11 months old!!

 Our little princess is 11 months old!!  Eek!!  She is getting so big too fast.  We can hardly believe that next month we'll have a one year old!  We took her onesie pics on a somewhat breezy day here in AZ so now we know what she'd look like if she inherited her brother's hair ;)

Ashley continues to be such an easy baby!  She is a complete second child who goes with the flow.  She loves to play with anything that has the loudest sounds.  And she much prefers if three or four of these loud toys are playing simultaneously! 

 She is eating some finger foods but still prefers to be spoon-fed.  Once in a while she grabs at the spoon to feed herself but she is perfectly content being fed.  Her new favorite food?  Coconut milk yogurt!  She can't try regular milk yogurt yet but this works great!

 She is starting to get a bit feisty when it comes to big brother taking her toys.  She grabs on tighter to whatever she is holding that he 'wants' and lets out a big old squeal to show her displeasure with what he is doing. 

She is standing next to furniture and sometimes creeps her way around but mainly just stays in one spot.  She isn't too keen on walking with assistance or behind a walker toy.  Army crawling, although she is up on all fours most of the time now, is her preferred way of getting around if no one is around to pick her up. 

 She is consistently sleeping 7pm-7am or so (minus the evenings a babysitter puts her to bed.  Then she wakes up around 4am to check and make sure Mommy got home okay).  She has started not wanting to be rocked before bed or even sung any songs.  So she nurses and goes to bed like a big girl.  Kinda sad for Mommy.

Although, Ashley makes up for it by calling out "Mama' when she is ready to get out of her crib or if she wants something.  She is a very vocal girl.  Talks non-stop!  We can make out Mama, Dada, ball and she has a special word for big brother that sounds like T but not exactly.  She isn't doing any signs back yet but recognizes them all.  Overall we are very blessed with one happy, cute, healthy baby girl and a big brother that just adores her.  Life is good!

So that's the trick...

...For all of the inquiring minds that want to know how Ashley keeps her 'peanut stature'...it's because she always has a foot tapping.  Whether sitting or laying, she is burning calorie after calorie with her foot tapping.

And a big smile on her face :)

Perfect day for the park

The weather here is finally cool enough for Mommy to take the kids to the park.  Maybe it's the nursing or the extra weight she's carrying around but sheesh she's been just roasting.  Until Thursday that is....it stayed below 70 degrees the whole day!  So we packed up and went to the park...

after a good game of pass the toys back and forth and giggle and laugh until one of them got the hiccups!

 Trevor's favorite thing at the park is to have you say '3 year olds can't (fill in the blank)' and he will prove you wrong and do whatever it is!  Today since we had the park to ourselves he enjoyed climbing up the slide time after time after time!

 Ashley liked clapping for each of her brother's endeavors!

 She also enjoyed trying the rocks!  Seriously, what is with this girl?  Trevor never put one single thing he wasn't supposed to in his mouth.  Ugh!

Peek a boo!

 So big!  But really what we wanted to capture here was how she is pointing now!  And luckily she points with the correct finger :)

  She is definitely teething.  Her tongue is exploring where her new chomper is coming in! 

 We wore Trevor out by doing stomp rocket after stomp rocket!  He loves getting a running start and jumping down hard so the rocket shoots high in the air!

 We spied on the kids who came out for recess at the elementary school!  Trevor is counting the days until he can go there!

 And one last sand castle before heading home for naps.  

We're all excited to start a new daily tradition of going to the park to play!  Yay for Fall!

Number 7

Thank you for all of your calls, texts and well wishes for our 9th wedding anniversary and 10th engagement anniversary!  We had a wonderful evening...complete with a Mexican food dinner (our favorite), wine and chocolate fondue (that didn't turn out at all!) We showed Trevor our wedding highlight video and he thought that was the neatest thing.  His commentary was just priceless.  At one point he said 'awww guys this is just too cute I can't stand it.'  Love him!  Brian is planning a surprise date night on Saturday to continue the celebration!  Can't wait!

But on to number 7....Ashley is getting her 7th tooth in and knock on wood, but we hardly knew she was teething!  You can see the slit on the bottom right side.  Such a big girl!

Show-offs ;)

Our kids continue to amaze us with how much they know how to do at their ages.  And every day brings a new surprise.  Sara is so glad that she is at home with them during the day so that she never has to miss a thing.  Yes, it's exhausting but it's worth so worth it!  

Ashley loves digging into her toy bins.  While she used to sit and do this she now stands up and digs!

Trevor is a puzzle whiz!  Seriously, give him a puzzle and he will do it in no time!

Any puzzle!  Even ones that are for older kids!

These two kids love each other so much.  Ashley fusses for a second and Trevor runs to get her nuk and pink cow all while singing the ABC song as loud as possible so that she settles down.  It is precious!  One of their favorite things to do is watch 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' while Mommy is in the shower.  How Trevor remembered that show from almost a year ago is beyond us, but luckily it was still on our DVR. 

Ashley is taking right after her brother's footsteps as a smarty pants.  Little girl isn't even 11 months old and knows that the blue circle toy goes in the blue opening in the container.  She does it over and over then claps and laughs!

We weren't kidding that A loves anything her big brother has.  Including his cash register.  Luckily he plays pretty nice with her even if she is climbing over it.  He loves to ask what you want to purchase, add up the cost, take payment and give you back change...all before running to his kitchen to make whatever you ordered.  We think he's been to a few too many restaurants in his life :)

And last but not least, our boy has no fear of heights.  Sara doesn't even like to look over the banister but big boy sits with his feet dangling.  He just doesn't like to have his picture taken while doing so!

Fun Weekend!

On Friday night we headed over to the Hillins' to catch up after their trip to MN.  Grandma Pauline brought out the Pooh toy and Ashley had a lot of fun riding around and around the kitchen island!

Poor Grandma's back!  We gotta get Trevor to push her around...gently of course!  We'll have to take out our riding/walking toys at home for our little princess!

That evening Trevor ended up having an impromptu sleepover at Grandma and Papa's house!  He was so excited and luckily we had packed Skip It in the bag for the car ride home.  Although, he was so excited that he probably wouldn't have even noticed that it was missing if we didn't have it.  They had a lot of fun and Trevor slept all night by himself in his room.  In the morning they had bagels with 'frosting,' planted flowers, went to fire truck park where a kids birthday was being held complete with a bouncy house, and went to Peter Piper Pizza before coming home to nap around 1:00!  Trevor is already planning his next sleepover at Grandma and Papa John's!  What did Brian and Sara do without their son?  Well we got a lot of errands run Saturday morning (amazing how quickly you can go in and out of a store with just one kid who is still in her infant carrier and has no interest in the toy section!).  That allowed us to have the rest of the day free so we spent time in the pool!  Ashley liked playing peek a boo with Dada....

...practicing swimming and floating...

...smiling....

...and just looking cute!

Trevor had a lot of fun too but once and a while he got out and bundled up in his towel.  To some Arizonans it may have been a bit chilly to swim, but we really enjoyed it!

Ashley sure is a ham!  When Mommy started taking pictures she started waving hello to the camera! 

What Ashley probably liked the most though were Trevor's diving torpedoes that he dives down to get.  Anything that is his, she loves! 

And one last picture of Daddy and his two water babies!

On Sunday our friends from MN, Barb and Don came to visit!  They arrived in AZ on Wednesday and spent a few days in Sedona celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary before coming to our house for a night!  We were so excited to see them and catch up!  Trevor thought they were pretty fun too...especially when you have a willing participant at the doctor game :)

They spoiled the kids with presents.  And what is probably a first for Trevor...he didn't want to open the gifts right away.  They probably sat on the counter for 5 plus hours before he was ready!!

The adults had a lot of fun chatting and eating and drinking...a lot of wine...and staying up too late but it was all worth it!  It was hard to say good-bye in the morning but we'll see each other again sometime!

Trevor has been very into eating breakfast (always cinnamon/sugar toast) with a tray.  He must feel pretty special with that tray!

And when Dada got home Monday night they tried out one of the gifts Barb and Don brought...mustaches!   Our silly boys!

Ah, Trevor is growing up right before our eyes...mustache and all!

The dress! (Updated)

On Nana's last full day in AZ we dressed Ashley in the dress Sara wore on her ride home after being adopted a few days shy of being 4 months old.

Nana Jeanne said it was Sara's first store purchased clothing item.  It was from JC Penney's and was for size 18lbs - 23lbs.  Ashley isn't quite there at almost 11 months and Sara certainly wasn't there at close to 4 months but Nana had written down 17lbs when she got the call so that's the size they got. 

Ashley must have known it was a special dress because she crawled a lot off of her tummy when wearing it.  She has such big blue eyes!  Same color as Trevor!

The back of the dress was pretty cute too.  They don't make them like this any more!  Or maybe they do but we haven't seen any!

We took her outside for a little photo shoot but Miss Diva did not like the feel of the grass!  She held her hands like this the whole time!

Not sure of the fake spiky stuff!

Really Mom?  Can we go in now?

I can't even see it's so bright out here!

More and more people say that Ashley and Sara have the same face...which makes Mommy smile since everyone thinks Trevor is Brian's spittin' image!

No matter who she looks like, we're just thankful for her.  Our happy, smiley baby who looks so cute in her Mommy's first outfit!

 And here's Mommy wearing it :)  Check out Nana Jeanne and Papa Steve too!  They haven't changed a bit!