To Aggieland!

This post is a little late.  It's been a long week at work and I've been getting home just in time to put Ashlyn to bed, which means I'm a little behind.  And by the way, it's a little upsetting to walk into the house just as Ashlyn is getting out of her pre-bed bath.  I don't much care for seeing her for only 15 minutes a day.  Luckily, next week should not be so bad.

Last weekend was Ashlyn's first road trip, and I think it's fitting that her first trip was to good 'ol College Station, home of the Fighting Texas Aggies and the 12th man.  Gig 'em!  She did pretty well too.. she slept most of the time, and only needed to stop and eat once on the way and once on the way back.  If you drove by Bucky's on 45 Saturday morning, you may have seen us stuffed into the back of the car feeding a baby while people went in and out buying beef jerky.

The destination in Aggieland was a yearly crawfish boil served up by a good friend of ours.  Each year he brings the family (our close group of friends from that time in college) together for some fun, drinks, and 500 pounds of tasty crawfish.  Notice that this picture contains crawfish, beer, and sippy cups.  You can tell how the dynamics of our group has changed over the past few years.

Sorry Ashlyn, crawfish doesn't fall into the "stage 1 food" category.  She ate sweet potatoes instead.

She was passed around by our friends, who were excited to see her.  We're very fortunate to have the friends we do, even this guy.  She's not too sure what to think, he was probably telling stories that shouldn't be heard by a 7 month old and all she wanted to do was chat about the joys of sweet potatoes.  JW, if you read this, you know we love ya.

Ali, thanks again for an awesome time.  Your generosity always amazes me.  And I promise that the sink was thouroughly cleaned.  Sweet potatoes are messy.

From Cincinnati, with love...

So it seems that little Ashlyn has fully recovered from her bout with her daycare cold.  It wasn't pretty, and for a little bit there she went back into wanting night feedings, so both mom and dad had a few dreary eyed weeks.  I was Cincinnati on Monday, and while I was enjoying this..

... Heather was up all night trying to break Ashlyn of her new interest in midnight feedings.  It worked apparently, as Ashlyn went through Tuesday night without a hitch.  So we are once again a happy family, and even though I was only gone for a day, it's great to be back home. And if I happen to suffer a heart attack in the coming days from all that cheese, tell Ashlyn that daddy loves her.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother’s Day… the day we celebrate the fact that there are only 42 days until Father’s Day!

Ha ha! Just kidding of course. Today is the day that we celebrate Moms, those amazing people who brought us into this world through tears, pain, and if fortunate enough, an epidural. They fed us, changed us, taught us, and basically helped make us who we are today.

This year, I celebrate Mother’s day in a different light, because I’ve been able to watch one first hand with my own daughter. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, I’ve never felt more pride for my wife as I have when I’ve seen her with Ashlyn.

To Heather, thanks for being you. I’m deeply grateful to have you in my life.

To my own Mother, thanks for 32 years of love and support, I appreciate you so much.

And to the rest of the mom’s, especially the one in China (you know who you are), thanks for bringing all of us into this world (especially Heather) and sacrificing so much for us. We may not always show it, but we we’re thankful on other days too, not just Mother’s Day.

Not all skies have rainbows..

Last week started a new and exciting chapter in Ashlyn’s life: daycare. I think there are some good things about daycare. It teaches a level of independence since she won’t get attention 100% of the day. It helps build social skills, and kids in daycare tend to learn things faster when they see other kids doing them (crawling, for instance). It also, and some may argue that this is not a good thing, exposes them to germs now so that they won’t get sick as much when they start school.

The first day, to put it bluntly, sucked. I did NOT like leaving her there, and the image I kept having in my head was of her crying as we looked at her in her little crib. We moved out of sight and she calmed down and looked around, but I still couldn’t shake that image. Luckily, when I came by to pick her up she was happily playing away. So it wasn’t so bad, and each day gets a little easier. Unfortunately, she got sick the first week as almost every child does, and we got to experience her first ear infection. She’s on the mend from it, and we hope she’ll be back in full form by this weekend.

Despite all the change, Ashlyn has handled things pretty well. And because this blog will stay around much longer than my poor memory, I’m going to end this entry with some happy pictures that we took over the last few weeks.  These are the images I want to hold to.