July Flies By...

Happy mid- July! Wow, how did that happen? Seems like the ice just went off the lake.

Here's Ashley playing next to her little pool. This little girl loves the water. She loves to take her little bucket, fill it up with water and then drink from it and pour it all over her belly. Most the time she then gasps because she just poured cold water down her belly. Ashley now plays peek a boo. If I ask her, "where's Ashley", she covers up her eyes and then uncovers them and says peeeee (peek). This is such a fun age. She is full of smiles, snuggles and goofiness.

Here's Ashley with her Grandma and Grandpa J at Uncle Brent and now Auntie Lydia's wedding. It was a beautiful weekend full of wedding events. Ashley sat on my lap through the entire outdoor ceremony. I was very impressed.

Cutie pie!

Ashley sportin' ma mas sunglasses.

Here Ashley plays on our beach. Our beach is pretty gooey and rocky but she still has fun.

Ashley enjoys eating the sand and rocks just as much as she loves playing in them.

My she's serious for a 15 1/2 month old.

Here Ashley is wearing the robe she received from her cousin Jessi at Christmas time. She loves to wear her robe and slippers. In fact, Ashley has a drawer full of shoes in her closet and one pair of slippers. The other night after we put her jammies on, I said, Ashley go get your slippers and she went into her closet, pulled open the drawer and pulled out her slippers. Both of them, from the whole pile of shoes. I was amazed. Again, another awesome moment as a parent, watching my baby show off how smart she is.

Here she is just about to go out to the lake. The girl has about 5 swimsuits, thanks to all of the hand me downs.

Ashley taking in the sunset.

Here's Ashley on the 4th of July.



She makes this face fairly often. I think she's thinking... what cha talking about Mama?

Yes, this is the back of Ashley's head, but see all of her curls?

On the 4th, we went to the annual BBQ hosted by Dale & April at the cabin on Green Lake. Their beach beats ours by a land slide, all sand!! Ashley had a blast.

I thought ok, I will let her eat one handful of sand. My thought was that she wouldn't do it again. Well, I was wrong. She ate handful after handful. Weird!

Yummmmmmmmmmmy!

Ashley and I went to daddy's softball game a couple of weeks ago. We enjoy going because both Ashley and I get to see our girlfriends. Here Ashley tastes her first sucker. She knew just what to do with it.

Lastly a picture of Ashley on 7/11, her 16 month birthday.

What else has happened lately? Ashley says pa pa (Grandpa) and bu bu (bubbles), ha(hat), ing (swing), teee (teeth...and she also does the brushing motion with her hands), outside, and ni ni (night night). She knows where her eyes, ears, nose and mouth are. If you ask here where her nose is, she snorts. If you ask her where her mouth is she sticks out her tongue. If you ask her what noise a cow makes, she says ooooooo oooooooooo. On Monday 7/14 Ashley moved from the infant room to the toddler room at daycare. This was a big event. The kids go from sleeping in cribs to sleeping on cots. They drink from cups without sippy lids. They do art projects every couple of hours. So far, the drop offs in the morning are rough, she gets very sad, but Molly (her teacher and our friend) tells us that she snuggles with her blankey for a little bit and then the rest of the day goes good. She's started doing this thing with her hands and I'm pretty sure it is the motions to the itsy bitsy spider... i will have to ask daycare if they sing that song. Oh, she's also started to dance. Check out the video...sorry it's sideways!

Ashley Jane - 15 months old already!

Ashley celebrated being 15 months old on June 11th. Holy moly!!

Here's Ashley getting a bath. This was just one of the many baths she received the last few weekends as we tried to rid her of her yeast infection. Poor baby! Good thing she loves to take a bath!

Now that we FINALLY have some warm weather, we have been enjoying boat rides after dinner. Doesn't Ashley look so big sitting all by herself on the boat chair?!

Here's Ashley cruising around the kitchen. She can say a few more words and tries to copy things I say. She can say baby and she can say snack (nak). She LOVES her shoes and her coat and says go, go, go, GO, until she gets to go outside. She calls her shoes "ba" and everybody else's shoes are "ba" too. She enjoys trying to put on mommy and daddy's shoes.

Here is a video of Ashley swinging in the back yard. She loves to swing. In fact, tonight as we headed back from our boat ride, she spotted her swing from the boat and pointed and got very serious about getting home right then to swing. By the time we got up to the house, she was over it and we headed for bed.

Last weekend, Ashley discovered that she could put this hat on her head. It's big enough that if she gets it on the top of her head, it falls into place. She was prancing around so proud that she put her hat on. Then, she took it off, put it back on again but it slipped and covered her eyes. I said, "where's Ashley" and it was as though she went to look for Ashley...she started walking, with the hat still covering her eyes and she walked right into the wall. It was SO funny...but she didn't think so. She fell backwards and had a big red bump on her forehead.

This is how Ashley looks in nearly every picture lately. As soon as she sees the camera, she smiles big and closes her eyes.

Silly girl!

All I can say about this video is... like mother, like daughter. We now have the whole family addicted to Redi Whip whipping cream- even the dog and the cat come running when they hear the bottle shake and squirt.

Summer Fun!

Here's a picture of Ashley on her 14 month birthday. She LOVES to be outside and explore. She's discovered that dandelions don't taste very good, but tree branches do. :)

Here is Ashley with Elsa and Gracie. They were enjoying cake and ice-cream at Violet's 1st birthday party! The little picnic table they are sitting at is a bargain I found at a garage sale for $10. Ashley knew how to sit and get back up without assistance before I had even sat her down. She must have picked up that skill at daycare. It's amazing how fast she is changing and how much she is learning every day.

This picture is how Ashley spent most of the month of May. Since she had her tubes put in, she has been on a cocktail of different antibiotics. She just couldn't kick the sinus/ear infections until just this week! At one point she was on 4 different meds. Because of all of the antibiotics, she also enjoyed many of the side effects from the meds, including yeast infections and thrush! To help the yeast infections clear, we were to bathe her after every diaper change...yes, BATHE her after every diaper change and then let her run around naked as much as possible. Needless to say, for those of you who don't know or remember how many diapers a baby goes through a day...it's roughly 8-10, more if their little tummy is upset from all of the meds. That's 20 plus baths every weekend. It was rather exhausting. I can't tell you how happy we are that she is FINALLY feeling better.

Here is a picture of some of the daddy's and their girls. This picture was taken at Maddy's 2nd birthday party. Pictured left to right is Tim with Elsa, Matt with Ashley and Jere with Violet.


Another birthday party means another opportunity for the girls to sit together at the picnic table and eat cake and ice-cream. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The ice-cream was melting faster than they could get it in their mouths. Above is Ashley and Violet discussing the day.

AND...a picture of all of the girls. Ashley was not happy that daddy set her down. I think the rest of the girls were looking at her and wondering..."Ashley, what's your problem?" For those of you who don't know, 4 of my best friends and I all had girls within one year of each other. Pictured from left to right: Ashley- 14 mo, Elsa- 21 mo, Maddy- 24 mo, Violet- 12 mo and Gracie- 22 mo.

Almost had them all looking and smiling at the camera...except Ashley. :) Pictured from left to right: Ashley- 14 mo, Elsa- 21 mo, Maddy- 24 mo, Violet- 12 mo and Gracie- 22 mo.

Here is a picture of us big girls. Missing from the photo is Sheli. :( Pictured from left to right is Julie- 30 yrs, Jessie- 30 yrs, Sheri- 31 yrs and Crystal- 30yrs. Haha :o)

Here's Ashley enjoying some cheez-its. She was ignoring me, I kept calling her name trying to get her to look at the camera. Her hair continues to grow and get curlier.

Finally the silly girl looks at me. She's so much fun.

For your viewing pleasure, a video of Ashley rocking on her rocking octopus. She received this from her Grandma & Grandpa J for her birthday. It took almost 2 months for her to like it. Now, it's hard to get her off. You'll notice in the video that when the music stops, she signs all done and says all done.

Other events this month: Ashley now gives kisses with her mouth wide open. She has learned a few more sign language signs and can now sign, eat, please, more, all done and thank you. She's says hi, ball, ba (bottle), key (blankey), ru ru (Ruby), key key (kitty), da da, ma ma, all done, uh oh, and hi. She has also started to blow kisses. She can get up from the floor and into walking position without any help. She's getting so good at walking that she's now picking up speed. She is ticklish on her sides, tummy, neck and toes and Matt and I get the biggest kick out of how she giggles when we tickle her.