Ainsley Update

I had several people ask me this morning how Ainsley is doing, so I thought I better update everyone that has been watching our attempt at the world's longest fever! :) As of Thursday, she was still wheezing some when she woke up and late in the evenings so I took her back to the doctor. The last time we went (when she was diagnosed with bronchitis) she had just come off of antibiotics for an ear infection so they didn't want to give them to her again. But after 2 weeks of wheezing and not getting over it, they decided antibiotics was the only way to clear it up. She wasn't acting sick or anything....just wheezing and I thought it was too long for her to still have fluid in her lungs. Anyway, the meds are doing their thing and she's feeling much better now! We haven't done a breathing treatment in 2 days!

So, I worked my bottom off in the garage today! I priced everything except for 1 big box, hung up all the clothes, and cleaned all of my shoes that I'm selling. Ainsley is always easy to work around when I'm getting ready for garage sales. I just gave her a sheet of pricing stickers and away she went! I had to go back later and take the $10 price tags off of all my shoes, though! She also had "Make an Offer" stickers all over her Dora tricycle. That would surely make her cry! We worked right up until 5:00, had a quick dinner, got dressed, and headed off to dance. Now, maybe Ainsley just spent too much time alone with me this afternoon, but she was SUPER clingy tonight! She would hardly dance...just watch the other girls and giggle now and then. She also wanted to sit down a lot. Anyway, anytime any girl would even look at her, she would run over to me, hug my leg, and say, "No, my Mommy!" Over and over and over..... She did this yesterday when she was playing with Zoe too. I have no idea where it's come from, but it scares me a little. Hopefully she's just possessive of Mommy at this age and this doesn't mean she's become too attached to me. I just don't want her to start crying when I drop her off anywhere. Especially since she's in childcare at least 5 times a week.

This is very random, but it was cute. Here's the conversation I heard while Ainsley was in the bathtub tonight. She was playing with her little Pooh and Piglet. Piglet's "voice" was a little higher pitched than Pooh's "voice"...

"Oh no! A wapperfall!" [Pooh]
"Hep, hep!" [Piglet]
"I save you, Pliget!" [Pooh]
"Ah, ah! Get me! Get me!" [Piglet]
"My boat! Row, row, row....." (Sang entire song) [Ainsley]
"Oh, tank-oo Pooh!" [Piglet]
"Uh wecome!" [Pooh]

It's so fun to watch her play with her doll house now too because she has such an imagination! She'll put the baby down for a nap, take a ride in Mommy's car, Daddy will always "cook" apples, etc. I just have to stand back or act like I'm not listening, though, because she gets embarrassed pretty easily.

Last note, we have several things going in the garage sale. A full size bed (headboard, rails, mattress, and box springs), coffee table with storage, glider, some bedding, wing-backed chair, and possibly a queen size memory foam mattress. There may even be more, but I have only been pricing the little things (toys, clothes, etc.) so hopefully Clint can help me with the big stuff soon. Although tomorrow night he has praise team practice and the next night I'm going to the consignment sale, so I'm not sure when we'll have time. Oh well, you know I can't have a garage sale without having everything perfect and in place, so I'm sure I'll find a way! Let me know if there's anything you're interested in, or just stop by! Leah and I plan to drop the kids off at school Friday morning and then open around 9:00am or so. The sale's at my house.

Visit from Bapa and Mimi

My parents came up to see us this weekend. They had told Ainsley ahead of time that they were coming, so she was SUPER excited about it. She sure loves her Bapa and Mimi. They actually got in late Friday night so she didn't even know they were here until she woke up Saturday morning. We all got ready and went to Flapjack's in Bentonville for breakfast. It was really good (a buffet) and kids 3 and under are free! Then we drove around looking at lots and houses for a while. We'd sure love for my parents to move to Arkansas!

Here are some pictures of Ainsley playing with her Mimi and Bapa that afternoon. They danced a whole lot!

Bapa dancing with the "funky town" turtle! (Ainsley thinks it says "funky toe") I love the funny faces my Dad makes!

Ainsley likes to make "ice cream" for everyone. Boys always get blue cups/spoons and girls always get pink cups/spoons. :)

Mimi eating from her pink spoon!

Awww.....big hugs for Mimi!

And big kisses for Bapa!

We all met my sister, her husband, and baby Hailey for dinner that evening at Carrabba's. Ainsley LOVES her baby cousin and just couldn't get enough of her! We took lots of pictures, but they're all on my Dad's camera so I'll try to get some from him. When we left there we went to Will's 2nd birthday party. Ainsley, of course, was really excited about going to Will's party too. She and Will followed each other around like little puppies and were not very sociable with the other kids. I don't know why they are so close like that, but their teacher says they do the same thing at school! They have posted a bunch of pictures if you'd like to take a look. As you'll see, there are only a couple of pictures of Will without Ainsley right by his side! :)

I'm really tired tonight, so I'm not going to post a lot, but I just uploaded several pictures to flickr if you'd like to take a look. One day last week Ainsley wanted to make me breakfast, so she baked some biscuits. She was very proud of herself so I took a ton of pictures! It was very early in the morning so she has some major bed head, which makes it even cuter! I also cut my friend Becky's hair this morning so there are a couple of pictures of Ainsley playing with her kids. The last 2 are of Ainsley playing dress-up in the new dresses that my sweet friend Amy's girl's gave to her. She has worn the blue one all afternoon!

Sorry again about not having many pictures, but it takes so long to upload to both websites. Plus, I'm still trying to get ready for my garage sale this weekend so I need to spend a little more time tonight cleaning out my closet! :) I'll try to get some pictures of my little "helper" in the garage this week.

Random Pics

It rained all day Saturday so we had a pretty relaxing day. Clint had to work in the morning and we had our usual Saturday morning pancakes, eggs, and bacon when he got home. We were supposed to go to a birthday party at the park for Ainsley's friend Audrey, but Ainsley napped for 3 hours! The party was at 2:00pm, which is not a good time to invite toddlers anyway, so I had told them that we'd come if Ainsley took an early nap. But since she's been so sick, I wasn't about to wake her up! So, she woke up just after 3:00 and the party was almost over. It had been moved on account of the rain anyway. There was a couple in our home group needing help on some finishing touches with the house they're building, so Clint went over to help them. Which meant I had to take Ainsley to a baby shower with me. She actually did pretty good and enjoyed passing out the pencils for the games and throwing paper away and such.

I bought this "Elefun" game at a garage sale last week for $1. Ainsley LOVES it! We played it most of the day Saturday. Little butterflies fly out of the elephants nose and you have nets to catch them. Ainsley doesn't really "try" to catch them, but she does hold her net very still and hope for a butterfly to fall in! Here's a pic...

I have no idea why, but she loves to wear this net over her head! She kept telling me it was her "pretty" hat! She'd wear it until I took it off of her!

Ainsley was chasing Benji around outside after church so I grabbed some pictures. She just looked cute!

She was VERY proud of her "I'm a Helper" badge she got at church this morning. She wore it all afternoon and kept asking me, "Ainsley help Momma?" So, of course, I got lots of help today! Oh, and this is the face I got when I asked her to smile for me...

Ok, I know this is a terrible picture because I had my camera on action mode and she was way too close, but it was cute. I was trying to get her to smile and said, "Show me your pretty teeth with a pretty girl smile!" Well, that's all it took because she is SO proud of her teeth since we went to the dentist!

Another infamous dance picture! I asked several of the moms last week to share their secrets to "bun-making" so I thought I'd attempt it myself. She had 2 of the tiniest little buns in her hair you've ever seen, but they stayed in! :)

Fun at the Fair!

We took Ainsley to the fair Friday night and she had the best time! Actually, Clint and I agreed that we had more fun than we'd had in a long time! It was a little sad seeing Ainsley so grown-up, though. She wanted to walk everywhere without holding hands (hence the Elmo harness) and she didn't want us to ride any rides with her! She wanted to go all by herself. I figured as soon as we put her on a ride and walked away that she'd get scared and jump off, but no! She would smile and wave at us! She had SO much fun!

We got to the fairgrounds a little before 6:00pm, but when we got out of the car it was SO cold and windy out in that field. Ainsley still had her shorts and t-shirt on from MDO. The last time I had been outside just 3 hours earlier, it was warm out! So, with her still being a little sick I really didn't want to have her out in the cold. We needed a little more cash anyway, so we packed back up in the car and headed home to get Ainsley some pants and a jacket. As we were leaving she was yelling, "I go Dora Carnival!" We have a book where Dora goes to the Carnival and wins a big pinata so Ainsley was very excited about going to the carnival like Dora. Anyway, we went home, got Ainsley some clothes, jacket, I picked up the camera, then we went to the ATM (which was broken!) and got back to the fairgrounds by 6:20pm! I was so happy that Ainsley was going to stay warm and that I had my camera. But we all 3 had to share a dinner since we weren't able to get any more cash.

We got our hands stamped at the gate, but Ainsley was free so they didn't stamp hers. She was almost in tears because they "forgot" to stamp her so we had to go back and get a stamp. She was SO proud of this stamp and was still talking about it when we got home! She got very sad when Mommy's washed off while I was bathing her, but she was careful not to let hers get too wet. It's mostly gone now, but she still thinks she can see it. :) Anyway, the first ride she saw that was in Dora's book was the carousel. The "horsies" are always her favorite ride. She immediately picked out a white horsie and hopped on!

This was the best "in-motion" picture I got since they were moving so fast!

She really liked these baby chicks and would say, "Cheep, cheep!"

People were laughing at her here because she was yelling (and I mean yelling) "Oink, piggy, oink!"

She wanted to hold the baby cow, but was happy enough when we took her to see the "show calves" like Bapa's!

This was by far her favorite ride. She spotted it when we walked in the gate, which was way back by the triangular shaped ride in the far right background of this picture. We were so far away it was hard to even tell what it was, but she kept calling it a "Choo-choo" so we had to go find it. All the other kids on the rides had older brothers and sisters to ride with so I wasn't quite sure what we'd do with Ainsley, but she just climbed right in and buckled herself up! This was right before the ride started. A little boy about her age came in and set by her right after I took this picture. He had an Elmo harness too so they became quick friends.

Blury, but you can see how much fun she was having!

This was a big blue dog and Ainsley's favorite show is Blue's Clues so she wanted in. However, she's always been scared of these things so we weren't sure how it would go. She got in when there were no other kids and set down for a couple of seconds, then came out crying. But then this little boy jumped in and she wanted back in. It only lasted about a minute before she came back out crying again. Big waste of $2, but we learned our lesson!

This was another one I thought she'd cry on. Again, all the other kids had siblings to ride with and the cars seated 4 people, but Ainsley was perfectly happy by herself! She even let the attendant buckle her in! She just couldn't figure out if she wanted to drive on the American side or the British side!

We had SO much fun and I can't wait to take her back sometime. She LOVED seeing all the kids showing their animals too, which my dad will love. (I used to show cattle myself) If you've never taken your kids to the fair, I highly recommend it as a fantastic family experience. The Tulsa state fair is coming up the first weekend in October and I've been every year since I was a little girl. It's a fantastic fair and not quite as big as the OKC fair, but still 3 times the size of the county one. There's lots of exhibits, shows, concerts, and plenty of seating around all of the food vendors. Great things to buy and sample too! (I always get a new purse at that fair!) Ainsley learned so much about animals and loved telling us what color and type of animal each one was, if it had long hair or short hair, etc. I wish we would have had time to see the exhibit halls and teach her about bugs, vegetables, and that sort of thing, but I guess it can wait to next year.

Also, there are a few more pictures on our flickr site (see the link on the right) if you'd like to see more.

Not much...

Ainsley had Mother's Day Out today, but she slept in really late. Drop off time is 8:30, but I had to go wake her up at 8:15! 12 hours of sleep...not bad. I think I've determined that she hasn't been sleeping well because of the cold medicine she's been on so I stopped giving it to her. Anyway, even though we were already running late, we still had to stop for 15 minutes to do her breathing treatment. These things are so inconvenient! Anyway, I dropped her off, headed to a couple of garage sales, down to Fayetteville to buy a baby shower gift, Wal-Mart, etc. I actually got quite a bit done today. Since Ainsley didn't take a nap at school, she slept from 3:00 to about 4:30 so we decided to take her to the fair. We had a blast and Ainsley was SO grown-up riding all the rides by herself and such. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

Here's our breathing treatment before school today. In the funny one she was trying to make a "Beeeg blow!"

I walked into the living room last night to Clint and Ainsley dancing with the Wiggles. It's Ainsley's favorite show these days so we're constantly DVR'ing it since it comes on at 6:00am! I was surprised that Clint was so good at dancing with all the moves! :)

This is a picture of Clint's aunt and uncle from Arizona that happened to be in Missouri this week. They stopped back through NWA to see us on their way back home. I've only met them a couple of other times so it was a nice visit. They didn't stay long, but Ainsley sure had fun showing off all of her toys and big girl bed!

Dentist and Pez?

Even though it wasn't where I had planned to go, I LOVED the dentist office that Ainsley went to on Wednesday. See, here's the deal. I called (in June) to get her into either of the 2 pediatric dentists in Rogers, but the earliest they could see her was February '08! 9 months! And they told me they take 4 new patients a day, but they're just that busy. This concerned me. What if she chipped a tooth or something? Would they be too busy for emergencies? Would she have to wait a week with a toothache? Anyway, I just really didn't want to have to wait 9 months, so I called "Pediatric Dental Associates" (PDA) in Fayetteville and they got her in right away. They're just on the corner of Old Missouri and Joyce so it's not that far of a drive either. They sent a packet in the mail with all of the paperwork to fill out ahead of time (it actually said, "We know it's not easy to do this with a toddler in the office" ha!) and some information on what to expect. It was so helpful! They even said to bring your child's favorite doll/stuffed animal and favorite movie if you want them to watch it while they clean their teeth.

So, here we are before going to the "Toof Dockor". She's finally able to wear her guachos (24 mos) my mom bought her last Christmas, but I had them pinned in the back! :) Aren't they cute? They kept getting bunched up in her pull-up, though, and she looked really funny walking around....

When we walked in there was a touch screen computer to check-in at. We just entered our phone number and it confirmed our arrival/appointment time. The entire office looked like a Nickelodeon studio! It was even better than our church. All of the seating was this rubber-foam stuff shaped like rocks at the bottom of the sea. Then there were fish and scuba divers and all sorts of things set up and hanging from the ceiling. There was a HUGE shark mouth (with clean teeth and holding a toothbrush and toothpaste) that led into the next 2 rooms. Ainsley really loved the game room. She was playing with this toddler game (like paintbrush) on one of the touch screens when a mean little girl (not pictured) shoved her off of the seat and Ainsley landed on her forehead! The girl was about 4 or 5 and was shouting, "My turn!" And no, her mom didn't get onto her even with me walking through the waiting room with Ainsley wailing and yelling, "My head!"
Ainsley loved this giant octopus table. There was an old scuba diving hat that the kids could look into and see a fish tank too. I wish I would have got some pictures of all the things hanging from the ceiling. That really made it neat. Ainsley didn't want to leave when they called her name and I had to carry her out!
Ok, it wasn't good that she had just been shoved by that little girl right before her x-rays. But our sweet helper, Melissa who has an 18 month old daughter, held Ainsley on her lap for the x-rays and put her gray "Princess Apron" on. They also gave Ainsley a teddy bear to hold. Since Mommies have to go on the other side of the wall and push the button, I didn't get any pictures. But, she was still crying from the x-rays when we laid her down on the little bed for her cleaning. We put this glove on her to calm her down....
...she just discovered the glove and immediately stopped crying! All of the hygienists matched their stations. Ours was purple so EVERYTHING at the station was purple! It was pretty cute. The gloves tasted like either orange or grape...Ainsley chose orange. There were flat screen TVs in the ceiling above each bed and they were playing the Curious George movie. Nice!
Ainsley got a toothbrush that lights up and has glitter inside it and stuff. It's pretty neat. Melissa said we could either use the toothbrush, since it's her first time, or use the "tickle brush" if I didn't think she'd cry. I didn't really know what she'd do, so we decided to try the electronic brush. Since they're all made for kids, none of the equipment made ANY noise. It was awesome! Ainsley loved it! She picked out "Vanilla Ice Cream" paste and kept saying "More I-cweam!" while Melissa was trying to clean her teeth!
She really did a great job and I was so proud of her. We had the choice and chose to see a female dentist (Dr. Courtney since they all go by first names) and she just happened to have a 2 year old too! They all did excellent with Ainsley! So good, in fact, that I decided to keep going down there instead of trying to get in with Dr. Caple for the next appt like I had originally planned. If you're looking for a dentist, I recommend it with 5 stars!

I had planned to take Ainsley to buy a toy after her appt since she was so good, but she left there with so many toys they had given her that she didn't need anything! So, as promised, I filled up her "Tweety Bird" Pez dispenser and she had eaten all of the candy by the time we got back on the interstate. :)
It was such a long day! We got home about noon from Fayetteville (and had left early so I could stop by Target of course!) Ainsley had lunch and a late nap after fighting it for 2 hours, then we met Clint for dinner at McAlister's. We went straight to church, attended the service, THEN had choir practice. It was 9:30pm before we got Ainsley in bed that night. That's SUPER late for her. Oh, and Kelly beat my child and made her cry so she had to be moved to Will's room to stop crying! :) No, not really, but apparently she just crawled under a table and started crying until Kelly took her to Will's room. (I'm so glad Kelly knew what to do!) Bazaar, I know. She never does that, but the last couple of Wednesdays she's been staying with Michael (and Veronika) so maybe she was just upset that she had to go to church. Anyway, she was as happy as could be when we picked her up!

I love this cooler weather!

When we got home from dancing it was 70 degrees outside. It was wonderful! Clint was mowing so Ainsley just had to help Daddy "mownin the gwass!" It was very cute. Plus, Clint is very proud of our yard right now so he didn't at all mind me taking some pictures. :)

When he would walk backwards so would Ainsley. Except she much preferred to mow the concrete since the grass was so "fluffy!"

Just checkin out her wonderful job!

Literally, every house around us was mowing the yard!

Uh-oh! She ran out of gas!

Must have run out of oil too!

Heading to the gas station to buy more gas! :)

What do you do after you mow? Rake, of course!

Since Ainsley has been so sick, it had been a very long time since we've let her out to just play in the yard. She had SO much fun, but woke up with a runny nose. Other than a runny nose, she's been feeling much better this week. A little bit of wheezing, but I think it's getting better. She did start coughing some tonight (I heard her in the monitor) but I don't think it's anything to worry about yet. I sure hope not because I really need her to go to Mother's Day Out tomorrow! :)

Dancing, dancing!

Well, the second week of dance lessons went much better than the first. For 20 minutes, Ainsley stood on the red line and followed all of the motions of her teacher. But for the last 10 minutes, she decided it was a lot more fun to run to the wrong end of the studio and have Mommy chase her! Chase or not, she did better than last week and the other moms assure me that she'll continue to get better and better at following instructions. :) Since it's a "Mommy and Me" class I have to dance too, so I don't have many opportunities for pictures, but I did get a few before class...

She gets so impatient once we get to the studio. She doesn't want to wait on the rest of the girls. I kept hearing, "Dance, Momma?"

Waiting with her teacher, Miss Cheri.

Miss Cheri was helping one of the girls with her shoes when ALL of the girls decided they wanted Miss Cheri to tie their shoes!

Ainsley and her new little friend were getting a jump-start on class! (They're in the background...Ainsley is on this side)

Half-way through class is "free dance" time. The girls get these little ribbon wands and have to make certain animal movements so I jumped out for a quick picture. Here they were supposed to be dancing like snakes! Doesn't Ainsley have the best snake going? (She's in the back with the orange ribbon...always has to get the orange ribbon!)

Guess what we did today?

Any guesses? Breathing treatments....all day! We've just played with puzzles and coloring books in between all of the medicine and treatments. I'm getting SO stir crazy in this house! Ainsley slept about 13 hours last night, but woke up this morning in a coughing spell that she couldn't get out of. I ran in and scooped her up and she eventually calmed down enough that she caught her breath. It was pretty scary, for Mommy anyway. I have been giving her the breathing treatments in our bed because the DVR is in our room and I have all sorts of her favorite shows saved. This was right after she woke up....

I thought the elastic strap made the mask too tight on her, but when I took it off she said, "NO WAY!" and put it back on! (There's a small tear in her eye in this pic)

Here she is standing up (because Barney said to) but she never let go of the mask! I think she realized how much better it made her feel.

Awwww....1st treatment is over! With the high dosage of steroids today, she ate better than she has in 2 weeks to! Still not good, but better. Almost 1/2 of a waffle and 5 or 6 ounces of her milk!

This was the treatment after her nap. I thought these pictures were really funny because she's so annoyed with me. She gets "Mimi's chocolate" after her treatments and she kept taking her mask off and asking for it. When I'd tell her to put it back on her nose she'd roll her eyes at me! (ALL Chocolate, except "M & imps" is called Mimi's chocolate because my mom, Mimi, gave her a chocolate bar once...I think it was her first so maybe that's why she refers to all chocolate that way.)

Again...annoyed that it's not over yet.

Today is the annual family picnic at Clint's office. (It's like a carnival with all of the funnel cake, corn dog, etc. vendors, games, inflatable bouncy things, etc.) This is the first year I've ever missed. I love going so I can see all my old co-workers. (I worked in the same office for 6 years) We were planning to go, but since Ainsley has been wheezing so bad today we both decided it wouldn't be good to have her out in this weird, windy weather with tons of other little germy kids. Oh well, we'll probably go to trick-or-treat day so I can see everyone then. I feel bad for Clint, but he said he'd just pick up a funnel cake and come on home. I think we're going to grill some burgers or something tonight.

On another note, I tried a bunch of Ainsley's spring clothes on her today and I had NO idea how much she has grown this summer! They still fit the same in the waist, but the jeans that were too long in the spring are now way too short. Plus the shoes that I bought at least 1 size too big (I always buy shoes way big and my friends make fun of me because Ainsley trips so much) don't fit either! I did get a few things last weekend, but I'm going to have to find a really good garage sale somewhere for fall clothes because we can't afford a shopping spree right now. So, if anyone has some 2T girls stuff that you want to get rid of, please let me know!