Another Christmas in the books…

If you recall the last Christmas, you may remember that Ashlyn spent most of the night in the hospital.  So after that, this Christmas by comparison had no choice but to be good.  And it didn’t disappoint.  Ashlyn still doesn’t get what Christmas is all about of course, but her birthday in October was a good warm-up to the paper tearing extravaganza that would follow a few days ago.



And if presents weren’t enough, she also got to meet the new addition to Aunt Sisa’s family, but Ashlyn wasn’t too sure about Baxter the bear cub.  Aunt Sisa and Uncle Jeff swear that it’s a Golden retriever.  But as you can see below, I think they were lied to by the breeder.  See if you can pick out the animal that looks least like the other two.

 

And while this isn’t Christmas related, we think Ashlyn may have an interest in modeling.  She’s already mastered “Blue Steel”.  And for those who don’t get it, go watch Zoolander and you may find the joke funny.

 

So this Christmas was a good one.  Breakfast with the Flinn’s, Lunch with the Wolf’s, and Dinner with the Wolfe’s.  Ashlyn was so tired at the end of the day that she slept in late the next morning and didn’t make a peep.  I’m thinking we need to do Christmas more often.

Thanks everyone for making this a wonderful Christmas for Ashlyn.



Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas is right around the corner..

With 2 days left until Christmas I’m happy to report that our Christmas shopping is finally over.  Ashlyn looks to have a good Christmas ahead of her, based on the amount of wrapping paper that she’ll get to play with all day.  Eventually we’re hoping that she’ll play with the toys underneath the wrapping paper, but I don’t want to get greedy.

I was thinking of something to post this time around, and Ashlyn was kind enough to give me some material last night.  But before I go into that, here’s a few pictures showing words that Ashlyn has learned.  The first is “sock”.  She’ll say this word when she sees a sock.  These are fun because she knows that mommy and daddy want her to wear them, which of course means that she takes them off minutes after having them put on.  She’ll try to put them on every now and then, but she’s not quite coordinated enough yet.

See that look on her face? That's the "I know you don't want me to take this sock off but I'm too cute for you to stop me" face.



Another word she knows is “ipod”.  Yes, I know this is a little sad and proves how much of a geek her parents are.  But in our defense, there’s toddler apps on there that show animals and the noises they make, and other little games.  Heather can ask “Can you bring me your ipod?” and Ashlyn will find it, bring it over, and then sit on her lap so that Heather can bring up one of the games.  There’s an app for pretty much everything, but I haven’t found one that will change her diaper for us.



She also knows “book”, and will bring one to you if you ask, but I didn’t have a good picture for it.

And now on to the material I referenced earlier. Ashlyn has an interesting reaction to changes in her environment. She doesn't cry, or hide, she gets very quiet and watches. Eventually she'll warm up to the new situation and will start playing, but never like she does when it's just Heather and I. Last night Ashlyn started jabbering and playing fetch with the dog, and as a dad my first reaction is to reach for the camera. This is the result. I don't know what Ashlyn is saying, but she sure seems passionate about it. I particularly like the pose around 45 seconds into the video.



Okay, so I realize this video is probably one that her parents get a kick out of while everyone else scratches their chin saying "what's the big deal?". But this is a blog about Ashlyn, and I haven't posted a video since the first few weeks and I wanted to give everyone a taste of what she's like when she's not in observation mode.

Have a great and Merry Christmas, and if you're lucky enough to have a tradition like my family does, we'll see you at Joe T. Garcias on Christmas Eve. Nothing says Christmas like church and margaritas!

A busy weekend!

Some weekends are quiet, the word “quiet” being a relative term with a 14 month old, but this weekend was a busy one.  It started off with some playtime on Friday in the loft, which was converted last weekend into an official play area for Ashlyn, complete with table, easel, and shelves for toys. 

We also had fun with the wheelie popper thing that Grandma bought her for Christmas.  She never seemed interested with it downstairs, probably because it wouldn’t pop very well on the hardwood.  Pop pop pop.  Thanks Grandma.

Saturday took us to downtown Ft. Worth, where we took Ashlyn to see some trees lit in every color currently available in LED lighting.  It was pretty cold, but she had a good time with it.  As with most babies, lights are fascinating things to Ashlyn.

I don’t have any pictures of Sunday, but it was spent Christmas shopping and having dinner for Uncle Bruce and cousin Heidi’s birthday.  Since I don’t have any pictures of that, here’s one of Ashlyn stealing a coke.  Close enough, right?

Gobble gobble…

As the name implies, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks.  And based on this past weekend, we have a lot to be thankful for.  Over the course of two days, Ashlyn got to see or hear:

• 1 Great-Grandmother
• 2 Grandmothers
• 3 Grandfathers
• 1 Mom
• 1 Dad
• 4 Aunts
• 4 Uncles
• 2 Cousins
• 3 Cats
• 3 Dogs

I’m personally incredibly thankful to have such a wonderful family, and it’s a great feeling to know that Ashlyn will grow up with so many who love her. 

If that wasn’t enough, she also got to eat a lot of turkey, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole.



While this next picture has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, it was a special one for me to take.  This quickly made my top 5 pictures of Ashlyn ever taken.


















That’s Heather, just a few months older than Ashlyn is now.  If you wonder where Ashlyn got her hair from, now you know.  I really, really like this picture.

So yeah, it was great holiday weekend.  We ate a lot, saw a lot of family, planted a tree, and had a good time.  Ashlyn learned to play with a cat instead of beating on it.



And she also found her first Christmas gift before she was supposed to.  Sneaky little girl.  At least she's smiling, so hopefully she'll like it.  I remember my mother taking back a race car set that I found only to learn later that she bought two and the one she was taking back was the more expensive one.  I thought about playing the same trick on Ashlyn but realized that she's only a year old and probably forgot about it 30 seconds after toddling away.  Plus we only had one toy.



I’d type more, but it’s time to eat some leftover turkey.  Gobble gobble!

How quickly they learn…

It’s amazing how much Ashlyn is learning, and how fast she’s doing it.  Only a few weeks ago we were counting the number of steps, and now she’s stomping all over the house.  She’s learned to open cabinets, and so Saturday morning was spent putting in safety latches.  So far they have managed to keep Ashlyn out, and mom and dad on a few occasions.

This picture has nothing to do with anything I said above, but the flying duck is funny to me, so I’m posting it.

Ashlyn also decided it would be fun to play the part of the cute little baby on Saturday morning, and got snuggly with grandpa and momma.  Not for dad though, she just whacked me on the head and giggled.  Hmph!

The picture below worries me though.  She’s only 13 months, and is already getting sneaky on us.  Notice the business card in the back hand. 

“What card?”

Yeah, we see you Ashlyn.  You better not try to steal my sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving.

From daughter to parents…

This past week has been an interesting one as far as “things brought home from daycare” goes.  Ashlyn caught a stomach bug on Wednesday afternoon, which meant that Ashlyn was sent home from daycare to Dr. Mom.  I spent the day with Ashlyn on Thursday making sure she was better.  Heather did a good job though and mostly she just played during the day.

Yep, the stomach bug seems to have drained all the life out of her, poor girl.



Unfortunately, she passed the stomach bug onto mommy and daddy, which practically knocked us out of the parenting game for the weekend.  Heather ended up calling Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe, who entertained the little one for us on Saturday so we could rest.

But on to happier times.  Ashlyn has a learned a few new things, and here they are in random order:

First, she has learned that that crawling over and under things is fun to do.  This has made chasing her around more interesting since she’s capable of falling from higher up.  Joy!



Making mommy and daddy laugh by posing for pictures is also entertaining, and it makes for some great pictures.



Using a cat as a wheelbarrow is amusing.  Especially when the cat is too stubborn to run away.



Straws are a great way to get juice without spilling it everywhere (even little Aggies can drink without spilling!).



And finally, she learned that putting half a banana (pronounced “Bee-yaw” by Ashlyn) may not be the best way of eating things.  This picture isn’t pretty by any means, but it has the look of a picture best brought out when she’s older and her friends are around.



Speaking of “bee-yaw”, her list of words is steadily growing, and I’ll end this blog post with the ones we’ve identified so far:

• Mommy - “ma ma ma ma ma”
• Daddy - “da da”
• Bye bye “ba ba”
• Banana - “bee-yaw”
• Cat - “caa” (she doesn’t end with the “t” sound yet)
• Dog - “du” (this is actually fairly intuitive considering the dog in question)
• Gig ‘em - “gig fmbph”

And with that, “ba ba”!

A very quick word..

I'm hoping to get some pictures posted soon.  This past week has been incredibly busy, and I simply haven't had time to get a proper blog post together. 

On a side note, last week marked the longest I've ever been away from Ashlyn.  I flew out on Wednesday afternoon for great-grandmother Russell's memorial service and came back to DFW Friday evening.  Heather was kind enough to bring Ashlyn to the airport, but I got zero reaction from the little squirt.  When she gets in a new situation, she tends to get very calm and starts looking around at everything to take it all in.  She was in that mode at the airport, and while I didn't get the happy reaction I was hoping for I was still glad to see her. 

On Saturday, I counted 38 steps in a row before she tipped over.  She walks everywhere now, and is about to be moved out of the infant room and into the toddler room at daycare.  Our little infant baby girl is now a toddler.  How time flies.

And finally, today is Grandpa Flinn's birthday.  Happy birthday Grandpa!  Enjoy your fishing trip.

Not all Halloweens are Happy, but you make the best of it.

This weekend started off great, but had a sad ending.  More on that at the end.
The weather this weekend was amazing, and Heather thought it would be a good idea to take Ashlyn to a local pumpkin patch for some pictures.  So off we went.  The pictures did not start out as well as we had hoped.  As soon as we set her down, she’d start crying.  Ashlyn, not Heather.



When we realized it was the straw poking her, we wizened up and put her in more comfortable accommodations.



We got some some pretty good pictures, and I think Ashlyn enjoyed all the colors.
Then came Halloween.  Here is Ashlyn’s first pumpkin.  I think we were the only family in our neighborhood that had a pumpkin complete with fleeing villagers.



I tried to come up with a good way to describe her costume, so I came up with this handy graphic.



She was a Pink bunny.  I capitalize the word Pink for a reason.  It was as if a Hostess Sno-ball the size of a Volvo landed on a rabbit, which then turned into a costume.  She was too young for candy, but we got a lot of “awww”s as we walked around with cousin Heidi trick-or-treating.

In random development news, Ashlyn is walking a lot now.  On Saturday she walked her way right into her first busted lip from falling over.  It will be the first of many I’m guessing.  She’s talking more, and has learned to say “Yee-haw!” and a muffled form of “Gig ‘em”.  It’s good that we’re teaching her the important things.

And for some sad news, Ashlyn’s Great-Grandmother passed away this morning.  While I’m saddened by this, I’m glad that Ashlyn got to meet her and I’m happy to know that Grandmother is in a better place.  I have a lot of fond memories spending time at Grandma’s in the summer watching wrestling videos and eating Little Piper’s pizza with my cousin Gregg.  Watch over Ashlyn for us Grandmother, we love you!

Baby steps…

The past two weeks have just flown by, and I felt that another blog post was in order.  So what’s new in Ashlyn’s world?

First, she’s starting to walk.  So far the most we’ve counted is nine steps, but she’s adding more every day.  Where she used to stand up and take a few steps towards us, now she’s starting to stand up in the middle of the room and walk to toys, pets, furniture, or whatever else is interesting nearby.  They aren’t large steps yet, but I suppose they’re called baby steps for a reason. 

With her new mobility comes other fun activities, like pushing anything that will move across the floor.  She especially likes pushing her wagon across the floor.

She’s also signing more.  Signs are hard to take pictures of, because some require motion of the hands.  Here’s a couple of her signing “eat”.  This is her new favorite sign.  She’s completely on solids now, and it seems like she’s constantly hungry.

 

When she’s done eating, we can ask her if she’s done and she’ll make the sign for “finished”, which is basically putting your hands out to the side and moving them around.  She doesn’t so much move her hands as clasp and unclasp them.  This is also her sign for “I want”, “hello”, and “bye bye”.  But if you take it in context, you know what she means.

 

Other than that, we found two more top teeth today, one is already pushed through and the other will be out in a day or two.  These have gone MUCH easier than the first four, which is to be expected.  It’s just a short break though, because the molars are right around the corner.