Here are some of my favorite pictures we got of the family at the end of last year. I love these girls.

Everyone loves daddy. Even Lara does now. In this picture she still wasn't quite sure what she thought of him.

A photoshop experiment. It was difficult to agree on the "best" family shot this year. It's hard to get everyone looking and looking "normal". So here was the compilation of best faces placed on the best background. Our family of big heads. I'll work on the sizing and then next year you won't even be able to tell I manipulated the picture.

As of last week Lara is officially a walker. I was starting to get a little worried. 16 months was a long time to wait. But she is definately preferring walking to crawling now and Brock says that her walk looks like the funny dance/walk that Bill Cosby does. Too cute.

Dare we add one more girl to the mix??????!!!!!!

Clarie's famous hug/choke hold. However, Lara's starting to hold her own a little more nowadays, so Claire better watch out.

Merry Christmas

Well, it is midnight on Christmas day, and not a creature is stirring. In fact, this keyboard sounds mighty loud as I try to silently jot down some thoughts before hitting the hay. It's been a great day full of good company, good food, and fun presents and surprises. The girls have been looking forward to Christmas for so long and I can't believe the day is done.
The main reason I am out here is because I wanted to jot down two things that Ashlyn said today that made me laugh. This morning when Ashlyn woke up she rubbed her eyes and said, "That night wasn't very long...That wasn't long at all. It seemed really short." I'm glad the anxious anticipation didn't make her night seem too long. Then, after we opened the presents and stockings we were in the room getting organized and she said in an excited voice, "Mom, I am a mommy now." (me-oh really? What makes you say that?) "I now have my own purse and bubble gum. I got them in my stocking."
I have to agree that those are two very important criteria for motherhood.
The wonder and excitement of childhood is incredible; I love the thoughts that pop out of their mouths. With Claire it seems that everything is popping out of her mouth these days. She is turning out to be quite the chatter box and does a great high pitched falsetto voice in her pretend play. Today in her stocking she got some mickey mouse Tupperware containers, and she was so excited and started saying, "Mom you can use these in Your kitchen, in YOUR kitchen, IN YOUR KITCHEN!!" She wants to make sure she is NOT getting ignored. Everything is so intense, but it was a very cute, thoughtful moment.
Time for bed.
Hope everyone had a fun Christmas day. Now go make your new paper chains with 364 links.

Ahhhh phonetics. Ashlyn loves calling out a letter and then trying to name words that start with that letter. Today while I was making lunch she started with some "W" words. "wha- wha- Whale", "wha- wha- wish", "wha-wha- weak-sauce"
Thanks Brock. Trash talking vocab -- outstanding.

My girls like art time. I can usually occupy them with coloring and get a few things done around the house...I might have to rethink this strategy. Ashlyn and Claire were truly saddened and shocked when I said that I probably wouldn't let them color with markers for at least a year. "WHY MOM?!" (Bless the person that made markers washable.)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day. Brock has been looking forward to eating Turkey for the past month and the day is finally here!!!!! Luckily he did not eat Claire's hat; she worked hard on it. We're thankful for our three little girls. What a blessing they are and so much fun.
We took Ashlyn to see Lion King and she looked up at me 10 minutes into it and said. Thank you for bringing me here, I love stuff like this. It was a late night for her considering is was 3 days after daylight savings, but she was up for the whole thing and loved using the binoculars. It was an amazing performance. Ashlyn is our little drama lady and judging by the picture has a future in stage make-up. Thank you for getting us the washable markers Eva.

Claire's favorite joke right now is, "knock, knock!" you say "who's there" and she says "Claire Micaela!!" She is intense about everything and recently had a blast coloring permanent marker all over our leather couch cushions. Luckily my mother in all her wisdom reminded me that it's just a couch. All pens and markers have now found a new safer home inconveniently out of reach.

Lara took her first two independent steps last week on Wednesday, but is not in a hurry to walk yet. She's 13 months and just a cutie who is starting to love playgrounds. She's a big fan of the swings, the slide, and now the tubes.

Lara turned one in October. Here are some pictures of her eating her slice of cake. She wasn't so sure of it at first, but enjoyed it in the end the bottom right corner is her kiss face. She loves giving kisses. In the middle is a newborn picture from October 2008. It's amazing what happens in one year of life. This little girl has a lot of spunk. She's loud and has the greatest facial expressions. She's a little bit of a mama's girl (I apologize to all who have babysat her). in this picture I think she was upset that I put a shirt on her that was too small. Everyone keeps saying that Lara looks more like Brock than the other girls did, and I guess this picture proves the point.

Halloween, halloween, Trick or Treat! Our costumes...

If you were able to complete the sentence that I used in my title and hum the tune that goes along with it then you will know that you have watched too much Dora Explorer. That line constantly has been going through my mind as we started the month of October and Ashlyn began her daily inquirey. "Is tonight Halloween? After I go to sleep tonight and then there's another morning and another night, is THAT Halloween?"
She was just too excited about dressing up and getting candy. Ever since we found some of Brock's old books and she found a couple Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stories, she has been hooked on being Donatello for Halloween. Not only because Donatello uses a cool bo staff and is an inventor--his mask is purple, and that is her favorite color.

Candy brings our the best and the worst in everybody. :) Lara didn't know what it was, but boy she wanted some, but she had to be careful not to pounce on any of Claire's candy...the Grouchy Ladybug did not want anyone to touch her candy.

After our Halloween cookie decorating party at the Browns, the trunk or treat at the church and Trick or treating around my brother's neighborhood on Halloween night, we had the costume thing down, and Ashlyn had all the good poses. too fun.

New "hobbies"

Here's the latest with what the Solano girls are up to...

Ashlyn is loving Preschool. She is a Peer Model in a reverse mainstream classroom and loves all her new friends. It was an adjustment having something fixed on our schedule 4 days a week. Our oldest is attending a school...I can't believe we are entering that phase of our life just when Brock is getting out of it finally :) I love how her backpack is bigger than she is.

Ashlyn has also been getting into knot tying. Here is Tweety birds torture. His beak is being tied to his eyebrows and below that is a tangled mess where several toys have been knotted together and threaded through a ruler.

Below you will see what she calls "traps". She builds a barricade of stuff either stacked on something or blocking off a room. Brock was the victim of this ingenious trap and oddly enough he didn't wake up for about an hour (I have video proof of him lightly snoring throughout the process). This was a joint effort between Ashlyn and Claire and neither of them whined during the entire process...they were both very dedicated and involved. I hope pulling a trick on dad doesn't have a similar allure later on during the teen-age years.

A similar stacking technique is used to make "Rocket ships" and box beds. This particular box is now on Ashlyn's bed and is a bed or house or whatever she wants to pretend it is and it is where she all her "special" toys stay that she doesn't want anyone to take.


Claire is a wonderful partner in crime for Ashlyn. She firmly believes that she should be attending preschool as well and I try not to take is too personally that she wants to leave me so early.


She does have a little play group she goes to once a week with some other cute 2-3 year olds. She loves having her own friends to play with.She likes having her alone time and usually will shut the door and pretend play or color on her own for a little while each afternoon. She does not like coloring at the table ( a little too confining) and with a crayon eater named Lara on the loose the bathroom became a place of retreat one day. I don't know how I feel about that yet.I hope someday Claire will embrace the use of utensils. She prefers hand feeding herself still, but she is a good eater.Lara is almost one now. She is developing quite the personality and is pretty determined and feisty.She loved playing with this little water spout at Universal Studios. The top middle picture is her "Stay Back" face/gesture usually given to Claire many times a day. She did not want to leave this spout.We are definitely busy little girls. I loved this shot featuring Ashlyn's "pose" that she strikes for the camera from time to time. Here they are with Brock enjoying the wonders of cotton candy...what is that stuff? It's magic. I used to love that stuff as a kid. Now all I can think of is, "That stuff has to be ruining their teeth" and "I hope they are still able to sleep during the car ride despite the sugar rush." We are no fun as adults. Of course I had to have a few bites for old times sake.

"Let's face it, most of us were scoffers, but moments before zero hour it did not pay to take chances."

Name that movie...one of my favorite lines of all times.

Adventures in Paradise (CA)

I took the girls a couple weeks ago to spend some time with Grandma Solano up in Paradise. Luckily we all survived the drive and had a great time with lots of adventures...(I sound like Dora the Explorer). unfortunately I only had the video camera, so the still photos leave something to be desired (focus).

#1 adventures in tadpole hunting
They had these huge bullfrog tadpoles that had already sprouted their hind legs. Its been a while since I went knee deep into murky pond water to catch tadpoles and crawdads, but it was an adventure. Needless to say it took a few prayers and a long hunt. The girls had fun holding it and we had checked out a book on frogs that morning from the library, so they got to see the stages, and "Helen" was safely returned to her murky pond and swam away very relieved.

#2 Adventures poolside

Luckily we had lots of relief from the heat. Claire finally had her ah ha moment in the pool. She had a life jacket on and a floaty ring and as usual she screamed when I let her go, but all of the sudden it hit her that she was not sinking to her death. She smiled and started kicking around and had a great time "Swimmin by herself" the last day there. I have that saga on video, but no still photos. Here is a blurry one of her warming up on the cement. I loved doing this as a kid. Lara had a great time as usual in the water and eating dinner poolside every night she got to destroy one of Grandma's napkin, and eat some of it. YUM.

The girls really loved this hula girl garden flag and asked me to take a picture of them next to it.

#3 Adventures with friends and family

We timed the trip just right to get to see the Jagodas and Aunt Gayle. The visits were too short, but so fun. The Jagodas oldest, Savannah, was born in Provo a couple months before Ashlyn. They lived across the driveway from us in a basement apartment just like ours. We always knew that Ashlyn and Savannah would hit it off. Too bad they live on the other side of the country from us. Dan and Britany are planning to take a vacation together next summer to Vegas without their kids. Brock and I are planning on crash their vacation and "just happen" to be there at the same time. Anyone else want to go on vacation with the Jagodas?

Brock's Aunt Gayle came and swam with us that afternoon and it made us miss our days in Utah when we got to see her more often.



#4 Adventures in Bakersfield

Luckily we had pit stops in bakersfield to and from Paradise and got to see Ernie and Ryker. It was Rykers birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE RYKER!!!!


Well, you know its time to stop blogging when your two year old comes in smelling like your deodorant. I'm sure I'll find the empty canister some day hidden somewhere with the empty tubes of glue stick she likes to randomly smear on her fisher price toys. Oh Claire--how qyickly she gets in to things. Time to go to the pool.