Introducing Ashton!

I know I've been pretty quiet on my blog about being pregnant.  I was pretty hesitant to post about it.  The reasons involve fertility treatments, thinking we wouldn't ever become pregnant again, and then actually becoming pregnant.  But that's not what this post is about.  This post is about our new, sweet baby Ashton!!!

I was due on November 29 which is this coming Thursday.  She arrived 10 days early, on November 19, for which I will forever be grateful.

I had a busy, uncomfortable weekend.  I was having irregular contractions that never turned in to anything.  They were anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes apart and not too strong.  I was incredibly uncomfortable.  I barely made it through the practice for our Primary Program at church and I thought I might go in to labor that night.  Saturday night I got between 2 and 2 1/2 hours of sleep.  I was happy that I was able to be at our Primary Program on Sunday.  My parents and grandma came down for the program and stayed for lunch.  The contractions started up again and my water broke around 11:15 pm before I had the chance to fall asleep.  The same thing happened with Lauren, so I had an idea of what I was in for.  I knew I was in for a long sleepless night and I was even more nervous about how tired I was going to be considering the amount of sleep I had the night before.

Eric's mom came over to spend the night with the girls and Eric and I left for the hospital.  

last pregnant picture of me

I'll spare you the gory details.  You're welcome.

Ashton was born at 1:36 pm.  She was perfect and healthy and I couldn't believe that she was here!

First picture of Ashton

She weighed in at 8 pounds 3 ounces.  The biggest of my babies by over a pound!  Yet another reason I was happy she was 10 days early.

After a few hours, we were ready for Kaylin and Lauren to come meet their sister.  It was love at first sight.  Lauren kept wanting to hold and kiss "her baby".

Our first family picture

Sweet baby Ashton

Kaylin's toothless!

Kaylin's top two teeth have been loose for a couple of months.

She lost the first one a couple of days ago, the other one hung crookedly for a few days.

The second one fell out yesterday.

 
She is one happy girl.  She loves to tell everyone that she has already lost 4 teeth.  Kindergarten starts in two weeks.  I can't believe how big she is getting!

Lauren turns 2!

Lauren is now two years old!

We hung crepe paper streamers from her door, which has become an expected tradition in our home, and she loved running through them. She was very excited to come downstairs to find lots of balloons in the family room. The girls spent quite awhile running through them and throwing them up in the air.

I let her open a few presents before breakfast.

Eric was able to get home from work a little early so we rushed to the park before it got too dark. Lauren was so excited to see the swings and slides. It was really cold, so we didn't stay too long. We went to Coulon so once it was dark we stayed to see the Clam Lights.

A few days later we had a little family party. Lauren "hid" from her cake.

Her shyness went away once it was time to eat the cake.

We had so much fun celebrating Lauren's birthday! She is such a fun, sweet girl. She amazes us every day with the words she says and her sweet personality. We love her so much!

Stats:

Height: 3 feet (94%)

Weight: 23 lb. 11 oz. (13%)

Kaylin lost her first tooth!

I didn't think Kaylin was quite old enough to lose teeth. But apparently she is. She lost her first tooth at 4 years and 9 months old. She knows older kids who have lost teeth, she's seen a TV show or two about kids losing teeth, but it scared her when she discovered that she had a loose tooth.

Here's the timeline:

Saturday 8:30 pm: Kaylin gets out of bed to tell us that she has a loose tooth. This thing looks like it's about to fall out.

Saturday 9:00 pm: I do a quick search on Pinterest for a tooth fairy pillow and find the perfect one. Thankfully I have all of the supplies since JoAnn's is now closed and this tooth is seriously ready to fall out. I start working on it.

Sunday 8:00 am: Kaylin and I watch a couple of PBS Kids cartoon clips about the tooth fairy.

Sunday 10:00 am: I finish the tooth fairy pillow.

Sunday 12:15 pm: Kaylin is eating a sandwich. She says, "Mom, what's this red thing on my sandwich?" I look at it and ask her to open her mouth. The tooth is gone. We look around for the tooth, but it's not there. She must have swallowed it. So now we have a 4 year old who is not only scared to lose her tooth, but now she doesn't have her tooth to leave for the tooth fairy. Plus she isn't liking the idea that there is a tooth in her stomach. I quickly explain that she can write a note to the tooth fairy and she will still leave her a prize.

She refused to let me take a picture.

What???? We've known about this loose tooth for 16 hours, most of that time was spent sleeping. The tooth fairy brings a special present when you lose your first tooth, in case you didn't know. In case you weren't paying attention, she lost her tooth on SUNDAY. I'm Mormon and we don't shop on Sunday. Thankfully I'm somewhat of a planner and I had a present I was planning to give her for her birthday that would be perfect. She wanted the tooth fairy to bring her a tooth brush, I didn't have one of those. But I did have princess toothpaste, which proved to be quite exciting.

We went to Grammy and Grandpa's for my birthday dinner and Grammy helped Kaylin write a note to the tooth fairy explaining her situation.

That night we left the note in her new tooth fairy pillow.

Monday morning Kaylin was so excited when she woke up and found what the tooth fairy left her. And she finally let me take a picture of her missing tooth.

Pet Shops and princess toothpaste! The tooth fairy also left a dollar bill, but that wasn't as exciting.

She played with the pet shops and toothpaste ALL DAY. We did leave the house a time or two, so she took a couple of breaks. But the pet shops were a hit.

Here's her tooth fairy pillow:

The tooth is a pocket.

Tutorial and tooth template found here.

First day of preschool!

Today was Kaylin's first day of preschool. She is going to a co-op preschool that we're both really excited about. I'm excited that I still get to be a part of her school experience since I'll be working in the classroom twice a month. We've been talking a lot about preschool and about being nice to others, but this morning I found out what her real concern was. While I was getting ready for the day she asked me, "Mom, is there a bathroom at preschool?" She was happy to hear that there is.

printable found here

"Mom! Look at those birds!"

Kaylin is such a sweet, smart girl. We are excited to see how she grows and develops this year.

First day of summer fun

Eric's day off this week was yesterday, which was also the first day of summer. It was a beautiful, warm day. After golfing and the retirement party at my old school, we went with Eric's brother's family to their friends' pool. The girls had so much fun.

Kaylin and Ryanne

Lauren and Christopher

Lauren was so content in the floaty. She was in it for about 2 hours! She watched everyone, splashed around, played with a few toys, and had a great time.

Kaylin and her noodles.

I was totally surprised that Kaylin had no fear about the water. She took swimming lessons 3 years ago, more like "get used to being in water lessons" at that age. She's been in lakes a few times, but that's a lot different than a nice, warm pool. We showed her how she could swim with the pool noodles and she was off. She also found she loved jumping off the edge of the pool to Eric.

With the weather we're supposed to get the rest of the week I really hope that the first day of summer isn't our only day of summer this year.

Play house!

We got the girls a play house. It was a surprise for them. Eric has been working a lot of Saturdays, which means that he gets a day off during the week. He had a Wednesday off, which is the day Kaylin has preschool. This month I'm teaching preschool, so Eric worked on the play house in the garage while we were having preschool. After preschool and lunch it was nap time for Lauren and quiet time for Kaylin. Eric and I worked hard to get the play house finished. We brought the house into the backyard. While we worked it was sunny, then it hailed, then it rained, and then it cleared up again. Later that night it snowed. Weird weather. We worked through the hail and rain because we were determined to get it finished.

We brought Kaylin into the backyard by going around the house, here she is with a huge smile on her face and running to the house.

She kept thanking us and ran up and hugged me.

She immediately took the flower pots inside.

Kaylin loves her play house. She has played in it nearly everyday, even in the rain. I gave her a little set of dishes and we bought her a set of plastic food in a basket. Kaylin really wants Lauren to play in the house with her, but so far Lauren hasn't wanted anything to do with it. It's more that Lauren doesn't like to walk on the ground outside. She won't walk on the patio, she won't walk on the grass, she won't walk on the bark at the playground, she just won't walk outside. Once we get past that, I'm sure she'll love the play house too.

Stitches for Kaylin

Eric and I were downstairs getting ready to watch the NCAA National Championship basketball game when we heard a big crash. We weren't sure if it was inside or outside our house, we listened for a few seconds, and then continued our conversation. A few seconds later we heard crying upstairs and Eric raced up the stairs. We found Kaylin standing at the top of the stairs with a bloody chin. She said she was jumping on her bed (which she is NOT supposed to do) and fell and hit her chin on the bed frame. After getting it cleaned up a little, we realized that she would need stitches.

Thankfully Eric's mom was able to run over to watch Lauren while Eric and I took Kaylin to urgent care.

The triage nurse taped gauze to Kaylin's face. We immediately had to find a mirror so Kaylin could check it out. The waiting area had toys and a TV, so Kaylin played while we watched the basketball game.

After lots of waiting, we were finally taken back to an examination room. We finished the basketball game. They were finally able to see us. They numbed Kaylin's chin and then left for 20 minutes for it to be fully numb.

They put this diaper around her head when they cleaned her chin to absorb the saline they flushed it with.

They gave her the "squirt gun" they used to flush her chin.

All clean and ready to stitch.

They were able to use glue to close it up. They also put three steri-strips on with some brownish-yellow glue. They will be on for 1.5-2 weeks, possibly longer.

All finished.

Once again, we had to go find a mirror so Kaylin could see her chin.

Eric got Kaylin an ice cream bar. She was excited to eat it when we got home. She also reminded us that she didn't have dinner, so at 10:45pm she had a butter sandwich... just bread and butter, yum. She was finally in bed around 11.

Kaylin did so well during the whole thing. She barely complained and was super patient. We were at urgent care for over 3 hours and she did great.

Now we get to wait to see what kind of a scar this is going to leave.

And hopefully she won't jump on her bed again.

My funny, sweet girls

Just a few random shots from the past few weeks:

See? She's not *completely* bald.

We turned her car seat around. She loved it! Although this face might lead you to believe otherwise.

Kaylin fell asleep with the lining of her boot in her mouth. What???

Doesn't this make your heart melt?

I'm surprised this hasn't happened before

Kaylin is 4!

Kaylin turned 4 nearly a month ago. She seems so much older now. It's fun, yet sad. On her birthday I surprised her by taking her to her first movie in a theater, Tangled. We met her friend there.

Tickets!

Kaylin didn't know what the ticket was for and walked right past the ticket taker. Luckily I was able to get her to come back and didn't have to chase her down. When we got in the theater, she couldn't believe the size of the movie screen. She was in complete awe.

She loved the movie. When it was over, she asked if we could watch it again.

We got her a couple of Tangled presents for her birthday because I knew she'd be in love with Rapunzel after seeing the movie. And she was.

Rapunzel!

For dinner we went to Red Robin. I didn't make a cake and I knew she'd be sad, but I figured the ice cream sundae at Red Robin would make up for it. She ate about one bite of her dinner. Then they brought the ice cream and sang. Kaylin doesn't like to be put on the spot. Here was her reaction to the singing:

Yup, she's laying down in the booth while they sang.

Eric's parents came too and brought her some presents. The princess nightgown you can see in the above picture is her current favorite thing to wear to bed. A dress she can wear to bed. What could be better?

And the ice cream:

She ate the whole thing. By herself. One bite of hamburger, a little fruit, a couple of fries, and a whole ice cream sundae. That sounds like a good birthday dinner to me.