Alli's 3rd Birthday

Alli turned 3 this last Saturday, and she has been talking about her Princess Party since July. It's hard to believe I'm the parent of a 3 year old. Since Alli is finally old enough to really know it's her birthday, I wanted to make it really special for her. So I got some cardboard from my dad's warehouse and spent hours cutting and spraypainting. Then finally my princess had her castle! Unfortunately, she got up while I was working on it the night before her birthday, so I wasn't the surprise I was hoping for, but she was still beyond thrilled.

On the day or her birthday she just wanted her best friends over, Belle, Claire and Lucy. Belle was sick, so it was just the Nuttall girls. We had fun making mini pizzas, decorating purses, playing games and opening presents.

Poor Macie throwing a tantrum while opening some of Alli's presents. I guess I'm going to have to do what my mom did when I was little: buy gifts for both on both birthdays. For a long time I thought my birthday was April 29 which is Tara's. I guess that's the price we pay for having to girls that close in age.

And after the party ended, all she wanted to was play with her new play dough cake making station with me.

Alli is such a sweet girl and we love her so much. She keeps me entertained all day. I need to start writing down all the funy stuff she says. She's very imaginative and loves to pretend play. I'm often the "honey" and she's the "Mama" and Macie is "Brother." Or we play "Sir" and "Mam" where she purchases things from me, the Sir. She loves to mother other children and especially make sure they are punished if they do something wrong. (She may not have friends for long if that keeps up.) She loves playing with friends and helping me cook in the kitchen. Awhile ago we attempted potty training, but sadly failed a day later. She tells people she's potty trained though. I think she might think there's an actual "train" involved. Maybe that'll be her New Year's resolution. She loves playing with Macie and her Daddy.

Valley de Goblins y Verde River

Last weekend we had a family reunion in Green River. It was great to see everyone together, especially our family from Arizona. We spent one day at the Green River Crystal Geyser. The geyser is an old drilling pipe(I could be wrong with that fact) that now irrupts with water every 8-16 hours. So you get there and hope you see it. Around the geyser are orange-yellow rocks. It's really cool when the water is running down them. What's not really cool is the sulfur smell from the water. Poor Alli would gag every time she got a good whiff.

The next day we went over to Goblin Valley. The two children hindered us from doing any extreme hiking, but for those of you who enjoy that stuff, I would recommend it to.

With no reported injuries and minimal meltdowns, it was sucessful trip. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma who put it all together and were the official sponsers. We had a blast!

Haha, JD's face
Poor Macie is severely pigeon-toed. This is really how she walks. Good thing that face is so cute!

exhausted!

Alli Babe

Chuck wouldn't look at the camera

The Valley of Goblins

the geyser finally going off

You could always find Macie sitting in the dirt somewhere.

Haha, Alli's face!

Day 1

Wish us luck!

macie's party

macie turned one two weeks ago and we had a little party. we had a bbq in my parent's backyard complete with an inflatable waterslide and mini pool. macie had such a good time with all her friends and family.

now a little more about macie...

she is currently weighing in a 23lbs. she loves food in all it various forms. i haven't found anything she didn't like. seriously.

she doesn't talk much. just the occasional "hi". which does set her behind, but her sister talks enough for the both of them.

she started walking right around her birthday. which took her craziness to a whole new level.

she's very stubborn. and loves to throw fits if she doesn't get her way.

she's independent. she could care less where i am and what i'm doing. she just wants to get into everything and make a mess.

she loves alli. if i leave alli's door cracked, macie will go in and go right up to alli's bed and wake her up. they love playing toys together.

she loves to lead the music at church.

her favorite foods are bananas, crackers, cheese, yogurt, pasta, fruit snacks, peaches.

she's a bizzy body. never just sits. she's always into something.

she loves stairs.

she only cuddles when she's extremely tired or sick.

her favorite song is "single ladies" and likes to chime in at the chorus "uh uh oh"

she has the darkest, smoothest skin. and with that chub, it's hard not to sqeeze her.

she sleeps 12 hours at night, sometimes more :)

she is such a funny little girl. and although she is a handful, we love chasing after her and cleaning up her messes.

This little chicky is ONE today!

cruel and unusual punishment = infant life jacket

just look at those cheeks.

this isn't cruel and unusual punishment, just the cutest thing ever

where did my baby go?

I had a "sobering" moment at the doctor's office the other day. I was there with Macie. She had some funky virus over the weekend, that apparently was just a virus. But that's not the point. As I sat in the waiting room (for 50 minutes) I looked around at all the mom's with newborns. And it finally hit me that my little Muckle Chuck isn't a baby. I kinda wanted to cry, kinda. Where did the time go? She's always been our little baby and now I have TWO crazy toddlers. Sheesh!

Macie always makes this weird face. I think it's hilarious. Especially when she does it to random people at the store.

PS Hold the "Maybe it's time for another one" comments. Not going to happen anytime soon.

We're back

We've been here. Now we're home and oh the stories to tell. LP is always an adventure.

Muckle Chuck is 9 months!

What a hectic day! For most of you that know us, we don't wake up very early. Ten ish to be exact some days earlier, some days earlier. So when I called to see when Macie's dr appointment was and they said "In 20 minutes", and we had just woke up. I thought it was tomorrow. Oops. I didn't want to reschedule because we FINALLY had an appointment with our very busy, Dr. Lauret or La-Radio, as Alli calls him. So we slapped on some clothes, luckily for me I had slept in sweats, and just threw on a jacket. Needless, to say we looked rough. Alli's curly frizzy had was all over the place; Macie had a comb-over as pictured above and repeatedly got called boy by the receptionist, even after hearing her name. That was the least of my problems. Determining if my gum was strong enough to mask the fact that I didn't brush my teeth was problem #1.

Turns out, Macie is quite healthy. She's 20lbs (70%) 29.5in (93%) and I can't remember her head circumference. Since she has started crawling, she's slimmed down. And she's crawling everywhere. I'm used to Alli never leaving my side, even at home. But Macie could care less where the party is, she just roams. Mostly to the bathroom. It grosses me out. Maybe she has a special thing with bathrooms since she's been sleeping in one for a month.

She's also pulling herself up on things. But once she does, she usually panics and starts crying because she can't get down. She loves Alli and everything she does. They're quite the duo. Alli is always sticking up for her. When she cries, Alli will say, "Mom, hold Macie. She needs you." And today at the doctor, Dr. La-Radio was looking in Macie's ears and she was crying and Alli kept yelling at him "Don't do that! She doesn't like it!" It was kinda funny. The doctor was good about it. He told Alli he was sorry, he was just checking.

PS. Macie has several nicknames: Macie Moo, Macie Muckleroy, and Alli's favorite, Muckle Chuck. These are all courteous of Jeff.

End of an era

JD's last home game was Wednesday. It's hard to believe he's a senior about to graduate. He's the last of the Ashman kiddies and the last boy. For the last ten years, our family has spent hours every week watching Sam and JD play sports. Now what are we supposed to do? Deanna has already started scouting out a few potential teams she'd like to start following, but as for us we'll probably focus on supporting our nephew, Tanner.

But back to JD, we've really enjoyed him play and excel in football and baseball. We're so proud of him and his accomplishments. Check out this article from Wednesday in the Salt Lake Tribune here.

Hey, Mom and Dad, maybe now we can start going on summer family vacations! Huh? No excuses now!

I seem to purchase one of these EVERY time I go to the grocery store. And I don't use them that often. But for some reason I always think I need one. Does anybody else do this? Or am I just crazy? I now have 5 yellow onions. Well, only 3, 2 were moldy. Sick, don't judge me.

New Blog

I started a new blog last night, The Vanchiere Information Publication (VIP). But let me go back a couple of years...
I was newly married and in a married student ward. I was called to be the ward newsletter editor. I thought they were having to make up callings because I had never heard of such a thing. Basically I would compile messages from the Bishopric, Elder's Quorum and Relief Society. Cut and paste, it was an easy gig. I did all of this in Microsoft Publisher, which I fell in love with. Weird, I know. I like writing and wanted to do something in Publisher because they had a lot of templates I wanted to try out. Thus the VIP came about. Even though Jeff and I lived 5 minutes down the road from family, we never knew about family events, games, recitals etc. So I thought this would be the best way to keep the family informed. I came out with a couple monthly editions, but soon it fizzled. I couldn't keep coming up with articles, birthday spotlights, recipes, crafts by myself!
So this blog will be the online publication. I've asked various family members to help keep the info flowing. It is open to everyone now, but may be going private. If you have a couple of minutes, skip Facebook and come on over to the VIP!

We finally got a taste of good weather here which made for some nice baseball spectating.


I love how chubby Alli looks here. The camera really does add 10lbs.


Macie and Sam in his tank


What would a T-Wolf game be without a heavy dose of the Peterson boys?


This picture has nothing to do with good weather. I just thought Alli was cute when she dresses herself to go out.


Alli and the reason we go, JD

From the late night blogging mind of Chelsey

I'm a night owl, but lately it's forced. I decided I would rather spend my afternoons with my girls instead of working all day. I still get calls and do work, but I could work 24 hours a day. I know I complain a lot about work to anyone that will listen. Most times people don't know what I am talking about, but I appreciate them listening.
I have never really had a "real" job. My domination at Ashman Candles was nothing short of extraordinary, but it was still my father's company and I had a lot of freedom. This job I have now is different. I'm finding out a lot about myself. Mostly negative things really. Things get to me, that in the cut-throat world of real estate/mortgages, etc shouldn't. I can't help but make things personal. I am either their best friend or Debbie Downer. Lately, it's Deb. Thus, the breakdown featured below. I should probably delete that from my blog and we can all pretend it didn't happen. It's kinda embarrassing. I don't mind sharing things with family and friends, but I'm sure I have a few blog stalkers that I wouldn't really like sharing that with.
I really wish you could all see how sweet Alli is. Don't get me wrong, if she doesn't have a nap, she's mean. She can even be mean with a nap, but when she's at home in her own element, she's the best. I hate that she likes watching TV so much, but I love listening to her sing the Dora the Explorer song. It's hilarious, especially because she has several speech impediments (that will have to be addressed in Elementary I'm guessing). She is acting so much older lately. Her favorite word is "because." She tries to explain everything to me and she'll throw in a "because" every now and then. Most times it doesn't make sense.
And poor Macie. Poor little Macie. She now resides in the girl's bathroom. Seriously. She used to share a room with the office, but I can't risk her waking up when I am working. She's always been a team player.

PS Did anyone else think Modern Family was weak sauce this week? I did.

Alli: Mom, I want a prize.

Me: Okay, but you need to go potty in the big girl potty.

Alli: No, I'm too little to go potty.

Here's a few pics from the last few weeks...


Macie is starting to army crawl all over the place.

Alli loves to hold Macie even though Macie is about the same size as her.

Dusted off the trusty scooter

She loves food


Easter Baskets



Jessie, JD & Alli