Terrible Two's are here

When I say Ainsley gets in everything she shouldn't, I'm not exaggerating.  It's non-stop.  I feel like the only thing I say to her anymore is "No."  If you leave a phone or remote in sight, she's guaranteed to get it and press every button she can before you can take it away from her.  Our tv has been messed up too many times to count, but luckily I've been able to get it working again.  She hasn't managed to call anyone on the phone....yet.  I'm sure that one is coming.

Joel's been working late in the fields, so it's been me and Ainsley by ourselves.  I jumped in the shower the other night and left Ainsley sitting on the couch watching Mickey.  I told her I was going to take a shower and to sit and watch Mickey and I'd be done in a few minutes.  I leave the bathroom door open when I do it so she can come in and out of the bathroom if she wants.  She usually comes in the bathroom to "check" on me, but didn't the other night.   I was literally in the shower for ten minutes and when I shut off the water, I yelled at her to see what she was doing.  I opened up the shower curtain and could hear the little pitter-patter of feet running down the hallway and into the bathroom.  She came running in with something in her hands.  I couldn't tell what it was and asked her what she had.  She looked up at me with little puppy dog eyes and reached her hands out to me to give me what was in them.  I took them from her and still had no idea what they were.   They were these little black pieces.  It took me a few seconds before I realized they were keys off the laptop!  As soon as I got the words "AINSLEY ROSE" out of my mouth she took off as fast as she could out of the bathroom.  She knew she was in trouble! 

I walked into the living and found the laptop opened up, sitting on the floor, with the power cord in the back of the laptop pulled out, the disc drive open, the laptop shut off, and 11 keys missing (which were in my hands).  Seriously?!?  I left the laptop underneath the couch and my baby being good watching Mickey Mouse and ten minutes later have a laptop with missing keys?  She knows she's not suppose to touch the laptop, but has been very interested in it for the last week or so.  I just can't believe she got off the couch, somehow pulled the laptop out from under the couch, opened it up, and pulled 11 keys off of the keyboard.  How in the world did she even pull them off?!

I have to say that one good thing is she at least picked up after herself, even if she did tell on herself a little by bringing all the keys into me.  She had everyone of them in her hands.  That's one of her new things is to try to get as much as she can in her hands.  She gets so mad if she can't get everything she wants in her hands at a time.  She'll try to put six or seven crayons in one hand and if she can't do it, she'll throw a fit!

We were able to get all the keys back on and they're all working properly except for the "5" at the top of the keyboard.  It's crooked and messed up.  I guess it's just a little reminder of the night Ainsley destroyed the laptop.

Joel got home shortly after all of this happened, and helped me get the last few keys back on the keyboard.  Of course, he just laughed when he walked in and I showed him what she did. 

While Joel was putting the last few keys on, Ainsley decided she needed to climb in the dining room chair and dance to the Hot Dog song.  I'm surprised she didn't go on up to stand on the dining room table, but I'm sure that's going to happen any time.  She's such a little daredevil.

Ainsley's started to develop an attitude, and it gets worse every day.  She'll make terrible faces at you if you're not doing what she wants or if you tell her not to do something.  She throws huge fits when you tell her no, and she's even started telling me "No-no" while pointing her little finger at me if she doesn't want to do something.  This next year is going to be a long one, and hopefully the "terrible 2's" get over sooner rather than later.

We went outside the other day while it was nice out and colored with chalk.  It's really started cooling off, so I think our days of nice weather are going to be few and far between.

I found this picture on my phone of Ainsley and Uncle Tanner from a few weekends ago.  She loves to watch Little Einsteins on his phone and he even holds it for her while she watches it!

Thomas and Jamie's new house

Thomas and Jamie have been anxiously awaiting their house to be finished.  They started building it a few months ago, and it took a little longer than planned, but not much.  They were able to close on it two weeks ago and move most things in that weekend. 

The house turned out beautiful and the grass even started coming up while we were there. 

With four bedrooms and three bathrooms, they had plenty of room for all of us.  Me, Ainsley, Dad and Tanner all headed down Friday night and stayed until Sunday morning.  Ainsley did pretty good in the car, but a three hour drive is rough on anyone!

Trying to put on Maddie's shirt

Jamie had to work all weekend, so we didn't see much of her, but Ainsley got all kinds of time with the dogs, Jake and Maddie.  She absolutely loves Jake and likes to hug on him while grabbing handfuls of hair.  We were constantly pulling dog hair out of her mouth.  Yuck!!!

Dumb dog...the neighbors have to think they're pieces of work!

Thomas and Jamie got new living room furniture for the main floor, and the couch was delivered on Saturday morning.  The couch is white leather.  Really?!  Of course, Ainsley wanted to sit on it to watch Mickey, but Uncle Thom wouldn't let her touch it with "her grubby little hands". 

I'm not touching it....

Ainsley liked walking down the sidewalk around their house with Grandpa Bill. 

Uncle Tanner needed a haircut for his senior pictures, so Thomas drug out his barber stuff.  He was a little rusty, and thought Tanner needed to spike his hair up like Ace Ventura, but we ended up getting a normal haircut out of him.

We woke up Sunday morning to Dad being sick with the flu.  I guess we were still carrying some germs with us and he ended up getting it in the middle of the night Saturday night.  Ainsley and I were sitting at the dining room table Sunday morning eating breakfast when Dad ran into the bathroom to throw up.  Ainsley could hear him and started imitating him, making gagging noises.  I just told her Grandpa didn't feel good and to stop.  Then, Dad came out and sat down at the table and Ainsley looked at him and said "pee-you" and pinched her nose.  I about died!!!  I couldn't smell Dad, but I guess she smelled something and was telling Grandpa he stunk! 

That's one of her newest things is holding her nose and saying "pee-you".  She does it after she poops and will walk up to me holding her nose saying "pee-you" while pointing to her butt.  It's pretty funny.  At least we know when she poops now.

The ride home ended up being an uneventful one.  Dad didn't get sick, and Ainsley slept for the first two hours.  She was wore out from a long weekend!

Morning at the orchard

Ainsley and I spent a few hours at Brooms Orchard with Lauren and Grayson a few weekends ago. 


Grayson is only a few months younger than Ainsley, but he's quite a bit smaller than Ainsley.  Looking at his Mom and Dad, he probably doesn't have much of a chance of being very tall!

2012-She's grown quite a bit since last year!

2011-the helmet added a little, but not much.

Both kids were more interested in the ponies than any other animal, but they were still getting them out and ready to go, so we weren't able to see them.

Checking out the goats

They had a little area set up where the kids could run around and it was covered in straw.  Ainsley and Grayson didn't care much for the straw; they just wanted to go down the slide!

Of course, my daughter found the sand box and ended up getting sand in her shoes.  I think a sand box is on our "buy" list for next spring.  She loves the sand!

We headed over to the pumpkin patch, where the kids tried to lift the pumpkins, with no luck.  They both grunted and strained to lift them, but they were just too heavy!

Everyone enjoyed the apples, including me and Lauren!  Broom's has really good apples this year.  They were so sweet.  The kids liked throwing them out of the wagon, picking them off of the tree, and best of all, eating them!

 

Grayson says:  "Watch:  this is how you throw the apples!"

It ended up being a really good morning and both kids were worn out and ready for a nap by the time we left.  I know Grayson was asleep before they got back into Carlinville and the only reason Ainsley stayed awake was because I promised her a cheeseburger from McDonald's!

Grayson started climbing on the bench, so Ainsley ran over to show him how it was done....

including kicking Grayson as she got up!

Drake's 4th birthday

We've had a lot going on in the past few weeks, and I'm going to attempt to catch up in the next few days.  It seems like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. 

A few weeks ago was Drake's fourth birthday.  I can't believe he's four years old!  I remember the day Jennifer called to tell me she was in labor.  I was sitting in the lab in Somerset, KY and couldn't believe I was hours away and she was going to have Drake.  We flew back to Litchfield that afternoon and Joel and I headed to the hospital that evening.  Little did we know that it would turn out to be a very long night.  I don't remember the exact time Joel and I ended up leaving the hospital to go home and get some sleep, but it was probably around 3 or 4 in the morning and Drake still hadn't arrived.  Of course, the little stinker decided to make his appearance an hour after we left the hospital.  He's kept us on our toes ever since! 

He had a John Deere party and we also celebrated Brianna's 18th birthday that day also.

Birthday boy

I think Drake only got a little bit of spit on the cake while blowing out his candles!  And, it took Brianna quite a while to blow out all eighteen of her candles.

Drake got lots of cool toys, including some Little Einsteins dvds that Ainsley liked.

Ainsley liked playing in the bounce house (by herself).  I was too scared to let her in there with other kids!

Dragging her Daddy around

It ended up being a nice day for a birthday party!