Long time no blogging....

I know its been a long time since I've blogged and posted new pictures. I have tons of pics still in the camera to download from the last few weeks, I've just been really lazy! I will get to it..... I promise....hopefully tomorrow???

Jered's new job is going great. He's really liking it and settling in well. Its sounds like its pretty stable which is awesome. They hired him as a Project Manager even though they were only looking for a survey tech. He went to school with his boss, which just proves it pays to have connections. The only negative is the commute. The job is in Vancouver and we live in Beaverton so he's driving about 30 miles each way. He says its not too bad though and he gets reverse flow of traffic. I'm just really happy to be getting a paycheck again and so is our savings account, which took a pretty huge hit during the 3 month summer vacation Jered took! I start to get real nervous and anxious when our savings account gets below a certain level, so now its time to start building it up again :)

Work for me is the same as ever. People are still sick and people are still pregnant, job security! I worked graveyard shift last night for a little overtime. I was not excited about it but then I thought about our too empty savings and went to work. What can I say? I'm a glutton!

Ashlyn is doing awesome!! I really do think she's the best kid ever :) She's so darn funny sometimes and makes us laugh every day. Before you have kids you never really get it. Now that we have Ashlyn, we can't imagine life without her and love her more and more each day. Watching her grow and learn is so amazing. Just 5 minutes ago she climbed up on the seat of  her train, stood up and laughed out loud because she was so proud of herself. This kid has no fear of heights, she loves to climb on things, she loves to run and jump on the couch or our bed. She loves to run back and forth on the benches on the deck. She's super curious and wants to look behind every door, cupboard, curtain. She loves to look at books and be read to. She loves music and to dance. She shakes her little booty and especially likes it when we dance with her. She loves to color and use pen and paper. Her language skills are exploding. She almost always says please when asking for something, though still needs a little prompting. Usually includes the thank you and even sometimes your welcome after you give her what she wants.She is repeating everything we say and I mean everything. Her retention is surprising me everyday too. We drive over the Marquam bridge every evening to get home and lately every time we're over the river she yells "Big Boat!". I don't think she can see any boats except we did see a big boat a couple of weeks ago when crossing the bridge and now relates the bridge to big boats. She repeats (sometimes a thousand times a day) "Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy!" The first time she told me "Wuv you" I got teary. She is getting very bossy and will hold her hand up to the dogs and say "STOP" when they are getting too close. If they're in her way she says "beep beep" and pushes her way right through. They rarely move out of her way, its almost like they're saying hey we were here fist, you can go around! She is seriously stubborn and independent. She does not need nor want your help, especially when eating. If you try to help her eat something she'll just refuse to eat it all together. She can be super picky but almost always eats her fruits and veggies. Wee Care was super excited the other day when she ate a few bites of a hamburger and Jered and I were excited when she ate some spaghetti at Glady and Floyd's. We don't push it, we just put it on her plate and she either eats it or doesn't. Some of her favorites are grapes, raspberries, blueberries, raisins, peas, green beans, potatoes, bananas. She loves to play games, one of her new favorites is hide and seek. She loves to 'find' us and loves for us to chase her. This kid loves to run and will yell "run" when we're walking outside. She loves to be outside! She's still a really great sleeper and when she's ready for bed will say "nigh night, nigh night" until you put her to bed. She hates to brush her teeth, hates to have her hair rinsed, hates to get her hair done in the mornings. She's also started to be really shy with people she doesn't know or hasn't seen in a while.

We spent Labor Day in Bend with Jered's cousin Cole and his girlfriend Neva. Ashlyn stayed with Grammy and Grandpa and Macy and Bailey. She was running a bit of a fever most of the weekend so I felt a little guilty leaving her with my mom but mom said she did fine. Jered and I had an awesome time in Bend! We watched the football game and went out to two different bars Sat. night. I don't remember the last time we went bar-hopping! And we were up way past midnight! On Sunday we attempted to do some fishing but really just went driving around some lakes on the other side of Mt Bachelor and did some shooting before meeting up with Jillian and Pieter in town for lunch. After lunch we headed back to Cole's place and we played some sort of frisbee game in the backyard. I really hate frisbee, seriously! But I did play one round with Jered before we headed inside to play the best game ever....Categories! My stomach hurt from laughing! We hadn't laughed so much or had so much fun in a while. It was a really great weekend and we were so glad we ended up going.

We got the chance to see Kari and Grace the other day. We hadn't seen them in a while, they were down for overnight at Grandma K's so we went down for dinner. Grace has changed so much. She is getting so big! Looks just like John too.

Ok so tomorrow....hopefully....pictures :)