiles and laughs are just so contagious.

My Mom and Dad and sister, Annie came for the blessing. It is a 16 hour drive from Arizona, and they drove through the night to get here. Well, when they were just 70 miles away they got stopped on the interstate behind a few wrecks for 2 1/2 hours. You've got to love Wyoming roads in the winter. Of course the only snow storm we have had came that weekend. We're glad they made the long trip, even through the snow. We love you Mom, Dad and Annie!

We decided to order a new dress for Ashlee. The best thing about the dress is the name of it: Will'Beth. No, that is not just an illusion on the hanger, it is really the name of that style of dress. What a great name!

Trick-or-Treat, but mostly treat

We had a great Halloween. We were afraid Caitlin would not wear her costume because she always cried when we tried to put it on, but she put it right on with NO crying. I guess she was just waiting for the big day. She was a dragon. Ashlee was a little Tigger, just as Caitlin was at that age, and Chris borrowed a costume from the costume shop at work. I was just me, but I did wear an orange shirt, under a black one and an orange necklace so I wasn't totally anti-costume. We went to a trunk-or-treat at the church and then Chris took Caitlin trick-or-treating to a couple of streets in our neighborhood.

Yes, this is the amount of candy Caitlin got. Way to much for a 2 year old. Luckily we do have 2 long trips to take at Thanksgiving and Christmas and the candy will come in handy for those.

So much candy.