Today We're Going Crazy...Would You Like to Come Along?

So welcome to our little piece of crazy here on earth...or heaven on earth, both apply. We have had a good week and a half around here. I am still just savoring Ashlyn's little baby days and I can't tell you how glad I am that I have taken time to just enjoy her! She is such a good baby. If she is awake and full she is just a happy little girl...and she is such a good sport being passed around and picked up by her eager big brothers. I took her to the Dr. two weeks ago for her first check up since being born and she weighed 7 lbs 7oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. When we brought her home from the hospital she weighed 6 lbs 6 oz. so she gained a little over a pound and grew an inch. She is eating good and growing and we just LOVE her. I can tell that she has gained a little more since then, I would guess she is in the 8 lb. range now. So Jace and Brax have been doing good too. Adjusting more and more to the changes around here. It has gotten warm finally so the sprinkler is a daily activity now. They also got to take a fun trip to the zoo this week with their aunt and uncle.

So Happy belated Father's Day to Tim, my dad and my dad-in-law. Three great great great fathers who we are lucky to call our family. They are all great examples of everything fathers should be. So for Tim's father's day gift he got a new car! It wasn't really planned that way, it just happened that the dealership that was looking for him found what he wanted at a great deal over Father's Day weekend and he got to pick it up on Monday. It is a 2004 Acura TL with only 21,000 miles on it. I am happy he has something he loves to drive that has a fully functional transmission and A/C. Here he is posing with his new ride and his new daughter.

Here is a mommy and daughter picture, I love my sweet little girl : )


Okay, because of my awesome photography skills I was able to make it look like we hung this quilt on the wall and then hung Ashlyn from the quilt when, in reality, she is just laying on the floor. : ) Actually that was unintentional and I am just a very poor photographer. This is a quilt her great-grandma (my Nana) made her and sent this week. I love it, it is so soft and girly.

Here is the princess asleep and you can see the chub starting to develop on her cheeks. They are perfect for kissing and Nana (Ashlyn's Nana, Tim's mom) I give her a kiss on each cheek for you everyday and tell her they are from you : )

She is starting to have some longer awake stretches but is usually just a happy little girl!

Tim likes this outfit because it says Daddy's Girl there by the flower. I like it because it has the cutest little skirt. Her first little skirt...I love girl stuff.

Jace's preschool teacher made her some headbands with bows. Here is one of them. I hope to get her used to having stuff in her hair now so when she is old enough to rip it out she won't even notice because she will be so used to it.

So this week my WONDERFUL sister and brother, Jenna and Brennan, offered to take Jace and Brax to the zoo for the day. They had a great time. Ashlyn and I had a great time too. I finally got to clean the house and didn't have to try and break some speed records when showering and Ashlyn got to nap in peace and quiet. :) Here they are at the zoo eating lunch. Jenna was nice enough to take lots of pictures for me.

Here is Jenna and Ashlyn when she came to pick the boys up. She also deserves a special mention and big thanks for coming up to watch the boys the day Ashlyn had her Dr. appointment so I didn't have to try and wrestle the boys there too. Then as an extra special bonus she stayed and played with the boys and I actually got to take a little nap. Bless you Jenna. Actually all of my siblings have been incredible. Tyler and Brennan volunteered to come up and baby sit the boys last Saturday so Tim and I could go out for a minute (with Ashlyn) and even took them to McD's. Elyse brought dinner up on Father's Day and so I didn't have to cook and Andrew, Tyler, Jenna and Brennan came too to help celebrate with Tim. They have just been the best and every break they have given me has been so much appreciated. I love you guys!

Here they are at an animal exhibit Jenna obviously loved. : )

On the way home, tired out after a long day.

I'm not sure what animal that is but they liked it!

Another exciting event coming up this week...tomorrow our basement will officially be finished. Workers are to finish the carpet in the morning and then it will be done. So the next post will be some pics of that. It will be a happy day moving all the toys down there. : )

So finally to close this long post my friend Jennifer wanted me to post 11 things about Braxton. I am happy to do this because he is such a fun little guy and I really want to make sure I give him the attention he needs now that he is the middle child. So here are 11 fun facts about Brax

1. Brax is one stubborn little guy. He will break anyone. If you want him to do something he will not do it unless HE decides he wants to. He will absolutely not eat anything that HE doesn't really want to and he will sit at the table forever not giving in. I choose to look at this as a positive trait. Good luck trying to peer pressure him into things in the future. : )

2. Brax loves to play games. He likes duck duck goose, hide and seek, ring around the rosie, hungry hungry hippos and Wii games. And anything else Jace might be playing. He is so cute and will even count by himself and try to find people at hide and go seek.

3. He loves melon. LOVES it. Watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe. And strawberries. He will eat any that he sees until it is gone. Which explains why he is so tiny...those things have like 5 calories in them. When I stop nursing and can diet I might just try eating what he eats. Oh, and he loves microwave popcorn. He could eat like a whole bag.

4. He is a really good talker and singer but you might not know it unless he decides to like you. If he doesn't really know you he will be shy and not talk but once he starts he is so funny. I love to listen to him and Jace have conversations, they are so cute.

5. He loves all "boy" things. Cars, trains, dinosaurs, attacking things, swords, dart guns, etc.

6. He has started to be able to say short prayers with help. At the end we will say each word separately but when we get to Christ he always goes back and says Jesus Christ...so it ends up being "In the name of Jesus Jesus Christ, Amen." It is co cute and he is so proud of himself.

7. Along with being stubborn he is very dramatic. If he gets upset he isn't just whiny, it is full on tears. And laying down. And he won't stop until he feels he has gotten the attention he deserves. : )

8. He LOVES Jace. Like idolizes him. He loves to play with him and if Jace is at preschool or at a friends house he just isn't happy until he is back home again. They do fight sometimes though but both are quick to forgive and be buddies again.

9. He is barely two but thinks he is four like Jace. He thought he should be allowed to play t-ball, go to preschool and go to friends houses to play when Jace does. At the parks he has no fear on any kind of equipment. He doesn't like to take naps, or do anything that might make him a baby.

10. He is an incredibly fast runner for his age. I am constantly afraid when we are out places that he will run and I won't be able to catch him.

11. He is such a sweet, fun, smart, lovable little guy. He gives great hugs and kisses and I love when he is in the mood to snuggle up on my lap. He loves to have someone lay by him until he falls asleep and gets so excited every day when Tim gets home. He really loves his daddy.

So that ends this long post. I couldn't continue if I wanted. I am falling asleep while typing so good-night : ) I hope that was enough pictures for you Leslie. : ) I hope you guys decide to come out here, it would be soo much fun to see you!

When It Rains It Floods (Featuring Lots of Pictures of the Cutest Little Baby Girl)

Long title, I know...and long absence from the blog. I have been busy giving lots of kisses to my sweet little baby (and changing lots of diapers and other more mundane stuff that I will not mention : ) We are all doing great. Ashlyn is such a sweet little baby, it is so fun to have her in our family. Before I had her I was so nervous to have three kids. Everyone who had three said that it was such a big change, that three was the hardest number to have, etc. So, I was expecting to just be tired all the time and have no time to do anything, and have the boys act out and be super, extra wild. So, all those things have happened, just to a lesser degree than I was expecting, so that makes it seem not bad. It is all about your perspective. And I decided that I am just going to enjoy Ashlyn's newborn time as much as possible. I will have the rest of my life to clean our house but she will only be in that wonderful little, teeny, tiny stage for such a short time that I am trying to enjoy it all. The last two weeks have been even crazier because Tim went back to work. Jace and Brax have been good though, all things considered. Some days I feel cooped up and a little crazy from being home so much so I am sure it is magnified being 4 and 2 : ) They LOVE their sister though and always want to hold her and give her hugs and kisses. Jace even likes to help change her diapers and burp her. He has been a big helper. And the trampoline...best investment ever. It has provided hours of fun and entertainment. So brace yourself, lots of pictures ahead. But keep in mind that I have taken over 200 pictures of her since she was born so you are only really seeing a very small percentage of them. :)

So obviously this isn't Ashlyn, this is what happens though when I take a minute to brush my teeth. Thanks goes to Braxton for this fun little mess. FYI-that is almost an entire roll, it soaked up all the water in the bowl.

Here is our sweet little girl, getting a ride around the house from daddy.

Jace picked out this outfit because it has the abc's on it and he took this picture of her. He has taken a good amount of the 200 pictures. It is sad because his pictures are usually as good as mine : )

An outfit change...still cute.

Yes, we rescued her just seconds after this was taken. I had to include it though because I laugh everytime I see Brax because this is his new "picture smile". Nice, huh?

In all the other pictures her hair looks darker than it actually is. This was taken in from of an open window with no flash and it shows that her hair is actually a light brown and Tim and I swear it gets lighter everytime we wash it. I love her hair. My mom said that I had hair just like this when I was born. Maybe that is why I like it so much, one of my children finally inherited some physical characteristic from me!

Seeing stars from the flash going off 50 times in her face : )

This is what she thinks of more pictures. We haven't taken her to church yet but we got so many cute little newborn sized dresses for her that I decided to dress her up on Sunday anyway.

My three little kiddos. There is nothing I have found so far to compare to being a mommy, so hard, yet the best. They have three big pieces of my heart. : )

So the father son campout was last weekend. They were supposed to go up to the mountains but couldn't because of the snow (yes, snow, in June, the crazy weather continues). So Tim (in an act that should win him some kind of award) decided to set the tent up in the backyard because the boys were so excited to camp. They took the sleeping bags and flashlights and the boys had a great time. While I was up in the middle of the night with Ashlyn I heard it start to rain, get windy and expected them to come in any moment but Tim made sure they were warm and they stayed out there all night! Tim didn't sleep great, but that's the price you pay for being a great dad I guess. : )

This is the next morning, they just like hanging out in there. : )

Okay, to explain the title about the flood. Last week we had tons of rain here. So one morning after a heavy night of rain, I hear Tim get up to get ready at about 6:30. Braxton wanted a drink then, so he went into the kitchen to get it but comes running back into our room and starts to frantically put clothes on. I asked him what was happening and he said the basement was flooding. Our beautiful, new, so close to being done basement! It had rained so much that water just filled up the window wells and was pouring in from the windows. We have a little portable pump that hooks up to the hose, so he was out in the rain trying to pump out the window wells and had towels out trying to soak up all the water that had already flooded in. It was a fun morning at our house. I couldn't even help much because all the kids were awake and I didn't want them to go down there and I couldn't really leave Ashlyn alone, so Tim got to work like crazy all by himself. He was at it for almost 3 1/2 hours. THANKFULLY, we didn't have the carpet in yet. It would have been completely ruined. We had it ordered, just not installed yet and we are counting our blessings. We actually fared well compared to a lot of our neighbors. (Almost everyone in our neighborhood I have talked to had some flooding). We didn't have any major damage done and feel very lucky. Tim is now installing automatic pumps in the window wells to prevent this from happening again. : ) Nothing like a newborn and a flood to keep things exciting.

Two other exciting recent events (thankfully in a different way than the flood), my sister Elyse got engaged over Memorial Day weekend to Andrew. We are so excited for them! They are getting married November 1st in CA. Jace is really happy for them because that means he gets to go to Disneyland! I would post a picture of them if I had the energy to figure out how to import it from a website...just trust me when I tell you they are a cute couple.

And not to be outdone, my brother Tyler got engaged a week later to Carissa. We are also so happy for them too! They are getting married August 29th here. Again, just trust me when I say they are a cute couple. So, like I needed more motivation to lose the baby weight, now I have two weddings that I would like to attend in something other than a mu-mu. It will be fun to go from the only one married on my side for almost 7 years to having more than half the fam married now. It will be a fun rest of the year!

So I will end this novel now. Everyone is now asleep except for me and I am jealous so good night!