Aug 31, 2009

Happy Third Birthday My Dear Sweet Ayla!

Three years ago today we were blessed with the birth of our sweet baby girl Ayla Faith Wright!

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How can it be that that is has been THREE years since we first laid our eyes on our baby girl!

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After two years of trying and praying, you are truly our "miracle" baby!

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Our lives were changed forever when you were born and you have had your daddy wrapped around your finger since day ONE!!

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Oh, how I wish that I could turn back time because you are growing up way too fast!
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You are a little sister to KK

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and a BIG sister to Bren Bren (as you say)

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Before we knew it, you turned ONE before our eyes

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and then you were two

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How can it be that you are NOW THREE!


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Ayla, you are the light of our life and we can not even begin to imagine a life without you! Our hearts over flow with love for you! You are amazing and even when life throws you a curve ball you stand strong and are determined to throw it right back! We are proud to be your parents and can't wait to see what God has in store for you in the future.
Happy third birthday baby girl, as we always say, "We love you around the world and back again."
Mommy and Daddy


Aug 26, 2009

Hats, Flowers and Bows, Oh My!!


I just wanted to post a few pictures of the hats, flowers and headbands that I have been making lately. I am selling them for the first time at a local Arts and Crafts fair in September, so hopefully others will think that they are cute too : ) I am thinking about opening an Etsy shop as well, but I just haven't had the time to do that yet.



I thought that I would try and get a few good pictures of Ayla wearing the hats, headbands etc, and put them on my table at the fair so everyone can see what they look like on. Ayla really loves the hats and she leaves them on the whole time when we go out. To take her picture all I have to say is, "Ayla, do you want to go outside and do some modeling poses?" and she instantly agrees and actually poses and lets me take her picture. It cracks me up because otherwise she always looks the other way when I have my camera out!! I don't know, after this modeling session in her bikini, she is always interested in "posing" now. Maybe she will be that SI model after all!!! Just joking Daddy!!!!

So here are a couple of recent pics!!


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On this day, she actually let me curl her hair a little, of course I had to bribe her with a granola bar, but it was cute while it lasted! Her hair is stick straight, so it did not hold too long!

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Aug 24, 2009

Sharing

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked me how I taught Ayla how to share so well. I never really thought about it because it has never been an issue. Ayla has always loved sharing with other children and for a moment I thought maybe we had skipped that phase. NOT! While we were at the beach last week, Ayla turned into the "I am not sharing, greedy little girl". It was so unlike her and it seemed like it happened over night.

We spent our days (and evenings) at the pool everyday. At any given time there were at least five other kids in the baby pool. Ayla had a cool watering can that every kid wanted to play with. Well, she was not having that. She would hold ALL of her toys in both hands and at one point would not put them down for fear that someone else may pick them up. She was saying, "that is MY toy" and "No, I NOT share" so much that I was starting to get really embarrassed. Especially when she thought it was okay to play with everyone else's toys. Of course she did have moments when she would share, but I have to admit, they were few and far between. Everyone keeps saying that this is a three year old thing and that it will pass, but I don't remember Kaleb being like this at all when he was her age. Maybe it is a girl thing? I don't know, and I am not quite sure of the best way to handle the situation. She is also saying "NOT" a lot. For example, " I am NOT taking a nap" and she is telling me to "stop" and "be nice". Yea, welcome to the three's. Ayla will be three next week. I am really not sure why it is called the "terrible two's", it definitely should be the "terrible three's"!!

So, with sharing not going so well at the beach, I was amazed when I saw this


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They LOVED this slurpee and it was so funny to watch them drink it together!


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Ayla loved feeding it to Brennan and for however long it took them to drink that slurpee, I did not hear a peep from them.


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So maybe the sharing does not apply to her brother, but I have to admit that I forsee many more slurpees in our future!!!!


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Aug 14, 2009

Vacation OR NOT?

Since my husband has been a baby, his family has always spent summer vacations at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. They liked the quaintness and family like feel enough to purchase and then eventually build two houses there. We were fortunate to be able to visit Rehoboth and stay at the beach house each summer and before the kids were born, a few times during the summer.

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When Ayla was 10 months old we took her for the first time. She had never been sick EVER until a couple of days before we were set to leave. To make a long story short, she only had an ear infection and with antibiotics, we were good to go. So we thought. On the 8 hour drive there, she started having diarrhea. The next morning she was vomiting. She was so miserable and she literally cried almost the whole time. After one whole day of vomiting, diarrhea and not eating we finally decided to take her in to the ER. She was dehydrated so they had to start and IV and give her fluids. Needless to say, after two days, one in which was spent in the ER, we packed up and headed home. So much for vacation, right? Since then, I swear it seems like every time we decide to go out of town our kids are sick!

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Last summer during our vacation in Myrtle Beach, Brennan had a stomach virus and he was miserable and did not sleep at all. It's so funny, about a week before we have plans to head out of town, John will always say that we should keep the kids inside so they wont get sick-HA!

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Anyway, I became side tracked for a moment, what I really wanted to say was that two years ago his parents decided to sell the beach house and we have not been back since. It was very sad when the house sold, but we knew it was for the best. The upkeep was very hard on his parents, especially being so far away!
Well, last month John had a vacation week off from work and on the spur of the moment he suggested that we take the kids to Rehoboth beach for a few days. At first I didn't think it was a good idea because our children do not travel well and they do not sleep well in hotel rooms. Reluctantly I agreed because I know my husband loves the beach so much and I know he wanted to take the kids to the beach where he spent every summer as a child. He also works so hard every day to support us and I knew he deserved a vacation. I'm sorry , did I say VACATION-HA, a vacation it was NOT!

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So on the way to Delaware, the kids did not sleep AT ALL. Its an eight hour drive, how can they not sleep? They are only one and two, it makes no sense to me. I must have the only kids in the world who do not sleep in their car seats. So when we get there, they are completely exhausted and needless to say they whined through dinner and we basically swallowed our pizza whole just so we could get the kids out of the restaurant. Johns favorite place to eat there is Grotto's pizza. I secretly think this is the only reason why he wanted to go to Delaware :) !!!

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We go back to the hotel and I finally get Brennan to sleep. Ayla will be three soon and she still sleeps by herself in her CRIB. We took a pack n play but she would not sleep in it. We put Ayla in bed with us (which we have never done before) and even though she was exhausted and did NOT have a nap that day, she did not fall asleep until after midnight. She tossed and turned and talked and whined in her sleep the whole night. She also woke up around 3am and did not go back to sleep until 7am. By that time Brennan was ready to get up and so you can imagine how the day went!

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We went to the beach that afternoon but Ayla was scared of the ocean and she kept running to the very back to play in the sand. Brennan on the other hand LOVED the ocean and we could barely hold him back from running into the water. I'm telling you, this boy is afraid of NOTHING. We could not get Brennan to sit down and play in the sand. One of us took turns chasing him around the WHOLE time and the other one watched Ayla in the very back where you couldn't even see the ocean. This is why we have no pictures of that afternoon! After about an hour, we decided we had enough and we went and rented a bike thinking the kids might like that. Oh, by the way, they did not have a baby pool and the water was freezing anyway. Okay, so this is what Brennan thought of the bike

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Ayla surprisingly liked the bike and after a sucker Brennan warmed up to the idea as well.

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We rode around the town for a little bit and I took a picture of the two houses that his parents have built. This is the first house they built

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and this is the second house they built and the one they just sold two years ago

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So, after the bike ride John drove me to the outlets and let me go in a couple of stores and then we when back to the beach and walked on the boardwalk for a little while. The children were still very whiny and so the evening went about as well as the first evening. We did however take them to the Kiddie Land that they have on the boardwalk and they loved riding all of the Kiddie rides. John was a nervous wreck because of all the "germs" on these rides. He was cracking me up because he was sanitizing the rides before the children got in and then washing their hands after each one. Yes he is a little obsessive but with Ayla's immune system being compromised we try our hardest to keep her from getting sick.

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This night Ayla was also supposed to have her two injections but we forgot the numbing cream and so we just decided to leave the next morning. We had planned on staying two more nights but because going to the beach was not fun and because there was no pool for them to swim in, we just decided to leave early. I think the most fun they had was pushing their strollers around in the hotel room! Go figure!!

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So this trip actually turned out to be more stressful and more work than if we would have just stayed at home. There was no relaxing, no sitting down and definitely no reading any of the TWO books that I brought-HA! I really don't understand it because it seems like when I read other blogs, they have no problem taking their kids out of town and everything was hunky dory on their vacation. Is it just us? Are our kids just that bad at traveling? I don't get it!

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So why is this so important? Well, John has a conference next week at Myrtle Beach (another eight hour drive) We always make this week into a vacation but I have been on the fence about going. I have offered to stay at home with the kids and just let him and Kaleb go. After to talking to John yesterday, he wants us all to go. I keep trying to tell myself that things will be better this time but I dont know.......one good thing is that there is a children's water park where we are staying and I know that the kids would love that. Our neighbors by chance are also going to be there that week and they have a daughter Ayla's age so I am sure she will enjoy playing with her! I think that the sleeping situation is the most stressful part. Oh, well it will definitely be interesting I am sure!! We did however decide to cut our trip a little short. We will be leaving on Sunday and getting back on Thursday. So if anyone has any tips, suggestions etc, I would love to hear them!! Or you know you can just say a prayer if you feel so inclined!