Chidlren's Museum and Other Mumblings

As usual, I apologize for the lack of posts. It remains to be very busy around here. The end of the year is just such a crazy time for me. I only have 1 month of school left, and then I get to spend all day with Ashlyn again. Joey's job did a bunch of layoffs last week. Thankfully, he was not included in these layoffs. We continue to pray that he continues to have a job with his company. We are also praying that I am able to find a teaching job this fall. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers! *There is another new post. It is below the technical difficulty one. I started it, and then had problems. It is the first one I wrote, so that is why it is below the other two. Please check it out too!

Ashlyn continues to grow and be a wild and crazy toddler. She is getting to the tantrum stage. They aren't too bad yet, but we definitely know when she is not happy. She also really knows exactly what she wants! She continues to talk up a storm. She says several new words each and every day. She is starting to put words together. Just a few minutes ago, she said "Bye Daddy". It is so fun and exciting to see her literally grow each and every day. She also does something new and adorable each day.

Ashlyn still loves animals to death. Last week she was obsessed with cats or "meow meows". This week, she is really liking birds. She calls them "B's". Whenever she sees a bird or a picture of one she says "B" and gets really excited.

This past weekend, we finally made it to the Children's Museum in Denver. We have been wanting to go up there forever and finally made it. We had a great time. Ashlyn just loved exploring everything. They had lots of fun things for her to do. It was a bit crowded, but we still had a great time! We were going to go to the aquarium as well. It was an overcast, chilly day that day. We drove by the aquarium and there was a line to just buy tickets. We decided to wait for a day this summer during the week.

Joey took a billion pictures like usual. Here are some of my favorites.


Ashlyn in front of the vegetable garden. It was really cute.

Putting on a smock before painting. (I don't know why we bothered, she still got so messy!)

Looking at the easel, a little confused what it was.

This one is on here twice.

This was Ashlyn's first time painting. She really liked it!

Painting is so much fun!

The finish product, including her name that I painted on top.

Ashlyn got to go grocery shopping. She just loves little carts.

Loading up on food

Picking out some produce. She is a natural isn't she?

Looking at something in a tree.

Playing with a "B" in a huge nest.

Looking at some real "B's" out the window. I honestly think it was the highlight of her day!

Putting on a puppet show for dad.

Dancing on the dance floor. I don't know if I have mentioned this yet, but Ashlyn is OBSESSED with dancing. She literally can't get enough. We play music all the time for her and she just dances and dances. I will post a video. My best friend owns a dance studio, and we plan to get her into classes as soon as she is potty trained.

Standing with Dad on the real fire truck.

Driving the fire truck with Mom.

Her first drink from a water fountain.

Walking across the star bridge.

Technical Errors

I have lots of new pictures to post. I am having some technical troubles uploading pictures right now. I am going to have Joey take a look when he gets home. I will post as soon as I can!

Some Odds and Ends Pictures

Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks.

Joey bought Ashlyn some sunglasses. They are way too big for her, but she loves wearing them and they are adorable!

Wearing them like Mom does sometimes.

Acting like a silly girl!

Out front having fun

On the porch swing

Helping Dad water the lawn.

Watching the water fill up the tub. She loves it!

Filling up her teapot. My mom recently bought Ashlyn a tea set for the bath. She absolutely loves that thing. That is the only thing she plays with now in the bath.

What's in the teapot?

Again, with the teapot.

Funny hair

Taking a "drink" of tea.

Every bath is a tea party for Ashlyn!

Easter

Ashlyn had a very good 2nd Easter. It just amazes me how much difference a year makes. Last year, she was so unaware of what was going on. I am sure next year she is going to really go crazy for Easter!

Joey had the day off on Friday and he decided to take Ashlyn to see the Easter bunny. She was not impressed at all! She thought he was just as scary as Santa. Joey said she was very apprehensive and unsure. She was starting to warm-up to him, and then he had to go and stand up to stretch. It was over after that. Joey did manage to get her to sit with him for a picture. It is funny because I am in her Santa picture and Joey is in the Easter bunny picture.

The Easter bunny was very good to Ashyln again this year. He left her a baby Elmo, a My Little Pony, a Mr. Potato head, some sandbox toys, and some books. He also left her a sandbox, but he left that in the garage because it is still too cold for it.

When we awoke Easter morning, we were surprised to see that we had a white Easter. It is kind of sad because we are always wanting a white Christmas and it never happens. The one day everyone would love for it to be sunny and warm, it snows! Joey and I woke up Ashly and told her that the Easter bunny had been there. She crawled down the stairs and was truly surprised. There were eggs everywhere! We showed her her gifts, and she wanted to start the hunt immediately! I thought she would be pretty clueless as to what to do. You would have thought the girl had practiced a hundred times. She was running around and picking up eggs and putting them in her basket like a pro. She did not want to put her basket down. She is obsessed with her eggs and loves putting them in her basket over and over. She even had to take it with her to Gram's today.

After the egg hunt and some playtime, Ashyln took a short nap. We then headed to my Grandma's for Easter lunch. My Grandma made some wonderful food and we had a great time.
We came home and just relaxed the rest of the day. It really was a terrific Easter.

I had bought Ashlyn a dress and planned to dress her all up, but it was really snowing when we left our house. I decided to have her stay in her warm clothes. I am now really regretting that because I don't have any pictures of her in an Easter dress. I was going to make her wear her dress while she looked for eggs, but she was just too excited.

Ashlyn has really been talking a lot more. She is saying lots of sentences, but we just can't quite make out what she is saying. We are picking up more and more words though. Her new favorite is "mow mow". It is what she calls a cat and the sound a cat makes. It is really cute. She is constantly looking for the cat. Too bad the cat is not too fond of her since she perpetually wants to yank on her tail!

Ashlyn also had her first two play dates this week and last week. She gets to play with 2 boys. They are both 6 months to a year older than her. My mom said she was a little shy last week. She did do a lot better today. My mom says she just loves playing with the trucks and trains. I am glad that she is able to socialize a bit more.

Here are the pictures we took. I don't feel that we captured the day well enough, but what can I do?

The loot the Easter bunny left behind.

Ashlyn hearing the news that the Easter bunny had come.

Getting ready to go look. Don't you just love the bedhead?

Finding her first egg

Taking a look at what she got.

There were eggs everywhere!

The Easter bunny left them everywhere!

Look at all the eggs in her basket.

Again, I love the bedhead!

Trying to figure out what is inside.

Giving Elmo his pacifier. Notice the snow outside? It actually snowed a lot more after that.

Arizona Trip

Before I start this post, I have to add our great news for this week: Joey passed his Series 7 test!!!! We are so proud of him! He has been studying for this test for months. Only 66% of people who take the test pass. He passed on the first try. Passing this test will help him advance at work and open many doors for him. Way to go Joey!

Our vacation to Arizona was wonderful! We had such a great time. We had a week full of relaxing, shopping, eating, and visiting with friends and family. Unfortunately, my Grandma was sick for most of our stay, so we did not get to see her as much as we would have liked :( It gives us a reason to go out there again soon!

Ashlyn did a terrific job in the car on the ride down there. We were worried that she would get antsy or annoyed to be in her car seat for 12 hours. We did have a portable DVD player that was a lifesaver! Of course, the DVD player quit working 1/2 way through, but we managed to keep her entertained. I expected Ashlyn to sleep for a good portion of the trip, she always falls asleep in the car when we are out and about. Well, for some odd reason, she only slept for an hour or so. I think she was just having too much fun with her Mom, Auntie, Gram, and Papa. We were all very pleased with how well she did and I was proud of my girl!

Ashlyn got to see lots of kids when we were there. She got to see my cousins, Luke, Eliza, and Nathaniel. My friend Jen came over one day with her 3 kids. Ashlyn had a blast playing with them and being around other kids. Ashlyn also got to see her best friend, Nadia. Nadia seems to like Ashlyn a lot, and Ashlyn just adores Nadia. She loves tickling her feet and giving her kisses. The two of them are too cute together!

I have included two more posts below, but we did a lot on our vacation. We went to the zoo, swimming, and even to the train park. We took Ashlyn to the train park when we were down there last May. She was just 6 months old and did not show much interest of course. This time she loved the train. She just sat very still the whole ride and looked around. I definitely want to make it a tradition to go every time we are down there. We did a lot of eating out and Ashlyn discovered a love for frozen yogurt!

One of Ashlyn's favorite moments was when she got to push her own cart at Trader Joe's. Ashlyn has started to love "pushing" the cart when we are shopping. Well, Trader Joe's has special kid sized carts. We gave her one to push and she went crazy! She was running through the aisles just laughing and laughing. It was so cute!

We were very sad to see our vacation come to an end. We look forward to our next visit out there sometime in the near future. Ashlyn's next big trip will be to New York this summer. She can't wait to see all of her family out there and show them how much she has grown!

I return back to work this week. It will be hard to go back after 2 weeks of vacation. I only have 8 weeks left of school. I was hired on a temporary basis, so I am starting to look for positions for next year. Please pray that something comes my way. Teaching jobs are very hard to come by out here. In other news, we have started work on finishing our basement. Our living/family room space is very limited in this house, so we decided to finish the basement to give us lots of room to spread out. I will post pictures of the work in progress. We are hoping the project does not take too long!



Ashlyn wearing Auntie's cool shades!

Holding Auntie and Papa's hands at the park

Running around on the green grass

Sitting at Mom at a delicious German restaurant.

Such a big girl

Buckling in her new spider monkey into the stroller.

Feeding her very thirsty spider monkey milk.

She even let me put her hair into a ponytail. It is getting so long!

A picture with Auntie

A picture with Mom

The two of us being goofy

Ashlyn with her Uncle. She loves giving him kisses.

In my Grandma's backyard

She loved looking at all of the pretty flowers.

We discovered that Ashlyn is quite good at dribbling a soccer ball when we were out there. We think a soccer career may be in her future!

More soccer ball fun

What a big girl!

Ashlyn pushing her own cart.

Riding on the train.

She really enjoyed the ride.

Play time with Nadia

Giving Nadia kisses

The last night we were there, we ate at a really neat restaurant that was adjacent to a farm. It was so beautiful. This is Ashlyn running down the farm road.