Binky obsession and hugs!!

So at night I started scattering a few binkys around Ashlan’s crib. Luckily, when she wakes at night, she finds her binky herself, puts it in her mouth, and goes right back to sleep! Finally! We used to have to run to her room to put “the plug” back in (that’s all she wanted) so it’s nice to not have to do that anymore. She is too funny though…when she wakes in the middle of the night she will collect them all and sleep with them right next to her! It is so cute but uh oh! I think we have an addiction here! I have a few toys in the corners of her crib in case she wakes up so she has something to play with, which she has done before. Now that I put the binkys in there, she could care less about the toys!

Not only does Ashlan put her arms up when we pick her up, she also has been hugging us lately! I love that!! She will be playing on the floor and I’ll be down on the floor with her. She turns to me and puts her little arms around me and then turns back around and continues playing. It is so sweet! I was skyping with my parents the other day and she did it then a few times. She has such a sweet little personality!

I forgot to mention in the last blog that Ashlan had her first neighborhood play date a few weeks ago and it went really well! There were kids of all ages there and she had fun watching the older ones and playing with the ones her age. She had so exhausted herself that she fell asleep the minute I put her in the car seat (which usually takes a bit of time for her to fall asleep in that)! We will definitely be going on other play dates now that she is old enough to play and sit up by herself. She is a total people watcher just like her mommy and daddy. I think that’s another reason why she does so well when we take her out to restaurants, grocery shopping, etc…because she is so busy looking around that she doesn’t realize she’s tired, hungry, etc. We feel so blessed to have her as our baby, she is so happy and we’re so happy to have her!!

She was actually playing tug of war with Caesar.  He was being very patient with her since she kept losing her grip.  I had a bad headache that day and it's like he knew because he entertained her for some of the afternoon, which he usually would rather sleep!

Look at how long she is!  May need to put it down a notch soon!

New toys!!

This thing will keep her entertained for awhile.  It also comes with legs so she can use it when she can stand by herself.

She was trying to grab the mobile.  It may be time to retire the swing...

she is so big for it!

This box was sitting on her activity mat right-side-up.  She was a few feet away from it and rolled over to it.  Then she toppled it over and picked a toy up one by one to play with it!  She may not be able to crawl but she sure can move! 

Here she goes again...(a different day)

She loves looking at herself in the mirror!  She was smiling and wiggling around while looking at herself!

Another shot of her looking at herself.  :)  Little skinny girl!

27 & 28 weeks

My parents visited for a week in mid June, so we were pretty busy, thus why there have been no blog entries in awhile. Of course, I happened to take a ton of pictures then so this could get long!

Here’s the rundown: Ashlan has learned to put her arms up when she wants you to pick her up and it just melts my heart every time she does it! She learned about a week or so before my parents got here (about two weeks ago) and so she also used it on them when they were here. It was really cute. She is also so close to getting up on all fours! In addition to that, she is starting to lean on her elbows when she’s on her back, so she may be able to pull herself up to a sitting position soon. She can hold herself sitting up for long periods of time now. Feeding herself the sippy and bottle is going well too. Also, she managed to learn how to put the binky back in her mouth!!! That also started about a week before my parents came and she is very good at it now. In fact, she recently learned how to do it at night as well, so that is great for us!  I've started to scatter a few around her crib at night so she can find one easily when she wakes.  One last thing, she started to say, "mamama" in the last few weeks and actually just uses two syllables in more than a few instances...I am SO happy to hear that!!!  :)  Guess all my repeating is paying off, haha!



Enjoy the pics!

She loved my dad's beard!

Nana had her laughing.

This was in the early morning, when Ashlan likes to get up, which is why it's so dark inside!

She loves to dance!

Impromptu pic at a restaurant in St. Augustine.  We really have to watch her now when she's on our laps and we're eating...she grabs everything in sight!

Her saying "mamamama".

Nana holding Ashlan while she eats...Ashlan was holding the bottle herself though.

Such a happy little girl!

Bedtime story.

Giving daddy smiles.

Love this pic with her tongue and belly hanging out!

"No more sitting, Nana!  I want to dance!"

Funny girl!

Enjoying a morning by the pool before it got too hot.

She LOVES to "read"!  I think she'd rather do that than play with her toys.

Trying the pool again...happy so far.

Loves to splash her feet in the water.

Definitely enjoyed it this time!  Of course, the pool was much warmer at 90-some degrees!

She wanted to touch the water...splish splash.

Feeding herself with the bottle

Just a quick video shot a couple nights ago to show the grandparents Ashlan feeding herself.  She does this with the sippy too.  :)

6 month appt

Just a quick update…we had Ashlan’s 6 month appointment on the 8th even though she turned 6 months on the 3rd. Her weight was 17 lbs 3 oz, which is in the 75 percentile, and her height was 27.5 inches, which is in the 95 percentile (which the nurse measured twice just to make sure)! I knew she was tall because she just looks long and skinny but I can’t believe she is taller than 95% of the girls her age! Must be from the Denning side because she certainly didn’t get it from me, haha! And there was no crying again after shots (I was distracting her), she’s a tough little girl!

Ashlan has been starting to use the sippy cup on her own and can even put her own bottle in her mouth! We found out by accident about the bottle a few days ago, actually. She was getting pretty cranky in her high chair after Dan and I had had dinner. I had warmed up her bottle (I always pump later at night before I go to bed so I can get more and then she gets the bottle from the previous night) and set it on her high chair tray so we could give it to her. She lunged forward and grabbed the bottle with her two hands, tipped it, and put it in her mouth and started sucking! She was able to feed herself the majority of the bottle before we had to tip it just a little farther so she could get the final ounce. We were so proud of her! I think it could have been because we started introducing the sippy cup a few weeks ago. We only started giving her a regular bottle at night about two months ago when we had to warm up breastmilk for her rice cereal and oatmeal anyway. She got the hang of the sippy pretty quick, she just still needs a little help at the end. But last night she fed herself her whole bottle (tipping included!), all I had to do was remove it from her when she was done. She’s growing up so fast!

And I finally reached pre-pregnancy weight, yay! My pants actually feel a little looser too. I’m thinking that’s because I’m running so much and then when Ashlan falls asleep in the stroller, I do lunges while pushing the stroller until she wakes up on her own. I actually want to lose another 10 lbs but we’ll see if that happens. I can tell you this though, my biceps are the biggest they’ve ever been in my life despite not doing any weight training exercises. I guess that’s what happens when you lug around 17 lbs most of the day!


Haven't taken many pics this week, probably because I took 65 over our 3 day vaca last week!

Watching mommy prepare food.

Her new favorite toy.

I actually took this picture upside down, which is why her neck is cranked...from looking at me.

Longboat Key vaca pics

We just got back from Longboat Key on Sunday and we had an awesome time! Ashlan did pretty great in the car on the way there and back, and it ended up taking five hours or so with stopping. She pretty much slept the entire way and when she didn’t, she just babbled to herself and played with her toys. The only time she got cranky was when her diaper needed changed or she was hungry. We were so happy she didn’t cry! That would have made the ride miserable!

Anyway, it was Ashlan’s first time in the ocean! She didn’t care as much for the water, but was fascinated with the sand, and even tolerated the high temps pretty well. She had a great time splashing her feet and jumping in the water…she just didn’t care for the submersion as much. We were at the beach on Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning since the afternoons were too hot. At least it was pretty breezy in the mornings and evenings to keep us cooler. Ashlan didn’t sleep very well while we were there but it was not all that different from home. She was such a trooper though with the heat and scarce naps and was so happy at meal times too. We got so many compliments while we were there on how good she was and what a happy baby she is. We brought her exersaucer to put her in while we were on the beach and I had her laughing in it at one point. Some lady came over and said she had to see who had such a sweet laugh because she could hear her laughing down the beach where she was sitting. Then we had an 85+ year old lady gushing over her at dinner on Friday night, who happened to be talking so loud we’re sure the whole restaurant heard her. Stuff like that makes us feel so good! All in all it was a fantastic trip and hopefully we can go next year! : )

Nap time on Daddy.

We couldn't figure out why she looked so tall here...and then we realized we had broken down the exersaucer for the car and hadn't raised it up to the 

notch that it was currently at.

She had a great time in this while we were getting ready.  It made the car jam packed but it was SO worth it!

Breakfast time...she looks groggy here.

Drank out of her sippy a lot while we were there...it was so hot!

Ashlan and Gavin playing in the tent.

She was watching me use the outdoor shower to get all the sand off and we needed a place to put her.  It worked out great.