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.

A special weekend…

This weekend was a blast.  Why?  Because Aunt Lisa (my sister) got married!

Friday night was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which was held out at the Ft. Worth Zoo.  Ashlyn didn’t attend that particular function, instead she spent the evening with Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe.  The dinner was great, they even brought out animals.  Here’s a picture of the bride, groom, and a 5 year old alligator that was really happy to be there.

 

The wedding itself was on Saturday.  The service was perfect and the bride was beautiful.  And I got to play two parts:  the proud brother of the bride, and the proud father of a cute little baby girl.  Hey, this is a blog about Ashlyn, so I have to include at least one picture of her.  Check her out.. if that doesn’t make you say “awww”, something is terribly wrong with you.

 

She didn’t get to stay at the reception too long, but I did get the chance to spin her around the dance floor.  She had a great time of it, and spent most of the song clapping (I’m not sure if it was for the band or my dancing ability, but my money is on the band).

The highlight of the night of course was watching my sister marry Jeff.  She couldn’t have found a nicer guy, and Heather and I both are incredibly happy for them.  

Have fun in Anguilla Mr. and Mrs. Early!


Before I end this post, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the look on my parent's faces as Lisa took her first steps with her "Mrs." title is making me nervous because I know that someday (a long, long time from now) I'll watch Ashlyn take those same steps.  I'm sure I'll share the same emotions that they did.. joy at seeing their daughter find someone that will make her happy for the rest of her life, and sadness in knowing that the bulk of their daughter's heart belongs to someone else.  I know I can't keep Ashlyn forever, but I'm happy that I have her for awhile.

A minute can last a lifetime…

Every day we go about our lives, and every day the world as we know it shifts a little bit.  Some days bring small innocent changes, barely noticeable amongst the twists and turns, and others affect us in more substantial ways.  A year ago today, our lives were turned upside down.  I can’t help but think back to that evening, one full of nervousness and excitement.  Normally those times are a blur, but I still vividly remember seeing our daughter for the first time, hearing her cry, and seeing those big blue eyes look out at the world.

And now she’s a year old, no longer the baby we took home from the hospital.  In the past year we’ve seen her smile, laugh, crawl, stand, speak and sign.  We watched her sleep, and stayed up with her through the morning hours.  We watched her take her first step, and held her when she fell only to watch her stand back up again.  We learned to be parents, and she learned… well, to be Ashlyn.

We wanted to do something special for her, so we took some vacation time and made a trip out to the zoo.

She went on her first carousel ride.  I'd like to say she laughed with joy the entire time, but mostly she had a look on her face that said "Why am I going up and down?".

Some things made her angry, and others made her think.
 

Some things fascinated Ashlyn…


...while some things were fascinated by Ashlyn.


Afterwards, we came home and opened up a few more presents.  Being the caring child that she is, she wanted to share one of her presents with mom.


After that, she fell sleep.  And she turned 1, officially, 11 minutes prior to this posting.  Happy birthday crab, it's been a crazy ride this past year, thanks for letting us take it.

It’s my birthday, I’ll throw cake if I want to…

Ashlyn turns 1 this week, but we decided to celebrate today so that the family could come out to wish her a happy birthday.  Grandma Wolfe came out the night before to help decorate some desserts, and Heather helped by making icing “balloons” on the cupcakes and chocolate cake.

After some grub, we got down the business of opening gifts.  Cousin Heidi helped Ashlyn open the gifts, while Ashlyn entertained the crowd by clapping, sitting on her presents, and stopping the show to bang on a musical toy.

After the presents came the cake.  You never know how a baby will react to her first cake.  Will she poke at it, not like the stickiness of it, and then leave it alone?  Or will she dive into it head first?  We got a little of both, she started off a little timid, but next thing you know she’s slapping the cake and flinging icing all over the breakfast area.  She even licked the cake at one point, which was strange, but I guess she liked the slapping better because she only did it once.

After everyone left, we took advantage of the perfect weather by giving her new wagon a spin around the neighborhood.  We walked and Ashlyn cruised around like a rock star eating Graham Crackers.

Thanks everyone who came out and made this a special day for the birthday girl, and to Great-Grandma Russell who sent along a gift even though she couldn't be here.  Ashlyn won’t remember any of this, but we have plenty of pictures to blackmail, I mean reminder her, when she gets older.

Happy birthday Crab!

I stand, therefore I am.

This is not going to be a long update, but today marked the first day that Ashlyn stood up on her own, and I felt it was worth sharing some of those first moments.  As you can see from the pictures below, she’s a bit wobbly, but she seems excited by it.

If you’re wondering why Heather is holding a camera while I’m taking the pictures, it’s because Ashlyn kept crawling over to grab MY camera, and it’s hard to take pictures with a baby’s hand on the camera lens.

Also, and I can’t provide proof of this so you’ll have to trust me, Ashlyn snuck two more teeth in on us.  She now has all four front teeth poking out, two on top and two on bottom.  These went MUCH easier than the first two.  In fact, we thought the first one was just a cold and the second went by without her even being bothered by it.  Here’s hoping that the rest are that easy.

Uh-Oh!

Today marked the first of what I can only expect to be many small injuries to parents caused by Ashlyn.  She’s decided that the best way to let us know she’s done drinking water out of her sippy cup is to toss it on the floor.  We’ve learned to be watchful of this, but we strayed a bit this evening and a full sippy cup was tossed directly onto Heather’s previously injured toe.  I laughed, Heather would have laughed if she wasn’t in pain, and Ashlyn ate a piece of cheese.  Good times.

And now on to better things..

With curiosity comes mobility and with mobility comes the desire to stand and explore.  She’s all over the house now, standing on anything with a ledge.  It’s fun to watch.  Walking is right around the corner.

And in interesting news, Ashlyn signed for the first time today.  Two different signs!  She asked for food, and asked for more.  Below is her signing for more cheese.  She likes cheese.  Now we need to work on a sign for “I’m done with my sippy cup” other than using projectiles.

She’s also starting to shake her head to say no, and will wave at you if you wave at her.  All this is still a little sporadic of course, but she’s doing it and it’s awesome to see her learning to communicate more.

And this is just a random pictures of Ashlyn hamming it up for the camera.  I can’t remember if I posted this before, but I don’t care.  It’s worth posting again.  That hair is awesome.

Aren’t daughters great?

Today’s excuse:  Life has once again made regular posting a difficult thing.  This time it’s for good reasons, but I still need to keep this thing updated.  If not for you, the reader, then for Ashlyn, the true audience.

This week has been rough, with very little sleep and my head constantly filled with pesky work thoughts.  But I have a secret weapon for stress:

I’ll tell you truthfully, I love being a father.  It’s hard to imagine a time when I wasn’t a father.  Today I got home, watched Heather hold Ashlyn’s hands while she (Ashlyn) walked across the kitchen floor.  And that simple thing, those few steps instantly made the entire week and all the worry about work fade to background noise.  I threw on some shorts, picked her up, and we walked around the lake in our neighborhood.  Well, I walked while she held on and stared at the fountain in the middle of the lake.  The girl just loves water, we took her to Uncle Bruce’s house this past weekend and she was kicking around in the pool like a frog.  Only 12 years and 1 month until we go scuba diving!

So once again I say thank you little one, for showing us that simple things in life can be amazing adventures.

Mommy and Daddy love you.