Oh our sweet Ashlyn! It has been way too long since I did a post about her....really way too long since I did much blogging about anything... but I have actually even been keeping a little list of all the adorable things she's doing right now and I want to put them on here so I can really get to them one day!
First of all, she's been in nursery for 4 months now and it is SO wonderful. Wonderful for momma because I get to actually go to class and be spiritually fed - instead of chasing her around the halls for 2 hours. Wonderful for daddy because he LOVES to peek in on her and see what she's doing. (the only problem with that is when she sees him peeking and wants to go out to him...duh Collin be more careful!) And most of all nursery is wonderful for Ashlyn because she can play and run around and learn things for 2 whole hours! She loves her nursery leaders so much and has never had a problem staying in there without us. And it's so fun to see the things she's learning--like how to color (improved a TON since nursery started!), how to sit in a chair, and she's getting so good at all the actions to the songs they sing. My favorite is Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. I really need to put a video of her doing it on here!!
She will now *sometimes* "smile" for the camera. I say it in ""'s because this is what I get. Not really a smile, more like a grimace in my opinion....but at least she's sort of catching onto the "cheese" thing.
And I've really been trying to get a decent "Mommy-Ashlyn" picture but it just ain't happening. Here is one example:
It's like she turns into Stone-Cold face the minute I hop in the picture with her. I swear my kid loves me......
uh, uh, officer......
Here is another of those cute little cheesers. This one really cracks me up. Oh kid. (best part: Lucy in the background!!)
Another Mom-Kid attempt:
And literally in the 2 seconds before I took the second picture:
This kid STILL has a serious oral fixation! Thankfully she is getting the hang of "yuck" means don't put it in your mouth (or at least, take it out quickly if it's already in there!), and will *sometimes* listen when I say NO to putting something in her mouth. Like dog food. (note the *sometimes*). But still 99% of whatever it is she finds, wherever, it has to go in the mouth. And really having something in her mouth keeps her so amused! It is my #1 best distraction for hair-fixing time, grocery cart time, stroller time, car seat time, or whatever! The problem is just finding things that aren't gross and germy.
Ashlyn discovered how to do a buckle about a month ago. And it was the COOLEST thing to her, all the time. She figured out how to say it - "Cuckle"- and any time she saw anything with buckles she'd get right to work. It was so frustrating to watch her do it because it took her like 3 minutes just to click one buckle....but then once she heard the click she was SO proud! Super cute. She has buckles on her high chair and literally every time I would get her down from eating not a second later she'd be chanting CUCKLE and getting right to work! She's kind of over that now but will still do it every once in a while. Hey, new tricks are only fun for so long, right?
I was working on some stuff at the kitchen table one afternoon and let her sit up at the table with me and color. She actually sat there and played with the crayons and colored for like 45 minutes! I'm pretty sure it was the longest I've ever seen her sit anywhere without being strapped in. She is really interested in colors right now and has learned how to say some of the color names. She hasn't really figured out that each color has a SPECIFIC name yet though. But that just makes it cuter. So whenever we see something colorful or all one bright color she will shout out whatever color she can think of first: "lellow," "geen," "boo," "reh," "peeh" (that one's pink for those wondering). It's so cute.
She actually does the same thing with numbers. She can say "one, two, thee, fye (five), teh (ten)" and she kind of gets how to count things.... like taking stuff off her plate and onto the floor she is super good at "counting." She LOVES to hear someone count things, she will pay attention so intently. Same with saying the alphabet.
She actually does know quite a few shapes though! I ask her "where's the circle?" and she'll find it, or I can point to the shape and she'll tell me the name of it. *proud momma* She's really got a few down: "kikl" (circle) "sta" (star) "gyagl" (triangle) and "care" (square)
She is getting to be a BIG fan of having Mom or Dad play with her! (which is fun...but let's face it also super exhausting and sometimes I just don't want to chase and tickle!:) She loves horsey-rides (this is left exclusively to Mom now that Dad's knee is awaiting surgery....dang it....) and doing the "cab walk" (crab walk)-something Collin made up where he does a crab walk and she sits on his stomach and rides around. I am also not a huge fan of this just because it is EXHUASTING to someone as not-in-shape like me! But she will beg and beg for it. She is also pretty persistent in constantly trying to get me to chase her and tickle her. She LOVES when I say "I'm gonna get you" and will run hysterically away and hide somewhere. So funny. It is a great way to tire her out, and I never get sick of hearing her little squeals of excitement! (or terror...it sometimes seems...!)
She also loves this little game--ride on someone's foot when their legs are crossed.
The nursery song leader told me last week that when she came into nursery for song time she sat down and crossed her legs....and a certain someone ran right over and sat on her foot, waiting for a ride! Yep that's my child.
Look at this! A couple of months ago we began working on the transition to getting her to wear a sleep cap! Ugh, has NOT gone well! The point, if you don't know, is to reduce the friction of her hair on her cotton blankets/sheets while she sleeps and rolls around in her bed. Her hair can break really easily. I had been nervous about starting it before now, but now I have totally changed my mind and if we have another kid with hair like hers I will start them at like 12 months!
So after doing a lot of reading on it I decided to start out with a cheap one that I just "re-sized" with a rubber band in the back.... hence the total old-lady sleep cap look! (although you have to admit it's pretty adorable) --they have some SUPER cute little girl ones out there but I wanted to wait until I knew it was something that was going to work out before I drop $20 for one! This one did not work out well. She would keep it on all through bedtime/naptime routine, and the pull it off the second I left her room, every. single. time. Since October we did this. grr. I don't know how reasonable it is to get an almost-2-year-old to keep something on her head like that but I guess I hoped she'd just get used to it. Ha ha. I really was wishing she'd keep it on mainly because she sleeps with her entire head on her blanket-every time-and that is SO bad for her hair and for keeping her hairstyles in! But whatev. First World Problem, for sure. We really were consistent (well, I was anyway, can't say for sure about the Mister but he *claims* he was too) anyway, and we'll continue to be!
I did recently try another option which has stayed on through 3 nights and 3 naptimes though! WOOT! And check out this cutie pie:
I keep forgetting she has it on and when I go in to check on her I about die from how cute she looks sleeping in her little cap. So dang cute. And if it's stayed on all night I think we may have a winner...for now!
Speaking of bed/naptimes, I had a horrible dream last night that Ashlyn climbed out of her crib in the night and was knocking on her door for us to let her out. Oh please heavens let that never come true!!
But meanwhile sometimes I hear thuds from in there during nap/bed time and I am really wondering what the heck is going on. I never know what I will find when I come in to get her up. Sometimes she is half dressed (see below), or she has thrown every single item out of her crib, or who knows what else. My recent favorite was one morning when I went in I noticed that one of her ankles (she had footie pj's on) looked really fat, which I thought was weird. I felt it and lo and behold, her diaper had somehow come un-strapped on one side and slid down around her ankle, super soggy and all. So she had this gross pee-soaked diaper around her leg and meanwhile was free-bummin' it, so basically there was pee everywhere. Oh goodness. Thank heavens for the bathtub and washing machine is all I can say on days like that!
Serious face--means she's concentrating on something. This certain thing was the Holiday Parade....if you could call it that... she was intrigued anyway.
I love this so much. Sitting in her little chair reading a book. love love love!
One of her favorite things right now is the "Where" game. She says it "Whar?" And it is so stinking cute. Anything, wherever, she can turn into the "whar" game. She'll just "hide" something and then ask me "whar?" and after I look around in *wonderment* wondering "whar" it is for a few seconds, she'll pull it out and say with glee, "ah is" (there it is) or, "eh ar" (there they are) We play this
all. the. time. For example, some of the things we played "whar?" with today were: Elmo bubble bath, a Santa pail, Lucy, pieces of a Nutrigrain bar, a present from under the tree, one of Ashlyn's shoes, a little stuffed reindeer, my keys, a few books, her toothbrush, her fork, her cup, annnddd, more but I can't remember. It's so cute, I think I'll be sad when she gets over this little phase and it isn't so fun anymore.
Still ridin' that horse all over the place. She has started "multi-tasking" on the horse-- especially reading books or drinking water. I wish I had a good picture of her doing that because it's pretty funny.
She has also recently discovered cars. She can say CAR really good and wherever we're driving she makes sure to point out all the cars we pass by. You can get the picture of how many times I hear the word "car" in a 5-minute drive somewhere. :) She learned that cars say "voooom" and "beep beep" so she also does that alot--she has started playing pretend that things (like animal crackers) are cars and pushes them along making the car sounds. It's so cute!
She is also so funny when we're out in public, or at church or wherever. She seems to feel a need to get every stranger's attention. I don't know if this is because she's just so dang cute she's
used to everyone looking at her and saying hi, or what. But what she does is this: if she sees someone that isn't looking at her (in the grocery store, on a walk, over the pew at church, wherev), she immediately shouts out "HI!" and repeats until they look at her and say hi back. It is so embarrassing... to me! But then again I also get such a big kick out of it it's pretty funny....and well there's nothing I can do about it anyway! It is interesting to see who says "hi" back to her. I mean she's so obnoxiously friendly and so dang cute once they see who it is shouting HI at them, how can they not say "hi" back?! A lot of people do. And I'm talking, this is like, in the mall, passing people left and right! Oh boy.
The ironic thing is that if we run into anyone I know, or even just at church when talking to people we know, she gets super SHY. Won't even look at them, hides her face in my neck. huh? Same kid who is shouting out HI to every single stranger ever?! Crazy. So basically I think this may be a super early stage of rebellion -- her refusing to be friends with people I WANT her to be friends with and choosing her own friends. A stretch? I'm not so sure....
We have really missed the nice weather and the chance to get outside much. I still definitely prefer Boise to other parts of Idaho and/or Utah though! We just played outside in jackets a few days ago! Our backyard is filled with dog poop right now (no one picks it up since we don't have to mow the lawn....don't judge I bet you do the same) so we play in the front, which is more exciting to Ashlyn anyway. Luckily we have no traffic in our culdesac ever so it's not like, dangerous.
And here we have yet another epic mom-kid picture fail:
She really likes to sit in little things. This is an upside-down stool. She does it with baking pans and toy bins too. Don't you love how her little water bottle is tucked in there with her!
She has gotten so good at saying "nano" (piano). The funny thing is that I think she thinks that word means "all music." Because whenever she hears any strains of music coming from anywhere, that is the word she says over and over. So now I kind of want to teach her the difference between "piano" and "music.." but I also love to hear her get so excited about the piano!
Sadly this is the best picture I got of her "discovering" the Christmas tree the morning after we had put it up. We put it up while she was awake but didn't put lights on it until after she had gone to bed (hmmm, funny story.... when we went to get out the Christmas lights for the tree we discovered that oh-Collin and my Dad actually put them all up on the house! No wonder it seemed like we had so many lights outside this year. So, I had to go buy a whole new set for the tree. ha. ha. ).
Back to the tree thing, she was in AWE when she came out and saw it all lit up. I was kicking myself for not having the video camera ready right away. By the time I got it out she was over the best of it. But for like 5 minutes she just jumped around and kept saying WOW! ..... WOW! .....WOW!.... It was super cute. And I don't blame her. Hey, she woke up one morning and a giant, glowing tree had appeared in her living room! :)
So yes, I know she has a skirt, tights, and no shirt on. Whatev. Sometimes I just need her shirt to stay clean for something later that day! And it always happens to be when I get the best pictures! :)
She is constantly "reading" the back of the
Elmo Saves Christmas DVD. Ironically she has like, no interest in the movie, I have tried putting it on for her like 3 times and she doesn't even watch. But that DVD case, boy what a wonder. She loves it.
Somehow she has picked up a lot of slang. It is pretty hilarious having a little "parrot" around these days because I realize how much I say certain things. Some of her top favorites right now are: "Aright!" (alright!), "Oh Bo...." (oh boy), "Coo!" (cool!), "Oh mah!" (oh man!), "Woohoo!" and "Yahoo!" It's so funny.
She also is super good at high-fives and knuckle pouding, I found out a couple of nights ago, at a wrestling match I actually attempted to take her to! We were sitting by another wrestling family and their little boy who's Ashlyn's age. For like 10 minutes Ashlyn over and over would put out her hand for a high-five and say "Aright!" and then as soon as the little boy gave her five she would say "yeah!" I was dying, it was so funny. And then they would "pound it." Where is the video camera when you need it?!?!
Speaking of wrestling, Daddy has been busy with it the last couple of weeks. He worked 80 hours last week, and this week he again had 3 16-hour days followed by being in Reno for 3.5 days! So we haven't seen much of him, but we've made an effort to go check out the wrestling! (great toddler energy burner, running up and down the halls of the school!) Collin got Ashlyn some super cute little pink CHS Wrestling shirts so she rocked one at his tournament last weekend!
As you can tell she was BUSY!
Another thing she has really gotten into is pointing out "pane"s (planes) in the sky, whenever she hears one. She says "pane" over and over....and over again until she gets my attention (yes sometimes it's elsewhere), until I "verify" that I heard it too, and then she'll point up at it if she can see it. She used to be really scared of the sound but Collin is the one who showed her what it was and taught her the word, and she is now so fascinated with planes. It's so cute. (am I redundant with the "cute"?)
Yay! Playing outside in jackets, in December!
One thing she loves is to RUN! Outside is the best place to do it! That or the CHS gym, another favorite!
She is also getting the hang of giving Lucy treats, and is often begging for treats to give her. She will put it in Lucy's mouth and then say "goo grr" (good girl), so I am already hard at work at training her to be a good dog owner! ;)
A couple of other things about her:
-Vocabulary is exploding every day! She will say 2-word sentences, sometimes even 3. I notice a new word or two she can say every day! And the words she knows are getting clearer too. No more "kuku" for cookie... it's legitimately "cookie" now! (kinda sad for momma..... growing up too fast!)
-When we go outside and it's cold she immediately says "brr! coh!" so cute.
-She is still really into "stuffing" things into things. The other day I went to pay at the grocery store and found a couple of pieces of graham crackers in my purse, how fun! And also she has discovered how to put diapers into the diaper genie in her room, so that is a favorite hobby right now. Unfortunately she stuffs tons and tons of clean diapers in it. We wasted like 20 diapers because we didn't realize she was doing it! Weren't those clean diapers that had been stuffed into the diaper genie still usable, you may ask? Well let me tell you I thought so too...until I tried to let them "air out" for a while in her room to get rid of the poopy-smell and it did nothing but make the air in our whole house have the poopy-smell..for like a day! So out went those wasted diapers too. We have stopped putting dirty diapers into the d.g. for now until this fun hobby fades....and yesterday I looked inside it and it was pretty much chock full of cleanies! She must be pretty sneaky about it because I never see her do it, yet they get in there somehow!
Alright, onto my final point. (are you actually still reading? If so, good for you!)
HAIR!
Ash's hair has been changing lately, which means we've been changing what we've been doing! During the summer it was definitely changing--getting thicker and growing in more. Her hair is still really "fine" in texture (meaning not coarse), but it is very tightly coiled (4c, if you know much about hair curl patterns--it's the curliest one) and with it growing in so much more my little "baby" styles weren't doing the trick so much for keeping it moisturized and healthy. So.... I have been branching out and giving some new things a try! It's definitely a process with a toddler but luckily we have had a decent hair routine since she about turned one, so in her world not much has changed. It's just been me trying new things and trying to work up my skills!
Ashlyn even had her very first visit to the salon! It was just a consult, with a lady I met at the grocery store last spring who also came very highly recommended to me from other "Vanilla moms of Chocolate babies." So we went to meet her and Ashlyn had a good time. She has a real hair appointment in January, I will definitely post about that! I am still planning on doing her hair for the most part but I think it's important for her to also be getting used to the salon experience because it will definitely be a part of life as well. Especially because I seriously doubt I'm ever gonna get very good at cornrows!!!!
with more hair comes more products! We were beginning to seriously overflow the bathroom shelf! Luckily a trip to Walmart for a big fishing tackle box has helped tons! And it has been fun trying out some new stuff!
Last but not least I finally got this picture off Collin's phone. It is my favorite of Ashlyn with Rae, her birthmom. I love how they are both smiling. I love this woman so much and she will always have a special place in my heart for entrusting her baby with me. The whole road of Ashlyn coming to our family was pretty crazy and too coincidental to not be part of a big plan, so we know she was meant to be in our family. We're so thankful Rae knew it too.
Thanks for reading!
