We love the sunshine!

We had a beautiful sunny day mid May and invited a few friends over for a BBQ. The kids had a blast playing in the lake and around the yard. Pictured from left to right: Henry, Gracie, Violet, Elsa and Ashley.

All this picture is missing is the noisy pop cans dragging behind and a sign that says Just Married! So cute.

Grandpa Bob, Ashley and Jacob. Jacob and Ashley had a great time chasing each other around Uncle Dennis' house. Auntie Marianne and new cousin Luke had gone back to the hospital to make sure Luke's jaundice was under control.

Girls Weekend 2010! Had a great time with the girls as usual. Weather was a bit cold and cloudy but that's never stopped us before!

Ashley with her two princess Aurora's. Ashley LOVES princess things these days.

Ashley and daddy riding on the four wheeler down on the beach. With the lake so low, we have enough beach to be able to ride the four wheeler down there! We've been waving Ashley's magic princess wand in hopes that several inches of sand would fall from the sky and cover our beach but so far our wish hasn't come true. :)

Here we are celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday!

Ashley was very excited to eat a radish from Daddy's garden. She could barely wait for me to wash the dirt off of it. I gave it to her and she took a huge bite out of it and then made the same face most people do when eating a radish. Needless to say, she ended up spitting it out in the garbage and then begging for water.

Last week Ashley asked daddy if he could take her to the "wing store". We were just as puzzled as to what a wing store was but soon learned it's where you can buy wings so you can fly just like Tinkerbell and the rest of the fairies. We took a family trip to Walmart to buy some wings and they didn't have any. After a small melt down we were able to drag her out of the store by bribing her with the Ariel princess doll and a voucher to look for wings at Target. Daddy looked online and found a cute pair of wings and told her in two school days they would be here but we never ordered them. Two school days went buy on the way home she said...it's been two days...are my wings at home? Ohhh, break my heart! So I told her in two more days we would get the wings. She was very sad that she had to wait two more days. But then, two more days went buy and I had stopped at Toys R Us and bought her wings and they came with a wand and two ponytail holders for $7. Good deal! So, I pick her up from school and while we are in her class she asked if he wings came and I told her they were in the car and she screamed with excitement and then told all of her friends and her teachers on our way out the door. Once in the car she found the package and just oogled over them. I told her she had to wait till we got home to open them. On the drive home she could barely contain her excitement or complete a sentence she was so excited. She said Mom, I am soooo excited to fly. It occurred to me then that she really believed she was going to be able to fly. Yikes...quick think of something to help explain the what if's if she couldn't' fly. Ahhh, ok, got it... So I told her, I sure hope you can fly honey but remember Tinkerbell and her friends all get magic fairy dust from Terrence and we don't have any magic fairy dust so I don't know if it will work but you can try ok? Ok mom. Then we got home. The next two video's explain what happened next.




Here's a video of Ashley telling me how excited she is about her wings.

This video is "They don't fly". Can you hear the disappointment in her voice. Oh I about cried.

Ashley's first trip to the dentist! I took her to a pediatric dentist because she has a tooth that is bugging her. She was so brave and did so good! The first appt is more or less to get the kids accustomed to the office and the process etc. They counted Ashley's teeth and they were able to get a look at the tooth that is bothering her. Because she will eventually lose all of her baby teeth Dentist Mark suggested that we just go the temporary route of covering it with a protective material rather than taking her to Childrens, using sedation and drilling the tooth etc. So I plan to take her back once I am on maternity leave. (Gotta save all of my PTO time right now). Dentist Mark and Anne sent Ashley home with a bag full of goodies, including a toothbrush, floss, floss picks, a mask, bitwings for x-rays and purple gloves so that we could play dentist at home and increase our success rate at our next visit. After we left the dentist, we then had to go to her 3 year well child check up. Our normal doctor wasn't in the office so we saw Dr Nick. Again, Ashley did fantastic and was so brave. She's pretty used to the gig at the doctors office now but she was so easy going I was amazed. She weighed in at 35 lbs which puts her at the 78% for weight and she was 3' 5" which put her at the 95% for height. Dr Nick also recommended a hearing test and eye test but said not to worry about it if she wouldn't' cooperate. They brought in the cart to do the hearing test but unfortunately the nurse was an intern from some school and was maybe 19 years old. Ashley allowed me to put the ear phones on her ears but then she was to hit the button when she heard it beep. I think just getting the ear phones on should have passed the test. Obviously she can hear but she didn't get the part about clicking the little button. So, test attempted. Next it was out to the hallway for the seeing test with the 19 yr old nurse... ok Ashley stand here and look allllllll the way down this hall and read off what letters I point to. Ummmmm.... she does know a lot of her letters but seriously do you expect her to do this test? Ok upon my pushing we'll try to use the picture shapes instead but can we first see if she even knows what they all are? We practiced and then went all the way down the hall and my little baby held the spoon thingy over her eye and told the nurse what she was pointing at. I couldn't believe what a good listener and how well she was behaving. Another nurse stopped in the hall to watch and kindly coached our 19 yr old nurse along with a comment to simply note the test as attempted. She did a great job and can obviously see but we can try it when she's a little older. (Did she read my mind...a hearing and sight test on a 3 year old? Kinda crazy in my mind unless of course I had concerns with either of those skills, which I don't). Then we had to go back to the room and our young nurse came in and said, ok, last step...two shots! Ummmm duhhhhh, can you not say SHOTS? I got AJ to sit up on the bench and the shots were done within a few minutes but I wished I had asked for someone else to do it. Don't practice your shot giving skills on my baby. Ashley of course screamed bloody murder and said NO MOMMY. I don't want shots. Break my heart. When we left the doctor Ashley got in her car seat and said "Mom, I don't want to go to any more appointments today, ok?" OK honey! Let's go home. Such a sweetie pie.

Here's my little helper wearing her purple gloves from Dentist Mark while cleaning the windows.

What else is new? Ashley's been bringing home projects from school that have them circling the two letters or animals etc out of three in a row that are the same. She's also came home with a few notes from school of stories she's told her teacher Tiffany. The last one said Ashley told me today that she had a "rough weekend" and had to spend time in the baby's crib for hitting mom. Seriously...what a little fibber! Where does she even come up with this stuff? I hope Tiffany can decipher which of AJ's stories are true and which are not!

Yesterday we were playing outside and Ruby (our dog) was getting in Ashley's way when Ashley turned to her and said "Go away Ruby, you're driving me crazy!" I'm telling you, 3 years olds provide endless entertainment.

I'm now 35 weeks along with baby #2, leaving us about a month with the life as we know it now.

April 2010

Daddy and Ashley show off their blue sucker tongues.

Ashley received this princess umbrella for her birthday. She is very into princess things now.

Last weekend we went to Teddy Bear park in Stillwater.

Ashley loved the swirly slide.

Daddy and Ashley posing with the big granite teddy bear statue.

After Teddy Bear park we walked to the river to the Dock Cafe for lunch. It was a very nice afternoon.

Before bed, daddy read Ashley a story while watching the sunset.

What else is new? After 1.5 years of attempting to sell our house, we decided to take our house off the market. We are excited to put our family pictures back on the walls and make it ours again. As most of you know, my job was being eliminated as of Jan 2011. Obviously that is a lot of stress on the shoulders but now those worries are behind us as well. I accepted a new position within Wells Fargo. I started my new job on 5/3 and I am now working in So. St. Paul. It's a very big change after working in Minneapolis for the last 12 years! I am a few days shy from being 29 weeks along with baby #2. The weeks sure are going by fast.

Catching Up... February through early April 2010

Hello! Happy Spring! It's been awhile since our last update so I am going to try to catch you up from February to early April. :o)

On 2.6.10 Ashley moved from her baby room and crib into her new big girl room and big girl bed. As you can see, her bedding is Mickey Mouse - her favorite!! She is such a big girl and transitioned to her new room and big girl bed without a complaint. She climbs in at night and without complaint goes to bed. When she wakes in the morning, she calls for us before getting out of bed.

On 2.7.10, we met up with the Johnson's and the Brooks' at the High School pool for a swim. The kids had a great time in the wading pool and received bags of popcorn on the way out.
(Pictured L to R: Ashley, Violet, Maddy, Allie and Henry)

My little sweetie pie bathing with Minnie.

Daddy and Ashley went on a winter adventure walk. Look how neat the trees look!

What do you do when you're feeling cooped up with the winter blues? You have an indoor pool party! Set up and take down took much longer than the actual time she played in the pool but it was still fun.

More swimming, this time at a hotel in North Branch. Ashley was brave enough to start jumping off the edge of the pool into our arms. Once we started that game... it went on and on...in and out of the pool.

Happy little girl smiling for mommy so that I could have a picture on my camera to take with me to Florida.

Girls weekend in Florida with my best friends! We've talked about doing this for years...2010 was the year we made it happen. As you can see from our clothes, it wasn't the warmest of weather but we enjoyed our time and did manage to come home with a little tan.

3.11.10

Ashley Jane - 3 years old!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Ashley received several gifts in the mail for her birthday. She still asks if there are presents in the mail when we stop at the mailbox. This package was from Auntie Angie, Uncle Erik and cousin Jessica and was filled with dress up clothes! A cheer leading outfit, pom poms and dress up shoes! She loves the shoes...because they are noisy on the tile floors.

Daddy and Mommy got Ashley her very own grill. Now she can cook on the grill just like Daddy.

On 3.13.10 we threw Ashley her 3rd birthday party.

The party was Minnie Mouse themed. Here's Ashley with her birthday cake.

The girls are getting so big!

L to R: Elsa, Violet, Lila, Ashley and Maddy

Ashley loved opening all her presents!

The surprise at the end of the party...Grandpa & Grandma J gave Ashley her very own Mustang! All of her friends took a ride before she did but we were finally able to convince her to ride in it by having both Minnies ride with! She's a pro at driving it now!

A few weekends ago, we drove to Sauk Rapids to see Ashley's cousin Jessica play in a volleyball tournament. Ashley adores her cousin Jessica.

On 4.3.10, the Dinnerbell hosted an egg hunt for kids. Ashley had a great time and found 10 eggs filled with parade style candy! She opened all of the eggs and then gave all of her candy away to daddy and his friends who were working outside on the new deck on the Dinnerbell.

Easter morning, Ashley woke up and immediately we heard the following over the monitor: "Mom...did the Easter Bunny stop at our house?" It was a very exciting morning! The Easter Bunny hid Ashley's Easter basket in the plant hanging from the ceiling and he also hid 12 plastic eggs filled with change for her money bank and candy. She had a blast looking for them. In this picture, Ashley is pointing to a hidden egg.

A funny story... On 3/23 we were in the car heading to Applebees to celebrate my birthday. I said to Matt, "can you believe Easter is next weekend?" Ashley from the back seat says "Mom, is there a guy for Easter?" I repeat it back to her with the did I hear you right voice. She said, "yes, is there a guy for Easter?". Racking my brain I try to figure out what she is talking about. Although I know they don't talk about God at school, nor do we talk about him at home, I say, do you mean Jesus? She said no. Is there a guy for Easter? So it dawns on me and I say, do you mean is there a guy for Easter like there is Santa for Christmas? She says, YES!! I said, oh yes honey...he's called the Easter Bunny and guess what...he loves candy and if you are a really good girl, maybe the Easter Bunny will stop at our house and leave you some candy! She then says, with a terrified voice.... DO I HAVE TO SIT ON HIS LAP? Haha! Isn't that so cute? (She is terrified of Santa and will not sit on Santa's lap.)

What else is new? Ashley continues to love school and her teachers and friends. She has gone to daycare with many of the same kids since she was 6 months old. On 2.18.10 Ashley told me "Zane is my best friend. I love him!". Ashley loves puzzles and can now complete a 25 piece puzzle without any help. A few nights ago she was working on a puzzle before bed. I told her, come on honey, it's time to go to bed...to which she replied..."just one more piece mom" and then had to finish the puzzle before going to bed. I had to laugh...I think everyone does that when putting puzzles together...just one more piece and then I will... For those readers who may not know, we have exciting news to share, Ashley is going to be a big sister! We found out we were expecting another baby on 11.21.09. I am now 24 weeks along and due at the end of July 2010. Ashley is very excited to be a big sister. She is sure I am having a girl. While on our way home from daycare yesterday, she asked me when she could drive. I told her she would have to wait till she was 16 years old. She then said "ok Mom, when I am 16, I am going to drive and pick up my sister from school".