Christmas Day

Christmas day we had our first family Christmas at our house. We had fun watching Ashlyn open her presents. She enjoyed chewing on the paper the most :)

Then we went up to Joe's Grandma Fashingbauer's in St. Paul. It's always fun to get together with his mom's side of the family. Lots of people and good food. I can't wait to see all the pictures Mary took, here are just a few from that day.

My favorite from that day....

Christmas Eve

I'm finally getting around to posting some Christmas pictures... it was such a crazy week and by the time it was all over I just wanted to rest. Then I got sick but I'm feeling much better today!

Our Christmas started off at Joe's sister Christy and her husband Bryan's house in North Mankato for the Loula family Christmas with Joe's parents, it was fun as usual. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures from that get together.

Then we went to rural Courtland for the Kral Christmas Eve celebration. Santa came and handed out presents to all the little kids. It's a tradition we've done since I was a little kid and it's so fun to watch how excited they get when Santa gets there.

Santa with all the little kids.

Almond Bark Pretzels

Ashlyn proudly posing in front of a few of the pretzels she help me make. It was a lot of work but they turned out really good!

I want some...

Little Miss Sunshine

She had a case of the giggles tonight when I was taking pictures of her in front of our tree. What a happy little girl!

Bedtime

I just thought I'd post this cute picture of Ashlyn fresh out of the bathtub. There is not a whole lot new with us... just getting ready for our many Christmas get togethers next week. I think we only have couple more gifts to buy and will hopefully do that tomorrow after ECFE. Oh yeah, our tree fell over the other day :( We have a fake tree and the plastic stand that it was in cracked --- TIMBER!!! It fell quite gracefully (I actually saw it happen) and thankfully nothing broke. Joe went to town to pick up a new stand and Ashlyn and I redecorated it... we'll be posting pictures soon.

Practicing sitting alone

5 months old

Ashlyn is 5 months old! She is growing and changing so fast. She's still working on sitting by herself and she loves to stand and have you assist her. It's a great workout for the arms! We started veggies this week. She finished her first container of sweet potatoes and seemed to enjoy them just a little tonight... she only gagged once! We put up the Christmas tree finally and she was entertained with all the lights and shinny ornaments. I'll have to get some pictures of her in front of it to post :)

At 5 months she is weighing in at 18lbs 11oz and is 26 1/4" tall.

I thought she would have grown more than 1/4" in the past month but considering the way the measure the height I'm not surprised... the first measurement was 26" and the nurse must have sensed my disappointment since that would have meant she didn't grow at all this past month. So she remeasured her and was like "wow, how did you grow a 1/4" little girl?". Not that it's a big deal, I just want to fill in her baby book for her and make sure she's thriving :)

Here is her progression in her car seat. I can hardly remember her being that small!

Ho Ho Ho

We went to visit Santa at the mall and it looks like he just told her she gets everything on her wish list since she was such a good girl this year!

No Teeth but Taking the Bottle!!

We still don't have any teeth yet but Ashlyn had been in a great mood and she's back to sleeping good too. To bed at about 8pm, up to eat around midnight, then sleeps until 7am. It's so nice, basically just like she used to sleep. The other exciting news is that she has been taking her bottle! This is HUGE... it's so nice knowing that I can leave her with someone and not be in a hurry to get back because I'm worried she's freaking out and hungry. No fun for the person watching her or her. We have won the battle!

Ashlyn is always doing something to make us smile. She has become quite the talker and enjoys telling stories. Bubble blowing is still a favorite and now she has mastered thumb/finger sucking. Her hands and sleeves are usually wet but it doesn't seem to bother her! She's also really close to sitting up by herself. As exciting as it is to see her do these thing I can't help but think that she is growing up too fast! I'm trying to savor every day and enjoy all things baby. Before we know it she'll be a toddler!

Having fun in her Jumperoo.

Thanksgiving

We went to Joe's sister Christy and her husband Bryan's new house in North Mankato for Thanksgiving. It was sooo nice to not have to travel very far and it's always great to see the Fashingbauer gang. They remind me a lot of my mom's side (the Kral's).... it's always a good time and there are a ton of people there :) I wish Bernie's three girls lived closer so they could babysit for us! They were fighting over the babies all afternoon so needless to say, the babies were in good hands.

Ashlyn and Connor decided to dress up as little Minnesota Gophers. They were cute as always!

Connor & Ashlyn

Ashlyn & Grandma Ruth

Lip Smacker

She does this funny thing with her tongue and lips, it's pretty funny to watch. (Video quality is not the greatest and she was in her swing.)

Teething??

I'm convinced Ashlyn is teething. She has been so crabby the past couple days and hasn't been sleeping very good for the past week. Last night and today were almost unbearable. I was just googling teething and came across these signs that baby is teething and here are the ones that fit Ashlyn:

• Drooling
• Coughing
• Biting
• Pain
• Irritability - (irritable doesn't even describe it.... )
• Refusal to feed - (very strange for her, she LOVES to eat!)
• Wakefulness - (what a nice word to describe waking up every 2-3hr at night and not napping during the day!)

From what I've read, this can last a day or go on for weeks. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I don't know how many more days like today I can handle, I feel so helpless when she's screaming in pain and nothing seems to help. One good thing is that she went to bed at 7:30pm but I have a feeling I'm going to be up with her a lot tonight. Wish me luck!

Ready for Hunting Season

Since it is hunting season we had to put on our cute pink camo outfit. Grandma Ruth put a cute bow in her hair this weekend while she was babysitting and it was adorable! I can't believe I didn't do it a long time ago, her hair has been long enough since birth! We're definitely going to be accessorizing her gorgeous hair from now on :)

Matching bow's :)

4 Month Check Up

We met with Dr. Knudson this morning for our four month check up. Ashlyn is doing great! He said she is a happy, healthy baby. Poor little thing had more shots. It's hard to watch her in so much pain, she's pretty inconsolable for a while. This time I let her eat before we left the Dr's office and that seemed to help calm her down. I'm sure she will sleep most of the day and try to forget the traumatic events of the morning :) She is also starting to wear her size 9 month clothing... and to think that before she was born I thought that she wouldn't be wearing those until March!

As I guessed in the previous post, she is over 17 lbs!

Here are her stats: 26" tall (97%) ~ 17lbs 12oz (99%)

4 Months Old!

Can you believe our little peanut is four months old already?! I swear the days just fly by! We go in for her four month check up on Tuesday. I am curious to see how much she weighs. She has become quite a load to tote around in her car seat. I'm guessing she's over 17lbs.... I think it's mostly in her cheeks ;)

Some of the fun things she's doing: 

• Talking.... she's really finding her voice. From low tones to high pitch squeals.  When she's in the right mood she can talk your ear off. I think she gets that from mommy ;)
• Rolling from front to back, she's been attempting the much harder back to front, but no luck on that one yet.
• Giggling... she's starting to enjoy tickling and blowing "fart" noises on her belly and cheeks. (Sorry, I couldn't think of a better word to describe the noise!)
• Eating rice cereal. She's been watching us eat and seemed like she wanted to try it so we did. She's been doing great. 
• Chewing... mainly on her fingers but my fingers are her second favorite. Along with the chewing comes drooling, sometimes it's a little and sometimes it's a lot! I think that she may have some teeth coming, we'll have to wait and see!

Here you can see her change month by month. I swear she just keeps getting more adorable as the days go by! 

2 days old

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months!

Snow

Ashlyn's first snowfall! She even tasted a little snow and seemed to like it :) I'm not sure if we're ready for winter/snow yet but I guess we don't have a choice!

Halloween!

It was Ashlyn's first official holiday, Halloween! It was so much fun dressing her up, she was such a cute Tigger!

She does look more like me with her dark hair covered up.... right??.... maybe :)

... at work with Grandma Deb

Her costume was making her really warm so we were trying to cool off! 

Here's Ashlyn with Grandpa Frank

... with Great Aunt Lois, Great Uncle Daryl and cousin Frankenstein (Jared).

... with Great Aunt Mary

... with Great Grandma Lappe

After visiting everyone in New Ulm, we went to Bryan & Christy's house in North Mankato to help hand out candy and have Joe & Christy's aunt Mary take pictures of Ashlyn and her cousin Connor in their costumes. I haven't seen to pictures yet but I will post them when I get a copy! 

Little Pumpkin

Ashlyn got this adorable pumpkin outfit from her great aunt Mary. It's so cute! Ashlyn blended right in with the pumpkins in front of our house. She is going to be Tigger for Halloween tonight so I will post more pictures tomorrow :) 

Blowing Bubbles

Dressed up for ECFE

We have ECFE on Thursday's and our class decided to dress up.  They were all so cute! I thought it was funny that none of the kids were looking at the camera!

Rice Cereal

We've officially started rice cereal! Ashlyn seemed to be eyeing our food lately and they say that is a sign that she is ready for solids so we tried it out on Saturday and she like it! She was smiling and didn't end up with too much on her bib. So now we're doing cereal once a day, so far so good :)

First try went really well, she seemed to enjoy it :)

A few days later... she really wanted to hold the spoon so I gave it to her and she had a good time playing with it, she even got it into her mouth all by herself!

Yard Work

Grandma Deb came over on Monday to help move some of my plants in the yard and she brought me more pompous grass. It was a beautiful day out so Ashlyn hung out in her swing all bundled up and watched us work. She was so good :)

 

Smiles!

She has been smiling more and more. It makes me melt every time... I just love it! So here are some recent smiling shots, what a little ham!