Playdough!

An easy go-to entertainment for the girls! They love playdough time! 

And even better, I love when the weather is nice so they can do it outside and save me the cleanup!!

Mowers Little Helper

Someone was fascinated with helping daddy mow the grass!

Maddy's 2 year update....a little early

Maddy had her two year check-up today (2 weeks early, but that's when they got us in)

Here are her stats:

Height 35 inches (85th percentile)

Weight 26 pounds, 4 ounces (66th percentile)

Her doctor was very pleased with her growth!

We can't believe our little girl is 2 soon (November 4th) . Where did the crying baby days go??

Maddy still naps 2-3 hours a day, sleeps 12 hours solid every night. (No pacifier!!! YEAH!!!)

Big girl time is on the horizon! She is such a fun girl and makes us laugh everyday!

This is a cute photo of her from last night when we celebrated Abby's birthday.....we were all done eating our cake, so we thought. While we were in the living room, Maddy was sneaking back in the kitchen, climbed up in Abby's seat and proceeded to eat the rest of Abby's piece of birthday cake. She is getting so big, sometimes we forget she's not so little anymore.

Shiny EARS!!!!

DONE! For her 4th birthday we took Abby to get her ears pierced today!!

She was SOOO brave and barely flinched for each piercing.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Reiss got her beautiful light pink studs (her birthstone) for her birthday!

They are beautiful!!! And she loves them....most important!! No more stick-on earrings for this girl!

 Prepping the ears

 Marking the spots

 And BLING!!!!

Fall is here!

We took a trip to a local harvest festival this weekend so that the girls could pick out pumpkins!

There were a lot of other fun things going on, so it was a great outing.

 My cute pumpkin-heads!

 Going for a pony ride!!! She LOVED it!

 Maddy on a mini tractor tricycle

 "Hmmm...which one is mine??"

 Abby got to make her own peanut butter bird seed feeder!

Butterfly Update

Abby has had a great time watching her butterflies grow!

But before the weather got too cold, we decided to set them free this weekend.

 Last looks at her butterflies!

 Carrying them outside to release

 

  And away they go!!! You can barely make the top one out, but he is a speck in the bottom right corner.

The one below is more obvious, top right corner.

 

Thank you Grandma Donna for this fun learning experience!!

My sweetie!!

Well, its official!!

Maddy is finally pacifier-free!! We took it away from her on Wednesday morning this week cold turkey, and she has blown me away with how well she adjusted to this big change.

She was MUCH more attached to it than Abby was at this age, so I was worried, but she proved me wrong and napped and slept through the night with no fussing! YEAH MADDY!!!!

Here she is today spending our Friday together while Abby is at school. Guess she has taken to chewing on her fingers now that the plastic stopper is gone :)

My Wrestlers!!

Now that Maddy is getting bigger (ALMOST 2...yikes!!!), she is finding her place in the family.

Specifically throwing her weight around when she plays with her big sister.

All of a sudden Maddy has taken to tackling Abby and they wrestle like this on the floor!!

Both get a kick out of it. Maddy loves pinning her down, and Abby loves rolling Maddy back and forth!

Transformation Central!

In case you missed out on the news, we are growing Butterflies in the Smith house!

The caterpillars arrived about 11 days ago, and spent 7 days growing and eating in their feed cup.

Then on Monday they crawled to the lid of the cup, hanging from it, and created their chrysalis. Now they have been moved to their permanent home in the butterfly enclosure. They should emerge as butterflies in the next 4-6 days. An update will follow once they are here!!

Abby LOVES this and really enjoyed watching the caterpillars grow and change.

Abby's NEW Bed!

For Abby's upcoming 4th Birthday, we upgraded her to a twin size bed, from her toddler bed!!

I ended up getting a great deal on matching twin beds (headboards/footboards) and they look great.

This way when Maddy gets older, maybe they can share a room!! Abby was excited at the thought of having Maddy sleep in her room one day. We shall see....

But for now Abby LOVES her new bed and had no trouble adjusting!

BIG Thank you to Grandma Smith and Grandma Donna for buying her all her new bedding for her birthday!!

Navy Centennial Ball 2011

Last night was our annual Navy Ball, but this year marked the 100th year of Naval Aviation, so the different aviation communities celebrated together at one HUGE ball at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, instead of hosting our usual annual individual balls. 

My mom flew in the night before for a visit, and stayed with the girls.

Because of the ball location all the way across town, us and three other couples got a limo for the night to take us to the event, bar hopping for two hours afterwards, and then to our respective homes.......around 2am! We had a GREAT time!!

 Limo ride out to the Ball

 The girls!!

 The Guys

A bit of a breeze in the air as we arrived. Thank you for Grandma Donna for staying with the girls, we had a BLAST and love our chances to get out and enjoy our Navy community and friends.

Abby's First Day of Older 3's Preschool

Abby started her last year of preschool this week! 

Next year brinigs Pre-K.....then Kindergarten.....oh my!!

(Not the greatest photos, she told me it was too sunny out to see! Oops, we were in a hurry)

  Thank you Great Grandma and Grandpa Reiss for her new bumble bee backpack and barbie lunchbox this year!

Her first day back (although it was the 2nd week of school.....big oops on my part for scheduling our vacation after school started) was a great experience. New classroom and new teachers, with some of the same students from last year. She acted like nothing had changed, and had a great time.