Makenna

Makenna,

My sweet little girl! I cant believe you are one now and I am having a hard time admitting that you have grown so much. Its hard to deny it when I look at the proof in pictures but that doesn't make it any less hard to accept.

You were the sweetest little thing in the hospital. No one could stop staring at you, especially me. Your sweet cheeks and lips were, and still are, so hard to stop kissing and nuzzling.

Everyone was instantly in love with you. Especially Riley Bug. She finally had her sister with her and she, like the rest of us, could not stop kissing and holding you. You were best friends from the beginning!

                                       (September)

Watching you sleep was so calming. You attached to your Daddy and the second you got into his arms you would drift into sleep and neither of us could look away!

                                   (October)
You have the biggest smile that just keeps getting bigger and brighter. Your grandpa says that when you smile your whole body smiles with you. That is the whole truth. You start wiggling your body and hands and when you're happy you just cant hold still.

                                 (November)
Your personality is contagious. When you are feeling goofy everyone feels goofy and when you are sad we cant help but feel sad with you.

             (December)
You are smarter than words. Everyday Daddy and I are surprised by the things you have learned to do.

                   (January)
You love your thumb very much! I hope this habit doesn't stick for too much longer but it sure is cute now! It doesn't matter what you are doing your thumb is in your mouth almost all day. While your laughing, eating, playing or sleeping!

                           (February)
You just keep getting more gorgeous every stinkin' day.

Proof.......

                         (March)

                                      (April)

You have the most beautiful olive green color eyes! When the sun hits them just right they are the most beautiful color green. I don't know how both of my girls ended up escaping the brown eyes but I am so glad you did!

                                  (May)

Poor girl, you cant grow hair fast enough and you don't like things touching your head! If you end up like me you are going to bald until you are 4. Sorry for that trait! You will just have to get used to head bands!

                             (June)

You LOVE the water. The first time we went to the splash pad you weren't quite sure about it but it really grew on you. You love to play in the water whatever form it comes in! The first few times we went to the pool you were so relaxed. Daddy and I could have held you the whole time and just wade and you were happy! Now, though, you think you are a pro swimmer. You have tried letting go of anyone holding you and sticking your head under the water all by yourself and kicking your legs to swim! You are a fish! I hope you still love it as much next year!

                        (July)

You have THE BEST facial expressions. When I take pictures of you I love to just keep the camera on you for a few minutes to see exactly what faces you will pull next! I cant stop watching you all day for the same reason! 

                            (August)

(Yes this is the dress I made for her and this is my attempt at a quick indoor photo shoot with horrible lighting. She is still cute no matter what though!)

I love you Mak. You are so sweet and I cant wait to see what the next year holds!

Pasghetti

Mak had her first serving of spaghetti last night! 

(Not because I thought she needed to wait but because I really haven't ever cooked diner when she was awake to enjoy it! Dales new schedule is amazing!)

Any way, she LOVED it!

Before...

After...

She was one happy baby with a nice full tummy!

I didn't get the high chair after because I forgot but trust me when I say almost no food was left behind! Even if there was a mess! :)

Domestic Bandwagon

Today I jumped on the domestic bandwagon. 

Tons of people nowadays are making clothes for themselves and their little ones. I wanted to join the party and make something special for my girls. Something that I could look at and be proud of!

I have been waning to start sewing my girls dresses for a while but never had a really had a specific reason to motivate me. A couple months ago I found a clearance dress at the fabulous Target and decided I wanted to cut it up and make the each of the girls a dress! The fabric has been sitting around since then until finally it hit me... Mak needs a cute unique outfit for her one year pictures! Perfect opportunity!

It started out looking like this...

but with this design

And it ended as two adorable dresses for Bug and Mak!

(no afters yet, not until the birthday pictures)

I was a different experience but with the help and supervision of my talented M-I-L we made it work!

OH YEAH! I almost forgot...

I also made 2 super cute headbands out of the scraps to match the dresses. I am just as in love with the headbands as I am the dresses! 

I cant wait for a couple weeks when the pictures are done and I can brag about the dresses... Ok and maybe the girls IN the dresses too!

New Feature

So we have a new feature here on the ol' mommy blog.

See To the right ------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

The Whipple Dictionary.

These are words that I have decided to put up on the blog mostly so that I have them SOMEWHERE. I know some of them might make you lose your appetite :) but they are words that are used on a (for the most part) daily basis around Casa de Whipple.

These are words that Riley (and soon Mak will be making things up) has made up, that Dale made up or words used in his childhood that have snuck their way into our every day vocabulary.

I am excited to see this list grow!

You Know...

Even when I am having a bad day with the girls or otherwise its 

ALWAYS 

these beautiful faces...

That keep me going!

Just a little...

STRESSED

So, the past couple days I feel like I am being repeatedly beaten into the ground by everything.

I think we are doing good then all of a sudden Dales car breaks down and we found out its going to cost around 200 bucks to get fixed when we just put 200 into it to get it running "right." Dale has the worst schedule ever and it is really hard to go on one car with a schedule like his. I am already worried about money and this just tops the cake.

Then I have to worry about my girlie's attitude. She will YELL at me if I tell her no. Today after hurting Makenna THREE TIMES in a row ON PURPOSE to the point of massive screams I tell her to go to bed and she goes to her room screams at me and slams the door. Is this my fault? What on earth have I done to make her so argumentative?! I have tried EVERYTHING!

First was the taking things away, losing privileges. Just more screaming and more tantrums.

Time outs. NOTHING makes her stay in. If i was to do the super nanny thing she would LITERALLY be in there ALL DAY. What good is that going to do when she wont even remember what she was in there for in the first place. Its just a power play and those are just making things worse.

I have tried to use the reward system for good behavior. Getting stars when you listen and do things you are asked to do and getting rewards for a certain amount of stars...but THAT'S not working either! She REFUSES to listen to ANYTHING I say to her. When Dale is here the problems are few and far between but the SECOND he walks out the door she becomes another child.

I am totally lost. I am afraid of what is going to happen if I don't learn how to handle her and work with her. Nothing I do is the right thing!

This is all leading to no where but I am so lost. I don't know how to be a mom to her. She is making it impossible and I don't want this to get worse.

I have never been so stressed in my life.

Just kidding

Have I mentioned how much I HATE the new blogger template crap?!

No?

Well, let me tell you now...


IT SUCKS!!

Bad

So in trying to fix my blog I realized i lost all my links to everyone elses blog. This is going to take a really really long time to fix. If you want to help me out leave a link to your blog in the comments!

PLEASE!
(and thank you)

Not to mention I lost ALL the Riley isms! I wish i would have had them written down somewhere else but I don't.

I suck at this.

I'm gonna pack my car and go to Vegas

(A MILLION PICTURES!)

So for our fifth anniversary Dale and I went to VEGAS!

We had a BLAST!

We went to the M&M store and saw the M&M car.

Spent some time at New York, New York

(It was SOO hot in Vegas and we walked through it everyday. This explains my sweaty gross red face!)

Saw the (fake) Arc de Triomphe.

(this is our only picture together...)

We lived Large in Vegas. 

We met ALL the stars! ;)

Dale compared biceps with THE ROCK! The Rock wasn't happy about it!

We hung out with Julia Roberts.

Kept it cool with James Bond

Played some ball with The Babe!

I TOTALLY called it! ;)

We also compared wingspans Jordan didn't want to play along..

Tried to be taller.....

Took a picture with my sister Mandi's favorite person on the planet!

Got serenaded by Timmy

Then serenaded Old Blue Eyes!

Dale tickled the ivory and made some sweet music with Mr. Armstrong!

Nicholas Cage and I compared our empty bank accounts!

Dale fought it out with Muhammed Ali.

Then we went to see the Fountains at Bellagio!

It was our favorite part! 

The water show is amazing! We could have stood there for HOURS!!

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood! We LOVED it!

We went to a mall across the street where I am pretty sure that if you actually wanted to walk into the stores you would have to show them you had PLENTY of money in your bank account or they would kick you out. I am pretty sure the least expensive store in there was the "Tiffany and Co." NOT KIDDING! I guess except for the Gelato place we went to that was AMAZING but a 4oz gelato was 4 bucks.... But they had these awesome tornado tubes that were so awesome to see. and then they had these.....

We thought maybe they were plastic but Dale decided to touch one and figured out it was ICE! We thought it was the coolest thing!! And of course the water below it was FREEZING! It was awesome!

Then on Thursday morning before we left we went to the Bellagio again to see this SUPER cute exhibit they had. They made it look like a big green room and almost everything was made out of flowers. We LOVED this GIANT shovel and pail!

GIANT snails covered in flowers.

Giant mushrooms and ants!

GIANT bees made out of flowers pollinating giant glass flowers!

My favorite was the snail.

Dales was this ant crawling out of his ant hill!

It was so so pretty and the perfect ending to an amazing trip! It was so nice to get away and be with just each other for once!

We want to go back already!

Projects, Projects! Before and After

So Yesterday I decided since Dale ACTUALLY had a Saturday off that I wanted to go to Goodwill! I have been wanting to go for a while but since I never had Dale with me I wasn't even gonna chance it!

So we get to Goodwill and I see the posters "50% off Sale July 17th"

MY LUCKY DAY!!!!

So we go in and i was thinking it would end up like it always does.. never really finding what I want.. until I saw this baby....

The most UGLY/BEAUTIFUL piece of furniture ever!

It was exactly what I was looking for! I have been looking for something with this kind of shape for quite a few months and everything I saw was always over 100bucks and I never wanted to fork out that much just to redo it.

Again, MY LUCKY DAY!!

I paid less than half of that for this beauty.

I couldn't figure out what to do with it but I figured i would sand it down while I was in the process of thinking.

Girls room?

Our room?

Entertainment center?

I finally decided that the area we needed it most was right under our TV!

Then onto deciding the color... I had a hard time..

Red?

Green?

Grey?

Finally I figured that we probably wouldn't want a big piece like that to be so red that it would drown out the rest of the room so BLUE it was!

I found the color I wanted at Wal-Mart kilzed it and painted it until almost 1in the morning! I let it dry overnight and we put it in our family room this morning and this is how it turned out...

I am so IN LOVE with this set up!

Of all the projects I have finished in the last couple weeks I am MOST proud of this!

It livens up the whole room, hides toys and electronic cords and makes the room feel "Homey"

I just want to squeal!!

Blue Eyed Boy Meets A Brown Eyed Girl

I started writing this post last Sunday and I could never get the words right. I am not blessed with the ability to put my thoughts down on paper (or a blog) and make it understandable to the average human. So I am starting over and I hope by simplifying it it comes out the right way!

Yesterday Dale and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! We made it pretty low key because JUST Dale and I are headed to Vegas next week for 4 days and we didn't want to bug more babysitters and shove the girls away when we are going to be leaving them on Monday but luckily we got a last minute babysitter and we went to a cheap lunch and a movie! (Go see Despicable Me HILARIOUS!)

I was trying to write a big post about how Dale has bettered me in so many ways but I couldn't find the right words. So in that simple sentence, there it is!

He has brought me out of my shell, taught me how to stick up for myself more and has made me feel so much more confident in myself.

Everyone says that they have the best husband in the world. I think that is true of every ones husband. They have the husband that suits them best, the person that "completes them" for lack of a better phrase. And with the risk of sounding super cheesy.

Dale truly is my perfect match. He is the perfect husband for ME.
(Ya I know, SUPER cheesy!)

I Love you Dale. Cant wait to see what gets shoved our way in the next 5 years!