A week of mommy and gardening…

Ashlyn is getting old enough now that she’s starting to mimic more than just words.  Fortunately, she’s wanting to mimic mom more than dad.  When I wake Ashlyn up in the morning, the first thing she says is “bottle'?”.  After she gets her bottle, she’ll pause, look towards the door, and say “mommy!!”.  She’ll toddle to our bedroom as fast as her legs can carry her, then she’ll go into the bathroom, and then up on mommy’s lap she goes while the morning make-up is put on. 

  

Ashlyn doesn’t get to play with real make up yet.  We have one, maybe two decades to go before that will be allowed.

Outside, when mom sat on the window ledge, Ashlyn had to sit there too.  These pictures make me smile.

 

The weather on Saturday was wonderful, so we took the kiddo and the gardening tools outside and started digging up the flower bed and retaining wall.  This is where the mimicking fell apart.  She spent 2.5 seconds trying to use the hoe, got bored, and then proceeded to tear into dad’s milkshake.  Ashlyn was messier than we were at the end, and she accomplished that feat with no actual gardening being done.  And if anyone is thinking, “hey, looks like she’s mimicking dad after all”, let me know who you are so I can de-friend you on Facebook.

That night the Wolfe family came over, and Ashlyn was, as always, entertained by cousin Heidi. 

Sunday was colder, so we bundled the kiddo up in pink and let her romp around outside until mom and dad were ready to go back in.

Words of the week:

• Horse
• Elment (elephant)
• What?
• Yucky!
• Wet
• All gone

Spelling has begun…

Please don’t let the title mislead you, it’s not Ashlyn that’s spelling, but her parents.  We can no longer say the word “outside” without an excited toddler practically running to the door.  The girl just can’t get enough of the outdoors right now.  If you say “outside”, and don’t follow through with it, this is what happens:

Of course, you’ll notice that she managed to collapse in tears right on top of the soft new bath mat.  We’re not buying it.

But, as is often the case when parents and their toddlers battle, we took her outside anyway.  And not just in the backyard, but out to the park again.  We started with the swings, which had Ashlyn giggling for a few minutes.

After the swings, we moved up in difficulty and went for the slide.  Like last time, mom took her up first to show Ashlyn how it’s done.

After one time through, Ashlyn decided she could do it on her own.  Up, and up she went.

   And what goes up, must come down.

It may not have been the most graceful decent ever captured on camera, but she did it on her own with very little encouragement required.  I’m looking forward to this summer so we can take her swimming, I’m hoping she’ll be just as brave when jumping in the water.  We’ll see!

After a fun adventure at the park, we came home where Ashlyn wanted to go back outside again.  We went to the backyard this time, where Ashlyn showed us that she learned to drink from a cup.  I love this picture, it looks like she’s drinking in a wind tunnel.

Grandma and Grandpa Wolf came over on Sunday.  And what did we do, you ask?  This could shock you, so you may want to sit down.  We went outside.

Grandpa played rock the baby, to much amusement.

 

Grandma went for the water, where Ashlyn tried to mimic her moves.  We had to change Ashlyn’s shirt afterwards.

So mom and dad are tired and we’re looking forward to a little rest this evening.  Inside.

Words of the week:

• Keys
• Yes
• Down
• Tummy
• Monkey
• Bite (as in “I’d like a bite of whatever you’re eating”)

Vroom!

This was a busy weekend for the munchkin.  The weather was great, so we spent some time on Saturday practicing with the lawnmower inside, and then on Sunday we took it outside to get some real world experience.  It’s only a plastic lawnmower, but Heather is an engineer and I’m hoping she’ll be able to retrofit it with a weed eater engine before the summer so that Ashlyn can help with the yard work.

We also introduced a new toy this weekend, and our backyard is now home to a “Red Crabbie” sandbox.  It was a hit, but it just adds one more reason for Ashlyn to say “outside?” over and over again.

 

We are now feeding Ashlyn real people food almost exclusively.  Heather spent many hours making baby food, but now that the kiddo has around 11 teeth (it’s hard to count with all the squirming) she can eat pretty much anything we do.  As you can see from the picture below, she’s a fan of breakfast.

 

And we spent more time outside…  I think we were outside more than inside on Sunday.

At the end of the weekend, after all the sand had been washed off, it was time to rest and send a few e-mails.

Words of the week:

• Bottle
• Rusty
• Painting
• Open
• Hug

 

Houston, we have a problem.

We drove to Houston this weekend for a friend’s surprise birthday party.  The five hour drive was fairly uneventful at first.  We stopped at the Buc-ee’s on I45 (“Buc-ee” stands for “overpriced turkey jerky” if you were curious) to let Ashlyn run around for a bit.  We got multiple comments from people saying how cute she was as she dragged us around the store by our fingers.

So the trip was going well, right up to the point where we entered Houston.  Ashlyn, as many people do when they first enter Houston, got sick to her stomach.  As adults, we can hold back the nausea by reminding ourselvse that we'll be leaving Houston soon, but Ashlyn is young and doesn’t have that advantage.  So her lunch left her stomach and ended up on her, her car seat, her toys, and other things in the back seat.  Thanks Houston!

After a quick cleanup in a Taco Cabana parking lot, we celebrated with our friends.  Ashlyn didn't get sick again, we had a good time, and before we left we had breakfast with some friends where we learned that Ashlyn apparently likes biscuits.

 

And that was our Houston trip.  We didn’t take many pictures while we were there, so I’ll end the post with some random pictures taken this week.

Here’s one of Ashlyn getting a kick out of the Caprisun juice container.  She’s trying to get the straw in there, but hasn’t managed it yet.



And this was our attempt at getting Ashlyn to do her part around the house.  It didn’t work.

 

And this is Ashlyn learning to throw a ball.  It’s hard to tell, but the ball is actually in the air after she threw it.



In other news, Ashlyn is now able to pick out shape cutouts and bring them back to you.  You can point to a square on a board, and she’ll go across the room to pick up the square shape and bring it back.  She enjoys the game, and it’s a great learning experience.

Only a few words added this week:

• Pretzel
• Cookie