First Time Camping

I must say that Asha is definately an out doors kind of girl. She LOVED camping more than I ever thought she would. She laughed from sun up to sun down and just ran ran ran. We camped with Grandma and Papa and had joining camp sites so she ran back and forth visiting and playing. She got soooo dirty but had sooo much fun!! We didn't get to camp as much as we wanted because it rained Thursday all day so we stayed home and went from Friday to Sunday. She had her very first pudgy pie this morning. Daddy made her a cherry pie filling with a marshmallow in the middle and she couldn't get enough. She is now addicted to marshmallows. She would wake up in the morning saying "Chocolate Mallow?" We had to keep telling her that she couldn't have chocolate mallows for breakfast but at night we would have some more. Here are some pictures of her having fun!!

This is Asha in the tent. She kept calling it "Asha's tent". When we took it down this morning she kept saying "Asha's tent flat". It was so cute!!

This is Asha being silly while waiting for papa to throw her the frisbee. She really liked chasing the little red disc around. Kept her busy for a while.Here she is chilling on daddy after scarfing down a bunch of marshmallows and grahm crackers.

Just for fun here is one of Asha in her new bikini. Unfortunately we didn't get to go swimming even though it was hot enough. We were just too busy doing other things. It didn't help that mom had a migraine part of the day on Saturday.

I definately think we will be going camping again. Probably not this year anymore but next year for sure.

We LOVE Play Dates!!

What a wonderful thing play dates are!! We love them and look forward to them. I was never able to do them with my stepson and feel very blessed to have a group of woman who like to have play dates with us. The best part about our play dates is that we all have adopted children and they are all of other cultures. It tickles me to know that Asha will have friends who have families just like hers.

The play date yesterday was with T, M, S, and K. We didn't get any pictures of S & K because they had to leave early. Here are the pictures I did get.

This is Asha and T attempting to play together. None of the girls really play together it's usually just near eachother. Asha is the oldest among the girls but they all get along so nice.

Here's my musical girl trying out the drums.

Here is M sitting on her mommies lap.

We have so much fun at the play dates and it's so nice for us mommies to talk about real life things rather than toddler talk. I hope these girls will have a bond for many years to come!!

Fun Weekend & Finalization Day!

We had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday there was a parade in our town as part of the fair. We've taken Asha every year but this year she really got into picking up the candy especially when they were throwing handfuls of suckers at her. In the picture my family is patiently waiting for the parade to start.

Saturday night we also had a fire again but this time we roasted chocolate marshmallows and they really did taste like hot cocoa. They were so good that Asha wouldn't let anyone else have the bag. She carried it around and kept popping whole marshmallows in her mouth.

Today July 22, 2007 is Asha's finalization day. 2 years ago today she officially became part of our family. I know that some people celebrate this and some people don't but it's just another day we take advantage of to remember family time. It's now been our tradition to go to the beach and have a picnic. That's what we did on the first one and that's what we've done ever since. We bought Asha her own froggy inner tube for the occasion and here's some picture of her with it. She even tried to wear it while playing in the sand which prooved to be pretty difficult.

We try to cram as much as we can into our weekend since daddy isn't home during the week. It's been a busy summer and there's more fun to come. We are going to try and go camping next weekend and that will be Asha's first camping adventure so it should be interesting. We aren't going far from home so if it doesn't work out then it's not big deal we can come home. We are pretty excited and I can't wait to post pictures of her first camping trip.

Picture Post!

Asha loves to wear our clothes including shoes. She is definately a shoe horse and we can not walk through the shoe department without buying her something or she has a melt down. Any ways here she is wearing my hooded sweatshirt even though it was rather warm outside.

We pulled out the outside fireplace and had a nice little fire Saturday night and here is Asha with a whole big marshmallow stuffed in her mouth. She couldn't wait for it to get roasted so she just shoved it in plain. Hint to anyone who likes roasted marshmallows my mother-in-law says Walmart has chocolate marshmallows that taste like hot cocoa when roasted. We will definately be trying that!!Here is my girl giving a concert of her wonderful recorder talent. We were pretty amazed by her that she could just pick it up and make sound right away. She got the putting her hands over the holes and blowing thing down all by herself. We didn't even have to show her what it did she figured it out all on her own.

Here's my ducky girl. She loves ducks and has a ton of ducks all over the house. Those little ducks that you fill up with water and squirt she's got a ton. We even sing a little ducky song "Mack (quack) Mack (quack) Waddle Waddle" sometimes and she was singing it while wearing her little ducky inner tube. It was so cute!!

Fun Day!

I want to add some pictures to this post but I left my camera in Asha's diaper bag which is in her room and she's still trying to get to sleep so it will have to wait.

We had a really great day with my in laws. How many people can actually say that? I finally get along great with my mother and father-in-law. It took years but we are finally there and I am so extremely happy about it.

Any ways to get to the fun day part we went over there after some doctors appointments to go swimming and after we shocked the heck out of the pool since the water was green we finally got to go in and swim a little. Asha isn't real big on water but the more we go there the more comfortable she gets. They had bought a ducky inner tube for the little ones and she wore it in and out of the pool. Once they opened it and blew it up she kept begging to go back in the pool which in itself is a miracle that she wanted to go back in the water. I gave in and put her wet "kini" (bikini) back on her because I just couldn't resist her "wimmin poo" (swimming pool) plead anymore it was just too cute.

After the swimming pool she had a blast when her papa came home with a tupperware tub full of toys for her to play with. He works for 3 apartment complexes and you wouldn't believe the toys that people leave behind when they move. Nice stuff too. Today he brought home about 15 Beanie Babies in really good conidtion that someone just left behind. He also had the whole bottom of the tub full of play kitchen dishes, silverware and food to go along with the play kitchen someone left behind a few weeks ago. It is incredible how much stuff he had for the kids. Everything had been cleaned already so she dove right in and started digging through that tub like there was buried treasure at the bottom. It was so funny to watch her wearing her little ducky inner tube trying to practically dive into the tub.

We had a wonderful dinner of Subway courtesy of Aunty who works at Subway and gets a discount and then some nice visiting time.

I really feel blessed to have these wonderful people in our lives and they truly are what grandparents should be!!

Waaay Too Smart

My girl is just way too smart for only being 2 years old. She just amazes me and some of the things that come out of her mouth just make my draw drop because they are things 2 year olds usually don't say or understand. Even my mother-in-law who has homeschooled 3 children can't believe how smart Asha is. Sorry just a little bragging going on here.

She was being really sassy today so here is our conversation:

Mom: "Do you want to go to bed?" (sounding very serious)

Asha: "Not yet." (also sounding very serious)

Mom: "Then you need to behave"

Asha: "OK!"

She was good then for a while so I know she understood the whole conversation but that's what gets me is that I can have a conversation with my 2 year old.

She also informed me that there were "rain clouds" rolling in and me like the big dumb mommy said "yes those are clouds" not believing they are rain clouds because it's not in the forecast and she tells me again "rain clouds". Sure enough 5 minutes later downpour right on us. Next time I'll listen to my daughter not the weather man.

Also another conversation my husband had with Asha which I thought was completely hilarious was about her misbehaving and throwing temper tantrums again. He asked her "Do you want to go to bed?" She comes back with "yes". I snickered because she got him there. He does not put her to bed even though she has said yes so a little while later the same conversation because she has yet done something else naughty and again the same answer "yes". This time I tell daddy to listen to her so he gets her ready for bed and she was out cold. Apparently she really was ready for bed.

This girl knows what she wants and for the most part can voice it. Some days that's good and some days that is soooo bad.

Yes everyone this angelic little face can throw one heck of a temper tantrum. She can be heard down the block with the doors and windows closed.

Six Flags

The day after our wonderful 4th of July we took the kids to Six Flags in Illinois. We found a wonderful package deal offered by the Hyatt in Deerfield so we couldn't pass it up.

The first day we went to Hurricane Harbor which is the water park there. Again Asha wasn't real big on the water part of it but she did love the lazy river. She layed on daddy's belly and said hi to everyone who passed.

They had an amazing kids area with water cannons and huge buckets at the top that would slowly fill up with water and then dump out on whoever was down below. For that reason Asha would not let us put her in the water. She was fine until she saw the bucket dump. I love this picture of her and daddy.

The second day we hit all the big rides and all the little kid areas for Asha. She is obsessed with trains and thankfully they had a little kiddie train. She loved it and for the rest of the day thought all the big roller coasters were trains. She would yell "train choo choo"!
Lastly the girl loved our bed in the hotel room. We almost thought she would sleep with us. She kept climbing up there and making herself at home. I do not blame her though because I could have stayed in it all day. I've never said that about a hotel bed but it was AWESOME!! Here she is enjoying our bed.

By the way I am the QUEEN at Wack A Mole and won her some really nice stuffed animals. The one you can see in the last picture is the most adorable little puppy. The prizes at Six Flags are waaaaay better than you win at carnival games. It was so worth the $3 to win her such cute prizes. She walked away with a cute unicorn, an octopus (really cute) and her puppy.

It was alot of fun and I will have not problems going back in a few years when Asha can actually remember she's been there.

4th of July

It's a little late but here are some pictures of our wonderful 4th of July.

It was probably the best one we've had in a while. No stress just lots of fun. This picture is of Asha in our backyard waiting for it to get dark so daddy could light off some of our own fireworks. Our town has fireworks on the 4th of July every year and fortunately we can see them from our backyard so it's alot quieter and less crowded. She loved them and would yell "Sparkles" every time they lit up the sky. She did really well since there was minimal booming from where we were.

Also while waiting for it to get dark we lit our outdoor fireplace and grandma brought marshmallows so Asha had her very first roasted marshmallow. She LOVED it and couldn't get enough. I didn't get a picture but she had marshmallow all over her face. It's a good thing grandma's think of fun stuff like marshmallows.

This is Asha trying to see the ribbons she put on her head. Daddy bought brother some poppers that shoot ribbons out and she thought they were supposed to go on her head once they came out of the popper.

Daddy also bought the kids sparklers and Asha got to hold her very first sparkler. I got a picture but it's not the best. She liked it but it freaked mom out so the first was the last for the night. She enjoyed watching brother play with his so it was no big loss to her.

Here's my girl in her "kini" as she likes to call it. During the day we went to grandma and papas house to go swimming. She's not a big fan of the water but she really liked it this time. She was shivering and still didn't want to get out. I hope by the end of the summer she is really into swimming more.

Over all it was a wonderful 4th of July.

Tinkle Potty!

She did it she went tinkle on the potty yesterday. We've been trying for months now and nothing but of course when daddy is home she will do it for him. I think she barely went but we made a very big deal out of it so hopefully she will do it again.

She has been very good about letting us know when she needs a diaper change so I hope we are getting closer to her telling us when she needs to use the potty. She asks to go on the potty but it's usually after she's already gone in her diaper.

She's actually been asking to go on the potty more since she had a poop accident in the bathtub on Monday. I had to sit her on the potty for a while to clean up after her accident so maybe something clicked there a little. It was NOT a fun time. That was her first accident in the bathtub ever so I am counting myself lucky. It wouldn't have been soooo bad if she wasn't still sitting there with conditioner in her hair ready to drip in her face. I had to then rinse her hair in the kitchen sink which you would have thought I was trying to kill her with all the screaming and flailing about. We got through it and it will be a nice memory to tell her about when she's older.