Big News!

We have big news! Ashley started crawling tonight. YEAH! I attached the video below if you want to watch her.

Here's a couple of pictures from Christmas. Ashley's Uncle Brent and future Auntie Lydia gave Ashley this enormous sheep dog stuffed animal. I had no idea they even made stuff animals this big. I don't think this picture quite does it justice, but it is huge and very furry. Ashley received many other wonderful presents and she had so much fun. Nine months is a really a fun age.

Merry Christmas!

Hi, boy time sure goes quickly! Ashley hit the 9 month mark on the 11th and she is so much fun. Here's her stats from her 9 month check up for those of you keeping track. She's still tall and skinny, just like her momma. :o) Height- 2' 5.5" and weight is 18 lbs 1 oz. Ashley is now waving bye bye a trick she learned at daycare. She has started crying now with separation anxiety when we leave her at daycare, but the ladies do a great job at distracting her while we scoot out the door. She loves to play with her toys and she loves our cat. She is SO close to crawling, and I think our cat may be what she first thing she crawls after. Work has been crazy busy for me. I have a work computer at home now and I have had to work till 11pm several nights in a row. Uck! Now I am home enjoying a week of vacation. I've been cleaning like crazy, went to a bead class, did bills, wrapped presents, have had lunch with the hubby and will do some baking tomorrow and Friday. Tomorrow I will also be enjoying lunch with my girlfriends. Vacation time sure goes quickly. This weekend starts out Christmas festivities, Saturday with my mom & brothers & crew. Sunday we are hosting Christmas for my dad's side. Monday, Christmas Eve, I have to work all day and then I will meet my family and extended family at my grams. Tuesday we will spend Christmas with the Johnson crew. Wednesday it is back to work.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Finally...an update!

Hello! Sorry it has been awhile since the last update. A quick update on my sinus infection...well, tomorrow I will take my last antibiotic pill. Yes, it has been forever that I have been battling this! In the middle of this I even had a CT scan to determine the cause of my extreme headaches that I had for 4+ weeks. The results showed a severe sinus infection...nothing I didn't already know, but a relief that nothing else was wrong. I finally started feeling better on Thanksgiving. This week has brought us new illnesses...Wednesday Ashley woke up and started choking while I was changing her diaper. I hadn't feed her, she was choking on mucus. Gross yes, but it was the scariest thing we have dealt with yet. I sat her up and screamed for Matt and we ran into the kitchen with her and held her over the sink because she had started to throw up and then finally she was able to breathe. It felt like it lasted for 5 minutes, in reality it was probably 1 minute. So scary! It took me till I arrived at work, 1 hour later to calm down from it. Well, Matt took her to daycare and we got called at 11am that she was projectile vomiting and we needed to pick her up. So Matt picked her up and I headed home so that Matt could go back to work. We ended up sleeping on the air mattress in her room that night because she was congested and gagging and had thrown up twice after I put her to bed. Yes, that means, I changed her sheets and her clothes twice in one night...as well as my clothes. Then, I was awoke around 4:30am...this time, not by Ashley, but by Matt. He was now throwing up. GOOD GRIEF- what is going on??? So, I stayed home on Thursday and took care of both my sick babies. Then, Thursday night Ashley woke up coughing and again threw up at 2:30 am- I again changed her sheets and her clothes and laid her back down. A half hour later..........it was my turn. Yep, my only guess is that we had a bad case of the stomach flu. Ashley was better by Friday so she went to daycare and Matt and I were both home sick. I actually was on my way to work and turned back for home. Good thing too, I think I was awake a total of 4 hours on Friday...and they were not a good 4 hours. YUCK! Now it's Sunday night and I think we are all feeling pretty good. WHeeeeeeew, that was a long (and gross) explanation for why it's been so long since my last update. :o)

Ok, on to a much better topic...ASHLEY!

Here's a picture of Ashley's first piano lessons. Grandma Sue is a great instructor. This is a new hobby Ashley is taking on in her spare time between diaper changes, eating, sleeping and playing with her toys.













Ha Ha!
A striking resemblance don't you think? (For those of you that are wondering...yes, the picture on the right is one of the Munchkin's from the Wizard of Oz)

















As can be seen from the picture on the left, Ashley has officially outgrown her infant seat. The picture to the right is Ashley in her new car seat. She loves her new seat and all of the room she has. She will stay in this car seat till she is 50 pounds.


While I was cleaning up from supper and washing bottles etc, Matt was hanging out with Ashley. I went back into our bedroom to find them like this. Matt had taken my tins and set them all around Ashley like drums. Note she even has a spoon to play on her drums with. This was a big hit with her and she made her daddy very proud. In fact, some of you may know Matt used to play the drums and we even have them set up in our office. Matt has always told me- the reason we continue to hang on to them is for our children. Well, Ashley does love banging on the tins, so perhaps some day she will be a drummer. This picture was taken on 11/19, which was also another milestone day for Ashley- her second tooth appeared!

Here's a picture of Ashley on Thanksgiving morning. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but Ashley wasn't feeling good on Thanksgiving. This would be the first day I experience projectile vomiting. Not a good experience. I will remember Thanksgiving 07 as the year I cleaned a lot of floors.

Thanksgiving wasn't a total bust- we did get to take a picture of 4 generations.

This picture was taken on Sunday 11/25. I had gone to church and out for breakfast with a girlfriend, and I came home to this. Matt had gotten Ashley ready for the day and dressed her in this cute little outfit with her black converse shoes. Too cute. He said she was so tired by the time they got home from the grocery store that she wouldn't even let him take her jacket or shoes off or put her in her sleep sack. He put her in her crib, she grabbed her blankey and rolled over- she was out.

This weekend we started decorating for Christmas. As I mentioned earlier, we weren't feeling the best, so we didn't get too far... we have a big mess of plastic totes and a half decorated tree, but I did manage to snap a cute picture of Ashley with daddy.

8 Months Old Today!!

A couple of weekends ago when I walked in to get Ashley from her nap, her face and hair were covered in puke. This is what she looked like after I attempted to clean it out of her hair. I laughed and ran for the camera. Then she got a bath. You may also notice that she has a blankey in her crib. I got her a blankey a couple of weekends ago and now they are inseparable at nap time. She just loves her blankey.

Another picture from a couple of weeks ago. Matt decided to take the canoe out for some evening fishing.

Matt bought Ashley a pair of Converse tennis shoes. Now you may be thinking…why is she wearing just a onesie and her tennis shoes? Well, if you’ll notice this picture was taken on Halloween…and if you recall from my Halloween posting, Matt was in charge of getting her dressed in her costume- he tought it would just be easier to leave her shoes on then to take them off and try to put them on again. :o)

This is Ashley in a cute little outfit that her Auntie Angie sent her in a Halloween care package. The teachers at daycare loved it too- they said, she gets the best dressed baby award.

This is a picture from this weekend. Doesn't she look so big? She loves flailing her toys and saying ba ba ba ba.

Here is a picture of Ashley from this morning- she's 8 months old today! She's holding her bag of hair binders and trying to decide on what color. If you look real close at her bottom lip, you can see her little tooth peeking out. I think she is working on her second tooth now as she was sent home from daycare on Thursday with a temp of 101.8. She still had a temp Friday too so again, she had to stay home. Seems crazy to pay daycare for 5 days a week because I'm not sure she's been there for a full week yet! I'm still sick too and I am now on my second round of antibiotics for my sinus infection and taking a decongestant at the same time. I have had intense headaches for about 3 weeks. Ashley and I have been to the doctor so often, they actually recognize us when we walk in the door. I'm going to have to get a second job just to pay for the co-pays!

Another picture from today. I can't believe it's already been 8 months! Where did the time go?

A Frog and a Lizard

Here's my Halloween story: I left work at 4:10 yesterday and traffic home was horrific! I didn't get home till 5:50. I called Matt when I was about10 minutes away and said, ok change Ashley into her jammies and then put on her costume so that when I get home we can just run out the door to go to your parents house. So he complains a little and says I don't know where her jammies and costume are and ahhhhh, unnnnnnnnn, ablaaaa. So I tell him exactly where everything is and hang up the phone, he's going to get her ready. Well I get home and he was just finishing getting her into her jammies and is trying to figure out how to put her costume on. So I say, Ruby's costume is in the blue room closet, you go get that and put it on her and I will dress Ashley. So I start putting on Ashley's costume and she is not happy about it. I get her costume on and I am in a mad rush trying to hurry so we can snap the ultimate halloween photo. Ashley is crying and I look over and Matt is still trying to get the costume on Ruby. So I say, here, take Ashley and I will put Ruby's costume on. So finally both of them are dressed, Ashley is still crying and Ruby has the look of terror on her face and is wondering what on earth is on her back and laying on her head (her costume). So we snap a few pictures of crying kid & terrified dog and then rush out to the kitchen to put Ashley in her car seat so that we can quickly go see grandparents before she goes to bed. While Matt is getting her in the car seat, I have to quick wash a bottle and measure formula so we can feed her when we get there. So I am doing that and Ashley is screaming bloody murder in her car seat. Matt decides that the costume is choking her and takes her back out. I said, ok, take the top part of the costume down and put her back in the car seat. So he does that but she still's screaming, I look at the clock and yep, she's starving, so... we take her back out of the car seat, take her costume backoff, take the costume off Ruby and stop to feed Ashley. Ok, finally done feeding Ashley and time to put her costume back on. Since it didn't go well the first time, I decide, I am going to take off her jammies so the costume fits better. Ok, take off jammies put on costume, put Ashley back in the car seat, pack diaper bag, grab ruby- put her in her costume, leave the house! Wpheeeeeeeew- that was a lot work. Arrive and Grandpa and Grandmas, and of course Ashley is seconds away from falling asleep. TRICK OR TREAT!! Grandpa and Grandma had a teddy bear for Ashley and she did surprisingly well even though it was past bed time, but good grief, what an exhausting crazy evening! I'm sure we could have won the $10,000 prize on America's Funniest Video's had this all been captured on film. THE END.

Kisses & Pigtails!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, kisses for Daddy! This is one of Ashley's new tricks. For 7 1/2 months we have been smothering her with kisses and now she has started to give them back! Within the last two weeks, Ashley has also started to reach her arms up when she wants you to pick her up. It is so much fun to have a baby that responds back with arms up in the air and kisses- it just keeps getting better and better!

Here's a picture of Ashley doing some "tummy time". She is getting close to crawling now, she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth.

Matt and Ashley enjoying some afternoon sun in the back yard.

Friday morning I woke up and the lake was so calm and it had beautiful reflections. It was a perfect Fall morning. I had both Thursday and Friday off this week. I used my time off to get a few things done around the house and to recuperate from my sinus infection and pink eye. YEP, now I am the sick one. I suppose after two months of someone coughing and sneezing on you, you are bound to catch the crud too. I went to the Doc on Monday and was given antibiotics. After 7 days on the meds, I am finally starting to feel better. I wasn't sure I was going to make it! I felt horrible and to think this is what my baby has been feeling like and we can't give her any medicine. Poor baby!

Another awesome picture of the lake reflections taken on Friday evening.

Yesterday while Matt was shopping in Forest Lake, he picked up some little rubber bands so I could put pigtails in Ashley's hair. Too cute! She also discovered clapping her hands together on Saturday. It is so fun to watch her clap them together as she stares at her hands in amazement.


Ashley with pigtails!

Saturday night Matt and I went out with a group of friends for some Halloween festivities. On short notice Grandpa J came over to watch movies while Ashley slept soundly in her crib. Thanks Grandpa! As I am finishing typing Ashley is sitting on the floor next to me and she just said MAMA! When I looked at her and said, did you just say ma ma, she clapped her hands with a big smile! I think I will go wake up Matt to tell him the news.

7 Months Old

These pictures crack me up! All I can say is, evil eyes, evil eyes, RUBY! Guess I know were I rate!

Our little pumpkin is 7 months old already! Pictured above on the left is a picture of Ashley on her 7 month birthday. To the right is a picture of her at 3 weeks old. Do the outfits look similar? Good eye! Obviously different sizes but yes, the same outfit! Lucky for me, it was one of my favorites when she was first born and low and behold, her second cuz Riley thought it was cute too and that Ashley should have it!

On Sunday, we all headed to Grandma Terry's for family dinner and our annual trip to the pumpkin patch! Although Ashley wasn't feeling well at all, we were able to snap a few pictures before heading back to the house for Grandpa Randy's famous hot apple crisp with ice-cream. Ashley is still sick you say? Yes! Going on week 5 of having cold. 5 Weeks! Funny- that is the exact same amount of time she has been in daycare. Hmphhhhhhhh. Love the new daycare- hate all of the germs. My friends who's kiddos are also in daycare warned me...they say, expect 2 years of it! GOOD Heavens- really?!! Poor baby! Poor Momma!

Daddy was thrilled to snuggle up with Ashley at the pumpkin patch and made sure she stayed warm in his coat!

Here is Ashley's exploring pumpkins for the first time! As you can see, the only way to really test a pumpkin out to see if it's a keeper is by giving it a good lick!

More Pictures!

Last weekend, Matt and I took Ashley to have her 6 month pictures taken. The ladies at Kiddie Kandids do such a good job. Although, Ashley still had her cold and was working on that tooth coming in so she wasn't all too enthused about this photo session.