Happy 4th birthday Ashlee!

Seriously, 4 years ago my baby girl took a hold of my heart and has never let go since.  Our little peanut is so full of spunk, sassyness, smarts, and sweetness.  Things I always want to remember about her at this age:

1) I'm pretty sure "Why" is her favorite word
2) When she asks me to do her a favor she says "Mom, can you do me a favorite?" and "yellow" is "lellow"
3) She can count to 20 in Spanish and knows about 40 other Spanish words and is getting great at associating letters with the sounds they make and is starting to spell words by sounding them out
4) She can write her name (with a little help with the "s")
5) She still LOVES Dora
6) Is OBSESSED with lip gloss, makeup and nail polish
7) She loves her preschool and teachers and her best little buddy is Lina
8) Is a great eater, but her favs are mac n' cheese, broccoli, lunch meat, pickles, string cheese, any sort of berry, cheerios, rice and anything with lemon juice or mustard on it
9)  She can NOT drink enough chocolate milk
10) She's a bit TV obsessed (Team Umizoomi, Dora, Diego, Ni-Hao, Fresh Beat Band, etc) and I'm constantly having to limit the time in front of the tube
11) She has excellent manners
12) Loves her gymnastics class, but is not so found of dance
13) Begs to be tickled!!!!!
14) She still loves books and reading to her every night is something I treasure dearly.
15) She loves anything outdoors, riding her bike or scooter, swinging, the playground,walking Lulu, planting flowers with mom, etc
16) She loves to help me make dinner
17) She is quite the little artist.  She loves drawing Dale, myself and even Lulu pictures and lights up when we tell her how beautiful they are.  She will then go and hang them on the fridge for us!

My gorgeous 4 year old!

Merry Christmas to you!

Christmas is always my favorite holiday.  There are so many fun things to do, so many traditions to start.  We decorated the house like crazy this year, Dale really went all out on the lights outside.  Ashlee definitely got the Santa thing and LOVED opening presents (most of them had something to do with Dora)!  Santa was so silly, he left a mess of ash in front of our fireplace!  He sure seemed to love his cookies and the reindeer ate all their carrots!

We carried on our gingerbread tradition, but made a house this year (last year was a train).  Dale and Ashlee ended up eating most of the candy while I got super creative with some of the left over decorations from the sugar cookies we made weeks before.  I did learn that you have to let the icing dry for a LONG time before you put it up or it will just run everywhere.  :)  Oh well, we still had fun!

My best friend, Brooke, and I took the girls to see Santa again this year.  Surprisingly, neither of them had a fit about it. In fact, Ashlee actually talked to Santa!  She told him she wanted a new doll stroller cause her's broke. :)

Ash and Lexi in line to see Santa

Love it!

The loot

Ash with the new puppy Santa brought her

and the new scooter mom and dad got her

Some of the sugar cookies we made!  Dale, Ashlee and I got very creative.

Silly girl

Ashlee and Dj hard at work on the gingerbread house

The finished product! 

Family pictures 2010

Oh Sarah, how I love thee!  Once again, you captured my family and our silliness and beauty in ways I never thought of.  I am so lucky to have such a talented friend!

Happy Thanksgiving

Dj getting down and dirty with the turkey!

The kiddos (most of them)

me and my girl

Our little family

Thanksgiving was so much fun this year (I only wish my family was closer so they could have been there).  We did a joint celebration with a friend of Dale's family and their family.  In all, I think there was about 40-50 people and so many pies and turkeys I lost count!  My sister-in-law, Jen, and I had a lot of fun keeping the wine company (everything tastes better with wine) and the kiddos had a blast being their crazy selves.

Fun family times

LEAVES! And boy, do we have alot of them...

Bzzz bzzz, here come the bees!

Ashlee with Pickle the Pumpkin

Our little swarm and Camden (aka Dr. Awesome)

Me and my little bumblebee

Dr. Awesome and the 2 cutest bees you've ever seen!

The kiddos trick or treating

 Happy Halloween!  Once again, we got lucky and had gorgeous weather on Halloween.   Ashlee, myself, Aunt Jen and Kira all dressed up as bees...we were a little swarm!  I'm glad my sister-in-law talked me into dressing up this year, it was actually fun!  Camden was Dr. Awesome and Kyle, the neighbor, was Mario.  They were such a cute group and had so much fun together.  Its funny, about an hour into it both Kira and Ashlee were sooo done!  I, the old parent, had to talk them into getting more candy (what's wrong with that picture???)!!  Of course, the glass of red wine in my hand had nothing to do with me wanting to trick or treat more....nah!

Our yearly trip to Anderson Farms

We LOVE this place!  It is such a great place to celebrate Halloween and all things fall! Mammy and Papa were in town for their yearly visit so they got to partake in the fun (they especially loved the kettle corn)! Ashlee's favorite part was the wooden train (interesting) and my favorite part was not being in extreme pain this year (amazing what a year and 2 back surgeries can do)!  Our trip this year was earlier in the month so the pumpkin patch was not so picked-over.  It is amazing how many pumpkins and different varieties that place grows.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Ashlee made her first big project at her new pre-school, her very own Brown Bear, Brown Bear book. Here's a video of her reading it to me. Enjoy!

Please don't go...

that's right summer, I'm talking to you.

*********************************************************

I'm already missing fun at Cherry Creek...

Awesome tubing in Deckers...
Running through the sprinklers....

Fun at the playground...

Free raspberries from my little raspberry bush that sprouted up from the neighbor's!

My little peanut in a swimsuit! Nothing cuter...


Fingerpainting out on the back deck...

Backyard pool fun with friends...

not to mention the walks, bike rides, planting flowers, picnics, boating, breakfast out on the deck, butterflies, birdies, grasshoppers, more bike rides and walks, the zoo, the pool, driving with my sunroof open, drinking wine on the deck, sleepovers with cousins, putt putt golf, etc.