Beach Bums

It's starting to heat up around town. Much like I would forget just how cold the winters got in Wisconsin, I find myself forgetting how hot Texas summers are. Joseph and I still think we'd rather live through a hot summer than a cold winter.

We started going to beach again with Ashton this month. We love that the gulf is just 20 minutes away. Several friends and their kids joined us, which makes it more enjoyable. I was proud of Ashton for facing her fears of the waves and actually getting wet. She doesn't like the sound of the waves and gets scared. It sounds too much like a lawn mower, weed whacker, loud truck, plane, blow dryer, or anything else loud. But by the end of the first day at the beach, she would go in the water with me for about 5-10 minutes before wanting to go back to shore. When we went back this weekend, she did even better and enjoyed the waves again. Ashton spends most of her time at the beach playing in the sand, begging snacks off other parents, pointing out the ice cream truck and asking for "Cream," as well as chasing the birds around. We are hoping to make the beach a more regular thing and it also is a great way to wear Ashton out so she takes a long nap afterwards!

Relaxing with Dad in our new beach chairs.

How she prefers to wear her hat

 

She also likes to put her glasses up on her head like I do sometimes. Silly girl.

Library Time

We go to story time every week at the library. I credit the library for teaching Ashton how to count to ten. They also have taught her a lot of songs that she loves and definitely has helped her language develop more. We love going and this past week, I was able to get some great videos of her singing and dancing. Here are the highlights.

Then today, we went to church to help clean it. Ashton found the piano and loved playing it. In case she becomes an amazing pianist, I had to take a video of her first time playing.

 

Ashton also has been working on spelling her name. One of her stuffed animals sings her name for her so she now thinks it's just a song.

Exciting Times

We're pretty boring. That's what this blog makes me feel like. But here you go anyways.

I finally broke down and made/bought some toddler activities for Ashton around our house. We still had a lot of infant/baby toys out that she never played with. I am not big on flashy, noise-making toys. Plus they are so dang expensive. Here's what I came up with:

We made a quick water table. We splurged at the dollar store and bought some cool toys for it. Ashton loves it. It shocked me how much she loves it. We decided to keep her play kitchen outside too and got plastic food for it. So now she can fill up her sink and make food. We've spent many hours outside playing so far and anticipate many more. Our next investment will be a sand box but we haven't decided how to build one or to just buy the plastic turtle one.

We have Ashton's pool that we got her last year. The problem with that was we would fill it up and play in it for a day or two. Then the water would become nasty so we had to dump it and start over. It was a huge waste of water and time. So we decided to make it a ball pit. Ashton loves it too. She likes to lay down and say, "night" and pretend to sleep. That's awesome for me!

Now, I feel we have enough toddler toys to get us through the next few years. Ashton would probably disagree with that and feels she needs even more toys. We did, however, watch some city employees take down a tree for an hour at the park. Ashton set a new record of paying attention to one activity! I was shocked that she wanted to watch the men cut down the tree for so long. So instead of toys, maybe I should ask the city to take down more trees.


Two weeks ago, we had a terrible storm. The winds topped out at 70 mph and a tornado was reported about a mile east of our house. We had hail about the size of ping pong balls blow at our house. Joe likes to claim that he survived a hurricane and a tornado. A category one hurricane does have winds between 74 and 96 mph so he was close.

Ashton did pretty well with the thunder and lightning as we let her watch a show on our laptop. She loved using flashlights when the power went out. We lost power for only six hours. Compare that to our church building that last power for two days. Some of our friends had it much worse than us and had no power for the entire weekend.

The damage of the storm consisted of losing part of our fence and destroying our garden. Everything is destroyed except the blackberry bushes. The hail tore through all the leaves and nothing was salvageable. We were pretty bummed but at least we don't depend on our garden for food. We are grateful to have no large trees in our yard as many homes had trees fall down. The storm got us thinking about hurricane season again so we made sure our 72 hour kits are ready to go when evacuations are ordered. We've gotten lucky for three summers so far so we're hoping our luck continues this summer.

Here are some random pictures

Ashton lays down next to me to color. It's pretty cute.

We had the Spanish missionaries over for dinner so Joseph made some Spanish cuisine from his mission. It was yummy.

Concentrating so hard to carry water back and forth

Helping build our new patio furniture

Our poor beets were demolished

The middle section is about to fall over now.

Our tomato plants didn't survive either. Fortunately, our home teacher gave us new ones to plant.

I caught Ashton building this tower today. So creative...

Laying in her ball pit

Her new trick is to climb on top of our bench and try to get the picture frames down from the wall above it. Wonderful!

Grandma Visit, General Conference and Easter

The week before Easter was pretty busy for us. Joe's mom came to visit for three days. Ashton enjoyed seeing "Nana" again. We went to the beach for an afternoon. Ashton loved the sand but wasn't too sure about waves.

At the beach

We finally bought her some sunglasses after she kept wanting to wear mine. She loves them.

Because of Grandma visiting, Joseph took some time off work, which was nice. Then, due to Easter holidays and his plant's turnaround/shift work, he had a five day weekend! Hooray! Thursday evening, we went up to Houston to go to the Children's Museum. They host a free night every Thursday. This makes it much more affordable because typically it's ten bucks a person plus parking. Can't quite validate driving an hour and spending over thirty dollars to spend an hour playing with cool toys. Ashton loved it! It was a pretty cool museum. We didn't like how busy it was but we expected it to be due to the fact that it was free. We also got to walk around Hermann Park, which is a cool place too.

During the priesthood session of conference, Ashton and I started the tradition of getting ice cream for a girl's night out. It was fun.

Since we didn't go to the Lake Jackson Easter Egg Hunt (it was the same night as the free night at the museum), we did our own Easter egg hunt Sunday morning. We put some popcorn in each egg and Ashton enjoyed it. We also watched General Conference that weekend. Ashton loved to see "Monson" on the TV and has continued asking to watch him since then. That evening, we had our traditional Easter dinner with some friends. Overall, it was a fun weekend.

Some other random pictures from the weekend

A day at the park.

 A trip to Home Depot with Daddy

A dress I made for Ashton for my sister's wedding this summer. She refused to take a picture with it on.

Current Events

We haven't been up to much lately. Spring is definitely here and it's getting hotter. Jeans are just too hot most days. Sad. I love wearing jeans.

While Ashton and I were in Wisconsin, Joseph added two garden beds and a bunch of fruit trees. He did a great job and I know it was hard because I was there when we put the first in a year ago. Now, we have three blackberry bushes, another lemon, fig, and peach tree, as well as lots of beets, tomatoes, and lettuce growing. Ashton loves helping water the garden every day and especially loves putting dirt in her hair.

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with green tortillas. I don't like the green spinach ones at the store so we just made some with green food dye. Ashton liked them.

We've spent many mornings and afternoons at the park. Ashton likes to swing again. She went through a phase of hating it for a while.

We found this kitchen play set on the side of the road. We spent some time cleaning it up and Ashton loves it. We always love a free toy!

Ashton had her 18 month doctor check-up. Verdict: Ashton is TALL! When I took her to the doctor at the beginning of January, she was 32 inches. I thought she maybe grew an inch but when I took her in a few weeks ago, she was 34 inches! She continues to be in the 97th percentile for height. She weighs 25 pounds, which is getting hard to carry around. We also found out she either has two teeth fused together or one tooth that split under the gumline. I asked the doctor about it because I can't get a flosser between two specific teeth. He was shocked that Ashton lets me floss at all. She loves it! So I was worried about potential cavities. Well, we don't have to worry. She may need it pulled later if the tooth doesn't fall out on its own, but her adult tooth should come in normal. Ashton ended the appointment by hugging the doctor. So kind.

Along with the ripe old age of 18 months, Ashton also started nursery at church. We were pretty nervous that she wouldn't last two hours without her sippy cup and without a parent. But she did great. The teachers didn't come and get us once! When we picked her up, she didn't have red eyes, which means no crying! Hooray! It was odd to sit through relief society without corralling a busy toddler. Instead, I held a sleeping baby.

I got my dream job of teaching online. It was a long, difficult interview process but we got through it. Now, I am completing a certification/orientation course and the semester begins mid-April. I am teaching CHILD 210: Child Development. To say I'm excited is an understatement.

To end, here are some fun videos of Ashton. Enjoy!

18 Months Old

Our little girl is definitely growing up in every way. She's bigger in size and in personality. Ashton continues to be a very determined, playful, lively little girl who is full of emotions.

Ashton continues to be a talker. She loves to just chit-chat as she plays and narrates her playtime a lot. Joseph and I have fun trying to think about what she's saying. Her conversations also include pitch fluctuations and volume changes. It's pretty amusing. Ashton can say quite a bit and has started putting a few words together. Her favorite is, "I see you."

Ashton is still a mommy's girl. I'm hoping future children prefer Joseph. I try to remind myself to enjoy it now because one day, she will want nothing to do with me. Even then, I just wish I could go to the bathroom without her yelling, "Mom" around the house looking for me. At least she's securely attached to me.

She still isn't the best sleeper in the world. But I've finally surrendered to the fact that she will probably never be the kid who needs more than 10-11 hours (if we're lucky...) at night and takes longer than a 45 minute nap (if we're lucky, she'll nap for 1.5 hours and that's a LONG nap). Or the kid who consistently sleeps through the night. What surprises me is that no matter how much sleep she gets, she is typically always happy. She has always been on the lower side of the sleep recommendations for her age. Ugh. If only she knew how much sleep I need to function... I think Ashton got my personality but Joe's sleeping habits

Her favorites:

Favorite book: This changed within the past few days. It is now Clifford the Big Red Dog book. She wants it before bed every night.

Favorite toy: Her baby doll. She loves carrying her baby around and rocking it. Any time Ashton sees a baby, she gets very excited. Hopefully that will make her a good big sister whenever that day comes.

Favorite word: "That" Ashton is a pretty bossy kid. She will yell "That" persistently until someone acknowledges what she wants.

Favorite show: Daniel the Tiger. We got a DVD of some episodes to have in our car for Houston trips. We used it a few weekends ago when we went and that was the most peaceful car ride we've ever experienced. She loves Daniel.

Favorite Outing: Swimming. Joseph and I typically go swimming every Saturday and Ashton loves it. The big water slide is her favorite.

Favorite food: "Sup" meaning syrup. The definition of syrup to Ashton is anything she can dip her food in. This means honey, ketchup, peanut butter, sugar, ranch dressing, and syrup. Lately, she's gotten sick every time she eats syrup so we've been trying to use other things. Sometimes, you can just say that the food has syrup on it and she will eat it.

Favorite activity: Coloring. Our struggle right now is to convince her to color on the paper instead of herself. She can take the caps on and off by herself so I typically let her color unsupervised. This may be the cause of the self-coloring skills she is perfecting!

Here are some pictures from the last few months.

I used an old shirt that no longer fits to make an apron for her. She likes it okay.

Made edible playdough. She just ate it.

She kept saying, "Wet, wet" as she played in the water.

This is how she watches Daniel. In her chair with a snack.

Hiking on the Dow Trail

Never afraid to get dirty

Interpret this drawing please.

We found these balloons at the mall one day and Ashton loved playing with them

Wearing Dad's goggles as a necklace, of course.

Loves her daddy.

Wisconsin

Short summary of our trip: Ashton loved it. It was cold.

Long summary of our trip:

Ashton did great on the flights up to Wisconsin. Best flights ever! She took about two minutes to warm up to Grandma and Grandpa. She loves them so much and would become very sad when they left for work most mornings.

Ashton quickly learned that to delay bedtime, all she had to do was ask Papa to read to her.

While we were there, my grandma (Ashton's great-grandma) fell and ended up in the hospital and rehab. We were happy to be there to help out and visit often. Ashton loved Great-Grandma so much.

We went to the local art museum on their toddler day. Ashton enjoyed painting and doing crafts. I think it was a little too much activity for her as she just wandered around for a lot of it.

The crown she made

Painting at the museum. She refused to wear the art smock they had.

Blurry but she was excited to wear her crown.

I got a short term YMCA membership so I could drop Ashton off at their drop-in daycare and work out. We do the same thing back home and I love that time. Ashton warmed up pretty quickly to the staff and enjoyed going. I did laugh every time I picked her up as she was always playing with a toy that we have at home. That girl knows what she loves.

Ashton continued to build her friendship with Molly, the Dog. She learned how to feed Molly any of her own snacks. She especially liked following Molly around and trying to give her hugs.

They would sit together and look for squirrels.

Looking at the deer in the backyard.

My sister came to visit both weekends, which was very nice of her! Ashton quickly attached herself to Trescha. I'm pretty sure Ashton loves her more than me. Trescha had a lot of energy for Ashton and Ashton just took it all.

Playing with "makeup"

Ashton was thoroughly spoiled throughout the trip. Because we couldn't play outside like we do at home, she got to watch a lot of "Daniel." She loved that. We only played in the snow once but any time we walked outside, Ashton would start yelling, "Snow, Snow!" She liked eating it too. And any time she let out a whimper indicating she was bored, she had every person jump up to entertain her. I'm happy she will have happy memories of Wisconsin as she gets older. 

Sorry it is upside down...

We went out to eat a lot. This was always hit or miss with Ashton. One night, she could be a perfect angel and the next day at lunch, be a complete nightmare. I think I convinced my cousin to never have kids as Ashton was a terror when we met up with her.

At one place, my sister decided to ask Ashton, "where is your head?"? Her hands were full of food. Her hair was so crusty and gross. Thanks Trescha!

Our flights back were okay. I think I was out of patience and energy to entertain a hyper, strong-willed 17 month old. Plus Ashton got a cold the last few days in Wisconsin so she was sick and tired. Our flight from Chicago to Houston boarded on time but then we left 1.5 hours after boarding. So by the time we were taking off, Ashton and I had played with all her toys. It was a long 2.5 hour flight. She didn't go to sleep until we got home around 10pm. But at least we were home with Dad.

We won't be back until late summer and I can't believe Ashton will be almost two by then! Yikes!