Long time gone

Two weeks and no pics. Bad Ashley. I seriously have the hardest time getting pics of P. She's a little whirlwind and I have lots of pics of her hair. We went to KC a few weeks back for a family reunion and a birthday party for my dad. How cute is my niece? She just started kindergarten, I cannot believe she's old enough for that!



Every morning Paisley would help Papa water his flowers, and she'd come in with these darling daisies in her hair. These kids love their Papa, and between P and her 2 year old cousin, his lap is always full. It got to the point where she wouldn't even come to me, which she had never done before.


I think I've posted pics of this before, one of Paisley's favorite activities. At least going up and down the stairs is a good workout for me, right? I think I bore her, because she does this, or constantly asks to go "bye bye." Not really sure where bye bye is, but it's not home. We often go down the street to her best friend Cobey's house. They tend to get along really well (as well as 2 year olds do) and she asks about him all day. The way she says his name sounds like Boppy, so I hear a lot of "Boppy? Go bye bye? Boppy?"

some favorites

3 years ago today...

I know I have more photos than this of our rehearsal dinner, but I can't find them on the computer. Here are a few pages from our scrapbook...

Loving the dog and counting to 10

This reminds me of that painting of a child hugging a dog. I thought it was Normal Rockwell, but doesn't seem to be. Anyone know? It's going to drive me nuts now, trying to figure out who the artist is. Anyways, Paisley's really been into the animals this week, either tormenting them or trying to cuddle. She forever chases Maggie the dog, putting sunglasses on her, necklaces, her blankie, and luckily Maggie is just so sweet she tolerates Paisley. She does give me the "why the hell did you bring this monkey into the house" look while she's being tormented. The cats are different. They don't do tolerance. Paisley was laying on one of the cats today, while he growled. She found a cat toy we have, that's a stick with a string attached and some furry concoction on the end of it. Paisley doesn't realize that the cats go for the furry part, instead she just chases them around and hits them with the stick.

I didn't know she could do this until a few days ago. My kid is the smartest kid EVER.

don't ever complain about not seeing pics of paisley

I don't really feel like writing much, but I'll try to explain why I chose these particular pictures. This one (first of all, we have a couch cover, it's not usually THIS nasty) is Paisley watching "a show." Usually when she asks for a show, she says "a show!" with lots of vigorous affirmative head nodding, like she's trying to let us know what a great idea it would be to watch "a show." Which is really odd to me, because she does this all day, but yet hardly glances at the tv when it's on. I think in this picture she sat there for all of 2 minutes, but the 2 minutes with the 2 babies was pretty damn cute.

I was able to go to town BY MYSELF the other day. Totally rocked. So I stopped at this little used children's store, and found P this darling coat. She didn't have one yet, and this was Gap, perfect condition, and really really cheap. Doesn't get much better than that.

I also found this Little Tykes playground, which I'd never seen before. And it was cheap, so I got it for her. She is obsessed with swings, that's all she wants to do at parks, and even tried to scoot her little booty onto this swing. Oh, guess you can't really see it, but it's about the size of a silver dollar. She didn't fit. And she tried to go down the tiny slide.
These are the cats she tortures on a daily basis. This is Maddox. He bites her, yet she still comes back for more. And no, he did not choose to cuddle the bunny on his own.
Caesar. He yells at Paisley. A lot. But he's too stupid to realize that he can run away when she's hitting him with a broom. Said broom is now hidden in a closet.

Petunia. She's the sweetie. She'll even let Paisley lay her head on her, for a second or two.
I tried taking some close ups, but she kept running around to see the image on the camera. I got a lot of blurry pics that day.

The rest are pretty self-explanatory.








Daddy has been working really hard to get her to speak like a surfer. I think "radical" is next on the list.

Fat kids

Paisley and I went to the pool today. We just wanted to hang out in the kiddie pool, dump cups of water, and relax. Mind our own business. Our pool has an "adult swim," Basically meaning that the 16 year old lifeguards go inside and smoke pot for 25 minutes while all the little kids get bored and come into the kiddie pool. 25 minutes!!! I was a lifeguard (long long long time ago) once, and our adult swims were 10 minutes, and there was still a guard on duty to corral errant children. Reminds me of the time that I had to approach a little boy's mother because she was paying no attention to him, he was going down the big tunnel slide and I'd have to fish him out every time (and he was too small to be going down alone anyway), or when he wouldn't get out of the wading pool at break, and his mother yelled at me in the office because I was picking on her and her child because he had "special needs." No, she just wasn't paying any damn attention to her child and he was trying to drown himself. Another story, another time. 10 years later and that STILL makes me angry. Anyways, so yeah, 25 freaking minutes. These kids were getting bored. So a bunch came into the kiddie pool, and I (either from previous guard experience or just being a mother) asked them to get out. That it wasn't fair to the small children, or to everyone else at this pool. I had to say that at least 4 different times. The last time was to about 4 boys about 8 or 9ish. They were SO rude, I couldn't believe it. Rolling there eyes and back talking to me. Now, I wasn't being rude to them or yelling or anything, just told them politely that the kiddie pool is meant for children under the age of 6. Backtalking, faces, I couldn't couldn't couldn't believe how unbelievably rude these kids were. If I was like that when I was their age? I would've been knocked into the next year. Even 10 years ago when I guarded, kids weren't like that. Just incredible to me.

The other thing I noticed at the pool, besides the 16 year old high life guards, I was probably the skinniest person there. That's especially scary when almost everyone there is under the age of 10. Seriously. And I'm not teeny at all, just average. Kids weren't this fat when I was that age, because I remember picking on the fat kid. We don't even have a fast food restaurant within 15 miles, how do these kids get so fat? It definitely scares me, and makes me rethink our eating habits, especially because Paisley LOVES fries.

I don't have any new pics, so I'll put up some from a year ago.
She still loves to annoy the cats, and laugh hysterically.

She's certifiable

I don't understand how a child can be terrified of some things, (bugs, alligators, hills, swimming pools) yet be so fearless about other things.

It's getting hot in heeeeeerrrrrrreeee

I'm amazed that people are still reading this blog. Thank you. I still read all my blogs, I just have been so lazy at commenting. Commenting involves moving, and moving involves sweating, which I've been trying really unsuccessfully not to do. Some people are a little naive about Kansas/the midwest, so I'll set you straight. It's effing hot here. Humid. You just have to walk outside to instantly be wet. It's an all around horrible feeling.

Besides not moving, we have gotten up enough courage to venture to the pool. That's a nice break, although P tolerates it for only short periods of time. Then she tries to climb in other people's baby carriers, steal other little pink shoes, until we have to go home. There is a nice baby pool, surprisingly enough, and it's free as long as we promise not to go into the big pool.

We had a good fourth...there was a block party (is that just a small town thing) which was really quite fun. Paisley held out until just after 10, (remember, this is the child that goes down every night at 7:30) but I'd had enough fireworks and mosquitoes at that point. The next night there was another party on a neighbor's driveway. That seems to be the trend around here, gathering all your friends and all your lawn chairs and drinking on your driveway and watch people drive by. I'm hoping that when my family comes to town that we can do that as well so that we'll start to fit in.

Back to Paisley, she is most definitely a Bartholomew, or maybe it's just Lee. She loves all things tiny. When we were in Utah she loved the tiny chair, she loved her cousin's tiny cars (which I still can't find anywhere. Does anyone know anything about those micro mini cars?), the tiny tea set. At home she's got quite a few tike sized chairs, a doll stroller that she insists in getting in, and now a tiny picnic set and baking set. Anyway, she insists on eating off of the tiny plates and with the silverware, putting jelly bellys on various plates. My favorite though (and the reason for this paragraph) is when she ate her peaches and cream with a tiny tiny spoon. And scooped out every last drop.




My friend thinks I'm evil for putting my kid on a leash. It works. And now she'll go find it and bring it to me, asking to wear "the bear." So it can't be evil if she asks for it, right? She's also at the stage where she mimicks everything. See last post. For example, whenever I sweep the floor, she has to run and find her broom and help. It's really cute and sweet and all, but kind of annoying because she ends up sweeping dirt everywhere. Also when I scrub the floor, she has to have her own rag. Love that part. Tons of new and cute stuff she's doing and saying lately, but I'm a bad mom and don't write down (remember) what it is she's doing. She's pretty damn cute though. She also ASKED me to paint her toenails black. Okay, not for the color, but she found this bottle, so I figured what the hell. She'll be the only girl on the block with black toenails.

Oh shit

How is it July already? It's all going too quickly, my baby will be 2 in only 3 months. That seems impossible to me. I've realized over the past few years that I detest fireworks. They're pretty and all (although a waste of money) but on ONE NIGHT ONLY. What is it with people doing fireworks every night for the entire week before and after the fourth? They're loud. They're obnoxious. Worst of all, they wake up my baby and that really ticks me off.

I would have posted last night, but someone sent me home with 2500 pictures to put on our computer, causing it to choke, while I tried desperately to give it mechanical CPR. It's still coughing.

Paisley and I are glad to be home, although being here makes me realize how much I do miss Utah and that side of the family and our friends. We were able to catch up with quite a few people and I enjoyed myself. I'm not sure P enjoyed herself, but she's 1. It's still about me for awhile. Charles is definitely glad to have us home, and I love being able to make him change poops and give baths. He's got a lot of time to make up for. He also likes having a little monkey around the house, a monkey that will mimick everything. The other morning while we were lazying on the couch, he told P to say 'shit.' "Sit!" she says. So I playfully smack him on the arm. What does Paisley do? Yells "sit" while smacking us. Over and over and over.

Paisley only got one full day with her grampa in Utah, so we tried to make the best of it. We went to Thanksgiving Point, ate lunch, rode the ponies, petted the animals, got really hot. Someone was getting married that day, which would have been beautiful, but I felt really bad for the bride because it was just sweltering.

She's clinging to my arm for dear life, while I try to keep up with the ponies in my heels.

Another day we went to Olive Garden for lunch, and P learned to put olives on her fingers. See? See the olive mom?
My MIL has some crazy obsession with pigs. They are all over her house, although I don't believe she really buys herself that many. Paisley loved them, sat with them, fed them fruit cups, played the piano with them. There is a picture floating around somewhere of P playing the piano with a pig in a chair on the piano bench next to her. I can't find it though.