Christmas in July

Santa Claus is coming to town a little early this year. Last week, Madison & Breanne found one of their old Christmas dresses in the closet and played lots of dress up with it. I asked Breanne what was going on..."Mom, I'm just 'tending to be Santa Claus."

We had a fun week of friends! We played with lots of different friends-Brogan & Cienna, on-site childcare kiddos, Toby & Karissa & Brianna.

On Friday, we were on mission swap a room. We decided to put Madi & Bre in their own room downstairs (seeing how they never sleep in the room with Aliya anyway.) Madi's first response when I asked her about it was, "Yes, just like Toby and Karissa have their room downstairs." They are doing great down there and I think they like having their own space. We went shopping for a couple items their new room needed (shade for the window, nightlight, clothes hamper, etc) and we found a pink laundry basket. Madi said, "Mom, I really don't want boring old white!" So, pink it was that came home with us. Aliya's room seems huge now with just a crib, rocking chair and changing table!

Speaking of Aliya, she is a monkey! Without doubt! After trying to hold her in the library (when all she wanted to do was lunge out of his arms and crawl everywhere,) Derrick came home and decided it would be funny to hold her by her ankle. She thinks this is hilarious. She thinks she surely is the life of the party. What a joy to have her in our family! She also had her first chocolate chip cookie this weekend. What a mess. She loved it.

The 30 in 30 officially ended today and I'm excited to say I finished. I don't even have any aches or pains. Maybe 30 isn't too bad. As long I can keep up with Aliya, Breanne and Madi...

I'll leave you with a quote from our beautiful Breanne as she came home from swimming with daddy and her sisters, "Madi ate a lot of cheetos, I'll tell you that!"

A whole new world...for all three of them!

Oh the freedom of a crawler/explorer/baby/Aliya! She is on the move, keeping the rest of the DeWilde family on our toes. She zooms across the kitchen to discover what might be hidden in the drawers every day. Will it be the wooden skewers, wax paper or the pastry blender today? She empties my lazy susan multiple times in a day. She sorts through the "bag of bags", rips out pages in the phone books, "organizes" the pizza coupons, cleans the leftovers off the floor from under the table (doesn't that sound lovely?). This girl can do it all!
But Aliya isn't the only one a moving and a shaking. Breanne is doing great at not sucking her thumb during the day! Go girl! She's going to be so big starting preschool in the fall.
Madison has made new discoveries of her own at Big Splash-the outdoor waterpark in town. She is now old enough to ride all the slides! This was exciting for mom and dad to ride with her, until mom got pelted in the face (by Madi's head) and dad's legs fell off running up the stairs with her (carrying her tube and his). We spent the entire day at Big Splash Saturday with some friends. The girls had a great time as did mom and dad. Aliya even enjoyed exploring new surroundings and Breanne "caught" her going down the little water slide.

A brief update on the 30 in 30--I'm over half way there. Last week I ran 18-miles. I will have to rest a couple days while Derrick is in Washington and then I'll be on the road again...

A second look

Breanne took her new princess bike on it's first "real" ride tonight. Those bigger tires made her ride fantastic! Now, look carefully at the picture. You'll notice Madison is missin' some wheels! She is now riding without training wheels. We were thrilled to take them out tonight and celebrate with ice cream afterwards. Way to go Madi!

A summersault of musings...

 I love to share my thoughts and happenings for not only your benefit, the reader. But also for my own. Someday, I'll look back on this (as will our girls) and laugh (hopefully) at the crazy pictures and stories about our young family.

Road Trip

Our road trip was good and fun! At only one point, about mid-week did I, the mom, freak out. I think it was mostly because I was trying to wear khaki pants and feed the baby (not restrained in a high chair) while she crawled all over me. I wouldn't suggest it...

Other than that, it was great family time! (Below, the girls give daddy a back massage.)

The girls loved swimming every day...all day if I would have let them. And, they learned how to sleep in. Even Aliya! 

We wore them out. Every morning after breakfast, the girls swam until lunch. Derrick would come eat lunch with us, then we'd nap, go to McDonald's for icecream, walk to the Farmer's Market (where we scored 6 pounds of Washington cherries..and they're almost gone...), swam at the local acquatic center (we had to evacuate the pool near the end of our afternoon..as told by Breanne "Madi, they had a situation,") and even played with friends that moved to Moses Lake. 

I wish I had a collage of pictures of Madison and Breanne's faces covered with icecream, cheetos, icecream, cherries, Doritos, cherries and more icecream! The girls stayed up every night until 10 with Derrick and me. It was kinda fun all laying in bed watching HGTV or the Discovery channel together.

The highlight of the trip was definitly our stop on the way home: Silverwood Amusement Park and Boulder Beach Water Park. This is just a little out of Coeur d'Alene and we spent Friday there. The girls (and mom and dad) had a great time! Derrick is so proud of Madison for going on two of the big roller coasters. One with Derrick and one with me. Derrick asked her what she thought of it, "I was a little scared at first, but it was fun." After those, she stuck with the kiddie rides. Our family especially liked the Roaring Creek Log ride (we even took Aliya on it). We floated along in a log and at the end were pulled up and slid down a "waterfall." We didn't even get wet. Madison and Breanne had many favorites including the kiddie ferris wheel, antique cars (they got to drive) and kiddie roller coaster, (Madison liked the wave pool).

Communication!

Aliya has made leaps and bounds in communicating with us. It cracks us up--all she is learning, doing, understanding and saying. I told you already on Thursday, June 25, she started making sounds and said, "Da, da, da, dadae." This only began the babbling and array of sounds. Right before we left for Moses Lake, she finally said more in sign language. We've been showing her this since she was 5 months old and at breakfast that morning, Derrick and I both watched her ask for more muffin. We were so excited that she was "getting it" instead of screaming for it. She also mimics lots of words like all done, hi, uh-oh. (Still no momma!) She loves to clap her hands, she started waving at people and really likes peek-a-boo. She's a bundle of energy right now, but she's super cute at the same time. I recall Madison as a baby being this busy, but Madison didn't become mobile until 10 months....Aliya's not even 10 months and has been crawling for the last 2 months. She is definitely developing a little personality. I think she might be a fire-cracker. Our favorite though is the face she makes...and she knows we think it's funny. You have to watch it in the end of this video..

30 in 30

Let it be known, that I am not excited to turn 30 the end of this month. I know from experience in sharing my anxiety, that anyone reading this that has already hit 40 is rolling their eyes at me. But, I'm sticking with my lament...I'm old! I have a kindergartner. I'm 30. I have 3 kids. I'm old. However, our worship leader at Harvest also turned 30 this past year and he ran a 30 in 30. He literally ran 30 miles in one day before he turned 30 years old. I am not doing that exactly, but I love the idea of reaching one extra goal before turning 30. So my personal 30 in 30 started today. I plan to run 3-miles, on each of 10 days, equalling 30 miles before my 30th birthday.

Last but not least

I know I've kept you wondering what in the world the picture at the top is about. Here's a little backstory. On our honeymoon we drove to Glacier National Park and saw a sign promoting the T****cal Festival...have a ball. We laughed, but since we took a different route home, we never got to take a picture. On our road trip west, we were determined to look for the same billboard. We have mentioned this billboard to many Montanans who all look at us like we're crazy, they've never seen that sign. Frankly, I don't know how you would miss this. We found the sign, and would love to visit the the T****cal Festival. I want to know when it is, but don't think it wise to google that one...

Da Da Dadae by a mile!

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I've written. There have been many times I had something I wanted to blog, but just didn't sit down at the computer to communicate my thoughts. Right now we are in Moses Lake, Washington with Daddy "at his new work." The big girls are loving it! This morning they were at the pool at 9am and stayed there until noon. Madison kept saying, "Daddy said we could swim all day!" I finally talked them into getting some lunch and then a nap. After that, it was back to the pool.

Yesterday's drive across western Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington was very beautiful! The girls were excellent riders and they "heard" it for the first time---the Dairy Queen calling. =)

Now if I may I'd love to rewind and bring you up to speed on milestone and adventures of the DeWildes. The last weekend in June, we went camping at Tongue River Resevior with a big group of friends from Harvest. Before we left, Aliya started babbling a bunch! It was the Thursday Derrick came home and Madi & Bre were talking about Daddy. Aliya started babbling, "a da da daddae." It was so cute. She's said a number of time now.

Our camping weekend was fun and the girls loved riding in the boat and playing in the sand! S'moreos were a hit among the other kids, but I still think Madison led the record in most S'moreos eaten at one time. Breanne still prefers the traditional S'more, but I think they get equally messy faces eating their campfire desserts.

My favorite line from the weekend is Breanne leaning into the camper as we set it up and saying, "Hello gorgeous!" Derrick got to drive a boat and water ski. He was in heaven! I also got to waterski, but it wasn't too pretty. I took a few tries to get up and then I wiped out with a nose-dive shortly later. I'm blaming it on have babies. My opportunities to water ski are few and far between as it is and when I spend summers out of commission being pregnant, it doesn't help matters. Oh, well. At least I got up!

Last week was Breanne's birthday week! What a birthday princess we have indeed. Four years old already. She had a birthday breakfast of waffles and bacon. We sang Happy Birthday and she blew out candles in her waffle.

Her princess bike from mom and dad wasn't near as exciting as the lotions, glitter and lip gloss from her big sister Madison. And the waterbottle that came with the bike was pretty exciting as well. But, Aliya thoroughly enjoyed the pom poms on the bike handles.

Her birthday was filled with lots of activities: doctor appointment, playing with friends as the park, lunch at Mc Donald's, swimming with friends in the afternoon, and pizza and ice cream cones for dinner. Her party was the next day, Friday. We set up a slip and slide for the kiddos, a pool and they also played on the swing set and trampoline. Watermelon was a must for her party.

And Princess Ariel had a castle of a birthday cake.

 Aliya woke up from a nap after the party. Here she is on the deck, standing against the patio door while Derrick and I are inside the house.On the Fourth of July, Madison ran her first 5K! What a girl. She ran most of the first mile, then walked a bit. She finished strong, running the last two-tenths mile.

Here's Aliya eating watermelon on the Fourth of July. How much more Americana do you get than that?

Trauma

Ever had one of those days where everything just keeps going wrong? Well, the DeWilde girls did today.

This morning something actually went right when Madison & Breanne unloaded the dishwasher and Aliya tried to help. That was actually great because the big girls thought it was fun to have Aliya "help" them.

Not too long after that, Breanne got her finger slammed in the van door by Madison. Ouch! This wound took hours to even start to feel better. The good news is Madison got to practice showing compassion toward Breanne. Thankfully, Breanne can still move all her fingers, they aren't too swollen and they didn't bleed.

A couple hours later, Madison and Breanne were racing to the deck to help make Breanne birthday party invitations when Breanne accidently tripped Madison and Madison got a bad scape on her knee. The good news here is that it didn't bleed too much and looked pretty good after we cleaned it up with some soap and water.

Minutes later, Aliya decided to eat sand. No matter what we did, she kept grabbing it and shoving it into her mouth. I tried taking her to the garden hose to rinse off some of the sand from her mouth. I was not very successful, but my neighbor walking past probably got a chuckle out of the sight.

By now, it's dinner time. Aliya's, "I'm getting tired and I'm getting hungry and so could you just hold me?" time. I was busy making dinner when Aliya pulled up on my legs, let go of my pant legs and instantly nose-dived into the step stool.

Calgon, take me away!

Squirrel!

Oh what a night! This past Friday, we took the girls to the Drive-In Movie Theater. We packed blankets and our camp chairs and the girls were ready to go. We were no more than parked and Madison points over to the concessions and says, "Um, I think that they might sell popcorn over there." The first movie was "Up." We all enjoyed it. But our favorite line (or word) was when the dogs that could talk would stop mid-sentence, point and say, "Squirrel!" All weekend long, we've been doing that with the girls. Madison will do it and then say, "That's kinda funny!"
Derrick and I (well I guess I didn't quite stay awake through all of it) stayed up for the 2nd movie, "Race to Witch Mountain." However, 2am is way too late for us old duffers! We could hardly function on Saturday morning.
Madison and Breanne made Derrick coffee Sunday morning for Father's Day. He finally got his coffee maker for the camper, and we had his favorite dinner, fajittas.
After dinner, our kind and gracious neighbor came over to round up the big girls and give them a horse ride. Joe has two easy-going horses: Red & Sam. Madison (our thrill-seeker) didn't hesitate a second and hopped right on. Joe said, "She's a natural." Meanwhile I'm thinking, horses are expensive; I hope daddy has a lot of money! Breanne took a little more convincing. I had to ride with her, but she did enjoy her ride.
This past Tuesday, our friends the Fullers stopped for a very quick visit. They moved to Kentucky last October and had to make a quick trip to Montana. The girls were very excited to see their friends and I enjoyed seeing them too! I was thinking it would be easier than 8 months ago because all the girls are older...however, Brandee pointed out that we added 2 babies to the mix....so it was still mass chaos! Oh, well!

Brandee loves on Aliya.

Mud Pie Soup. It's what's for dinner.

Breanne and Aimee.This morning, I picked some strawberries from our little strawberry patch. The bad news is, these berries are "enlarged to show texture." The good news is, what they lack in size, they make up for in sweetness.