Happy 1st Birthday, Ashlyn!

Ashlyn turned 1 year old on November 9^th!  She’s no longer a little baby anymore!

A year ago she couldn’t hold her head up…

Now she bobs her head to the music.

A year ago she spent most of the day sleeping…

Now she only sleeps 1-3 hours during the day.

A year ago she only drank breast milk and formula…

Now she drinks whole milk and eats anything we eat.

A year ago she only made little baby sounds…

Now she is repeating many words we say and mocks animal sounds.

A year ago she would only lie on her back and not be able to move much…

Now she loves to dance, point at things, run, and climb on everything.

A year ago her favorite things to do were eat and sleep…

Now her favorite things to do are push buttons, play with toys, and listen to music.

It’s been such a privilege watching her grow and develop over the last year. We feel very blessed as parents and look forward to all the years to come. We had her birthday party this year at Gymoboree Play and Music. Unfortunately, not as many people got to come as we would have liked but Ashlyn had a great time so that’s all that matters. She got spoiled with a lot of toys on her birthday and she loves all of them except one of the toys we got her! She HATES her new rocking horse and is absolutely terrified of it. She doesn’t even want to be in the same room as it! Poor Ashlyn…and poor horse! Hopefully she’ll warm up to it eventually.

Here are a few pictures of her party:

Halloween 2011

We went to a huge Fall Festival at a church in Houston with my friend, Ivy, and her two boys. Ashlyn had a lot of fun, mostly because she was so proud to be walking around like a big girl. She walked, and walked, and walked! She didn't want to be put in the stroller or have her hand held...getting a little too independent for me! She also got to taste her first candy (a couple of bites of a Reese's and 3 of the little Smartie candies).

Family Pics!

Ashlyn's Halloween Costume

Update on Sariah Summer

How Far Along: 29 weeks tomorrow, but only 10 weeks left. The c-section is scheduled 6 days before the due date so we plan on her arriving on January 5th.

My Health: My first glucose test was a little high so I had to do the 3 hour glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. Fortunately everything on that test came back fine, but I’ve still been cutting back on sweets and carbs to be safe. Other than that, everything has been fine besides my back pain.

Changes: I’ve definitely grown! My belly feels huge now. It’s really hard to sleep (mainly because of my back and acid reflux), but I still manage to get enough.

Her Room: Her room is not getting as much attention as Ashlyn’s room did at this point. We have 2 walls painted and they still need another coat and the other 2 walls still need to be painted as well. We haven’t purchased a crib or crib mattress yet, and we just bought a chest of drawers that still needs to be assembled. Hopefully we’ll get it all done before she gets here!

Ultrasound: I had an ultrasound yesterday. They estimated that the baby is 3 lbs even right now. She’s head down and she’s looking good. Her heart rate was 140bpm, which is within the normal range. Here are a few pictures from the ultrasound:

It's hard to tell, but she's sticking her tongue out here!

Bye-Bye Bottle

I’m a little late on updating the blog. We’ve just been super busy. Ramon started working from 7pm-3am, Tuesday through Saturday (We didn’t have much of a choice in that matter), so I’ve been busy with Ashlyn at night since he has to leave around 6pm. Ramon is also still in school full time at Full Sail, so that also keeps him very busy. Anyway, Ashlyn turned 11 months old on October 9! Almost 1 year old…it’s hard to believe.

What’s changed
THE BOTTLE: A few days ago we threw out her bottle. Yes, we actually threw it away in the trash. It was kind of a sad moment. But we had more than one reason for throwing it away. First, it’s been through A LOT. We’ve just been using the same bottle (Playtex drop-in bottle with disposable drop-ins), so we didn’t want to pass that down to Sariah. Second, if we didn’t throw it away I know we’d be tempted to give it to her if she started getting angry with the sippy cup, especially at night when it’s the last thing she gets before bed with much anticipation every night. We introduced whole milk last week. We just give her an ounce to three ounces a day. She seems to be handling it fine, although she doesn’t like it very much. We just started mixing it with the formula.

TEETH: She now has three bottom teeth! That doesn’t stop her from eating just about anything we eat, with the exception of items she can choke on or really hard food.

EYES: We really concerned for a little while about one of her eyes. Her right eye seems to drift off to one side when she’s tired or looking a certain direction. We took her to the pediatrician, who then referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist at Texas Children's. The ophthalmologist was not too concerned about it and he said he sees kids with this problem all the time but Ashlyn's was not concerning. He thinks it will actually correct itself.  We've already seen some improvement in the past few days.

TALKING: She is a little talker, that's for sure. She talks and talks and talks (mostly baby talk). Ashlyn will repeat quite a few words now. The cutest things she says are "Thank you" and her name "Ashlyn".  If we ask her where her nose is and say "nose", usually she'll point to your nose, but every now and then she'll point to hers. But her favorite word to use is "no". Ashlyn tells us, the dogs, the cats, other kids, and even herself no.

WALKING: Ashlyn walks everywhere with no problems now. She rarely falls and can walk in shoes pretty well. She's becoming a lot more dependent, though. She does NOT want you to hold her hand when she's walking, and has started throwing temper tantrums every now and then (fun, fun).

Here's a few pictures from when we went to the pumpkin patch with Ivy's kids:

 She's looks uncomfortable, but she was quite content in this position and was just talking away.

 Friends

 Looking at the goats. She started barking at the goat, thinking it was a dog.

And Her Beloved Bottle :(  

Bye-Bye, Bottle!

10 Months Old!

Our little Ashlyn turned 10 months old today!  She is really starting to get her own little personality. A few things that have changed in the last month:

-Lots and lots of talking! We think she's created her own language. It often sounds like she's really saying something or asking a question...just not in English. Although she will try to repeat what we say a lot like "dog". The words she has learned that she uses often and most of the time in the correct context are "no", "mama", "dada", and her absolute favorite (but not really a word) "uh oh!"  Anytime something falls, or something just goes wrong she says "uh oh!", sometimes about 10 times.

-Lots and lots of walking!  She is now pretty much walking as much, if not more, than crawling. She can walk pretty far distances (across a room) without falling. She is VERY proud of herself too.

-She's pretty much off the baby food now except for snacks here and there. She gets about 30-40 oz of formula a day and regular table food or the Gerber Graduates if she can't eat what we're eating. We still give her the formula in a bottle, but she drinks at least three sippy cups full of water every day. We decided we're going to keep the formula in the bottle until she's 1 year, but at 11 months slowly introduce regular milk in a sippy cup.

-Two teeth! She finally got two front, bottom teeth.

Here's a few updated pictures:

 She adores stuffed animals and blankets. She loves to cuddle with both.

 I know the boogers are gross in the picture, but you can see her bottom two teeth :)