The Moon!!

We went up to Chimacum last weekend for Grace's 1st birthday party. Wow! What a crowd, that girl really knows how to throw a party! Ashlyn was a little overwhelmed by all the people and was pretty shy for most of the party. It takes her a while to get warmed up to people. We were able to spend some time outside because the weather cooperated for once. Ashlyn loves to be outside!

The drive up wasn't quite as fun. Two hours in to our four hour drive Ashlyn got car sick and threw up all over herself and the car seat. There's nothing quite like being on the side of the freeway with cars driving by at 80 miles an hour and having to strip your kid down to her diaper when she's covered in puke. Thank goodness I had a travel pack of Clorox wipes in my purse that Jered used to clean the car seat. I wiped Ashlyn down with some diaper wipes and put clean pj's on her but the puke smell did not go away. We stopped at Target in Gig Harbor for some air freshener and that helped a little bit but it took a few days for the smell to go away. So we had to wash the car seat pads and give Ashlyn a bath before the party. Jered left the car seat outside over night and let the rain wash it all away! :o) Its never been so clean!!

We're getting ready for our trip to San Francisco! I'm getting pretty excited! We're leaving Ashlyn with my mom for FOUR days!! This will be there first time we've left her for more than just overnight. I know I'm going to miss her but I'm really looking forward to taking a trip with just Jered. We'll get to SF on Friday afternoon and Jered will probably want to do some last minute cramming for his test (the whole reason we're going is for Jered to take his California survey license) but we'll also get to go out to dinner and have a few drinks by ourselves! Saturday morning will be Jered's test and I'll get to sleep in. Saturday afternoon we're going to do a little sight seeing, we've been to SF before so we'll hit our favorite spots. Then Saturday night we've already got tickets for the Alcatraz Night tour. I'm excited for this one! All the times we went to SF and we've never done Alcatraz. One of my friends said the Night tour was awesome, a little freaky and really really cool. Then on Sunday we're going to drive over to Sonoma and do a little wine tasting. We're going to go to Francis Ford Coppola's winery and another one that has had its sparkling wines served at the White House for the last four presidents. We've got plans for four or five places, depending on how we feel. We're going to do the LONG drive back to Portland all in one day. We may regret it but its the only way we can get optimum days of free time! I've already got the itinerary done and its got addresses for the first opportunity to stop In-n-Out (Redding, CA) and others along the route. I fully plan to get my double-double fix while we're down there!

After our SF trip we'll be getting ready for our trip to Hawaii. I've been busting my butt at the gym for 3 months now and haven't lost a pound but I'm still trying. It gets a little discouraging to be working out and not see results but my friends at work help out by making go on days when I don't feel like going. I figure even if I'm not losing any weight at least its good for my heart! That's what I tell myself about wine too!!
Here's a few pictures:

The brightest moon we'll see for the next 20 years. It was pretty bright!

I'm getting my nails cut. I'm not really sure why Mommy thought I needed my picture taken.

I had a blue lollipop at Grace's party and my tongue turned blue too!!

Terrible Two's???

There are days I'm not really sure where my adorable, squeezable, sweet, funny little baby girl went. It seems her little three foot body has been invaded by a bossy, opinionated, naughty, loud, too grown-up for her mama girl! Tonight at dinner she was telling me she doesn't like eggs as she's shoveling as many as possible into her mouth. "I don't like those eggs Mommy!" "I DON'T WANT BUTTER ON MY BREAD DADDY!!" "I can do it myself!" "I said, I can do it myself!" "Mommy what are you doing? Come here right now!"

Me: "Ashlyn please do not bang your feet on the chair at the dinner table." Looking me right in the eye as she continues to bang her legs on the chair she says, "I'm banging! I'm banging my legs!" "Don't hold my legs Daddy! Don't Daddy! Ahhhh!"

This morning in the car we're waiting at the tracks for the train to go by and we can hear it before we see it. Ashlyn: "What's that noise Mommy?" Me: "That's the WES train honey." Ashlyn in a very serious voice: "No its not. Its not the WES train Mommy." Jered: "Yes it is the train Ashlyn." Ashlyn: "No its not Daddy!"

Then when we least expect it we get "I love you Mommy!" "I love you Daddy!" Me: "I love you too baby!!" My sweet babygirl!

Busy busy busy.....

We have been so busy lately! We've been helping out with Mom and Eddie move. Then my cousins from South Carolina visited with their new baby boy Noah, and he sure is a cutie! I think we've only one weekend at home since before Christmas. It sounds crazy now that I sit here and think about it. We just always have something to do. We have managed to have quite a bit of fun too! We went out to the wine shop in Forest Grove with our friends a few weekends ago. We also went out with all of my friends from work to celebrate one of us having a baby! We met up with our friends Arrin and Wendy for dinner too. Jered used to work with Arrin at WRG. We'll be going to their wedding in Sept in Kauai! <3 ;o)

Ashlyn is growing like a little weed! She is too smart for her mommy and daddy thats for sure! She locked me out of the house this morning. I was loading the car at my mom's to head back to Portland, I heard her slam the front door closed, which is something she loves to do. When I tried the door handle, she had turned the deadbolt. I didn't even know she knew how to do that! Unfortunately, she didn't know how to do turn it back. Good thing mom has a hide a key outside!! First lesson after I got back inside was to teach her how to unlock the deadbolt as well as lock it!

She loves to sing and loves to make mommy and/or daddy sing with her. She sings her ABCD's (not ABC's), Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Baa Baa Black Sheep are a few of her favorites! She loves to count and is even learning to count in spanish. She is very strong willed and stubborn (wonder where she gets that?). She wants to do everything herself, by herself! She loves to sit at her table having tea parties. She loves to read books (we just get tired of reading the same ones over and over)!

We've started going to the local pool on my days off and she is loving it! She gets braver and braver every time. When she gets a little older we'll probably do formal swim lessons but for now the open swim is enough. We're getting excited about our trip to Hawaii in May. Every time Ashlyn sees or hears an airplane she says its going to Hawaii! She also loves to see school buses and now knows the difference between the city bus and a school bus. She loves animals and we get to see quite a few cows, horses and sheep on our drive from Monroe to Portland.

A few pictures now and maybe a video or two soon......

Hanging with Uncle Keith at the state wrestling tournament

I was really sick a couple of weeks ago. Mommy and Daddy had to take time off work to stay home with me. I had a fever for three days and just felt yucky! I bounced back quick though!!

The very next week I was playing at the mall

Face first down the slide.......

That was FUN!!!

Showing off my Ducks shirt!!

Hanging with Grandpa Terry at SkateWorld

Time to sing Happy Birthday to Macy!!!

Videos!!!

Ashlyn singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Counting

Singing a song from school. Everyday they do 'circle time' and the first part of circle time is sing everyone's name. "Ashlyn's here today! Ashlyn's here today! We are happy, Ashlyn's here today!" Pretty cute!

Pictures.....

We've been helping Mom and Eddie for the last couple of months get their new house ready to move in to. Well this last weekend was move-in day! Mom lived in the Farm House for 35 years. Yes, you read that correctly...thirty five years!! Eddie has been there for about 10 years. So the two of them have accumulated a lot of crap! Oh Em Gee!! We made a good dent in the stuff at their house and they are officially now living in the new house. Thank goodness my cousin Melody was around to help us out, I couldn't have done it without her. My cousin Susie watched all the girls for us, my cousins Kourtney and Ashley helped out too. It was definitely a family affair! It was overwhelming for all of us and quite emotional for Mom. I didn't have time to be emotional about it, I wanted to get as much work done as possible while we were there. I came home today and Jered had to come home yesterday so we only had a couple of days to get it all done. I haven't lived there for 14 years, so its not as emotional for me, but we did have some really great times in that house. I grew up there. My best friend, my cousin Traci and I have tons of memories there. My mom let us do whatever we wanted when we were growing up, even make deep fried ice cream! We made donuts, we baked All-Bran muffins (my favorites before the whole gluten free thing ruined it for me!), we cooked whatever we wanted too. We rode 3-wheelers all summer long then would rush home to do all the chores that Mom had written on her daily note to me. Those notes are too funny! They always started out "Good Morning!" and ended with what time she'd be home and "Love, Mom" Traci and I still laugh about those notes! We had the run of the farm growing up. We rode our bikes or our 3-wheelers all over the place! We'd scrounge up 35 cents so we could get a bottle of pop most days. I'm happy for Mom and Eddie though that they will have a nice new house, they deserve it!

So here's some pictures!

Valentine dinner at Applebee's

Wearing Mommy's Ugg boots

I like to crawl into things. This is Grandpa's TV stand, I fit pretty well!

Sleeping in the car

I"m TWO!!!!

A couple of pictures:

 Mommy took my picture today at Fred Meyer!

 On Saturday at Home Depot, waiting on Daddy....

Having sushi with mommy the other day.

Its my party and I'll cry if I want to....

We had a busy week and weekend! Jered and I had a date on Friday night, we all went to the horse races on Sat, then had Ashlyn's party on Sun.

I had a flat tire when I came out of work on Tues. Flat as could be! I called Jered to come help with the spare. Thank goodness he's so handy! That same day I'd had to go get Ashlyn early from school...she had pink eye. Ugh!! One of the kids in the class next to hers had it, we got an email the day before and of course Ashlyn got it too. We started the eye drops that night because they have to have 24 hours of drops before you can go back to school. I was off Wed and planning to go see Jered's cousin's new baby. Unfortunately I couldn't take my kid and her pink eye to see the new baby so we went to Les Schwab for about an hour and a half instead to get our tire fixed. Joy! Ashlyn already had a doctor's appt scheduled for Wed and she confirmed our diagnoses of pink eye. Ashlyn is growing, growing, growing! She weighs 28.6 lbs and she's 35 inches tall. She also has a big head, in the 90th percentile still. She screamed the entire time we were at the doctor. We couldn't believe it! She gave dagger eyes to the doctor too. Only slightly embarrassing. We had to switch doctors because our regular doctor moved to a different clinic. She's so untrusting of people she doesn't know. And it takes her a while to warm up to new people. This was the first time she didn't have to have any shots and the first time she acted like a little banshee.

Friday night our friend Wiley came over to our house to stay with Ashlyn so that Jered and I could go out. She is so cool and we appreciate it so much! This is the second time she's babysat for us. We went to a nice little wine bar in Multnomah Village. We drank a lot of wine and ate only a little, super delicious food. I think its a place we'll definitely go back to. We had a lot of fun and didn't even talk about Ashlyn until the ride home.

Saturday we went to the horse races with Will and Justin and Ashlyn had so much fun! She loved all the horses. We were able to walk back where they get the horses ready so she could see them up close. When they'd line up for the race, she'd say "Where'd the horses go Mommy?" and we'd point them out to her as they ran around the track. She'd watch them all the way to the finish line. We were pretty close to the airport, so she saw a lot of airplanes too. "Look Daddy, there's airplane! Look Mommy, I see airplane!" Then there were tractors to grade the track. She had a super fun day!

Sunday was her birthday party at our house. I had baked the two cakes the night before and Jered got up at 4am to marinate the ribs, then again at 8am to put them on the smoker. I made the frosting and decorated the cakes that morning too. The cake turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself. The actual cake was a little dry but it looked darn cute! Ashlyn was a little crabby for her party. She had not had much nap time and she can be a bear when she doesn't get enough sleep. Plus she fell off her chair and hit her chin a couple of hours before the party started, bit her tongue and was bleeding. Oh boy, what a day! It takes her a while to warm up to people too, so having a bunch of people over was a little overwhelming for her. She liked opening her presents though (even though we requested no gifts, none of her grandparents followed the rules!)

Yesterday we visited Jered's cousin, his wife and new baby. I have lunch with Adrienne every few weeks and had been wanting to go over and meet little baby Louie! He is adorable of course, but Ashlyn wasn't too sure about her Mama holding a baby. When I was holding him, she kept asking, "Up please Mommy! Up Please!" She was just a little jealous :o)

 Grammy and Grandpa took us all out to dinner at Outback for painting their house. It was pretty yummy and I got a free ice cream because it was my birthday!

Mommy and I had to wait at Schwabie's for our tire to get fixed

 Mommy and Daddy took me to see the horse races this weekend. It was so much fun! I got to see lots of horses and they run really fast!

 This is the invite that Mommy for my birthday party. She said No gifts and everyone listened except all of my grandparents!

This is the outside of the invite....Mommy used her one crafty hair to do this! 

 This is the cake that Mommy made me. She said the sheet cake was a little dry but the bug was really good. She made red velvet for the bug. My favorite was the ice cream, I love ice cream!

The delicious ribs daddy made in the smoker/bbq. Everyone thought they were pretty yummy!!