Just looking at these old photos makes me feel warmer! 😉
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| newborn Ella with her Oma-January 2006 |
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| February 2006- Rilyn 20 months, Ella 1 month |
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| December 2005-Rilyn 18 months old |
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| January 2005 Rilyn age 7 months old |
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| Asher December 2008- 8 months old |
The girls have a lock and key on their bedroom door because of a certain little brother who loves to get into their room and write with markers all over their comforter and sheets. But I guess a lock and key just isn’t enough these days to make you feel secure.
Rilyn decided she needed to update her bedroom security system. She showed it to me the other day and I just have to wonder where she comes up with these ideas?!?
She taped two cards on the door. These are photo cards she got from Chuck E Cheese earlier this month. At the restaurant, they have a machine that takes your picture and prints it out on different logo cards. My girls spent half their time on this machine and came home with a dozen cards! Rilyn told me they are “security cards” though, and they are to be put in the “slot”. You can pick either Ella’s card or Rilyn’s card. The blue piece of paper is a “boys code” and the pink paper is a “girls code”. (Not sure why the three girls codes are all the same five numbers, and the three boys codes are all the same four numbers! And if you are a boy, what security card are you supposed to choose?!) 😉 The white paper on the side is the “key pad” where you are supposed to press in your code and put your card in the “slot”. (The orange paper is Ella’s own attempt at making a girls and boys code.)
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| The girls’ bedroom security system |
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| Ella’s boys and girls codes. 1810 apparently works for either! |
So, I get my “code”, (69587 if I’m using Rilyn’s card, and 1810 if I’m using Ella’s card), and then I “type it” into the keypad and slide my “security card” into the slot and then… I’m in their room! (Or rather, then I’m “allowed” to turn their door knob to open their door!) Creative security I tell you!
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| I stuck the card into the slot!
I like how the “slot” is in the door hinge so the card actually slides “in”. |
Today started out pretty rough.
Being a Saturday, and James not being home all day, meant I was planning on going to Temple to spend the day with my parents and the kids. Well, Rilyn got an ear infection on Friday and as it turns out, the probiotic she started using (with her antibiotic) made her sick to her stomach and she started vomiting 5 minutes before we were about to drive away this morning. Blessing for sure, because she got sick three more times, and if I was driving in the car with her, and with the way she was screaming how she was going to die, (she is a little dramatic if you don’t know her), I probably would of had a panic attack on I-35. But God knows just what I can handle, and I am so thankful we were not in the car! And so I called my mom to cancel our trip, and sat on the couch with a barfing bowl for Rilyn as I looked out the window at the crappy weather (cold, wet, rainy) and thought about how James was going to be gone ALL day, and it was a Saturday (Saturday for me means James is home to help me with the kids!) Yes, I was having a major pity party for myself.
Then I remembered that the photographer who took our portraits in December told me she mailed our photo CD on Thursday. I literally pleaded with God that if it’s His will, I would really love to get that CD in the mail today!! (Because ya know, photography=happiness in my book and God knows I needed something positive today!) And so, I opened our mail box, and there it was!!!! I praised God for His perfect timing! I think I even had tears of joy in my eyes. And then I spent the afternoon going through the photo CD! (And Rilyn felt 100% better in the afternoon! I even felt so good, that I put Asher in underwear for the first time- DURING HIS NAP TIME! That’s right, I felt so good, that I didn’t care if I had to wash all his sheets if he peed through his new Cars Underoos! (And he looked sooo cute in them!) He woke up dry too, so it was another added blessing from God!
I’ve mentioned before on my blog, but the photographer was Jennifer McKinney, or MckMama, as she is known in the blogging world. She is from Minnesota, and has such a fan following that she is able to travel the States doing photography! Here is a picture of me and Jennifer in mid-December when she took our portraits.
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| MckMama! |
Okay, here are “a few” of my favorites from the 20 minute shoot at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens! 😉
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| I’m getting this one on canvas! |
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| Rilyn 6 1/2 years old |
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| A girl without freckles is like a night without stars! |
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| married 9 1/2 years… |
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| Rilyn and Asher, our two look-alikes |
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| I think it’s safe to say Asher will have more than enough kisses in his life! |
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| more kisses! |
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| Asher just being Asher! |
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| gotta love the gap! |
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| Asher looks thrilled |
We started potty training after Christmas because 1.) I knew he was ready and 2.) I’m tired of diapers. Well, we are happy to say that in just one short week, I believe he is “half potty trained!” Yay! Now I know what I’m in for with the other half…both of the girls took a long time (like 3 months) to finally go poo poo in the potty, but I’m just excited that he took so easily to peeing in the potty! He was fighting us at first, (we were sitting him down on the potty), but when he discovered standing up and peeing, it was love at first sight! 😉 And, Asher is one lucky boy because BOTH his sisters are really into potty training him as well, and have both created sticker charts for him! So when Asher goes potty (he hasn’t had one accident in several days), he gets a sticker from Rilyn on her chart she made for him:
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| Rilyn’s chart |
and then a sticker on Ella’s chart, (you might notice that Ella isn’t into straight lines!):
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| I couldn’t resist a little bum shot! |
And finally, he gets a jelly bean from me! Wow, no wonder he likes to go pee pee in the potty! We have this little jingle we say together after he goes. “I did it! I did it! I shout to the crowd! Going pee pee in the potty makes me feel proud!!!” And then he pumps his fist in the air like this:
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| such a big boy! |
I love planning my kid’s birthday parties! I grew up with awesome birthday parties every year and it’s just something that I value, and want to do for my kids! My mom helps me with the planning (and paying!) and it seems like we started thinking about Asher’s birthday party (in April) on the way home from Ella’s party yesterday! 😉
Ella had her birthday party on Saturday afternoon and it was a success! We had it at The Party Palace in Round Rock.
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| so excited she can hardly stand it! |
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| checking out her fairy costume, she wanted to look like
Tinker Bell (no surprise there!) |
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| Rilyn and Ella picking out jewelry |
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| Me and my twinkle fairies! |
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| just being cute |
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| Fairies must get their nails done! |
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| Don’t forget the make-up! |
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| Then they had a fashion show and let’s just say Rilyn
knew what she was doing! |
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| Work it girl! |
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| Ella leading the other fairies in a fairy chant. |
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| Then they got sprinkled with fairy dust! Glitter everywhere! |
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| Time for the tea party! |
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| Blow out your candles! |
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| Ella was dabbing her mouth after every bite of cupcake and sip of ‘tea’. It was very
ladylike! |
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| This picture cracks me up! The party host taught the
girls how to hold their pinky up while drinking their tea and this is Ella’s version. Wrong hand sweetie! |
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| Her lady like manners soon disappeared after she discovered how hungry she was! |
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| The girls with their crowns on that they made! |
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| Happy 5th Birthday Ella! |
Yesterday was Ella’s ‘golden birthday’, meaning the birthday when you turn the same age as your birthdate. I missed Rilyn’s ‘golden birthday’ but she was only three, so no big deal, right? (If you know Rilyn, it IS a big deal!) I had never heard of this though until a couple years ago when my friend told me about it. So, in honor of Ella turning 5 on the 5th, she had to follow a trail of golden ribbon throughout the house (90 feet of it!) to find her presents!
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| following the ribbon around the house |
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| upstairs where her presents were found in the gold treasure box! |
Before presents, we went to Chuck E Cheese to have her birthday dinner! She got to invite one friend, who not surprisingly, she picked Anna!
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| Ella, Anna, and Rilyn |
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| Ella with the mouse (she wanted to take a picture with
his wife, she told him) |
Chuck E Cheese did this song and dance with any children who wanted to during the night, and my kids loved it! Afterwards, he threw tickets up in the air for all the kids to grab!
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| Pure joy from Asher, and airborne Ella! |
Now that Rilyn started school back and it is the second semester, she has more homework! Poor thing had to finish up her homework at Chuck E Cheese!
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| She might be the only child who has ever done homework at Chuck E Cheese!
I’m such a mean mommy! |
BUT, her winning 254 tickets from putting ONE token in one game made up for the homework!
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| Can you see Rilyn waaaay back there! The tickets
just kept on coming! |
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| Elation |
We are the parents that make our kids save their tickets instead of spending them on cheap crap like a toy spider ring (I also take away their happy meal toys before they can open them. I really hate cheap crap!) 😉 So far, we have 1500 tickets saved up!
My sweet Ella turned five today! Here is her day (so far) in pictures!
We start each birthday morning with our traditional “wake up the child with a donut and sing happy birthday while video taping and snapping pictures.”
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| Happy Birthday to you! |
I’ve decided that just waking up+trying to blow out candles=bad pictures (but too funny not to post!)
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| first try |
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| second try |
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| third try- a success! |
New tradition we just started. Who doesn’t love to bust through a ‘door’ of crepe paper?
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Daddy makes the best birthday cards for his sweeties!
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Time to go to the mall to get our annual birthday portraits!
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| sassy |
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| five! |
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| all dressed up! |
After the mall, we got home and it was my turn for a photo shoot (to use my new lens I got for Christmas!)
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| not so sure |
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| birthday girl |
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| stylin’ in her new boots she got for Christmas |
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| beauty |
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| birthday princess! |
I got this e-mail in the inbox today. Very interesting!
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, there were 204 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 502 posts. There were 42 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 24mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was January 5th with 217 views. The most popular post that day was happy birthday jesus cake.
The top referring sites in 2010 were blog.halimandangela.com, facebook.com, tipjunkie.com, matthew-carrie.blogspot.com, and douglasscasa.blogspot.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for the paquettes, serious face, little girl haircuts, toddler haircuts, and sesame street live.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
happy birthday jesus cake December 2009
4 comments
Ella’s First Haircut May 2008
2 comments
‘the talk’ August 2010
4 comments
The pumpkin gospel October 2008
2 comments
Family Nights May 2010
2011 has lots of exciting things in store! 10 year anniversary Hawaii trip, Disneyland, Ella starting kindergarten…but I’m really looking forward to being diaper free!!!! I’ve been buying diapers since 2004. (6 1/2 years straight if you are counting!) We are beginning to potty train Asher right now, and he is doing pretty well.
We had a fun New Year’s Eve celebrating with friends by having smores with the kids, and then Pappasitos for the adults (take-out, because we couldn’t find a babysitter.) Then we played a pretty fun, (and VERY random) game called Quelf. There were definitely tears from laughing so hard. Let’s just say one of the cards I drew said I had to snort every time I laughed, and we all had to add ‘izzle’ to the end of every sentence the WHOLE game. No pictures this year, although there was a video that was made (and destroyed) on someone’s phone from the game.
Enjoy some old pictures from the past New Years. (Just because I like all my posts to have pictures!)
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| Rilyn’s first New Year’s Eve (going into 2005) |
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| New Years Eve 2006 going into 2007 |
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| New Years Eve 2007 going into 2008 |
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| Asher and Caden Richardson-New Years Eve 2008 going into 2009 |
Admittedly this is A LOT of presents…but it is for 12 people! (And I get stressed getting Christmas ready for my four at home…)
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| Rilyn and Ella in front of grandma’s tree |
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| Ella’s favorite present! |
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| Asher’s favorite present-a car table! |
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| our traditional Christmas dinner picture! |
This Christmas, I think my favorite thing to watch was Asher with his cousin, Caden (15 months apart). These two were hilarious together, making each other crack up every chance they got.
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| best buds |
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| trying to escape |
I love this picture of Asher and Caden below. Asher stealing his new toy away from Caden as Caden makes an attempt to grab it back. We are pretty sure Caden will be bigger than Asher one day, so Asher better watch out…
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| This is mine! |
the paquettes 