Finally.....

Cool Kid in my new sunglasses my mama got me!

 

                      With my daddy waiting to go on my first bike ride!

                                           The slide was my favorite part!!

Playing on the treadmill. This is probably my new favorite toy. Daddy put it in the living room so they'd use it more :)

                                                I love to go off belly first!

Grandma Patsy rocking me to sleep. She stayed at my house for a few days and it was a lot of fun. I hope she'll come again soon

This is my Aunt Jenny. I didn't go to the party but Mama said it was real fun. She's wearing a fake sombrero and everyone sang happy birthday to her.

Visitors....

We have a lot of visitors this last week. Steve stayed with us last Thurs night and then Patsy came on Friday until yesterday. We have been busy busy! And Ashlyn has been loving it! Although she is startint to really let us know when she is unhappy! We did a little shopping this weekend, we visited with Grandma and Grandpa Lenhardt. Jered and I went to Spirit Mtn to celebrate Aunt Jenny's 50th birthday. I lost all of my $20 at the Blackjack table. We even went to the Winterhawks game Mon night. Whew!

This week is pretty busy for us as well. We had dinner last night with Grandma and Grandpa Lenhardt. Jered has a late meeting Thurs night and then on Friday night Jered got us suite tickets to Michael Buble!!! Yay! I'm so excited I can hardly wait! We're spending Easter in Chimacum with Kari and John and we finally get to meet Grace. She is so darn cute and I'll have lots of pictures of her when we come home.

I did find my camera but haven't had much time download the pics to my computer. Hopefully tonight since this is our only free night this week. I've got some really cute ones of Ashlyn from our bike ride a couple of weeks ago.

New Addition......

Ashlyn has a new cousin! Grace Lynn was born last night, Jan 24. I only have info passed through Jered so I hope these stats are correct :)  9lbs 4oz 20 inches! The great thing is that Patsy got here on the 23rd so she was able to be there. Plus Steve will be there today! I remember being excited that everyone came to the hospital and was so happy and excited to meet Ashlyn. Its a really special time. We are planning to either go up there this Sunday, or see them when Kari and family are come down for Easter. Either way we're all super excited to meet Grace and of course check on Mom and Dad too!

It seems like we've been really busy lately, but I'm not sure what we've been doing! Ashlyn is awesome as usual. She's been running all over the place! Trying to get faster and faster at walking. When she gets going too fast though, she falls face first and it doesn't make her too happy. Now that she's walking she's getting knocked over by the dogs more often too. Usually she just gets right back, sometimes she glares at them and cries a little or a lot! She'll occassionally sign to us (this means rarely and usually after we've signed to her a dozen or more times) more, milk, eat, bath. I think she knows what they mean but she's just stubborn and doesn't want to do the sign because when we do it to her she gets very excited and says "yeah, yeah, yeah". We're trying to teach her all the basic signs.

We took her for her first bike ride last weekend. We ordered a bike seat and helmet, safety first! She wasn't too hip on the helmet or the sunglasses I bought her. Once we got the helmet all situated (about half way through) she was much happier to be able to look out from behind Jered.

She's been pretty upset the last few days. She's been pretty constipated, poor thing. Her little belly is all bloated and hard. We've been giving her lots of fruit and water lately but its not working. We've been rubbing her belly, doing bicycles with her legs. Hopefully it works itself out soon, because she's been miserable!

I'll have pictures of our bike ride as soon as I find the camera!  :o)

Girls Weekend

I had a great four day weekend! Unfortunately Jered had to work, so it was just Ashlyn and I down at my mom's house. We had a great time visiting with relatives and hanging out.

We drove down Friday to Eugene for my cousin Steve's wedding. What a great wedding! We stayed overnight at the hotel they got married at and Ashlyn stayed with my mom. It was only our second time ever leaving Ashlyn overnight. We were back to my mom's house before 24 hours had even passed! Jered had to come back to Portland to work all weekend but Ashlyn and I stayed in Monroe. Saturday we went over to my cousin's house to hang out and then out for Mexican food. Sunday we took Ashlyn to this indoor bouncy place in Corvallis with my Aunt Jen, cousin Traci and her son Dylan . It was so fun! Ashlyn loved it until the end when I think her belly was starting to hurt because she was a little constipated. She had a lot of fun on the slide and watching the other kids bounce around. Especially her cousin Dylan and Aunt Jen. We had lunch first and we ran into my high school science teacher. I hadn't seen her in at least 10 years! After visiting with my dad, stepmom and brother that afternoon, we had a delicious dinner of pork roast that my mom. My cousins Melody, Kourtney, Randy and Arie came over too. Today we went over to Traci and Dylan's in the morning and then to see Rachel and Kenzee for lunch at Cafe Yumm! We were busy busy! The worst part for Ashlyn was the ride home in the carseat. She is real tired of the carseat. Its time to get her into a forward facing one.

Even though I really missed Jered, it was really nice to hang out with my girlfriends, my aunt and my cousins and of course my mom. Jered said the house felt weird. He was here two nights without Ashlyn and I or the dogs. He got a lot of work done though and was still able to play pool with one of his friends from college. His big project is coming to an end this week, so we'll pray for another big job. If they don't get another one soon, they could be pretty slow again.

So Ashlyn's big news this weekend......She's WALKING!! :)  She started shuffling around a little bit Wed and Thurs. She's really been practicing this weekend and is getting around pretty good.  She's very careful and doesn't go too fast, she really doesn't like to fall on her butt. Before we know it she'll be running.

Mama and cousin Traci at the wedding

The happy new couple...Krissy and Steve

Cousin Dylan showing off his dance moves! Looking pretty sharp in his tux too!

 

 Uncle Larry, Aunt Jenny and Grandpa Terry

  

Me and Mama in the bouncy house! It was so much fun!

  

Coming down the slide, I was scared at first but then I loved it!

 

Taking a bath with cousin Arie. Mama thinks she must be my fourth cousin. My mama and Arie's mama are second cousins. Daddy thinks its crazy that Mama's family is so close we have second cousin, fourth cousins is even crazier. That's what it like though coming from the Ballard family.

Post and Pictures....

I know its been a while since I posted. I have excuses....I've been tired! The Olympics about took it out of me. Jered and I stayed up late almost every night watching it. Loved it! We were up till almost midnight many nights in row. I just can't handle that anymore, definently not like college when we did it all the time! Jered's still been working a lot of overtime. Looks great when his paycheck comes but Ashlyn and I really miss him when he's not here. On the nights that he works late I feel like I don't get any chance to even sit down until Ashlyn goes to bed. She wants all of our attention these days!

Jered's dad was here for a couple of weeks and it was great to visit with him. It took a little time for Ashlyn to warm up to him. She's very aware these days of the people she knows and doesn't know. She has a bit of a shy side. After a bit though she warms up and is ready to play.

She is growing so much. I think she's getting taller, although Jered would probably disagree with me. When I visit her sometimes at WeeCare I watch her playing with the other kids and she is so much bigger than most of them. They are all right around her age too. Just within a few months of each other. Though I do think they've moved some kids up to the next class and she's one of the oldest in her class. Still she's a giant next to most of them! She's been doing a little shuffle/walk lately and today when I visited her she actually made some forward motion! I think we can call it walking :o) I can't wait to have her do it for Jered. We tried this weekend to have her walk between but she wasn't really having it.

She has decided the only vegetable she'll on most days is peas. She loves her some peas right now. She completely ignores carrots and green beans which used to be her favorite. She loves fruit and bananas are one of her favorites right now. Grilled cheese is her dinner of choice, she's not a big fan of pasta. She really doesn't like any sort of casserole thing. She doesn't like her hands getting too messy. Though she loves Grandma Glady's cream cheese potato casserole. We went down for dinner a while back and she ate two helpings of it. She also loved the apple bar that she shared with her Daddy. She loves scrambled eggs, bread and any sort of cookie or cracker. She switched over to whole milk with no problems. The gluten thing seems to be going pretty good. We'll do the blood at her 18 month appt.

The weekend after my birthday we went out to dinner and then to a bar to listen to a band with some friends. Jered and I were both really looking forward to it. He asked an old co-worker of his to watch Ashlyn so that we could relax and have a good time. We were the last ones standing and made it past midnight so that was pretty good for us these days. It was nice to be out with adults (even if those adults were pretty boring that night) and we both had a lot of fun. Last weekend we went to a housewarming party for Jered's boss and she was the hit of the party. Of course she didn't want to sleep in the pack-n-play we brought for her until she just wore herself out and couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. She likes being where all the action is.

We've been doing a little gardening and Ashlyn loves to be outside with us. Last weekend we went out to the winery that we're members at and she had so much fun watching people. She gets to go for walks with us at work on the nice days and when she doesn't fall asleep she enjoys looking at the cars passing by and any other people out walking. She's so funny these days. She teases and laughs and loves interacting. She's just so darn lovable sometimes I can't take it. I just want to squeeze her and never let go. Of course she pushes me away most times, she's got things to do! She does like to cuddle though when she's tired and I love those times too. She's still loving bathtime. She bathes in the big tub these days and loves to move all over the place. She really likes to stand up, but is quickly learning that its not ok with Mom and Dad. She is starting to understand a lot of the sign language we use with her. When we ask her if she wants to eat, if she wants some milk, or is ready for the bath she gets really excited. Very rarely she'll do the sign for milk but I never know if she's asking for milk or signing bye bye. She is on a one nap a day schedule most days now. She gets to be a little crabbier or clingy in the evenings sometimes but overall she'll still her happy go lucky self.


Birthday photo shoot!! Mama was gonna take me to JCP like she usually does but she was real sick for a while and didn't feel like it. So we did it at home instead :)

Red dress Grammie got me for Christmas. I didn't want to sit still for Mama, rolling around was way more fun!
Don't I look sweet?
Looks can be deceiving...I was way done with the photo shoot!

Oh please tell me she's not going to change my outfit...again! I'd rather go naked!!

This is Mama's gluten free birthday cake her friend Dawn made for her. It was real yummy! She gave me lots of bites.
Outside gardening with Mama and Daddy. They put in new roses.

I got to play in my walker while they dug around in the dirt!

I pretty much LOVE being outside and this was one of the most beautiful days yet.

Picking up the wine, lots of fun!

The back of my birthday that everyone at my party signed for me......

This is the front. Didn't Mama do a great job?