22 months old- Oct 3rd

Well, Nana and Papa said goodbye on Sunday morning and we were sad to see them go.  We’ll see them in about a month and a half though, when we come up for Ashlan’s birthday party, so that’s not very far away.  We had a great time with them while they were here, despite Ashlan and me being sick.  Ashlan was on antibiotics so her cold/infection cleared up pretty quickly, while mine just dragged on.  I went to the dr and they thought I had a viral infection, so I didn’t get any antibiotics.  I started feeling better about a day or two before they left, but we still all had a great time despite that.  She did learn how to blow her nose though with my help.  I will hold the tissue up to her and say “blow” and she can actually do it.  That makes it so much easier now when she has a cold.

Ashlan has been hilarious lately.  She has been talking up a storm and just has us cracking up with whatever she says.  She would take Nana’s hand and say, “Come on Nani”, pulling my mom out of her seat.  My mom would say, “Ok, where are we going?” and she’d say, “Come on, I show you” and she would end up taking her to go see a toy or something.  She did this to everyone for the last week and a half, and still is doing it to me and Dan, haha.  Then I’d be fooling around with the camera and she’d come up to me and say, “Picture, picture”.  I’d ask her if she wanted me to take her picture and she said yes.  I’d ask to her to smile and say cheese, to which she would.  She is currently in love with having her picture taken and is such a ham in front of the camera.

Another time, Ashlan and I were under a blanket and I kept pushing the blanket up in the air so it would fall back down on her head and mine.  She fell into me and the blanket was still over us as we ended up laying on the ground.  Dan took a picture of us doing that, and Ashlan saw the flash through the blanket and said “cheese” even though our heads were nowhere near facing the camera.  We got a good laugh from that one.  Today Caesar was outside and he had just walked to the door and started barking so we’d let him in...Ashlan stopped what she was doing and ran to the door saying, “C, I’m coming!”  Haha, like she can open the door!  Too funny.  Then I asked her one time if I could smell her stinky feet while she was standing a few feet away from me.  She walks over to me, holds onto the chair next to me, and lifts one foot to my face.  That was hilarious.  She knows I love her feet.  :)

The thing I’m most proud of is that she seems to have gotten “please”, “thank you”, “you’re welcome” and “excuse me” down pat!  Yay!  It took some coaxing for a month or so, but most of the time she says those words without any prompting (anymore) and in the correct way.  She handed Nana something a few days ago and said, “Here, this is for you.”  My mom said thank you, and Ashlan replied, “You’re welcome” as she was walking off…not even having to think about it, haha!  She even knows “I’m sorry”.  She accidently hit me the other day when we were wrestling and I said, “Oww, you hurt mommy” and she immediately replied, “I sorwy”.  I don’t know how much she meant it or how much was just a conditioned response, haha, but hey, she said it! 

We’re still working on colors but the other day when we were coloring she held up a purple eraser to me and clearly said it was purple.  I have mainly done primary colors with her, but whenever I color with her (which is a lot), I say what color I’m using, or what color I’m handing her, and I guess she picked that one up, lol.  She can identify all the characters of Mickey (well, she obviously knows Mickey but we didn’t know she knew any others).  I had no idea she knew them until she came up to me with a Mickey Mouse book and pointed to Goofy and said, “Goofy”.  So, I pointed to all the rest of the characters and one by one she identified them all- Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Pluto, etc.  When we show her another book with animals in it, I will ask her “where’s the mouse?” or to “find the elephant” and she can almost always point out the animal that I asked her to find.  She loves animals!  Think we’ll make a trip out to the zoo next week when Dan has off.

We are very excited for Ashlan’s birthday!  I know it is about two months off, but ever since we decided on coming up around Thanksgiving for two weeks, we started the planning of it.  We’re having it at Jumpin’ Jungle (a bounce house/slide place), so hopefully Ashlan will have a great time!  She loves bounce houses and slides.  Of course, it will also be awesome to see extended family, as we hardly ever see them!!  We are renting out the place, meaning it will just be a family function, so that will be even nicer…like a family reunion of sorts but mainly for my generation, haha, so we can keep the kids entertained.  The theme is Mickey Mouse because she loves Mickey (wayyyy more than Minnie, weird), so I’ve already started collecting decorations and things for her party.  I am so excited to see her face when we walk into the place…we might have trouble getting her out!!  ;)

Playing ring-around-the-rosie with Papa.

Coloring with Nana (with markers that only work on that paper, thank goodness!).

More coloring in the princess book.  Ashlan now knows at least five princesses, lol.

She was holding her shirt up over her head saying, "I can see you!" to everyone.

And then just walking around the house like this, haha.

She found Papa's sandals.

I think he needed them...  :)

One of my parents stuffed a ball up her shirt and she was running all over the house like this.

The ball is still in her shirt.  Caesar wasn't amused.  :)

Look at that smile.  :)

We bought Ashlan some new shoes and she had to wear them immediately when we got home...wouldn't even let me put the other sock on, haha.

These shoes were on sale (purple ones), but they were size 8...and although they were way too big for now, she wouldn't let me take them off!  I had to end up hiding them!

Pulling Papa to show him something...with her size 8 shoes on, haha.

Then she wanted to "hide" under the box.  She ran around the house with this box on her head bumping into things along the way.

She was pretty entertaining.  :)

Then she was just laying in the box, kicking her feet.  It was like we gave her sugar!

She disappeared one time when we were all in the living room.  When we went to check on her, we found her sitting in her dark room (it's light only because of the flash), trying to read a book.  

She loves colored pencils.  Forget crayons, she only wants colored pencils now.

Whoops, this is upside down...but she was just laying in the box.  She keeps us entertained.

She insisted on Daddy being in the box too.   She said "Come on, Daddy!" as she pulled him down into the box with her.  :)

She wanted her picture taken here.

"Hiding" under the blanket.

Hiding with mommy.

I kept lifting up the blanket and letting it fall back down on us.

Getting squeals every time I did it.  :)

Playing around.

Getting tired?

Kisses and hugs for me!!  Love these moments!  :)

The only time Caesar *really* likes her...  :)

She asked me to take a picture here.  

Ok, and then I took another one, lol.

Dan was looking at pictures on the camera and Ashlan wanted hers taken...again.  Uh oh.

Playing...on Caesar's pillow.  It is comfortable, lol.

She asked me to take a picture...and every time I did, THIS is what she did after I said "say cheese".

"Cheese?"

For some reason, she thinks this is smiling?  She never did this before...

Ok, a little better...

Chocolate face...saying "cheese" again, lol.

She was playing with these tonight...and this is how she left them...stacked neatly in a row.  

Whoops, here's some pics that are totally out of order.  Don't know how this happens!!  Anyway, she got out her guitar to play after my dad started playing on her new xylophone.  :)

More ring-around-the-rosie pics.  

More box pics...

More pics of her and me under the blanket...

Giving hugs to daddy.