The Workout

Ainsley seems to be most creative while I am getting ready for the day and she is all on her own. Today when I emerged from getting ready I found that Ains had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, slippers, and mittens. She had spread out her blanket and told me she was exercising. I'm not sure why she needed the toy spatulas, but I'm sure they were an integral part of the full body workout.

Luau

So tonight was my first boy scout event, the Blue and Gold Banquet. Apparently this is an annual event, along with the pinewood derby, and other boy things. Michael was just starting scouts as I was leaving the house, so I'm completely unfamiliar with any of it. The theme was a luau. Ainsley looked very cute in my mother's clothes, everyone kept commenting on how cute she was. As her mother I agreed. I, however, did not look as cute in my dad's Hawaiian shirt. The sleeves went to my elbows and it went down to the middle of my thigh. The den mother's were told to wear Hawaiian shirts instead of our scout shirts (which I look equally good in).

I have to admit that the event was a fiasco. A term we don't use lightly in our household. I knew it would be so I wasn't surprised. Things started to go bad in the planning stages and they never quite recovered. I was instructed to pick up 10 take and bake pizza's so that we could feed the 75 people that were expected to attend. As you might have guessed, not everyone got to eat. Although I spent the night in the kitchen trying to get pizzas in and out of the oven and making punch, I think that Ainsley had fun. I snuck her food so she was happy. John got to watch the kids all night. And I was called up to present badges to a few boys. This was a great surprise since I was excited to show off my lovely apparel and I didn't know what I was doing. All in all, a fun night!

Mother of the Year?

After last night I'm sure I will be up for this year's mother of the year award.

First of all, the picture. Ainsley was told to got put her pajamas on and came out looking like this. As her mother I'll just think she was being clever and give myself some credit, that shows quite a sense of humor....right? I actually think she was copying a book she has.

Secondly, I was talking to a friend of mine last night who had her little boy just about a week before I had Owen. She was due after me, but that's a different story. Anyways, during the conversation she mentioned that her little boy would be 7 months in a few days. I thought she was counting wrong and was thinking her baby was older than he was. She wasn't wrong. I didn't even know how old Owen was. I thought he was almost 6 months. Somehow I missed a whole month of Owen's life.

Time Changes Everything

It's amazing how from year to year birthday's just get less and less exciting. This year I asked John to watch the kids so I could have some time to myself. I decided to just stay home and make some cards, and a big mess, because I never get to do things like that anymore. It was really nice to be able to dump the kids on someone else. Not that I don't love them but a break sure is nice every once in a while.

Ainsley went to the store with John later that day because she was sure I needed some birthday plates and cups. While she was there she picked out some lovely balloons for me. John said she wanted to get a huge smiley face but he made her choose birthday balloons. So I lucked out and got Disney princesses. Ains admitted on the way home that she liked the princesses more than me. All in all it was a nice and relaxing birthday at home.

By the way, thanks for all the calls and gifts. I begged for a swiffer wet jet for my birthday. Just because it's just something I always put off getting for myself but I really wanted one. John was disgusted with this. But my mom humored me and got it for me even though everyone thought it was ridiculous. John got me a cool mp3 player that I can run with. And Kortney humored my obsession with paint and picked me up some paint supplies, like a paint stirrer and some tape. It was great!

Play-doh

I absolutely love play-doh. Not so much because I love to play with it, but because it is something that Ainsley will play with forever. And she even plays with it quietly. She will play with it long enough for me to get a full work out in (when I used to work out). It might be kind of a pain to clean it up, but it is well worth it. I've also learned that play-doh doesn't stain and always comes off clothes, even when it gets mashed in. It is just an amazing product. Maybe they would be interested in hiring me as their spokesperson.

The Binky Trick

Owen has reached the age where he can manipulate his binky by himself. I think it is cute. This seems to be his preferred way to use his binky lately. What is amazing is that he can still suck on it even though it is only partway in his mouth and at an angle. What a talented little boy.

First Food

Owen has been such a terrible sleeper that we finally tried giving him some rice cereal last night to see if it would keep his tummy full longer (it didn't). But he did get to have his first experience with food. At first he was very interested and seemed to like it. After a few bites he changed his mind. He would turn his head when the spoon came near, refuse to open his mouth, and he even gagged once. I finally quit trying to feed him and gave him his favorite mouse toy to chew on. Then he was happy. I guess he won't be getting food again for a while. Not until we get desperate again.

Dress Up

Ainsley plays dress up nearly everyday. Whether it's with her dress up dresses, or just coming up with varrying combinations of her own clothes (this usually involves a lot of layering). I just thought that Ainsley's sense of style in these pictures was especially acute. I felt like the mittens and the flip flops really completed her first look. And I loved the way she combined the slipper/shower/Cinderella look in her second pose.

Guitars

The other day John brought home a couple of baseball bats in hopes that Ainsley's baseball skills could begin to develop. Well, it didn't take long for the bats to take on a new use. They are now microphones and "tars" (aka guitars). Today after church Ainsley and John were treating Owen and I to some musical numbers. They both did a fabulous job. We got to hear "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and the "Ahh, Ahh, Ahh" that Areil sings as Ursula takes her voice in The Little Mermaid. I'm not sure there is a name for that song and didn't know how to title it other than "Ahh, Ahh, Ahh" Owen loved the singing as you can see from the look on his face in the last picture.

Paint

I finally got Owen's room and the kids hallway painted today. You'll notice in the before picture that the bedroom was very dark. A little too dark for me. Although it did make a lovely background for my pictures. The pictures make the new paint color look almost white, but it is actually a darker beige color. The hallways in our house are white. For some reason they painted everything but the hallways. So I am painting those as well.

John thinks I am obsessed with paint. I might be just a little bit. The people that we bought our house from were definitely not good painters. They were very sloppy painters. So all of my repainting jobs turn into a bigger project than I originally plan for. I now realize that I have to repaint doors and trim before I can paint a room. There's just too much paint on them that isn't white. I might take it a little too far because I might be a slight perfectionist. So now that Owen's room and the hallway are done I can move onto the other hallway, the kitchen, my bedroom, the bathrooms, and eventually the living room. That's right. I will eventually repaint the entire house. This drives John crazy. But he can't complain too much because I have roped my mom into helping me with the painting so it's not like he is really being put out. And when I'm done the house will look just like I want it to. In my opinion I have had to live in apartments for so long that I am now just taking advantage of the fact that I can paint.

By the way, I'll wait to post the after picture until I get the room put back together and decorated cute.

Equality on Valentine's Day

This Valentine's day was very nice. But I have to admit that the gift giving wasn't quite fair. A couple of weeks ago I got Ainsley a cute shirt, some Valentine's candy, and a cute little bucket for it to go in. I couldn't' t find any cute shirts for Owen, and he can't have candy, so I gave up for the day. As time went on I thought, "A 6 month old will never know the difference." So I have to admit I gave up and didn't even bother getting him a gift. John was very thoughtful and brought home some pretty flowers for Ains and I. I noticed that the girls in the family did a lot better than the boys when the gifts were tallied. Are we the only family that favors girls on this holiday? I have to thank the two grandmas or else owen would have been completely forgotten.

Cookies Anyone?

Today revolved around cookies...and scouts. We spent all morning making frosting and frosting cookies. It probably would have taken a normal, childless person a fraction of the time it took us. Of course it didn't help that I made 2 million cookies. Ainsley was a great help. She made sure the frosting was okay by testing it continually, just to make sure the taste didn't diminish with time. Owen helped by crying. After we finally got all the cookies frosted we delivered a few plates (along with the special Valentines that Ains had made). Sorry to all of you who live too far away to have a plate delivered to your door. For of those of you who do live close enough, if you haven't seen us yet....you will.

The Tongue

Owen loves to stick our his tongue and spit. I would say it is his thing. I have seen other babies do the same thing, Ainsley even did her fair share of it, but none to the extent of owen. His tonge is outside of his mouth as much as it is in it. Because of this he always has a wet face and sometimes a rash around his mouth due to the excessive amounts of spit.

A Day in the Life of White Baby

I have decided to dedicate one of our posts to white baby, Ainsley's staple of a toy. Her name has nothing to do with her race. She was named this because when ains was younger she would never allow white baby to wear any of her clothes and therefore was always dressed in white. White baby has been Ainsley's security for the majority of her life. I can think of only a few times when she has slept with out her, and everyday I find her in random places around the house. As you can see she isn't always incredibly well cared for. White baby has to accompany us on a lot of our outings as well. And if she doesn't come Ainsley now leaves a bottle for her so she won't get hungry. We have had to convince her that white baby will be okay while we are gone.

On Second Thought

This afternoon I was feeding Owen and I turned on the TV. We use rabbit ears so we only get 4 channels. abc, nbc, fox, and "the new cw". As you can imagine there wasn't much on any of those channels at 1:00 in the afternoon. My choices were soaps, or Judge Mathis. Since I was bored and forced to sit there for a while I headed for channels that I only go to in desperate tv times. John watches the Christian networkin these crisis times, but today I chose QVC. As I sat watching two very excited people trying to sell special cleaning cloths I thought, boy I wish we had more channels so I wasn't forced to watch QVC.
A while later I was watching Ainsley make a creation with her finger paints. I was actually quite impressed. She was using a napkin to spread on the finger paint. I told her that if she wanted to hang her work on her cork board when she was done she could. Then she said, "There's lots of projects we can do on pbs dot org." Apparantly we are already watching enough TV and we don't need more channels.

Tantrum

Today everyone was in a good mood when we returned from dance class. Ainsley was excited and showing me what she learned today. I asked her what she wanted for lunch and I got the usual reply of "butter-honey". I made her sandwich and then decided to try something new and cut her sandwiches in to triangles. I assumed something different would be fun and would make her sandwich that much better. I was wrong. As soon as I told Ains that I cut her sandwich into triangles she started crying, screaming, and telling me that she didn't like triangles. That is when I took the picture. I did eventually get her to eat, she ate the whole thing. I guess the triangles do taste similar to squares after all. After lunch and the tantrum were over she came to me and said, "Sorry I don't like triangles mom." I thought it was very funny.

Photo Shoot

The last few times I took Ainsley in to get her pictures taken I was a little disappointed. Plus I was spending a ton on pictures I didn't necessarily like. So I've decided to do their portraits on my own. John helped me this summer and we got some cute ones of Ains. I attempted pictures yesterday, and 52 pictures later, I had a few cute ones. Believe it or not, it was easier to get cute shots of Owen than Ains. If I say "smile" or "say cheese" I get a ridiculous look from Ainsley. For a while I was able to have her say other things and catch a cute smile, but no longer. I finally gave up on trying to get one of them together where they were both smiling. Owen was getting tired and so I figured one with just Ainsley smiling would have to do. We'll have to attempt this again in the spring or summer when coming up with backgrounds will be easier because we can
just go outside.

First tooth

While we were in McCall my sister discovered that Owen was getting his first tooth. I had quit looking when at Owen's last doctor visit the doctor had mentioned that teeth would be very far off for him. I guess she was wrong. It was very difficult to get a shot of the inside of his mouth. And even though you can barely see the tooth coming, it's there. (It's his bottom right tooth by the way, maybe that will help with actually seeing it.

McCall

This weekend we finally did something other than stay home. We went on a weekend trip to McCall (A resort town 2 hours north of Boise). My brother in law Dan's grandpa owns a cabin up there and they were nice enough to invite all the Welch's up for the winter carnival. We left on Friday morning, and despite the fact that the majority of the people there were dealing with some form of sickness we all had a good time.

John's favorite thing about the cabin was the lovely bear hanging on the wall. Ainsley was a little afraid of it, especially after she touched it and felt that the fur wasn't all that soft.


On Saturday morning we bundled up to go sledding. Owen and I didn't want to be left out so I thought I came up with a great solution. It was like being pregnant all over again!



Ainsley is classic in these last 2 pictures. She insisted on her hat being over her eyes in our family portrait, and I just happend to catch her doing a face plant as she braved the hill by herself. (She didn't think it was nearly as funny as the rest of us did).





That afternoon we went out to look at the ice sculptures around McCall. Some of them were amazing.



This one was a huge sphinx they turned into a slide.