Ashley Jane is TWO years old today!!!

Here is Ashley at the Celebration of the Lakes festival on 1/31/09. Ashley and I drove the truck over to the festival and we met Daddy over there on the 4-wheeler. It was a beautiful weekend with temps in the 40's. The three of us cruised around on the 4-wheeler and watched the different events. We also stopped to visit Uncle Dennis, Auntie Marianne and lil' cousin Jacob at their ice house. In the picture above, Ashley is holding "Flat Dougie". Flat Dougie was a replica of Ashley's cousin Dougie. Dougie's school class is reading the book Flat Stanley who gets flattened and goes on wild adventures. Dougie sent us a letter that said he was flattened by 100 watermelons (that weren't ripe) and that we were to take "Flat Dougie" on adventures with us. Anyhoo, Ashley and Flat Dougie became the best of friends.

Another beautiful winter day. We played outside and we drilled a few icefishing holes right in front of our house. We didn't catch any fish though. During early February Ashley continued to battle colds which turned into viral pneumonia. I had her to the doctor 3 times in one week because her condition keep worsening. She's become a pro at the doctors office. She knows the routine of getting weighed then walking back to the room. She even marched right behind the technician on the way to get x-rays like she owned the place. She knows where all of the stickers and cans with trinkets are at the doctors office too. Anyway, we were then referred to St. Paul Asthma & Allergy and had our appt with them on 2/9. They did the "scratch test" on Ashley which consisted of my mom and I pinning Ashley's arms and legs down while the nurse pricked her back with around 20 different allergens. We then had to wait for 20 minutes for the results. Turned out that she was not allergic to any of the items they tested for, like dogs, cats, ragweed, dust mites etc.


Here we are right after the procedure.


Here is a closer view. They marked her back with pen and then pricked her. Then they checked back in 20 minutes to see if she reacted like I mentioned above. So the doctor came to the conclusion that Ashley has non-allergic rhinitis. He said he didn't think she had Asthma or she should have gotten better with the multiple meds she was taking. So, he took her off all of the asthma meds and put her on Nasonex, which is a nasal spray. Yes, you read correctly, a nasal spray...with a two year old. So, now I was done doing nebulizer meds with her but now I have to figure out how to get a nasal spray into her nose. Needless to say, the first week was rough...a lot of meds in the eye and on the cheek and a lot of restraining and pinning down. Now she simply sits on the couch and lets me spray it into her nose. I do her first nostril and then she says all done and I say, nope, one more and then I do the second and she says all done and I say yep!! Good job honey, high five and we high five. She's such a trooper. Poor kid has been on more meds than most adults. So we go back to see two specialists for follow up appointments next week. Her nose has been dry for about 2 weeks until a few days ago when it started to run again. She hasn't had the cough but she remains rattly and sounds like a purring kitty as Allie pointed out.

Here's my happy little bather on her 23 month birthday.

Daycare has started braiding Ashley's hair so this is what it looked like when we took the braids out before bath time. One day when I picked Ashley up from school she ran to me and told me she had "rockstar hair". The ladies at school had done all of the kids hair and told them all they looked like rock stars.

Daycare also has the kids trained to stand against the wall to have their picture taken. Usually Ashley wants to see the camera and wont let me take her picture but she cooperated with me on this day. Doesn't she look a little like Snoop Dog with those braids?

Ashley was invited to her cousin Dallas's b-day party at the Eagles Nest in Shoreview. Ashley had a blast playing in the balls and going down the slides etc. It's a fun place to go!

Here is Ashley in one of the fire trucks at Daddy's work. This is another one of the adventures that we took Flat Dougie on with us. As you can see, Ashley has Flat Dougie sitting on her lap.

Along with turning two, Ashley has started to display what I now know as the "terrible two tantrums" as can been seen in the above video. For no reason at all she will get mad and flail to the floor. She's a drama mama. As you can see from the video...she looks up to see if I am watching and then continues the drama. I try to remember my mom's advice of when she or kids act like that and you just want to scream its time to slow down and just love them up. Give them hugs and attention even if you feel like you'd rather lock them in the crib in their room.

What else is new? On February 14th we bought Ashley a toddler bed from the child consignment shop in town. She was SO excited about her "new bed". We let her sleep in it that night and I cranked the baby monitors so that I would hear if she fell out or got up and it was quiet as could be. I checked on her before I went to bed and I found her sleeping on the middle of her floor. So either she slid out or she got up and didn't know what to do so she just laid in the middle of her floor. I then put the mattress back into her crib and that's where she is still sleeping. I'm in no rush for her to get out of her crib. We are officially potty training. Daycare has been working with her for a few months but now she is telling us she wants to go on the potty. She goes about 50% of the time. It's pretty exciting. She gets a big smile on her face when she goes and then she says "sticker". Daycare rewards the kids with stickers when they go potty, so we do the same. Ashely's vocabulary has expanded a ton. She's a talking fool now! I've had several people comment on how well she speaks so I guess more than just Matt and I can understand her. Some of her new words or phrases she says are: "ta da" and she will tell you her name is "Ashley Johnson" she will tell you I am mommy Johnson or Sheri Johnson and Matt is daddy Johnson or Matt Johnson. She knows all of the sesame street characters and my favorite is the way she says Bert, which sounds more like Burp. She also has learned to tease me. I'll ask her to say, "I love you Mommy" and she will say, I love you Daddy! I love you Daddy! She thinks it is so funny. Also, if I kiss her she will wipe it off and I say, Ashley you better not wipe off mommy's kisses and I will kiss her again and she will wipe them off again and get the biggest smirk or she will laugh. It's a riot. It's just crazy that she has gone from one word items to talking in phrases. What's even crazier is that today, March 11th, my baby girl turned two.

Matt's a travelin' man now for work. He spent a few days in Las Vegas and has taken a few day trips to Greenbay and other places. His boss owns a few planes so they can just jet off on a moments notice if they want.