Where has time gone?

You know how you can suddenly stop and wonder "How the heck did time go so fast?" Yeah, I'm at that point. Three years ago I looked like this!



And then after 26 hours of labor I got my best birthday present ever, my little baby girl. So in honor of that day let's have a little picture tour of what Danica looked like the last 3 years at this time.

Here she is voicing her displeasure at being unrapped. She was a fan of swaddling.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Danica from the early days. She was just all snuggled up and sleeping so cute.

And the first birthday arrived so fast!
At that time she didn't know what cake was so she wasn't impressed.

And then all too soon the 2nd birthday came around. She still didn't quite understand what cake was so she just kind of poked at it. That's what happens when you don't give your kid cake ever.

And this was about as messy as she got that day.

I still can't believe that Danica will be three tomorrow! We will be having a little birthday celebration for her on Sunday. Her Grandma and Papa Ryther will get here on Thanksgiving day to help celebrate that and birthdays. I have a feeling that the cake will be a much bigger hit this year since she definitely knows what is is now.

Trick or treat!

What started out as a rainy, cruddy day... ended up being a really nice evening for trick or treating. It didn't rain and was in the low 60s. Originally Danica was going to be a mouse for Halloween. However, she decided that she was scared of the costume so I had to return it and bought a Cinderella dress instead. That was a big hit with her. It is currently one of her favorite movies and she wanted to put the dress on as soon as we got home with it.

We went trunk or treating at our friends church like we did last year. This time though Jason was able to come with which was nice. Here they are walking over to the cars in the parking lot.We met up with Danica's friend Larissa (who was adorable as Sleeping Beauty!) and the girls armed with Disney flashlights and pumpkin candy holders set off.

Isn't is amazing how quickly kids catch on to the fact that if they say trick or treat they get candy? (yet they won't tell you went they have to go potty!)

Here's a shot of the little princesses taking a break from the action. The girls were excited to see each other since they haven't gotten to play together much over the last few weeks. Larissa is a big sister now to her new baby brother Liam and has been busy helping her mommy.
Here is Larissa's new brother Liam (along with mommy Kelli). He slept through the trick or treating but was still adorable in his lion costume. I had to get a picture of the "wild one" on the tushie.

And her is a picture of Jason and his little princess.

After the trick or treating we stopped by our friends Rachelle and Kevin's house so Danica could show them her costume. Apparently they live in the neighborhood for trick or treating. Cars and kids everywhere! Then you go to our neighborhood and there is no one.

All in all it was a good night and we will be eating candy for a while.

Pumpkin patch

We went to pick up some pumpkins the other evening. Let's just say it didn't go as planned.
Danica really liked the pumpkins. She did NOT however like the "monsters" there. Those would be any kind of halloween cut out, picture of a werewolf, creepy things and including friendly looking scarecrows!

She did okay at first walking around with Daddy.

She picked out her own pumpkin.

And she helped to pull the wagon.

This all happened inbetween bits of crying and panic! This one is right after Jason tried to get her to stand next to a very cute scarecrow. I guess no matter how cute and smiley and non-threatening they are...they are still "scary monsters."

Jason handed Danica her pumpkin to put in the car.

And then she cried. Again.

And then she did put it in the car. And then cried on the way home.

There goes my hope for cute pictures at the pumpkin patch this year.

Dress up

Dancia has started liking to play dress up. All of a sudden she discovered dresses and loves them. I was pulled into her room by her a couple of weeks ago while she kept repeating "help me mommy!" She then pulled me to her closet, pointed to a dress and said "that one!" So on the dress would go and won't you know it "oh, its bootiful!" Wait an hour and repeat. She loves the dresses that my mom and Tina made this spring when my mom and dad were visiting Nate and Tina in San Diego.

We walked in her room the other day and found her coloring while wearing her dress. She looked up at us, smiled and went back to coloring.

We had to start using the child safety sliders on her closet again. She usually ignored the closet but since it is where we keep our wine bottles, we needed to make it so she couldn't potentially be hurt.

Big girl bed!

So I finally converted Danica's crib to a toddler bed. I know that it's odd that an almost three year old was still in a crib but she never tried to climb out of it. So why change it. Plus she moves around so much when she sleeps. I just finally put a pillow in her bed last week. She is completely into Dora and Diego right now so I found a Dora pillowcase which she carried around by itself for 2 days before I even put it on the pillow. The look on her face yesterday when I took the side off the crib was just hilarious! She climbed right up onto the bed and was just so pleased with herself! I had to get her out of my way while I put the side rails on because they weren't the easiest thing to do by myself. Jason and I had picked up a new Dora sheet set and fleece blanket for her at Target Sunday. When we handed her the blanket to hold at the store she said "Oh, thank you much!" She then proceed to snuggle it the rest of the time we were at the store, and in the car on the way home.

I put the sheet on before she went to bed last night and she snuggled right down in her "big girl bed" She is very proud of her bed. We figured it was time to change it with since we attempting potty training. I say attempting because she hasn't quite caught on. But we don't use any diapers any more and just use the more expensive pullups! But Dani loves her "big girl panties" They also have Dora on them. Do you sense a theme here?
She didn't take a nap yesterday (of course) so when it was time for bed she was so tired. She barely finished singing twinkle twinkle and was asleep shortly after I left the room. She didn't get up until I went to get her in the morning after I heard her call for me. We'll see how long that lasts!

Oh so tired!

We have a little girl who thinks that she doesn't need naps anymore. But since this was taken at 6 in the evening... clearly she does. She had been watching a movie while I was getting dinner ready and when I went in to get her this is what I found. The green line in the middle is from the balloon around her wrist. She had gotten it at the grocery store earlier in the day. I figure its a dollar and it offers her hours of entertainment.


Jason got a great close up of her face all snuggled up. She normally doesn't fall asleep watching movies so you know she was tired!

Play time!

Danica has gotten to play with Larissa quite a bit in the last week or so. Kelli and I took the girls to a playground and also to an indoor park where they had a blast.

They were climbing over everything and were always aware of where each other was. With all the other kids there they would call for each other if one couldn't see the other one.

They wouldn't let the other kids slide down with them. A little boy tried to sit on the slide next to Danica while she was waiting for Larissa and she told him "NO! That's 'Rissa's!" I had to laugh. They were getting along very well that day.

One of the things at the indoor park was a spinning thing. The girls loved it. There were however some minor disagreements that involved which one got to spin them and which direction they would be going. Fortunately they hadn't eaten lunch yet. Especially since Danica was in it once by herself and a different girl got in and starting going way too fast. I had to tell her to slow down because Danica was getting scared. She did for all of 2 seconds and then sped right back up again. Let's just say the a big pet peeve of mine and Kelli's is when you go to a place like this and completely stop supervising your children. When the waver that you have to sign to get in says you have to watch your own kids and then you let them run free, it bugs us. The ages range of kids in there was from about one to 7. And there were a couple of 6 or 7 year old boys there that were just wild. Including climbing on top of the playhouses and then getting in the houses and just holding the door shut so no other kid could come in. Sorry for the vent but the moms weren't even watching them at all. They were too busy chatting with each other. Drove me and Kelli nuts. We left while that group was eating lunch. I don't even want to think about what kind of energy the kids had after they got some sugar in them!