Fall Colors

One of the things I love most about this house is the landscaping. I have looked forward to fall since we moved in, because I knew the trees would be beautiful.

This is my favorite tree. I believe it is a Laceleaf Japanese Maple.

We made a leaf crown.

I have been waiting and waiting for the leaves to fall so I can heap them up and play in them!

Mt.Rainier National Park

It was such a beautiful day. We drove up to the mountain with our friends and had a great time exploring and hanging out. One word of advice, if you go up there, don't forget your bug spray! We did, and I have these mosquito bites that are probably 3 inches in diameter and are raised an inch off my skin. We had to bum some spray from random strangers for the kids. :)

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These are some of the shots of the amazing view driving up there.

She was loving the bumpy ride.

Snow in September!

We hiked down a trail toward Mowich Lake.

The water was as clear as glass.

Everyone had a great time playing in the water. We met a guy there who was doing a 93 mile hike on the Wonderland Trail. It was going to take him 10 days. He pre-stashed food at all the stops he would camp at along the way. We met him when he stopped where we were playing to dunk himself in the cold water for his "bath".

Which inspired our kids to dunk themselves.

 

 We had tons of fun. We will definately be going there again.

Loose Tooth

Lilli insisted that she wanted to try yanking her tooth out using the "slam the door" method. I tried to discourage this, since she is a bit dramatic, but she just HAD to do it. So we tied some floss around the wiggly tooth and tied the other end to the door knob.

The tooth did not come out.
 But we sure got a great laugh. :)

PS- ignore the makeup, she's not a working girl. She is just obsessed with "makeovers"

My Beautiful Allison

So, I have a bunch of pictures of Alli that don't fit into any special post.
I thought I would just share them all here.

Beautiful Smile

Loves her sister, about to go in for a kiss

There it is!

Maddi with Newborn Allison

Want to see the cutest thing in the world? Ok, here you go!

This video was taken in the hospital right after Alli was born. Maddi loved her right from the beginning.

Paws Abilities Grand Opening

Have you seen the movie Marmaduke? If you haven't, you should. It's a great family comedy about a great dane and his family moving to Orange County. The canine star, Marmaduke, was trained at Paws Abilities, which is where Mia goes to puppy kindergarten. Marmaduke's real name is Spirit. He is a champion show dog and he is HUGE! We got to meet him, take some photos and got an autograph today. We LOVE Paws Abilities so far, our trainer is excellent. They even have a dog therapy pool and treadmills, how crazy is that?

"Spirit" aka Marmaduke

Maddi loved petting the dogs!

Always gotta get the face painted!

A little bit about Maddi

Ahhh Maddi. She is really an angel sent to me for a little while by a Heavenly Father who must love me a lot. Why else would he send me such a perfect child. She is the most loveable kid you will ever meet. Where do I begin??? She just turned 4 on July 19, 2011. At 5 months she was diagnosed with pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 2. In a nutshell, PCH2 is a very rare genetic brain disorder. She will never meet any major developmental milestones (sitting, crawling, standing, talking or walking). It is also characterized by a movement disorder. Her little body is always moving, even in her sleep. Always an eyebrow or a pinky finger or her tongue or something. She can see and hear fine. She communicates with us by facial expressions, lip smacking and cooing. I know all parents are biased, but this girl is the sweetest kid in the world. She loves to be held, loves to be cuddled and can melt your heart at any time......except at 3am when she is crying and I can't figure out why. She is happy about 90% of the time. But when she is upset, it's unbearable for us all.  It's so hard to have a child who can't verbalize what's wrong.

Maddi loves her family. She has physical therapy every week and went to preschool last year. She LOVES riding the bus. At the end of May she got very sick and was in the ICU with pneumonia, which scared our family to death.
I am so thankful every day to be her mom. She has taught me so much about life and I will be forever grateful to her. I hope I get to keep her here with me for a very long time.

I will tell more of her story later. Stay tuned :)

Puppy Kindergarten

That's right, puppies go to kindergarten. We are hoping to train Mia to be a service dog for Maddi (who will from now on be referred to by her real name Moosie). Mia is a 4 1/2 month old german shepard/lab mix.  We adopted her from the animal shelter in June. She is very intelligent and is a great dog. When we brought her home the first time, we put the carrier down and opened the door and she made a beeline to Moosie. We knew from that moment she was meant to be in our family. They have been inseperable ever since. She sleeps right next to Moosie every night and Moosie just loves her. She sticks her arm out and pets her and just smiles so big it melts your heart!  To any of you who don't know my family very well I will explain Moosie and her condition more in another post...it's a long story.

Anyway, back to puppy kindergarten. It was very cool. I would recommend it to anyone with a new dog. I am very excited to think of the possibilities ahead and the things we can teach her to do..

No More Training Wheels!

We have been trying to teach Lilli how to ride a bike without training wheels for at least a year. The girl who is normally fearless, just was terrified of falling off a bike. She would lean to the side and give up after about 2 minutes.
One day, we went on a family bike ride to the nature park down the street. Both boys can ride without training wheels so Lilli was the only one. She was so slow! It was not much fun for me, as I had to ride as slow as I could to stay back with her. I tried bribing her, I tried threatening her. Nothing. I gave up.
2 days later I told her to practice on a scooter, that way she wouldn't have to worry about pedaling, just balance. She did that about 10-15 minutes. Then I said, "let's try the bike." She said, "no, I'm not ready. I'm too scared." I told her she was going to try for a few minutes.
I held her shoulders while she went 50 feet or so. She's yelling "let go, let go" I'm thinking, yeah right. She yells "let go Mom, you have to stop worrying about me!" I think, seriously? This coming from the girl who told me she's not ready and she's too scared 5 minutes ago? Ok, we'll see......
I let go, she took off down the street! And never looked back.
Yay Lilli!!!!