A Good Cousin

This is the chaos that was my house today. The 5 youngest "McCullough" cousins hung out at our house today. They played and had a few battles but pretty much had a great time. At one point, I asked Drew to help Allie get her bottle off the table. When he did, I said, "Oh Drew, thank you so much. That was so sweet." His reply was, "Well, I just want to be a good cousin." This little darling boy isn't even 4 years old yet. Awww....That's just about the sweetest thing ever.

A few moments of calm...it didn't last long.

Drew wasn't too thrilled about this...

Are You Sure it's January?

We've had record highs here lately. Yesterday it was high 70's and Allie took that as a cue that it was time to get a little wet. So, she helped herself to the dog's water.

Drew & Allie

These two had a blast digging in the barren flower beds on Tuesday....

Mouth, Pockets, Nose

Since Allie was tiny, everything has gone in to her mouth. She loves to chew on rocks and eat sand. Lately, she's been putting things in her pockets to store it for later. I find rocks in the laundry all the time.

Yesterday she discovered a new place to put stuff....her nose. She had shredded a piece of tissue and stuck it so far up her nose I could hardly see it. She came to me sneezing and eyes watering. I was able to get it out without too much trouble and we had the "don't ever put anything in your nose" conversation. I thought she'd learned her lesson, until I caught her two more times with tissue in her nose. Come to think of it, she did get a giant Tick-tack stuck in her nose a couple months ago so maybe it'll take a trip to the emergency room before she learns her lesson.

This was the 2nd time she stuck it up there.

And after multiple sneezes that brought it down.

Allie & Maddie

Random Allie Conversations

Allie tripped over my computer power-cord on her way to get her teeth brushed tonight. While she was complaining to Daddy that she hurt her knee, he said, "Well, who's my princess?" She stopped complaining, purked up and said, "Allie!"

The other day we had this conversation:
Allie: Daddy?
Me: Daddy had to go back to work
Allie: Why?
Me: To make money
Allie: Why?
Me: So we can buy food
Allie: Why?
Me: So we can eat
Allie: Why?
Me: So we can live
Allie: Why?
Me: Because God made us that way
Allie: Oh!

The "why?" conversations have begun...yippee.

Yesterday Allie was laying in my bed after Tim left for work. She sat up and tooted. "I toot!" Oh yay! She's such a polite almost 2 year old. :)

Tutu 2

Well, I had to bribe Allie to put the tutu on and as you can tell, Maddie wasn't thrilled with it either. But, I just had to get a picture of them both in their tutus. Aren't these two adorable?

Tutu

After seeing so many adorable tutus online on these precious little babies, I decided to order one for Allie. But, then after ordering her one (don't tell Tim!) I started wondering how hard it would be to make a tutu. I found some simple directions online and couldn't wait to try it. So, this afternoon I put together my first tutu. I have a few more I want to do but I first want to see how this one looks on Madolyn and then decide what changes I need to make.

So, here it is. It's hard to see what it really looks like. The flash on the camera made the shimmer tulle really too shiny. But, let me know what you think.

Wii Three

So we got a Wii for Christmas. We've been enjoying the new games and the oldies too (Mario Bros, Kid Icarus, etc.). One of the new ones we have has some dancing and music games. You mimic the moves of the avatar with your remotes and get points when you're in sync with them. Allie was watching Heather and I play on Saturday. Then she said, "Allie try". So, we decided to give it a shot. She was so cute. She jumped up and down with the remote and danced with the music. I got some video but it's on Heather's video camera so I'll post when I get it from her. But, here are some pictures of Allie "trying" it again last night. Too cute in my humble opinion.

Other random pictures:

Allie fell asleep at Heather & Jason's.

Dixie thought she looked like a nice cozy pillow.

Potty-training

Different

I've thought about writing this post for several weeks but just hesitated. I've been thinking a lot about what our life would be like if we hadn't lost our twins in 2004. We'd have three very active toddlers. Christmas would have been even crazier than it was, but I'm sure that chaos would have been fun. How would Allie be as a little sister? Since the time she was just a few months old, I thought she would have made a better younger sibling. She LOVES to play with the kids and although she's very independent she does not play well on her own like most first-born children. I can imagine her playing with her siblings. But, God knows. He obviously has had a very different plan for our family than we did (do).

Allie is 21 months old today. In my perfectly planned little world, she would be getting ready to welcome a new baby to the family in the next couple months. But, she's not...not yet. My sister and I are 22 months apart and are very close. I wanted that for Allie. A sibling between 21 and 25 months apart is what I thought would be perfect. But, that's not what God had planned and in my heart I know that His ways are higher and better than mine. We pray that Allie will have a sibling soon that she'll be able to play with, but if she's the only child we have the priviledge of raising we are so incredibly blessed to have her. She is the light of our life. Man, I can't believe how much she has grown and changed in the last 21 months and I can't believe how much I love this fiesty, sweet little angel.