A conversation with Audrey

Last night Alexis, Audrey, and I were relaxing and watching ET. Alexis had come home from school with a fever and was feeling poorly so we were trying to relax. After watching the movie awhile Audrey looked at me and said:
"Mommy, I have powers."
Emily: "Really, what kind of powers?"
Audrey: "Green powers."
Emily: "What do your green powers do?"
Audrey: "They shoot."

I thought this was so funny so I called Ben at work to share the news with him about our daughters new powers. So he had Audrey get on the phone to talk to him. She heard me talking to him and said, "Nope. I don't have powers anymore. They're gone." So I had her get on the phone with him. Here is what I heard:

"Yep. I have powers."
Pause.
"Green powers that shoot."
Pause.
"They're on my back."

Then Audrey handed the phone back to me.
This girl has such an imagination!

Well, it is cold again here. Although not cold enough to not go anywhere so that's good. Alexis is home with me today because of her fever. She woke up at 4am saying she was really cold. Well, that statement alone is odd for Alexis because she is never cold, always hot. She was wearing sweats too. She got in bed with me and shivered for ten minutes. She had a raging fever so we're at home today. She would have slept past eight except Audrey woke up around 7:30am singing at the top of her lungs. She was singing, reading, and laughing for 15 minutes before she came in to see me. She has had the sunniest disposition for the last two days. Just saying and doing the funniest things. Well, I'm going to tackle some projects this afternoon so that's all for now.

Fun pictures!!

I just wanted to post some really fun pictures. Audrey put a pull-up on her head and wore it as a hat for awhile. Alexis has recently been reading to Audrey a lot. It's so cute. Audrey sits and listens for so long. I caught them last week before bed all snuggled up together and reading. So precious. They can play so well together. Most of the time they do.

Alexis' 7th Birthday Party

Alexis turned 7 on Saturday and we had so much fun! We had a great birthday party for her with 14 kids total! We played the limbo which the kids loved. Then we had mermaid racing. This involved duct taping each childs legs together and they had to race down the hall and to the living room rug. It was hysterical! The two kids racing would pull each other's legs, arms, and anything else to get ahead. The other kids lined up and cheered them on. After the mermaid racing we had a treasure hunt. Ben was in charge of this and he came up with the idea that the kids were trying to find the baby's treasure. The catch was that they had to whisper and tiptoe around the house to find all the clues so they wouldn't wake the baby. If they were too loud the baby might wake up and they wouldn't get any treasure! All the kids thought this was great. A couple of times they had a hard time whispering and the others would quickly say, "SHHHH!" It was so funny. I didn't think you could get 14 kids to whisper and tiptoe around a house but Ben can! After the treasure hunt we opened presents and then ate cake and cupcakes. The kids then begged us to have more mermaid racing so we then taped them up with a partner and we timed them to see who got to the carpet first. A lot of the kids stayed taped up until their parents came! We had so much fun.

Our good friends, Matt and Elizabeth Beetz stayed at our house all day with their two kids, Alexis and Brandon. So we had a complete party day. We were tired by evening but it was all worth it. Tomorrow will be my day to get the house completely back in order again. I don't do any house cleaning, arranging, or organizing on Sundays so it has to wait! :)

Family Picture

We just got our family picture back! It was taken right before Christmas and I think it looks pretty good! Also, believe it or not, it was done in one take. That's right, Alexis and Audrey were so good it only took one shot! They are such good girls. There is also a picture of Alexis and Audrey with their cousins, on Ben's side. There are nine grandchildren, all girls except one. The first grandson was born just a couple of months ago. The picture shown here is of the six oldest. The three babies were left out of the picture. Enjoy.

Fun in the Snow

We have gotten some great snow in the last two days. The girls have been outside playing a lot and we're enjoying our fire everyday and having hot chocolate. I am really enjoying winter so far because we have gotten to spend a lot of time as a family. I love having fires too. It is so cozy and really warms up our family room!

Ben and I got to go to the temple yesterday. We ran into a friend, Jeanie Evans, that was at Stanford with us and now her and her family live in Chicago. That was really fun. We're definitely going to get together!

Alexis had Friday off of school so we went to Rein Dance Farm, a place that gives horseback riding lessons. My Mom and Dad gave her two riding lessons for Christmas and her birthday (which is this Saturday!!). I really liked the place. The teacher is very nice and relaxed. There are ponies, horses, donkeys, goats, cats, and a dog. The girls had a blast walking around and seeing all the animals. They told me I could even ride if I wanted to. How fun would that be? I would love that. So I am thinking I will sign her up there. It's 25 minutes away so it's not super close but none of the riding places are. Anyway, the lessons teach her how to care for the horse and how to ride with the eventual goal of learning to jump the horse. It's English style. Sounds like fun!

Well, I am off to get some other things done while Audrey is napping. She only naps about twice a week now so I really have to take advantage of that time!

More Updates

I am determined to get caught up today with my blog! I have a few more pictures to post. One is of Audrey with her stuffed unicorn named "horsey." She got a target gift card from her Thomas grandparents and I have been waiting to get something perfect. As soon as I saw it I knew that was it. Sure enouch, she drags that thing everyone. She makes beds for it, rides it, drags it with her everywhere. She even rides it making mean neighing sounds when she's mad at me. It's very funny.

The picture of Audrey sleeping was just too precious to pass up. She has had an ear infection for almost three weeks. She now seems to be getting the better of it, on her third anitbiotic, and she fell asleep at 5pm one day. She has never done that. It was so cute. I was trying to give her quiet time with a movie and bed on the floor.

The third picture of Audrey is her sitting by a fireplace at Grandma and Grandpa Thomases house with one of her tails on. I got six animal tails and masks for her and Alexis for Christmas and she loves them. She wears them occasionally now but mainly they stay in her crib. She loves to sleep with them and she notices if any are missing! It's so funny.

Alexis has lost both her front teeth now and the new ones are growing in nicely. At Christmas she loved playing with her cousins and there is a picture of her playing Joseph and Mary with her cousin Lily. Alexis is doing great in school. She reads and writes wonderfully. She really loves to read and spends at least 20 minutes reading every morning before school, then reads more after school, and we read together before bedtime. She's also a whiz at spelling. She recently learned that the tooth fairy is not real. She didn't seem upset about it at all and in fact is convinced that Daddy is the tooth fairy. I can't believe he gets credit for that! :)

Alexis is taking swim lessons again and is doing great. She can swim at least 25 yards by herself in the deep end. She also loves to go off the diving board!

Christmas Activities

Alright, this is long overdue but here it is at last. I am finally feeling normal again, besides a slight cold. The nasty sickness I had has lasted a month.

I thought I would share some Christmas photos and tell about some of our activities. We made our own homemade gingerbread train. I made everything from scratch for the first time. It was fun but turned out looking more like a semi truck so we referred to it as the semi. It was still fun and the girls loved decorating it and eating the candy.

In Minnesota we all (all of Ben's siblings and their kids and Grandpa) went on a train ride to the Mall of America to see the World's Largest Gingerbread House. While the gingerbread house was a dissapointment all the girls loved the train ride.

We took family pictures on Saturday before Christmas. Ben's parents decided to update the family picture, thank heavens, because the last one taken was in 1999 when I was eight months pregnant. Yeah, I look great in that picture! You can see a picture below of Alexis and her cousins, Lily, Meredith, and Adelyn waiting patiently for their turn to take a picture. Alexis was reading to them while they waitied.

Alexis and Audrey had a wonderful christmas. Alexis got a really nice set of binoculars that she loved, as you can see from the picture and Audrey was just thrilled with getting candy from Santa. It's all she had talked about for two months leading up to christmas.

January 4th 2007

Well, it's a new year and I thought I'd better post something. I haven't written a family update in two weeks because I have been too sick. We had a wonderful and fun Christmas but now I am trying to recuperate. We went to MN for a week and so much fun there with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpa. I had been sick for a week prior to going. Turns out I had/have pleurisy with a bad cough. Very painful and not fun. The night before we left to return home Audrey woke up with an ear infection and the next morning Alexis woke up with pink eye. So it was real fun at our house for a little while. But the girls are now completely better and I am probably functioning at about 75%. Two days after we got back from MN we went to the Wisconsin Dells. We stayed overnight and played at the indoor water park for two days. The girls had a blast and Alexis even went down four different water slides. I tried to convince Audrey that they were fun but after two rides she begged me not to go on any more. She spent most of her time in the hot tub and at the kiddie slides. She also liked the lazy river. Now both girls are back in school and Ben is back at work. Back to our normal life! I will upload pictures another day. I am tired and want to do nothing.

Week of December 3-9

We had a very fun week! It started out with Alexis loosing one of her front teeth. It had been hanging on for dear life for three weeks so it was a happy day to finally have it gone. She has two more working on coming out. You'll see a picture below of her new smile.

Alexis had her last swimming class this week. She can swim 10 yards by herself in the deep end and was the only one in her class to go off the diving board! It is her new favorite thing to go off the diving board. It was a huge fear for her and she has conquered it! It was great to watch.

On Saturday we went to cut down our own Christmas tree. We had our good friend, Brian Johnson, with us. It was a blast! The pictures below will show you the details. The tree is gorgeous and we had fun decorating it. Both girls loved hanging up the ornaments. Our tree looked small and perfect when we cut it down and we got home it was huge! I guess that is a typical first time homeowner experience: to get a tree way to big for your house. We still love it.

Saturday night was Ben's firm's Christmas party, or as Ben called it, the Foley prom. We got to get all dressed up, it was black-tie. We had a really good time. Just so you understand how ridiculously expensive and fancy it was, they had these plastic ice cubes with the firms name on it (Foley) and they lit up when put in your drink. Ben took four home for the girls! Audrey now must have her drinks with a blue ice cube in it.

Overall, a very fun week except that now Audrey and I are sick. Oh well. Hope you all had a great week too.

Family Update 12-3-06

Hello everyone!

I have recently acquired a digital camera and have decided to start a tradition of a weekly update of our family (mostly the girls) with pictures. I hope you all enjoy it.

This week we got our first snowstorm in WI. We got around 18 inches in seven hours. It was fast and amazing. School was cancelled for Alexis so we stayed home and played in the snow. We also watched movies and drank hot chocolate. We had such a fun time. It is now around 19 degress outside. It is getting colder and colder. I am wearing full outfits to bed (socks and sweatshirt included)! I am sure we will get used to it. Ben took Alexis sledding and they had a great time. We have yet to convince Audrey that sledding is fun so she stayed home with Mom.

Alexis is doing very well in first grade. She has made lots of friends and is really enjoying reading and writing. She's not enjoying math quite as much. She reads constantly and is reading books like Black Beauty on her own.

Audrey just turned three and started preschool. She loves her new friends and teachers. She goes twice a week for three hours. She feels like such a big girl and loves having her own backpack like Alexis.

I am enjoying my free time but still feeling really busy with taking care of a house and with my calling of Enrichment Counselor, which has me planning four big events during the year and lots of smaller ones each month. So I feel very challenged right now but happy.

Ben is really busy with work. He enjoys his work and colleages and we do get some fun perks. We get suite tickets to watch hockey and basketball games. Those are really fun to go to as a family.

Well, that about does it for now. Maybe I'll have more to report next week! Take care everyone.

Update November 2006

I just thought you would like to see some updated pictures of Alexis and Audrey. Alexis is almost seven and is in first grade and loving every minute of it. She is taking gymnastic and swim lessons and loves both of those as well. Audrey is just about to turn three and cute as ever. She has a fiery and funny personality. She will be starting pre-school soon and can't wait. Both are absolute joys and wonderful girls. Enjoy the pictures and I hope this message finds everyone healthy and happy.

Family Picture

December 17, 2005

This is my first post. It comes on my eighth anniversary. Last night I surprised Ben with a night out in San Francisco. We went to Daly City and ate at Outback Steakhouse. Then we went to Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays. It is a two act play that he wrote about his life, mostly about his father. It was so funny and Ben absolutely loved it. He was soooo surprised. I rarely surprise him because he doesn't like surprises. I have to be absolutely sure that he will like it. Anyway, it has been eight years and we are still in love and very happy. I am very blessed and grateful for my marriage.

Alexis read her first book tonight. She read it all by herself. I didn't know she even knew some of the words she read. She was so proud. Ben and I were too. It has been so exciting to see all of her changes since she started Kindergarten in August. I can hardly believe how much she has grown up. She has learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, lost two teeth, aand started reading and writing. She writes really well too. She is still quite an artist.

Audrey is such a two year old. She has a strong will and loves being in the limelight. I think she is very much like her daddy. She is very funny and loves to play with her friends. She also loves going to church. She asks everyday if it is church day. She is very social.

Okay, that is enought for tonight!

I'm Journaling!!!

Thanks to my Dear long lost friend Devanie I am finally blogging. I want to share Everything about our life so family and friends can see what we are up to! you can visit her site and link to mine at http://www.devanie.com My new years resolution is to journal at least once a week - preferably MORE to keep you updated on our daily dealings!