Our Trip Part III - Isaac's Blessing

We held Isaac's blessing at my brother Levi's house. (Thanks again you guys) He made a bunch of pizzas for dinner after wards and the kids went crazy outside. Thanks to everyone who was there for the blessing! Oh, and most of these pictures came from MIL's camera - because I was too busy talking! Ugh, and I don't feel like organizing these in a better order.












Before church - my parents and my in-laws


Yonas and Silas were Rae's favorite cousins to play with!






Roy belongs at the kiddie table.

Our Trip Part II

The first couple of days in Charlotte were spent hanging out, swimming and getting to know the cousins again. On Thursday my in-laws arrived. For her birthday Rae wanted to go miniature golfing, so on Friday we went first thing in the morning to avoid the heat. It didn't work though. After the first few holes we were already sweating from the heat and humidity. Yuck. We skipped the last few holes and headed inside where they had arcade games.


I was golfing one-handed with "help" from Blaise, and I still did better than everyone else!





The kids were bored after 3 or 4 holes.


They had a "build a bear" type thing in the arcade area, so both kids got to pick a stuffed animal. Just what we needed -more stuffed animals!

Our Trip Part I

On the way to Charlotte we stopped in Knoxville,TN to see our good friends from Davis. Rae and Abe spent their first 3 1/2 years of life together and Patience and John were amazing neighbors that helped us out so much! We had a great visit with them and got a good nights sleep after an exhausting 15 hours in the car (it was supposed to be 12 hours)




The next morning we stopped at Roy's dad's house on our way to Charlotte. We had lunch with him and visited for a bit and then continued on for the last 1 1/2 hours of driving. Whew.

Update to come

We are in Charlotte,NC visiting family and I haven't taken the time to blog. It'll all come in one huge post when we get home. Here's what we've been doing:

-Visited old Davis friends who now live in Tennessee
-Tried out Aloha Snow (My sister-in-law's new snoball shop)
-Isaac's blessing
-Playing with cousins galore!

Lots of pictures to come!

Fun with puns

Ashley: Today's the big test.
Roy: Of what?
Ashley: Of Isaac. I ate a few chocolates last night.
Roy: Only a few, huh?
Ashley: They were mini-chocolates.
Roy: Yeah, they were many, all right.
Ashley: I only ate two Reese's and two Hundred Grands.
Roy: 200 grams of chocolate? That's like half a pound!

My Rae bunches

It is so much fun to see how much Rae learns every single day. She is getting to be so creative and it's so fun to see the projects she comes up with! She is constantly making crafts. She'll ask me to staple together some paper and she'll write a book about something. Today it was a book all about the ways that Isaac is silly. She loves to make signs for the wall. The most recent ones were "Welcome to the play day" and "Toy Store ---->" pointing to her room. She is a little sponge lately. She tells us so many details from primary and she adores her new teacher. She also tells us all about commercials she sees on TV. She saw some OxyClean in Walmart the other day and said "hey, I've seen that commercial". She was showing me a commercial today for some toy that she wants (some kind of clay or something) and she said "mommy, Blaise and I won't make a mess with it because it is 'mess free'!). She just totally cracks me up! Of course, she has her annoying times too. :) She talks nonstop, even when she needs to STOP and is getting frustrated with Blaise a lot lately. But she is still adorable and is a terrific helper. The other day Isaac woke up from his nap in a really good mood, so I left him in his bassinet and was putting away laundry. Rae came in the room and said "I'll take care of Isaac while you finish that". So she entertained him for a while. While putting away the laundry I found a dollar bill, so I gave it to Rae and said "here, this is for babysitting". She just looked at me with a look of shock on her face and said "but I don't want to be done yet". I don't know what I would do without her. She is constantly helping Blaise and entertaining him. She even tried to change his diaper the other day, but his legs were too heavy for her and she couldn't get him to lift his bum to get the clean diaper on. I just love love love this girl and the fun she brings to our family!!

This is a picture of her "playing" a game called Farkle. Roy and I play it often. One day she found our score sheet, so she asked how to play it. All we could really explain was that ones and fives were good to get, so now she plays it and tries to get ones and fives and she made her own little scorecard.

And this one is Rae getting what she deserves :)

My big boy (updated w/ pic)

I just took Isaac to his 2 month doctor visit. He weighs 13 lbs 2 ounces and is 24 inches long. At this age Rae was 11lbs, 5 ounces and Blaise was 13lbs 10 ounces. Isaac lost the most birth weight out of all of them, but he's keeping up just fine! And he's taller than the other two were. He cried when he got his shots, but was fine once I gave him his pacifier. He was great during the rest of the visit. I can't believe he's 2 months old already!

*I accidentally wrote Blaise instead of Isaac - thanks for pointing it out to me Pat. Those two boys are never going to know which name is theirs!

** Roy took this picture this morning and I just had to add it. A blue bow makes it okay for a boy, right? :)

Long overdue

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. I'm sorry Julia, that it has taken me this long.


My cousin Julia, and her husband Brett are trying to adopt. Her friends and family are trying to get the word out there for all to read! You never know - someone could read this and know that their sister's friend's niece has a baby to put up for adoption and could give them Julia's name. So, if you know someone who would benefit from their information, please give them these website addresses:

Parent Profiles

LDS Family Services

Their personal blog: juliaandbrett.blogspot.com

They are such a great couple, and I can only imagine the sadness that comes with wanting children and not being able to have them, and having to wait and wait for a chance to adopt. I'm glad that we have the internet and that blogs have become so popular and I'm able to read all about their fun life. They would truly make excellent parents and I hope that it is a reality for them soon. Please pass on this information to anyone who could use it!

IMAX

Isaac is 8 weeks old today and I thought it was time to post some more pictures of him. Rae took the first two pictures.





Our kids are always born with a lot of hair and then it falls out in the back and sides and they are left with a silly, greasy mohawk. So Roy buzzed Isaac's head the other day. I was so upset when I saw it, because it was a lot shorter than when we did it to Blaise at this age. But it is already growing back, so I know it'll look fine in a week or two. Oh, and when you look back at the old post you can see how much Isaac looks a lot more like Rae than he looks like Blaise.

Fourth Festivities

Our 4th of July celebrating start on the 30th, which is the first day you can set off fireworks in Kirksville. We did a few every night. Roy got a couple packs of bottle rockets (they came in packs of 144 for 75 cents!) so we would set off a ton of those. We splurged on one big firework, here is the video of that:



On Friday Rae entered a Children's Cupcake Contest. Here's the cupcake "she" made - with a lot of help from me! Unfortunately, by the time it got judged some of the strawberries were sliding off the frosting. And, unfortunately, most of the cupcakes were way more awesome than ours. But we had a lot of fun doing it. Oh, and you can't tell from the picture, but the actual cupcake was colored red, white and blue.





On Saturday we missed the pancake breakfast at church because we actually slept in till 8! So I got up and made red and blue pancakes for the kiddos.



Then later in the day we went to a parade. It was cold and rainy all day, sure didn't seem like July! We watched the fireworks from the church parking lot to avoid crowds and so that we would be far enough away so the noise wouldn't scare the kids. Well, it was so cloudy and rainy that the fireworks would explode in the clouds and all you could see was the cloud light up. But elsewhere in town there were some people doing big fireworks, so we turned around and watched those. After a few minutes the clouds parted enough that we could see the city fireworks and we enjoyed the finale. We got home around 10 and set off the rest of our fireworks and called it a night. We had been keeping the kids up late all week to do fireworks, so we are all behind on sleep! I was really glad today that we have church at 1pm!


Waiting for the fireworks to start. Rae took this picture. Stupid cold weather - you can't even see our patriotic attire!




Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

Oma's visit

Roy's mom flew out this Tuesday. We drove her to St. Louis on Monday and went to the zoo and stuff. Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Lunch on the road	Oma and the kids (in the hotel in St. Louis)
We didn't take many zoo pictures	Carousel at the zoo
Back home, enjoying the summer

Letters to my family

Dear Isaac,
Thank you for being such a good, easy baby. I don't know how I would handle all the problems I've been having with nursing if you weren't such an easy-going, sleep-loving baby. Thank you for pooping on Monday after 6 days of not pooping. I'm glad I didn't have to take you to the doctor. (even though I sure enjoyed those days with no poopy diapers to change) Thank you for sleeping all morning while I took your brother and sister to the library. You slept while I showered and got ready, slept during the transfer from bed to carseat and then from carseat to sling and then sling back to carseat. You even stayed asleep while we stopped by Pizza Hut, back to the car and then back into Pizza Hut. You are such a great baby.

Dear Rae and Blaise,
Thank you for earning your Pizza Hut Book-It prizes from the library. It was fun to get some free pizzas. And thank you for leaving the crusts - those are my favorite part of Pizza Hut pizza and the only part I can eat anyway.

Dear Roy,
Thank you for putting up with my constant mood swings. You are amazing. Thank you for emptying the dishwasher before you left this morning, it was a pleasant surprise.

Dear Christie, Lindsey, Jamie and Sabina,
Please blog soon.

Dear Mom and Dad,
I can't believe you don't live in Blythe anymore. It is still not real to me.

Dear Katie,
A whole cup of hot chocolate made with breast milk is a lot different than a tablespoon in some mac&cheese - thank you for being crunchier than me :)

Life is good

I've been craving Starbursts for the past few weeks, but everytime I go to buy them I think to myself "they are kind of a waste because I don't like the orange or yellow ones". So I never buy them. But on Monday night I went to Target in St.Louis to get some snacks for our trip the zoo on Tuesday and I found these:


Now all I need is a bag of purple and red Skittles and my life would be complete :)

Random Blaise Dialog #1

Blaise: Comtatoes!
Me: Potatoes?
Blaise: No. COMTATOES!
Me: What about tomatoes?
Blaise: Yes, co-matoes too.

I'm still here!

Man, I can't believe I went so long without blogging! Roy's mom arrived on Tuesday, so prior to that I was cleaning and now we've been busy seeing everything that this area has to offer. On Thursday we went to Nauvoo. We saw the temple, went on a covered wagon ride and learned all sorts of stuff about the pioneers. Then we headed over to Carthage to see the jail where Joseph Smith was martyred (we went there last summer but Baerbel had never been there). Here are some pictures to document it all:

View larger

(I don't have any pictures in the jail because Roy had the camera and he was with poopy Blaise.)

Happy Father's Day!

When I think of my dad, the first thing that comes to my mind is his cooking style. Some may describe it as...well, ghetto, maybe? :) He can throw anything together and make it a meal. (Like spaghetti eggs) But the second thing that comes to mind is how hard he works. On Saturdays he is always in and out of the house working on projects. He always has a little folded index card in his front pocket with a list of things to do. I guess because he works so hard, the moment he sits on the couch to relax he'll be snoring within 5 minutes. If you try to take the remote from him he'll wake up and say "hey, I'm watching that".

I've never heard my dad complain about all of his responsibilities. He's had to take on a lot of extra jobs to provide for his big family and he's always super involved with church responsibilities. He just retired though, so maybe he'll get a chance to relax now! (you know, after he moves across the country,unpacks and makes improvements on his new house) Anyway, I'm so thankful for the things my daddy has taught me, the example he's always been to me, and what a terrific grandfather he is now! I love you dad!

And the other father in my life - my dear hubby! Roy has come a long way since he first became a father. He's so much more comfortable taking care of Isaac than he was with Rae. He lets me leave the house as much as I want to and changes diapers like a pro! And his relationship with the kids is so great. I love you Roy, Happy Father's Day!

BTW, Roy got his main present a few weeks ago because he saw it when it got delivered. He got this clock for his office. Today we are giving him a bigger tool box, because our tools are all over the place. But that is such a cliche present and it is really for both of us, so it doesn't really count. I also bought him some spicy surimi sushi rolls and I guess that counts as making a meal for him.

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there!

The Next Food Network Star

He's already such a great helper!
(Obviously this is not a real picture.)

Things this week

Haven't felt like blogging lately. Can't seem to organized all the jumbled thoughts in my head. Ashley + not-enough-sleep = MUSH FOR BRAINS! Seriously, I can't remember anything these days and I can hardly complete a thought or sentence without getting jumbled. I forgot about Enrichment the other night, which made me very sad when I realized it a few days later. I forget things at the grocery store. We've made about 40 trips to Walmart in the past few weeks. It's ridiculous.

There are about 4 tents set up around town to start selling fireworks in a couple of days. I'm excited to see what sort of stuff we can get in the midwest! I'm particularly interested because Kirksville is a pretty small town and most of the students from both universities are gone for the summer, so why in the world are there 4+ places to buy fireworks?! And, we actually have some extra money this summer, so I think we are going to go a little crazy. :)

I've given up dairy because it makes Isaac sick. I think about ice cream at least 3 times a day. I want a Snickers bar every time I'm in the checkout line at Walmart (which is quite often lately) :) But Isaac is getting nice and plump, so it's worth it. And I think we are just about over our thrush problem. I've wanted so badly to give up nursing. I've spent so many nights crying in pain and exhaustion, just wanting to give it all up. But it has been a good test of my patience, commitment and my trust in Heavenly Father. There's definitely nothing wrong with bottle-feeding, but I think there were lessons I needed to learn and I had to learn them with breastfeeding. Hopefully things will get a bit easier as time goes.

Okay, my mind has officially shut down and I need to go to bed now! I'll write more and post some pictures the next time my mind is working :)

Sorry my hubby is better than yours ;)

I got my anniversary present today. It was a little late because Roy was waiting on prints from Walmart. Isn't it awesome?! I love it! Thanks Roy!




(BTW, I am totally lame and didn't even get him anything. I guess my present to him was getting a babysitter. I'll do better next year.)

Had enough of Isaac yet?

I sure do love purple

You know how my favorite color is purple? Well, I thought Isaac would look pretty with some purple paint all over his face.




Okay, not really. I'm using gentian violet to treat us for thrush. Trust me, my purple body part looks a lot sillier. I decided to go with gentian violet because it's available without a prescription and it seems to be one of the most effective treatments. Plus, it's cheap. A prescription for Isaac would be 20 bucks! Anyway, we started treatment last night, so I'll let you know how it goes.

In other news, yesterday was our anniversary! Seven years of marriage. Woot! We celebrated by leaving Rae and Blaise with a babysitter and took Isaac out with us. We went to the drug store for gentian violet, Walmart, Ruby Tuesday for lunch and then Aldi on the way home. Very exciting. Roy's mom sent us some beautiful flowers - I think they are my favorite non-tulip bouquet that I've ever received. They smell great too.


Now I'm going to go and get a nap in before church. The only good thing about 1pm church is that I have time for a nap. :)

My cute boys

We start them young!


Isaac at 4 weeks old. Look at that neck strength! (And ignore the greasy hair. Poor third child only gets a bath once a week!)


What a weird sleeper!


Blaise got his tools out so he could help daddy "fix and build things".

Misc.

I bought a weather radio yesterday. Monday morning the weather sirens went off. They aren't meant to be heard indoors, but I was up nursing Isaac and happened to hear them. I got up and checked on the computer to see what was going on. The sirens were just to warn about flooding, but it made me realize that if there was a tornado warning in the middle of the night I probably wouldn't know. So, $30 later I now have peace of mind.

Speaking of tornadoes....when I was in the hospital during the tornado there was a woman there in labor. She was in the very early stages, so it wasn't too big of a deal. When they heard what part of town the tornado went through, they were really worried about their house because it was right next door to the car dealership that got hit. Well, I saw her husband at Walmart yesterday and asked how things went. He said they ended up going home that night because her labor stopped and she didn't have the baby till a couple of days later. I asked if their house was okay and he said that it got destroyed. Oh my heck - how hard would that be to have a newborn and no house?! I was talking to him in the baby aisle, where he was looking at baby swings because the one they had got ruined. A lot of their baby stuff was actually fine but it was covered with fiberglass, so they had to get rid of most of it. I've been whining about my recovery and how hard it is to have a newborn, but I'm so glad I'm not in their situation!! It is really sad because a lot of the houses/duplexes that got ruined were young student families - already struggling!

We've been having thunderstorms every other day or so and when it's not raining it's been really nice weather. I know that July will be super hot, so I'm enjoying this beautiful June!

Saved by the Bell

Just the other day I saw a preview for "Raising the Bar" and told Roy that I was surprised how hot Mark-Paul Gosselaar ("Zack Morris") still is. Then yesterday I caught a Saved by the Bell rerun when I was up nursing Isaac at 3 in the morning. I've seen every single episode at least once and most of them 2 or 3 times, so I understood every reference and joke in this clip. If you weren't as into the show as I was then you may not understand everything, but it's still pretty funny. It's pretty long, but I think it's worth it :)

Random

Roy has been going to his office a few hours every day to start preparing for his fall classes. So I'm left with the three kiddos and I can hardly even handle the few short hours! When Isaac sleeps I'm usually trying to clean up the house, make lunch, catch up on laundry, etc. Not much time for actual blogging. And did I mention I'm exhausted? Isaac is a pretty decent sleeper, but it's still not the same as the 8-10 hours I was getting before he was born! :) Sigh. Someday I will sleep again. And someday my house will be consistently clean. Roy has been amazing these past few weeks. I know that he NEEDS to be in his office a few hours a day for his sanity. He has to do math or he'll go crazy. But when he's home he takes such good care of all of us! He cleans, he cooks, he wrestles with the kids, he runs errands, and he is so patient and happy even with all of his responsibilities! Seriously, he has been SUPERHUBBY lately! I think I'll be having all of my babies during summer break! Anyway, here are a couple of random pictures of the kids being silly.


This is how Rae forces Blaise to play with her :)
"Pinky" the monkey is all ready to go swimming!
They have a book called "Silly Day" and in the book the kids take a nap in the bathtub. So we had a silly day the other day.

Random Rae Dialog #1

Rae: What is a bomb?
Me: It's a thing that explodes when you drop it on a city.
Rae: If I had one of those, I would just carry it around and not drop it.

My sweeties

I like how Isaac's hand is resting on Roy's face. He likes his daddy.

Signs of summer

Our cell phone contract ended in May, so we decided to get a land line and skip the cell phones for a while. We already have AT&T internet, so we decided to see what sort of bundles we could get for a phone line and cable. We lasted a whole 2 months without cable but we just couldn't resist. And to kick off the summer we bought a grill.



We've already had some tasty chicken, and Blaise had a hard time resisting the fire.



I loved Rae's long hair, but it was getting to be a pain to wash/brush/deal with, so it was time for a summer cut! It doesn't look all that great in this picture, but it is pretty cute. I probably need to go back and touch it up a bit, but it's fine for a 4 year old! :) We are so glad summer is here!