Briskets and Baptisms…

“Do not talk to me, I’m in the bathroom!”
-Ashlyn

I smoked a brisket last weekend because it sounded like a fun thing to do.  Since Mom didn’t want to eat brisket every night for a week, she talked Grandma, Grandpa, and Cousin Heidi into coming over Sunday night to help reduce the amount of cow on-hand.  This made Ashlyn’s night and of course James took some time out of his busy schedule to grin for everyone.

This is Ashlyn in a box with her dolls.  That is all.

We can’t help but add lots of pictures of the kids playing together, partly because those are the types of pictures that fill up our camera, but mostly because they are the pictures that make us smile.

Most of the time, Ashlyn likes to make Baby James laugh.  Sometimes, it’s the other way around.

Ashlyn is doing better at the big girl gymnastics class.  She’s still shy at first and wants mom or dad to stay down with her during warm-up, but this weekend she told me to go upstairs to the window as soon as warm-up was done.  She had fun in the class with the other kids, and continued to practice head stands once she got back home.

On Sunday we attended the Baptism of Baby Ben.  It was a short ceremony, which was a good thing since it was held during nap time.  But the kid’s did ok and there were no breakdowns until the ride home.  Baby Ben, who had water put on his head, seemed fine with the proceedings  whereas Ashlyn cried on the way home because she wanted a hamburger.

Oh, the joys of children.

From sick to smiles…

"Love is staying up all night with a sick child - or a healthy adult."
-David Frost

James was diagnosed with RSV, but he came through it better than we expected.  He had a fever for 6 days, but it never went much over a hundred degrees.  James still managed to smile, but not near as much as normal and we’re happy that we have our happy little guy back again.  He’s even grinning taking his medicine.

We were nervous about getting together for my birthday with Baby Ben in case James was still contagious, but that didn’t stop some visitors from coming over or keep us from visiting Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe for a family dinner.  We had a good time, and James spent some quality time with various grandparents.  As you can see, James was pleased with the experience.

Ashlyn found cousin Heidi, and that of course led to a lot of laughing and running around the house.  It also led to horsey rides and a fun game where they threw foam dominoes into the air.  You know it’s a fun game when it takes longer to find the toys than it did to play with them.

So that’s about it this week, hopefully next week will be sickness-free as James continues to work on sitting and Ashlyn starts warming up her blogging skills.  I sense an aggieashlyn.blogspot.com site coming to a web near you.¹

¹Not really, Ashlyn prefers a different blogging site.

Steak, sickly kid, and a birthday…

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional."
- Chili Davis

James started going to Daycare this week so we were expecting him to come down with a cold.  We didn’t expect him to get RSV and start teething at the same time, but that’s what we got.  So instead of tearing up the town this weekend for my birthday, we were home taking care of our baby boy.

That didn’t stop us from from doing something fun with James, and something that I was particularly excited about.  Mom bought some steaks since she knows that cow is my favorite food group.  And since James is starting to eat solid foods, we thought it would be a good time to let him try his first steak.  This is how the event went:

First, Ashlyn gave him a piece of steak and encouraged him to try it.  James was interested.  I like to think, as he’s staring at the steak, he’s thinking “Wow, what is this heavenly taste?”.

Then mom decided to give him a piece of broccoli.  James looked at her like she was crazy, but took the broccoli and put it side by side next to the piece of steak.

The result was exactly like I hoped.  The broccoli was put down on the tray and James happily kept the steak.  That’s our boy!

And this is a series of pictures showing what the house looks like with a sick baby brother.  You can see how upset he is about his fever, most of the time he still smiled through it.  And Ashlyn, the ever caring big sister, did her best to entertain James by flying all over the living room.

We really are lucky to have two kids who are so fond of each other.  As a birthday gift, I was given a collage of pictures of the two of them together.  Ashlyn had been watching the “Charlie bit my finger” YouTube video and she thought it would be funny to put her finger in James’ mouth.  He bit her finger.

A new year, a bigger family…

"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to."
-Bill Vaughn quotes

As New Year’s rolls around you tend to reflect on the past year.  We saw Ashlyn change from a toddler to a kid, we met James for the first time and watched him grow from a newborn to a smiling infant.  We got to see Aunt Lisa’s family grow with the birth of Baby Ben.  We got to see Texas A&M win the Heisman award and dominate in their first year of the SEC.  All of these were life changing events, and we’re grateful that we were able to be there for them.  As for New Year’s night itself, we made it to see the ball drop at 11pm but no further.  Luckily, James gave us the opportunity to be up at midnight and I found myself holding a baby boy as the clock struck.  Not a bad way to start the New Year. 

I’ve talked about this before, and I hope I can continue to talk about this for years.  Ashlyn and James still have a lot of fun together.  James laughs at pretty much everything Ashlyn does, and Ashlyn has a good time running around doing things to make James grin.  As soon as James hears her voice, he’ll twist and turn to find Ashlyn and grins when he spots her.

Wherever we go people comment on Ashlyn and her hair, even to the point of telling us that she should get into modeling.  Sure, that sounds like a great idea, except half the time you point a camera towards Ashlyn she goes into grumpy mode.  That didn’t stop her from posing for pictures in one of mom’s shirts tied up to become a dress.

But there’s light at the end of the grumpy tunnel.  Ashlyn has always been shy, but we’re starting to see that turn around.  She walked the beam on her own again this weekend and laughed at the end of it.  When we went to dinner with friends this weekend she actually talked to people and played with the other kids.  She even said she can talk to Uncle Jeff now, but the jury is still out on whether that will actually happen.

And finally, Ashlyn has officially named the dolls she received over Christmas break.  We asked her to sit with her dolls and show them to PePa and us.  From left to right, her dolls are “Baby Ashlyn” (this is an older doll, but was included at Ashlyn’s request), PS.ORG, and Cinderella.  Yes, you read the second name right, it’s PS.ORG, said as “P S DOT ORG”.  We believe she got this from watching Sesame street, at the end there’s a commercial advertising the PBS.ORG website.  Crazy child.

Happy New Year everyone!