The woman I want to be...

These two pictures but more particularly the one on the bottom I feel capture the woman I want to be and what I want the world to see in me. When I look at the bottom picture I see a beautiful, confidant, happy woman that rejoices in her life and her moment. When I look at the top picture I see again a pretty woman but one who is also at peace. These are things that I want to be and what I want others to see/find in me. Am I all these things? Not all the time but I'm trying. Life can be so hard, I just want to remember and BE the happy woman laying in the gorgeous green grass joyfully laughing.

38 Weeks

38 weeks! I was feeling a lot more clam at the end of this week than I was last week. I got all my preschool lesson plans in place. I'm sure there are some little things I left out but I think someone could step in and teach for me without too much trouble now if they needed to. Yes there still are a million and a half things that I probably should try and get done before this little guy gets here because it would be easier now than later but its not the end of the world if they don't get done. My brother helped me set up the crib and I had a blast putting his bedding in it. I love it! Its one of my favorite color schemes, blue and brown, and has the cutest airplanes ever on it.

My body has hurt even more this week, almost always by the end of the day is the worst. My feet puffed up like huge pillows last Monday night. It was kind of funny to look down and see them SOOO fat and squishy. At least they don't hurt too bad. If I'm on my feet for too long it starts to get hard to walk but often standing or laying is more comfortable than sitting because my bum hurts : ) I let the doctor check me on Friday and while I have been having lots of contractions they aren't really doing anything because I'm still the same that I was at 35 weeks (a one). Oh well, that really doesn't bother me. Little James will come when he is ready.

I don't know exactly what life is going to be like with 3 kids but I feel like I am being blessed by my Heavenly Father with peace and reassurance that everything is going to be ok. I'm sure I will have moments of insanity and wondering how I will ever make it but right now I feel very calm that everything will work out and I will be able to handle it. There are a lot of things outside of being pregnant that have been crazy, heart breaking and just plain hard the last 6 months but I finally feel like I am coming to reasonable terms with them and am ready to just move forward with my life and my soon to be three beautiful children. I am extremely grateful for the support I have from a loving Heavenly Father and from wonderful friends and family. Its hard to feel alone for very long when you have a little miracle moving around inside you and tons of seen and unseen support all around you.

37 Weeks

Yay I made it to a point where I feel safe delivering at any time. It makes me really nervous to think about delivering before 37 weeks just because of all the complications (like lung development) that can occur. I have started to hurt a little more. I feel like James has dropped down a little and that can make things a little uncomfortable. He still gets the hiccups at least once a day and while he is not a crazy mover he does move around. I love feeling his kicks and flutters although they are not so little any more : )

I get asked a lot if I am ready and I don't feel ready. Probably if anything I feel like I got more stressed this past week. If he did come it would be ok but I still feel like there are a million things that I should do before he gets here. Preschool is still my biggest number one stressor for not feeling ready. What if I haven't prepped enough? Are my lessons plans written down well enough for someone else to follow? Did I forget to include a song or books? Am I missing any supplies? Good grief that list goes on and on. Than of course is my list of personal things to try and take care of ahead of time (set up the crib, decorate/arrange the babies bedroom, have the house clean, meals frozen ahead of time for when I literally have no hands to make it, pay the bills, register the car, etc., etc.) In a lot of ways it feels like when you are getting ready to move and you have all the big stuff taken care of, the truck is rented, the big boxes are packed, you have all the help you need lined up but then you get down to the little stuff it feels like it is NEVER going to end!

I am excited that he could be here any day but still am hoping that he'll wait until his due date or at least just a little closer to it before he makes his grand entrance. I don't know if that is possible with how many contractions I have all the time now but hey it hasn't been real labor yet so we'll see. No matter what I'm sure it will all work out its just the stress of thinking of all the little things that just has me feeling like I can never take a break because there is something I should be doing.

36 Weeks

36 weeks, I'm technically full term and my doctor says I can go at any time now. I'm starting to panic a little that I am not ready for him to be here. I want him to stay put until his due date but I'm feeling the need to try and make sure everything is ready just in case he doesn't listen to what I want and comes early. Even if he doesn't come early I am running out of time to get ready. After my doctor checked me a week ago it did make me have quite a few more braxton hick contractions. Monday night the contractions were actually pretty strong and consistent. Enough so that I laid down and called my cousin to ask her if by the next morning I was still having them if she could drive my van for me on my preschool field trip to the fire station. Fortunately they went away while I slept that night and I just have them randomly throughout the day now. My doctor wanted to check me on Friday but I'm not ready to have this little man yet so I am going to be declining being checked for the next few weeks.

My Beta Strep test results came back positive which I am a little sad about because it means I can't labor at home for as long as I wanted to, to make sure I get the doses of antibiotics to help protect James before he is born. I am trying to have a natural child birth this time and was looking forward to the idea of not being constantly hooked up to an IV in a hospital while I am in labor. I really do think the IV is my least favorite part of the hospital. Oh well. I will do anything to keep the baby safe and healthy so if that means I have to give up a little (like getting to stay home as long as possible) than I will do it. Thursday night my doula Whitney came over and gave me a WONDERFUL foot massage. I may not hurt a lot this time but that felt so nice!!! I wish I could have one every day.

35 Weeks

This week I had the amazing Angela Salazar take maternity photos for me. She just set up a preview on her blog angelasalazarphotography.blogspot.com. It was fun to take pictures to celebrate my pregnancy and the adding of a new little brother. Ariana was not too thrilled to have to take pictures and was acting very goofy the entire time.

This has been a good week. I haven't been hurting or too uncomfortable. The only new thing is when I sleep on one side for too long that side starts to fall asleep. Teaching preschool still hasn't been totally draining either. I'm surprised I can get on and off the floor as easily as I do. This probably has to be one of the easiest pregnancy on my body I've had. I can't believe I'm down to only 5 weeks! Today I had the beta step test done and my doctor checked to see if I was starting to dilate (this is the earliest I've ever had a doctor check me) I am at good 1, is what he said. Not that, that means much. I still want little guy to stay put until my due date. I had a big contraction right as the doctor started checking for the heart beat today. He laughed and said that was a pretty good one. James is still up really high, not surprising because both Alexis and Ariana where up really high until I was into full active labor.

Last Saturday I sorted all the baby clothes into piles by age and have them laid out all over the babies future room. I'm ready to start washing all the newborn clothes but maybe I should wait a couple more weeks. It will be strange to have a little one that completely relies on me. I've had kids that are so independent for the last few years that I know its going to take some adjusting. I'm a little scared of starting over after so many years but also so excited to hold my son. I can't wait to hear his cry, count his fingers and toes, kiss his little cheeks.

A "speical" card

I got this card on my pillow last night. I love my little girls so much. Its things like this that you keep and treasure just like my beautiful angel daughters. Having a note like this is so nice especially right now with everything that is going on in my life. Its making me cry just writing about it. : )

They Finally Caught a Lizard

We have a very large lizard family living around our house. Alexis and Ariana have been trying REALLY hard the last month to catch one of these quick little fellows. Well last week we happened to find this one in the front yard with his poor little tale missing. Alexis grabbed a cup and with mommy's help they finally caught their first lizard. They were so proud and excited they had to run up and show Ty Bair (the Bair family is the local lizard catching experts). Alexis was brave enough to actually touch it and Ariana had fun looking at it in the cup. We did let it go back into the front yard after about an hour so he can continue to catch bugs for us (and also because Mommy does NOT want a lizard lost inside the house!)

34 Weeks

34 weeks, wow. Time really is starting to run down and I'm starting to realise that I am in a time crunch. I've been feeling really good these past two weeks. The strange stabbing back pain is pretty much gone for now (thank goodness) not that I couldn't use a good massage though, its just nice to be able to walk without wincing. I went to the doctor when I was 33 weeks and for the first time this pregnancy I am measuring small. I've been right on all along and last Friday while my week count was 33 my fundal height was only 31. I told my doctor that I wanted him to stay in until his due date and I kind of got the "are you crazy look again". I really do though. I promised to provide preschool through Thursday, October 27 and my due date is Friday October 28'th so it actually does work in my benefit to have him stay put until at least his due date. As soon as preschool is out on Thursday October 27'th I'm going to start walking like CRAZY! ; )

Sweet Angela Davidson and Rachel Abbott hosted a baby shower for me on September 8. It was so much fun and I felt so loved. We were suppose to do cafe rio salad dinners and foot soaks but dinner was so good and we all had such a good time just chatting that we never got around to the foot soaks. James you got some REALLY cute stuff too! I can't wait to put up your crib and bedding. I hope you like airplanes because I do and you are going to have them all over your room.

I am starting to sleep more like a baby. I wake up around 6 or 6:30 every morning regardless of when I have gone to bed the night before and am ready for a nap every couple of hours. I fall asleep much earlier at night most of the time and if I don't its because I am really fighting it. I am tired almost constantly now but somehow I still can keep going.

Today I subbed in primary for one of the sunbeam classes. Whenever I go in junior primary Ariana has to stay with me or she cries. Today she sat right by me and lovingly rubbed and patted my belly during all of sharing and singing time. It was precious and I love that she is so attached to me and her brother. I am having maternity photos taken on Wednesday. I hope Angela Salazar can catch some of these cute little moments so we can have them forever.

Back to School Shopping

When I was growing up one of my families back to school traditions was my mom would sew me a new dress. Well I do know how to sew but I don't love it like my mom so my tradition is to take my girls shopping for one brand new outfit. We've been very blessed with lots of great hand me downs and I love clearance shopping. This is the one time of year they can pick something that doesn't have a clearance tag and as long as it is within a reasonable price range I will buy it (that's why they can only pick 1 new outfit though!) I love watching my girls load up the cart with dozens of choices and see the delight and magic of dressing up in the store dressing rooms with all the big mirrors. Shopping always includes lots of posing, modeling and dancing. Alexis loves it the most. Once Ariana finds what she loves she is done so she takes half the time but still really enjoys staring at her self in the mirror and skipping around the dressing room in her chosen outfit. I love seeing my girls so happy and just enjoying being a little girls.

31 & 32 Weeks

Weeks 31 and 32 have been interesting. My body has done some interesting things these last two weeks. Little guy most be sitting on or close to a nerve because on and off for the past two weeks I've had issues putting weight on my left leg. Every once in a while I'll step and it feels like I got stabbed in the back. Its made it really hard to walk around and not look completely ridiculous not to mention clean or get things done when that would happen. I also have been having a lot more braxton hicks contractions. When I get stressed and upset they seem to come instantly and frequently. With certain situations going on in my life currently it made this last weekend in particular hard to relax enough to not have them. Sunday I had to lay down for several hours because at dinner time I started having contractions every 7 minutes. After laying down and drinking LOTS of water they stopped. (Thank goodness!)

During week 31 I had a very concerned lady at the gym approach me during a class. She was REALLY worried about me laying down to exercise. (she really should have been more worried about me during the kickboxing portion not the floor exercise) I really was fine and I do know when to back off and while I get that she was concerned she's not my doctor so I kind of wanted her to back off. I do stick out at the gym A LOT now. You don't really see lots of big pregnant ladies walking around. I love exercising though and while I only go about once a week now I don't care what other people think.

My mom came to visit again for a week because my brother and his wife had their second little guy on Monday August 29. While she was here we made new fall centerpieces and sorted through lots of my hand me down boys clothes. Its starting to get more real. Its almost time for my little James to be here and my mom to come visit me because my little boy will be home and not in my tummy.

Ariana got to feel him kick her really well at dance yesterday. She thought it was so funny! They also got to feel his foot really well through my tummy last Friday. Alexis loved that! I love feeling him move and kick. Its been so long since I have been through this and I will miss it once I deliver. To feel your little one moving inside is something very special.

30 Weeks, let the count down begin

I've made it to what I consider the final count down, the last 10 weeks of pregnancy. Still feeling good just big. My only weird thing this week is my right knee started popping every time I went up the stairs. Not down, just up. It lasted for about 4 days and then finally went away. I finally made it back to the gym this week after being gone all summer long. It felt awesome to go to kickboxing. I do really enjoy these types of classes and the gym. I know its not for everyone but it lets me blow off some steam and feel a little better about myself. I know I stand out like a sore thumb being pregnant but I don't care. As long as I can I will keep going. I hope it makes delivery and recovery a little easier but even if it doesn't oh well. It will be frustrating when I am forced to not work out. Now lets hope that I can keep going for the rest of my count down.

29 Weeks

29 weeks! Almost to the final count down. Over the last two weeks we took another trip to Utah. Once again it was lots of fun and fortunately with this trip my back didn't hurt. I've been going to bed really late but sleeping in until 9 or 10 in the morning. Funny thing is I haven't been needing naps. So unlike me. Even when I'm not pregnant I LOVE naps and often feel like I need a little one in the middle of the day to keep going. My bump is big enough now that I am starting to have problems keeping the ugly pregnancy band from showing on my pants and my boobs properly covered in my shirts. At the doctors office last Wednesday I was congratulated once again on actually gaining weight (3lbs). The doctor told me to keep doing whatever it is I am doing. Umm, do you really want me to do that? Because that means I'll keep going on vacation, being lazy, eating out constantly, having LOTS of unhealthy snacks, and not exercising at all. : )
Little guy is doing well. One night during our Utah trip he decided to curl up under my rib cage on the right side. I spent most of the night trying to push him down because it hurt and he wouldn't move. I also somehow on another night managed to eat an entire Cafe Rio burrito (I still don't know how because I can only eat half of one of those when I'm not pregnant and now my tummy is so squished its hard to eat much of anything in one sitting) I had really bad heart burn for about 12 hours after that.

27 Weeks

So this week I definitely am feeling very pregnant. Last Monday night randomly my left foot started hurting like crazy. Tuesday it just got worse. My low back has also been hurting. So when I found out my baby sitting group was meeting Tuesday night I booked a message at message envy. I wish massages didn't cost so much. I think lately that's been one of the hardest parts of being on my own and pregnant is there isn't any one home with me to rub the spots that hurt (yes boo hoo I'm whining, but just a little). The therapist told me my foot was really swollen, the tendons were tight and that it looked like I was retaining water and than to prove the point poked the top of my foot. That sent tingles and a pins and needles feeling all through my foot. The massage was heaven and my back has felt much better since then. My foot took all week to feel better. It didn't help that Wednesday as I was getting ready to go out to a movie with one of my old college room mates that I slipped on beads in the laundry room with my left foot and found myself sprawled out in the hallway. It was rather funny except for the fact that it hurt my foot even more. The therapist recommend that I soak my feet in cold water and that really did seem to help.

My little man is having a lot of fun kicking, twirling and punching inside. One night I even stated laughing out loud because I think he stretched and it felt so funny to feel him tickled the bottom and top of my belly at the same time. He mainly likes to jab though or roll up in a tight ball on the right side of my belly. Wednesday I had my last monthly doctors appointment. (how am I now already to bi-weekly appointments!?) It felt so odd to have the nurse say "yay you finally gained some weight." Because I can finally eat again and have been gone for ALL of July I haven't been to the gym a single day and have been eating TONS of calories. Put those together and yup there comes some weight (about 8 lbs of it!!) oh well so goes pregnancy right? Lets just hope it doesn't get too out of control before October gets here because I am not looking forward to trying to loose the weight.

I don't really remember ever getting braxton hick contractions with the girls but this week I started getting some. The doctor told me just to make sure that if I ever get 6 or more in an hour to lay down and stop what I'm doing. I'm really hoping I never get to that point. 13 weeks left now and I want my little guy to stay in for all 13 of them. We'll see if he agrees with me or not ; )

26 Weeks

26 weeks and we are back home in Vegas. My back has really been hurting on and off this last week. I know a lot of it has to do with how much I did on vacation and also that I haven't been at the gym to keep my muscles as strong as they use to. Ariana and Alexis have been full of kisses and hugs for my belly this last week. Ariana is starting to wish that her brother was already here. She prays for him every night that he will be healthy and strong, and not to little to survive. Alexis prays for that too and also that I feel ok when I need to. It really touches my heart to watch as both my girls bond with their brother and he's still growing in my belly. He is already very much a part of our family. I'm 99% sure his name is going to be James Hunter Ashby. James after my Dad and Hunter because Alexis loves the name and has been begging since before we knew we were having a baby if it could be a boy and his name be Hunter. I hope letting her pick the middle name will be very special to her and him.

25 Weeks

25 weeks! I've been on vacation in Utah and am now in Vista (Northern San Diego) at my parents house. Its been a lot of fun and people now are openly acknowledging that they can tell that I am pregnant but I mean come on my belly is starting to get out there! This week from all the driving or I don't know what I am starting to feel really squished if I sit down for too long. Its much more comfortable to often stand of lay all the way down. Last week when I was 24 weeks Alexis was laying on me using my belly as a pillow and just feeling the baby kick. It was very sweet and she loves it! She loves when I let her try and feel him moving around. I'm glad she feels so connected already to her brother. I hope she continues to be so caring about him once he is here.

23 Weeks

I can't find a picture to go with this week but that's ok. I had a doctors appointment on July 1 and everything looks good. I've only gained one pound but the doctor laughed and said that's fine because the baby only weighs one pound now and its better to save all the weight gain for the end anyways. Plus I started about 5 pounds heavier than I did with Ariana so it really isn't a big deal (so he says) I think he's just trying to make me feel good that I started overweight and is just being polite about the whole thing. He took me completely by surprise when he pointed out that I start my third trimester in just one week. Crazy! Third trimester already? That came really fast! (but I never realised third trimester is actually the longest part of your pregnancy since you still have 16 weeks left!!) Still crazy how fast it is going.

22 Weeks

Gratitude

Sometimes life is hard, that's just how life is. When times get rough it helps a lot to look at the blessings that you do have. Just this morning I started making a list of people who have really helped me out A LOT over the pass few weeks and my heart is full of gratitude. My list is becoming very long and when I look at it I feel SOOO blessed. I am grateful beyond belief for the support and friendships I have. I am grateful for good health not only in me but with my pregnancy and children. I'm grateful for the talents that I have and that I can use them to help provide for my family. I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father that loves me and is standing by me.

21 Weeks, Its a...

BOY!!!

Another week has gone by. Friday was our "big ultrasound". I've known for weeks that it was a boy but my girls didn't. 20 weeks is normally the first time I ever get to see my babies and a tradition that we've developed is that we find out what we are having but not at the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech prints a picture with what it is and we look at the picture at a nice lunch or dinner. My girls have really been looking forward to this tradition and I wanted to keep it up so I didn't tell them even when I knew what it was. This drove Alexis crazy!! (she's a like me, we don't like to be held in suspense just tell us now! Secrets drive us nuts!!)

Alexis has really wanted it to be a boy and Ariana wanted a girl. Ariana's reasoning makes me laugh. She wanted a girl because she has a baby toy that she loves that she is convinced she must share with a boy but not a girl. What is it? A stuffed yellow, blue and green giraffe rattle. If it was a girl she has a pile of "girl toys" that she doesn't want any more and is ready to pass to a little sister. Nice Ariana! : ) She wasn't really too upset that it is a boy. She has gradually been warming up to the idea of a baby. She's starting to talk about pushing it in a stroller and helping give it a bottle. Alexis can't wait on the other hand. From the time we started talking about maybe having a baby come she has been jumping with excitement. I think they are both going to be great big sisters. It will be nice having them be a little older and able to help more.

I've felt the baby moving a lot more this week. This morning I could even tell he was all curled up on the left side of my belly. I let Ariana feel it. She thought that was really wierd. I feel like I have started showing more this week and sleeping certain ways and exercising in some classes and on some equipment has gotten a little uncomfortable. Nothing to bad just enough to remind me that I am pregnant : )

Twenty Weeks

Twenty weeks! I can't believe I'm already half way there. Just ignore the fact that I look tiered in the picture (because I am). I know there still isn't much showing and I wish I had profile pictures from the girls so I could compare. Oh well. Its still exciting to be half way done. Bring on the stretchy pants, shirts and dresses because I'm sure I'll be big soon enough. : ) There hasn't been much change between last week and this week beside maybe gaining 2 lbs which is due in large part to eating dinner with friends, block parties and end of school year celebrations. YUMMY! Thank goodness food tastes good again! (or maybe not ; ) )

Sleeping Buddies

Ever since Ariana moved into her big girl bed when she was two my girls have slept in the same room. Over the last year they have stopped using their own beds on a regular basis preferring to sleep together on the ground in their room or my room or when Justin is gone on my bed. Alexis is a crazy sleeper and Ariana is not. I'm surprised that Ariana can put up with her sisters sleeping habits but it does make for some good laughs every once in a while:

This is from our trip to Disney Land on May 1, 2011
Just this morning (June 5, 2011) around 7am she was using Ariana as a pillow

Baby Ashby is 19 Weeks

My sweet little baby is 19 weeks and growing well. I'm starting to be able to feel the movements and know for sure that its the baby. I feel the baby at night right before bed and in the morning the most. I've been REALLY stressed the past month and a side effect has been little sleep and weight loss which scared me. (normally weight loss is good but not usually when you are pregnant) I was surprised when the doctor didn't seem to care on Friday because my weight loss just brought me back to my starting pregnancy weight. So good news is I might not be completely huge by the end of this but who knows maybe my stress will swing my weight the other way now that I can kind of eat again. Regardless, the baby is healthy and right on track with the due date of October 28. I'm not showing very much at all. People who know me might be able to tell but strangers would be rather daring if they asked me yet if I'm pregnant. I thought with my third I would "pop" really fast but I guess waiting so long in between pregnancies helped that not happen. Well and now that I think back I don't think I was really "showing" so it was obvious with the girls until later as well. Its not a bad thing just not what I expected this time around. I'm sure I will still be huge come October : )

Lots of Laundry and Fun

Laundry is the bane of my existence so I tend to ignore it. A Saturday a few months back I looked out into the back yard to see this. The girls had very carefully and sneakily taken all the clean twin size sheets outside to enhance their fort. Cute yes, fun for sure. I wish they had asked though because I would have given them the dirty sheets from their beds and mine that needed to be washed anyways instead of making an entirely new load of laundry for me. I told them to have fun and then they were doing the laundry. : )

Ariana's 5'th Birthday Party

This year Ariana decided she wanted a Tangled birthday party. We decorated with lots of lights, lanterns and streamers. Ariana decided she wanted her cake to look like a flag from Tangled. She picked chocolate cake and helped mix the batter. I made my own home made fondant to make the sun (my first personal expierence with the stuff) I think it turned out pretty good or at least it looked like the flag : ) The party started with water color painting, then watching some tangled movie clips from disney's website, reading a tangled book. Then playing pang the Flynn Ryder on the head (pin a frying pan on Flynn Ryders wanted poster). The girls loved this game. Next was lunch time with pizza, grapes, and pink lemonade. Another fun game was the Pascal party blower. The girls all decided Justin should be Flynn and chased him around trying to stick their "tounge" in Justin's ear. We then played a treasure hunt game to find the missing satchel. Time for Pinata which was our version of Maximus the horse. Ariana had a wonderful day. She kept telling me it was the best day ever all day. I love her so much and can't believe that she is already five.

Pretty Princess

We are starting not to dress up as much any more and it makes me sad. So when Ariana was invited to a princess party and was excited to be Cinderella I was thrilled to help her dress up. She was soo cute in her outfit, makeup and hair that I had to take pictures and a movie of her walking down the stairs like a princess.

Poor Sleepy Daddy

Working in CA since December and driving home on Friday's makes for a very tired Daddy sometimes. This was taken in March. He feel asleep before the girls and they each brought him something to snuggle. He held on and never knew it : )

Baby's First Picture

Today was my first OB appointment. I purposely waited until I was 10 weeks to go in because I wanted to make sure they could hear the heart beat. I tried not to think about it too much but yesterday it finally hit me that today was the day it truly would become "real". After realizing this I started getting nervous and scared. Everything has been so different this time already and even though I've had a really good feeling that this was meant to happen now I was still scared that something could be wrong. I started shaking this afternoon I was so nervous, I was tired but I couldn't even take a nap. When I finally got to the office I was late (because I got lost getting there). Filling out paper work took my mind off things a little but than I just had to sit and wait. I started to shake and was so close to tears. I got to talk to Dr. Ibay and then he took me back to the office's ultrasound room. I was sweating by this point and was sticking to the table. As soon as he got the ultrasound on we could see my little baby's heart beating. I started to breath easier. Dr. Ibay tried to have me pretend cough and laugh to wake the baby up so it would move around for us but it just wanted to sleep and I don't mind. I was smiling by this point and fairly well composed until he turned on the heart beat so I could hear and see its rhythm. I started crying and didn't stop for a very long time. I am so happy and relieved and feel like all the stress of the last 24 hours finally just all came out in my tears. Poor Justin and the girls. All I could do is cry. I couldn't even leave Justin a coherent message on his phone after the appointment because I couldn't stop crying. So everything is looking good and my due date is officially October 28, 2011! : )

Angel Faces

There is something about watching a child sleep that touches my heart. When I look at my little girls asleep I just melt. They are so innocent, peacful and beautiful. I don't think I could love them any more than I do.

Prayer

We had a mini family home evening lesson on prayer Monday night during dinner. I picked this topic because Ariana likes to say the fastest prayer she can for anything and I want both of my girls to understand the importance of prayer. We talked a lot about how we should think about the things that we are truly grateful for that day and thank Heavenly Father for those things.

Last night Ariana said a wonderful prayer. She was thankful for lots of different things but the two parts I enjoyed the most:
"Thank you for wonderful parents"
"Thank you for my money"

33 weeks and counting down...

...until baby Ashby #3 is here!Its been no secret that I've been wishing for a long time to have another baby and now that's its true I am so excited I can't keep it to myself. According to online pregnancy calendars I'm 7 weeks today. This is a little early for me to let the whole world know because I haven't been to the doctor yet and I have miscarried in the past just after my first trimester but I'm too excited to not say anything! My due date should be October 28 but we'll see what the doctor says. I'm feeling pretty good so far (the best I've ever felt and this is my 5'th pregnancy) but I cry at everything. Just yesterday I was tearing up watching Ariana in her dance class. I just finished reading Anne of Green Gables and cried through a lot of that book too. Hopefully I'll continue to feel good and everything will go really smoothly. I feel so blessed and happy to have another little spirit preparing to come to our home. I already love this baby so much (I loved them before I even knew I was pregnant) : )

Ariana Can Ride Without Training Wheels!

Ariana has been riding Alexis bike with us holding on for the last month and today she decided it was time for us to let go : )

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. I don't think it has to be all about your significant other. I think its a great chance to take a moment and let your friends and family know how much you love and appreciate them.

With Justin off in California we decided to send him a "love package". We mailed it Friday hoping it would get to him today. It did but he didn't get home in time to pick it up from his apartment office. Inside his package is a brand new (hand made : ) ) rice hot/cold pack, his favoite candy and valentines from all of us.

Julie Morton and I were going to have a little party with our kids tonight since both of our husbands are working out of town but with Alexis still being so sick we had to call it off. I still tried to make it a fun day for them. In the morning I made heart pancakes and even offered to make them pink. Ariana thought that was a fabulous idea Alexis thought "pink doesn't sound good for my tummy." (having a sick kiddo isn't very fun!) Alexis even turned down chocolate milk. Not Ariana though. She ate all the pancakes and had pink chocolate milk. We also made sure Alexis had valentine's for her class. She is starting to miss her friends a lot but is having such low energy that laying down is all that sounds good so I let her have a day full of movies with little interuptions of homework. For dinner we had subway and watched Alpha and Omega (horray for free red box codes).

These are the chocolate lollipops I made for Alexis valentine's. Ariana had fun taking pictures of everything so from her height this is what they looked like.

My poor sick baby

Alexis has been so sick for a week now. She has had a high fevers along with headaches and being very lethargic. She has also has now developed a running nose and little cough. When Justin called to say good night tonight Ariana took her turn and then went to find Alexis and couldn't. I soon found her curled up like this with her thumb in her nose in the side that won't stop dripping. I guess when you can't find a tissue and are to tiered to get up your thumb will do.

Ariana's New Sippy

Saturday in San Diego all the girls went to Burlington Coat factory and while looking around the baby section Ariana spotted a type of sippy cup that she just had to have. Nice thing about when this happens is that I can tell her that's fine she just has to use her allowance money to buy it. Well today she still wanted to buy it so off we went to our Burlington Coat factory and Ariana is now the proud owner of this sippy cup. She thinks its the coolest water bottle ever and I love that she choose to save and use her own money to buy it. I think our allowance system is working well.

Little "Boy" Friend

(she had just woken up and asked for her necklace to be back on when I took these pictures)

Ariana has a friend that she just adores and loves. His name is Isaac Earl. They have been buddies in preschool for the past two years and Ariana is absolutely attached to him. He is the only boy her age that she regularly asks to play with and she loves to write him notes and during preschool she is all over him. She MUST sit by him, hold his hand around the yard during recess etc., etc. Isaac and his family got to go on a trip to Hawaii and Ariana missed Isaac a lot. While he was in Hawaii Isaac bought a little present for Ariana and gave it to her when he got back. She loves it and while she is not very nice to most of her jewelry this little necklace is getting royal treatment from her. I think the whole story and necklace are really cute (we'll see if I think things like this are so cute when she is a teenager and can date ; ) )

Alexis Tooth #3

Alexis finally lost her third tooth today after it was flapping around in her mouth for a week. She was so excited because she wanted two things for this tooth and she got them:
1) She wanted to be the one to pull it out (I pulled out the first one and her cousin Derek pulled out #2)
2) She wanted to loose it at school so she could go to the school nurse and get a little tooth box.

She got her wish today when Miaja told her to "just twist it out" while they were in P.E. She did and out it came.