While we were gone…

We went off to Aggieland this weekend to watch A&M play, so I’m a bit short on pictures.  I’m also pretty worn out.  As such, this will be a shorter post until next week, when we’ll have Halloween pictures. 

While we were in College Station, Nina and Papa took Ashlyn around Ft. Worth.  From what I hear, they had a good time at the museum, and Aunt Lisa took them all out for some trick-or-treating at a friend’s closed off block party.  They had bought Ashlyn a bumblebee outfit, complete with wings, but Ashlyn wouldn’t have anything to do with the wings.  So went as a bumblebee without wings instead, complete with sparkly silver shoes.

When we got back, we tried to take Ashlyn out to a pumpkin patch for the obligatory fall pictures.  This was the result:

Ahh, the terrible twos, what a joy.  Unfortunately, we were unable to get any pictures out at the pumpkin patch, so we put our ultra scary Halloween pumpkin in the backyard and used that instead.

I guess Ashlyn was upset about missing her gymnastics class this weekend, so we spent the rest of the afternoon practicing her skills.  This is the “house”, which I’m guessing is meant to improve arm strength.

After the house came back flips.  This is a three step process, repeated over and over until mom is too tired to continue.

And that’s about all I have today.  Time to watch the rest of the Cowboys game and get some sleep.  Tune in next week for a more complete post!

New games, more words, and a Happy Birthday…

Ashlyn has recently  learned a few new games to play.  The first one involves climbing up on top of any person or animal (un)fortunate enough be laying down in her vicinity.  She’ll then hold on as best she can, giggling during the process.  She’ll fall to the floor laughing when you finally unseat her, at which point she’ll crawl back on top again.  Even the dog is not safe from this new game.

The other game isn’t exactly new, but she’s attempting to put diapers on all of her stuffed animals.  The newest target of this activity is the glow-worm, which is interesting because it doesn’t have any legs.  I think I’ve posted pictures of this activity before, but I liked the second picture below and I wanted an excuse to put it on the blog.

Her mobility on her little praying mantis bike is improving, she’s putting one foot in front of the other now and can move at speeds in excess of 13 meters per hour.  Impressive, right?  When we go for walks, she’ll make it just past the end of the driveway before she’ll hand it off to be carried.

We’d also like to wish Grandma Wolfe a very Happy Birthday.  The Wolfe family came over to the house on Saturday to celebrate.  Heidi was there, which automatically meant that Ashlyn was entertained for the evening.  Ashlyn stayed up until 9:00pm, well past her bed time, but whether it was from the excitement or the sugar I can’t say.  Happy Birthday Grandma!

I’ll end the blog here with a few stories from this week.  They were really funny to us, and several of you have already heard them.  That’s ok though, I still want to share them so we can remember them later.  The first, and best, story came during Game 2 of the Texas Rangers in the World Series.  Ashlyn accidentally sat on the remote, which turned off the TV.  She tried to turn it back on, without success, and handed it to me so that I could get the game going again.  I powered up the TV, but it takes a few seconds for the TV screen to show up.  Ashlyn, apparently impatient, reached out her hand for the remote and said “Give me that, I need to watch the Rangers!”.  Heather and I both stared at Ashlyn, and then started laughing.  When the TV came on she wandered off to play, barely glancing at the game.  It may not seem that funny, but considering that the average 2 year old is using 2-3 word sentences and she chose to use a nine word sentence because she “needed” to watch the Rangers… well, it was just funny at the time.  That same night, when putting Ashlyn to bed, Ashlyn closed the book that mommy was reading and declared “I need more binkies”.  She jumped off the chair, pulled a few binkies out of the crib, and climbed back up on the chair to finish the book.  We’re going to have our hands full as she gets older I think.

 

Ashlyn’s first birthday party…

This weekend marked another first for Ashlyn, this time in the form of a birthday party for a friend’s four year old.  When we asked Ashlyn if she was excited about going to the party, she replied with a strong “yeah!”.  So on went the big pink backpack (more on this in a minute) and off we went.  As always, it took Ashlyn a few minutes to warm up.  But once she did, she made circuits up and down the slide, and even climbed up three stories in “the cube”, which is essentially a four story McDonald’s-like play house for kids.  The trip back down was much quicker than the trip up; Ashlyn slipped when trying to climb down and skipped a story on the way down.  She was tough though, and didn’t make a fuss.

Playing can be tiring, and there’s nothing like a sugar filled slice of cake to get the energy back up.  Luckily for us, the energy faded by the time we got home so she could take a nap.  All in all, Ashlyn had a good time, as did her parents.

We also started to build some raised gardens in our side yard this weekend.  Our hope is that we can grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs.  This will not only be a good source of fresh food, but we hope it will be a teaching aid for Ashlyn as well.  Ashlyn likes to be a helper, so of course she wanted to get in on the action.  The hammer was a little too heavy though, and all she managed to do was bang on the boards a few times before handing it back to dad.

I’ll finish this off with a discussion on backpacks.  In this case, we’ll talk about a backpack that Auntie Sisa and Uncle Jeff (I’m sure Jeff was heavily involved in the purchasing process) gave Ashlyn for her birthday.  The backpack is a bit too large for her, but Ashlyn doesn’t agree with my assessment.  So the backpack travels with us now, and Ashlyn insists on wearing it.  We’ve had more “awwww’s” from this in the past week than I can count.  Here’s why:

Awwww.

Birthday pics and ham…

Since the blog was updated this past Wednesday, I’m not going to spend a lot of time typing today.  Instead, I’m going to share pictures of her birthday for your enjoyment.

The birthday girl started off her big day on the trampoline, which she spends a lot of time on (I wake up at night hearing Ashlyn asking “Outside?  Go jumping?”).  In a week she’s already learned to jump really well.  She’s become the best jumper in her gymnastics class even though she’s the youngest toddler there. 

After trampoline came presents, which she actually opened this time since nobody was watching her.  It’s funny how she gets shy when people are around, but you put a camera in front of her and she’ll ham it up.  After presents came a breakfast cupcake, which resulted in a change of clothes.  To celebrate the change of clothes, Ashlyn danced around the living room.

Around lunch time we headed off to Chuck E. Cheese pizza.  We thought this was going to be a fun place to take Ashlyn, but she didn’t seem to care for it.  I was able to capture a few pictures of her smiling, but that was pretty much all we got the entire time we were there.  We got 60 tokens for games, and left with 52 tokens.  Strange child.  Next time we’re taking cousin Heidi.

Fortunately, the zoo was more interesting.  This time, Ashlyn wanted to get out of the wagon to see the animals.  Towards the end of the day Ashlyn apparently became bored with riding in the wagon, so she started pulling it.  This lasted for approximately 47 seconds.  We all had a fun time, and I see many more zoo trips in Ashlyn’s birthday future with the weather as nice as it is in early October.

Ashlyn has gained a liking for getting her picture taken.  This is a picture we took this morning. 

Finally, I’d like to thank Texas A&M for getting out of their 2 loss slump with a victory of Texas Tech.  When we asked Ashlyn if A&M was going to win this weekend, she knew the right answer.

Touchdown!  Gig ‘em Aggies!

Dear Ashlyn.. Happy Birthday.

As I thought about what to write on your birthday, something came to me.  It’s interesting to consider these facts:  It took me five(ish) years of school to get a Diploma on the wall, months of instruction for Texas to give  me a license to drive, and three months of classes for a professional organization to give me a certificate in Project Management. And yet, two years ago, Baylor Medical Center in Dallas had no problems letting us take home a human child without requiring any formal training whatsoever.

You might think that the hospital should lose their license to practice medicine, but it’s hard to argue with the results. You not only survived, but you’ve grown into an incredible little girl that we’re proud to call our daughter. Just look how far you’ve come in two short years…

A year ago, you weren’t even able to walk 10 steps without falling over. Now you’re running, jumping, climbing, and summersaulting. You’re still falling, but now it’s from higher up.

A year ago, your hair was just starting to curl, and now we have to fight the curls down.

A year ago, you were barely speaking and only had a few front teeth. Now you’re talkative and using sentences, counting to 10, naming animals, naming foods, and accurately discussing the merits of daddy’s Big Green Egg over traditional smokers.  You also have a cute smile with a full set of chompers.

I don’t think it’s possible to arrive at your child’s birthday and not think back to the day she was born.  Ashlyn had the easy part; all that was asked of her was to come out, cry, look around, and sleep. She did this in fine style, and I fondly remember those firsts. But I also remember the heroics of the new mother, and everything that she did to bring Ashlyn safely into this world.

And so today, I think, belongs to both of them. To the daughter, for the joy she’s brought us. And to the mother, for still being able to smile after Ashlyn was born despite the hours of labor and exhaustion.

Happy Birthday girls.  I love you both more than this little blog can say.