Ashlee-2 Months Old

10lbs 9oz

22 inches

I can't believe that my little baby girl is already 2 months old. Just doesn't seem possible to me...But it is! Where do I start with this girl. She is a little angel. She loves to smile and talk. I love talking to her because she looks at your face and lips as if she is reading them and then she will coo back. When she gets really excited she will even breath in really fast and make the cutest noise. She is very giving of her smiles, smiling ALL the time. Ashlee smiles and talks the most at night when it is just me and her or her Daddy and her. Once she notices her nighttime routine she will get all cute and smile and coo which always makes me stop getting her ready for bed and just sit there and talk and smile with her! She is already quite smart!! She rarely cries, usually only in the car when we stop or when she has a bubble. When she does cry it is pretty loud and Ethan and Katelee both complain that it is hurting their ears. (A little pay back never hurt anyone right? Thanks Ashlee for helping me out!) Ashlee is a great sleeper... Amazing how great she is at sleeping and I still sometimes complain, I should be ashamed... I just blame it on me being older than I was with Katelee! Ethan was a great sleeper, but with him being my first kid I had no idea how lucky and nice it was to have him sleeping all the way through the night at 3-4 days old.... Ashlee usually goes down for bed between 9 and 9:30 and wakes up to eat around 5-5:30. Sometimes she will fuss a little in the night and I just give her the binky and she is quickly back to sleep again. She has been doing well at sleeping since about 4-5 weeks, with little spells of not doing so well that might last 2 or 3 days. Some nights she goes to sleep with the binky and some nights she doesn't want it... I love that... My other two were very dependent on the binky, Katelee so much so that she needed it multiple times a night to get back to sleep...

Ashlee is my little cuddle bug, she goes with the flow and doesn't seem to mind all the attention she gets from her siblings and sometimes the little attention her parents give her. She has started keeping her milk down better. She use to spit up so much that I wondered how she was ever going to grow without milk... She still spits up but not nearly as much, most times! She eats four ounces every four hours during the day. After her 5-5:30am bottle she will go back to sleep until her next bottle at 9:30am. Ashlee is perfectly content laying on the couch or floor just looking around. Sometimes when she does get fussy the solution is just laying her down. I think she gets annoyed with being held too much, it's quite amazing how she will stop crying when we set her down. She still doesn't have much hair, but the hair she does have is dirty blond with a little hint of red in the sun. She has the cutest lips and when she starts to cry she will pout out her little lips and then let our a scream. It's really quite cute.

I am so thankful for our sweet Ashlee Elizabeth. She is a joy to have in our house. We all love her so much and can't imagine our lives without her! Didn't ever seem like there was a void in our house before she came, but I can't remember life before her! How grateful I am that she chose me to be her mother and to come to our crazy little family! We love you and can't wait to continue watching you grow!

Little Tub Time for Ashlee

Here is just a short video of Ashlee having some tub time!

She LOVES her tub time!

Daddy-Daughter Time

Chris has been studying a lot lately since he is getting closer and closer to being finished with the classroom portion of schooling. With me being back at work it seems like the evenings are a rush to get a million things completed and get the kids down for the night in two hours or so. Ashlee is a great baby and the kids have been going to bed pretty well, but there is still a bit of time where Ashlee needs a little bit of our undivided attention.

The other night Ashlee got a little fussy right before her feeding time so Chris picked her up and held her on his lap while I finished dishes and folding the clothes...

It started out like this....And then turned to this.... (Yes, Chris is awake... Kinda looks like he is asleep!) Apparently school work already makes Ashlee tired too! And here I have been thinking all along it was just Chris that got sleepy when he studied! I'm just glad I have a husband that is so willing to help out. He has so much on his plate: Graduate School, Studying, kids, wife, church calling and more.... Yet he is still a very active dad in our kids' lives-Very active husband in this very needy lady's life and I love him more and more each day for it!

Touro-Sky Mania Family Night

The other night (well I was still on maternity leave, so it was about a month ago) Chris' school, Touro, reserved Sky Mania for their students and families. Sky Mania is a big warehouse full of trampolines. This was my first time being inside the building and I was impressed. We called our friends the Deuels and invited them to join us. So we all headed down to Sky Mania and the kids and Chris jumped the night away. I was a little upset because I was still not cleared to do any of this physical activity, but I got to watch and visit with my friend so it was just as fun for me. Chris was on a dodge ball team that ended up taking second place.... Good job babe!Kate LOVED jumping, and I think LOVED is an understatement. She jumped for 2+ hours solid. The only breaks she took was to get a drink of water and she was back at it. I love this picture because you can see Katelee, looking pretty funny, and Ethan about to bomb in on the trampoline she is jumping on. There were so many kids there I had to keep looking and making sure I could see my kids.

Here is Katelee and Brody, who kept pushing Katelee down. It was kinda funny, she didn't like being pushed down but she would just let him do it! Brody is very familiar with this place and jumped around like he owned the place. You can also see Ethan about to jump against the side trampoline. Ethan was crazy, crazy and CRAZY while we were there. Sweet Ashlee just slept the entire time we were there, except for the half hour when I had to feed her.

What is funny is I would have never taken Ethan to this place at Ashlee's age. But with the third kid there wasn't a second thought about it.

Chris' school is so family oriented, I love it. They do family things often... This is the first official family thing we have been too, but it's nice to know they know their students have families that need a break every once in a while too! What was even better was that the kids were out in no time for bed that night! NICE!!

Cousins

Here is a picture of my kids' best friends, their cousins. These kids all get along so well and get so excited when they see each other. I loved being close to my cousins and hope my kids will too!

Random Girls...

Poor Ashlee, being the third child she spends a lot of time in her car seat. Luckily for us she doesn't mind. During the week she falls asleep or is asleep when we get her in the car seat to go to Grandma's house. She then naps in her car seat until her next bottle. And with all the activities we have going on we leave her in the car seat and push her around. She is such a good baby and never really fusses about the car seat, even when it's been a long game, trip or errands run. Many nights when I get home from picking the kids up at Grandma's, Ashlee stays in her car seat until I get the dishes done or Daddy gets home and takes her out. This girl smiles all the time, yet I haven't been able to really capture it in a picture! This is the closest I have gotten~! And this one too!

Cousin Emily is letting Ashlee borrow her little swing and Ashlee seems to be enjoying it. Her siblings love it too because they can change the music and turn it up really loud! Katelee especially likes to turn the 'heartbeat' sound up really loud and drive her mother crazy!!!

And look at my little, big Katelee. I haven't really blogged about her being potty trained, so I guess I can do that now. Katelee has been wearing big girl underwear for a while now. She all of a sudden one day before Ashlee came along decided she would stop being so stubborn and be potty trained. She still wears pull ups to bed at night, however during the day she is all good! She loves to put on her big girl underwear and screams if you try to do it for her. Sometimes she will come in the potty room while I'm in there and tell me how proud of me she is when I go potty! Makes me laugh and realize I must say that a lot to her! She is really turning into such a big girl. It's pretty weird to think she is no longer my baby girl... she is my oldest girl! Her hair is still curly and her legs are still long and lean! Attitude and all we love having this crazy lady around!

And that is all for the random girls for now!

One Day...

The Thursday before I had to go back to work I took some random pictures of what my life had been like for the last 6 weeks...Dishes... I was doing dishes about 1-2 times a day. Usually I hate dishes, but this time washing bottles was a little therapeutic. I still, to this day, enjoy my dishes time... When I don't keep getting interrupted by crazy kids and other stuff I have to do.

Little Ashlee taking a quick nap on the floor while I get some stuff around the house done. She loves to hang out on her tummy. Laundry, lots and lots of laundry. One day I did 6 full loads... and that was just to get ahead. It seems like most days of my leave were spend doing some kind of laundry!

And then when I did the laundry I would have to fold it. I don't really mind folding the laundry, it's putting it away that really gets to me. Notice the TV remote in the middle of the piles of clothes... I catch up on my show while I fold, I think that's why I don't mind it so much!

Changing sheets. I forget how often you change a newborns sheets. Not that Ashlee is a dirty baby, just the spit up and explosions get everywhere!

Cooking, I didn't do this at the beginning of my leave so much, but started to get a good routine going in the end. This was our yummy lasagna before I cooked it.

As I finished taking all of these pictures I realized something...

I could get use to this...

I could get use to doing the laundry during the day.. I could get use to making nice dinners instead of ones that can be assembled, cooked and eaten within an hour. It was nice. I'm not going to say I'm wonderful at it... Most morning I didn't get out of bed before 8. Ethan and Katelee would lay in bed with me and watch TV while I dosed into sleep on and off. Chris took the kids to my mom's house many morning and then I wouldn't get out of bed until around 10... But for the first time in my "mother life" history I finally felt like I could do it. I was doing it, I was doing it successfully and I LOVED it! I think this realization made going back to work so much harder because I knew I could do it! I knew I was doing it!

I cannot wait to do it full time...

Blessings

The other day I heard this song on the radio and fell in love. I'm a thinker... Especially when it comes to music. I analyze and contemplate songs, their lyrics and the possible meaning of them. This song really got me thinking. We have all had trials, heartache, pain, loss and joy! Through this song I have been reminded that some of my greatest joy has been preceded by pain. It was put very well in conference, roughly they said...any mother can tell you that the pain of childbirth precedes the miracle of life. Oh how that is true and I don't even do it without the assistance of medication. :) It's amazing how my prayers go in cycles depending on what is going on in my life. When I'm pregnant I pray for a safe and healthy delivery, I pray for my unborn child to be watched over and come with no complications, I pray for strength to be a good mother to this special spirit coming to our earthly home. After the baby is born my prayers turn to thanksgiving for a safe delivery, for doctors that are trained, for a healthy baby and a wonderful support system. When a child is sick, especially when Ethan went through his ITP my prayers were full of pleading tears and a mother's deepest desire for that child to be healed. No matter how or where my prayers are said or cried I know that my Heavenly Father hears them. I know that I can cry, sob, mumble, beg, laugh or whisper and yet he still knows what I'm saying, he understands. When there are no words to adequately express my true feelings at that particular time, I am positive He knows EXACTLY how I feel. Some times it does take a thousand sleepless nights to realize that HE is there. Sometimes it takes a good cry to heal and sometimes it takes something so small to happen in our lives or someone else's life to realize just how blessed we really are. I have grown closer to my husband from trials we have faced together. I learned as a young mother how much a child can change your life. I have grown closer to my children by loving them through our tough times. Sometimes we don't really appreciate fully the special people in our lives until we contemplate or experience a life without them. How special we are then to our Father in Heaven that he was willing to be apart from us while we came to earth to experience the trials and joys of this life. And while we may all experience trials and tribulation in this life we can know that we have them to help us grow. To show us the joy that comes after pain. To see the sun and the rainbow after the storm. I have been blessed abundantly in my life to have such a great family, wonderful husband, beautiful children and special friends.... Those are all I need to face any trial in my life... I have been blessed, truly blessed!

Ethan's New Adventure

A few months ago we got a call from my brother telling us that we needed to get down to Wendy's and sign Ethan up for T-ball. The Central Little League was there and T-Ball started at age 4. After making him go ask the commissioner if it really was age 4, we packed up and headed down to Wendy's. Grandpa Blackburn had already paid for Ethan and so we just filled out the paperwork. I don't know who was more excited, me or Chris. Ethan was a little worried. We asked him if he was excited and he said, "Well... What if I'm not good?" We quickly told him he would be just fine and as long as he had fun that was all that mattered! Later that day we overheard him talking with Grandma Alberta about T-ball and you could tell he was excited about it. I have been waiting for the day when he could start playing sports forever, it seems. We were gonna start him with Soccer, but he was too young when they started the season so we were just waiting for the new season to start. Ethan had his first practice at the end of February. Luckily they practiced right by my parent's house, so Grandma stayed home with Ashlee so I could go with Ethan. His first practice was just throwing the ball around... Towards the end of practice I looked over and noticed that Ethan was running off of the field... We were on the opposite side and end of the dugout so I started running to get him... (mind you I had just had a baby a week or so earlier...) When I got to Ethan I said "what are you doing dude?" and he said "I thought practice was over." His coach had been running after him and came over then and took him back on the field. I thought it was quite funny that he was pretty much done with practice so it must be over. He gets his very long (joking) attention span from his mother! Practices have gotten better since the first few. Grandpa Blackburn signed up to help out the team and is an assistant coach. Some call him Coach Ethan's Grandpa! Too funny. This picture is from one of his practices...Chris and I were watching Ethan at one practice and were getting a little frustrated with Ethan. He wasn't paying attention, sitting down when in line, playing with the dirt and even filling his hat up with dirt and then putting it back on his head. My dad was my brother's baseball coach for many years and had some interesting kids. One of these kids was named Bruce. Bruce would chase butterflies, stare at the snack bar more than the field and not pay attention to anything. I quickly thought of him and smiled, great my son was the Bruce of this team... Fantastic! Since that practice he has started doing what the other boys are doing and pays attention a little better... Thank heavens, I don't know if I could handle it if he just got worse!

Isn't he so cute? I'll have more later on his games and a picture of him in his uniform!

Go Ethan!!!

Any Similarities?

Katelee's First BathAshlee's First Bath Same towel and that's about all... What do you guys think? Do you see any similarities?

Ashlee's First 'Real' Bath

On March 13th Little Miss Ashlee got her first real bath. Some of you might be saying, "wow, she was almost a full month old." But her cord took a while to fall off and sadly it was kinda hard to fit time in to do a bath for her. Anyhow, I wasn't sure if she would like it but I figured she would because this girl is so chill and go with the flow.... Well I was right. I put her in the water and she was an angel, she just sat there and seemed to enjoy every minute of the warm water! Of course when I took her out of the water she wasn't all too happy, but it didn't last long! I love how fat she looks in the picture below, but how she doesn't look that way at all in the top picture! The below picture is kinda how she looks now!

After her bath and after getting all lotioned up and clothed she was happy as a calm....

And she smelled DELICIOUS too! Ashlee doesn't have too much hair, but when it dries it is the cutest little puffy fro I've ever seen!