Long time no pictures

Here are just a few pictures from or Easter this year. We traveled up to BG the weekend before Easter to celebrate with my mom's side. Everyone was there (except for our AZ family) and we had a great time visiting! On Sunday mom and Mike had a huge egg hunt in their front yard. Aliya slept all the way through it (I actually had to wake her up 3 1/2 hours into her nap so she could visit with grandma and grandpa B.) Below are a few of our little ones.


Joel showing off his basket


Aliya was still half asleep as she opened her's.


Easter is not our holiday with Joel, so that Thursday morning before Easter we gave the kids their baskets from us. Joel's was hidden in the dryer (like every year). They had fun checking out their loot first thing in the morning.

mmm...chocolate for breakfast!


She looks like she got caught doing something wrong in this one!


Joel looking his best at 7am!


We went over to my grandma H's the day before Easter...those pictures still to come.

Working a lot

I have a ton of pictures to post but am having a hard time finding the time to get them up. I have been working some pretty funky hours these past two weeks and it's messing with my sleep, thus causing me to have ZERO motivation to get anything done around here that isn't a necessity. So please bear with me and I promise I will get them up soon!

Our trip to BG

Yesterday Joel, Aliya and I headed to BG in preparation for my doctors appointment this morning. Last night Aliya went pee pee again in the potty (and then went poo poo on the carpet this morning...oops!). Anyway, we had a great visit! The doctor only found 2 lumps this time. One lump was there last time but had grown just over 1mm since my last appt so he decided to get the needles out! Thankfully it didn't hurt and it was just a cyst! I will return in 3 months for my next appt. On a positive note, I've lost 10 lbs since my last visit there! Aliya screamed through the entire appointment again...I am rethinking taking her next time. The doctor and staff say they don't mind, but it really is distracting and unfair to the other patients to listen to. Joel stayed back with Grandpa and they went to Bass Pro and bought fishing stuff. It was a quick up and back trip this time, but a lot of fun!

Pee Pee in the Potty!!!

She did it!!! Aliya went pee pee in the potty this afternoon! When I went to pick her up from Jen's she was walking around saying "potty" and tugging on her jeans. She would wonder into the bathroom then come back out saying "potty". When we got home I stripped her down to just her shirt and let her run around naked. I talked to her about going potty and she sat down on it. I gave her a book to read, that only lasted about 30 seconds before she got up...And there it was, a small yellow puddle in the potty! We did a happy dance and clapped and squealed! She was so proud of herself!! Who knows if she'll do it again any time soon!?!

Pee Pee on the Night Night

I am working 3rd shift tonight, so Aliya and I were home all day together today. After and EXTREMELY long afternoon nap (almost 3 1/2 hours) we ate dinner and decided to head to Target to pick up a few items. While there Aliya was begging to get out of the cart and walk around she kept saying "down peeeeee", so after a brief set of "stay with mommy" directions I let her down. She did great, she walked beside me the entire time and only held my hand for a few minutes. She introduced herself to only the people who did not make initial contact with her. Those folks were greeted with the shy head tilt into mommy's leg and then as they passed she would finally say hi.

We needed to fill a few scripts giving us about 10 minutes to kill, so we wondered over to the baby section and looked at the potty chairs. She studied each one and said "potty" several times before loosing interested and moving on to something else.

Once home we talked about going potty some more, her potty chair is buried in the shed (I think). My goal tomorrow is to find it and get it cleaned up for her. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what she would do being naked. This is something we've never done before, so I thought what the heck! She LOVED it! She ran around in just her socks for a few minutes then those came off with a valiant toss over the gate to the downstairs. I spread out her night night blanket and she practically dove onto it. She rolled around and laughed, she crawled around the floor and laughed and at one point did a few yoga positions on her night night and laughed some more. Then she got really quiet for a few seconds and looked up at me...(at this time she was balancing on her head with her butt in the air beating her belly like a drum) I did a quick scan of her body and noticed her butt was moist just a bit and there was a puddle forming under her. She grinned so big I thought her mouth was going to stretch off of her face. Needless to say, her night night got a bath and she got cleaned up and PJ's put on right away.

It was a great 10 minutes of nakedness!!!!

A cute few

I realized that I never have the camera out when Joel is with us. So the other day I decided to get a few of him, he's growing into such an amazing young man...just see for yourself!


Here's a cute one of Gracie (post haircut)


The boys


Happy family!


She wouldn't put her night night down for anything!


Just Joel!

Friday Lunch

Last Friday I took the day off (due to working an unexpected 3rd shift a few days before) so Aliya and I headed to Washington Court House to have lunch with family. It was originally just going to be Martha and us, but after to talking to Greg and dad on the phone, we all decided to make a family lunch of it! We met at Dakota Grill and had some yummy food!! Of course, I didn't remember to take out my camera until the very end, so I only got a few shots of the afternoon together. Oh, I almost forgot. About half way into lunch Aliya looks over at me and with huge eyes said, "potty". I affirmed her using her words and repeated her and went on about my meal. Then about 3 minutes later she said it again, only this time with power behind her words and she grabbed her pants. I scooped her up and took her into the bathroom, of course she had already gone in her diaper, but as I was changing her she said, "potty" with a huge smile on her face!






(since then potty is talked about all the time in our house. She was in the bathroom at Jennifer's yesterday morning and kept putting the lid up on the toilet, so I stripped her down and sat her on it. She screamed...it didn't go well, but the interest is there! I need to dig her potty chair out of the shed and set it up for her just so she can start getting familiarized with it)