Baby Steps!

Our proud parent moment has finally arrived. 


Tristan took his first steps today!

I'm convinced my child is really a dog. When you're training a dog, it's best to find out what motivates them.  Is it sweet talk "Good Girl (or Boy)" or physical praise (such as pat on the head) or is it like my dogs?-- food motivation.


I have been trying to get Tristan to walk to me from the coffee table, or from Eric, or wherever he may be standing, for weeks. Now I know. Apparently, I am not appetizing enough.


We were sitting in the 2nd hour of church and I started to feel a little shaky so I pulled out the waffle that I packed for Tristan and started snacking on it, although I knew I had to share so I held out a piece for T. He was holding on to Eric's leg with one hand and just let go and walked to me. Simple as that. It was like 'Oh this ole trick?' 


It was just a couple steps, but like they say- Baby Steps! By this time next week, he'll be running circles around me and then I won't be so excited. Had to post while it was fresh :)


Other than that our weekend was filled with lots of walking (us doing the walking, Tristan doing the stroller sitting) and mall grazing. JayC (Eric's sister) is due with her 4th baby on March 9th, however the due date was estimated based on the baby's size back at week 10-- Now, If you looked at her belly, you'd swear there were either twins in there or she was due a month ago. Our theory is that she was due on Feb 13th  and now she is actually overdue so we've been trying to get this baby out of her. These attempts included lots and lots of walking. Fri night we walked for 4 hours, and Sat we ended up walking about the same- and still no baby! I keep telling her to do the castor oil milkshake but she refuses... I have no idea why?! :)

As a result of being in a mall all weekend, we randomly decided to take the boys in for spontaneous pictures. These are just the ones of Tristan, although we got some super cute shots of Nate and Tristan together which I will post later. I was pretty pleased with the cheap, 20 minute long photo shoot, especially since I haven't gotten pictures done of Tristan since he was 8 weeks old. I'm a slacker, what can I say.


Also, I totally screwed up- I meant to scan these pics and then post them, but I got all excited that I finally had pictures of my child to hang on the wall that I put them in a frame and nailed 'em to the wall without scanning them first. Oops....SO you'll have to excuse the glare. This is a picture of a picture(s).


So as Eric just said, I think we're going to "cash in" early tonight (although I think the term is "turn in"...) because we are exhausted!

Hump Day

Wednesdays are excruciating. I hate Wednesdays.

I have never been a TV addict. I'm much more addicted to my computer than to the TV. But since Tristan has been alive, and I have been at home with him I have acquired some "shows".

Mondays- Pretty Little Liars at 8 and Gossip Girl at 9. Tristan goes to bed during one of the commercials and then I'm off to clean the kitchen, pick up his toys and go to bed.

Tuesdays- (Even better) Glee at 8, then I have a whole hour to get Tristan to bed and (assuming, I succeed at this task) pick up the house and then I can settle down with a bowl of ice cream (and eat it, in peace aka without having to share it) to watch Teen Mom. I have to admit, I've always been a Grey's Anatomy kinda girl, but Teen Mom is definitely catching up to a tie these days. It is the pure definition of a guilty pleasure. I'm addicted. I can't help it.

Wednesdays- NOTHING!

Thursdays- Grey's Anatomy at 9. I live for this hour, and it usually seems to take forever for this hour to roll around, but alas...it is worth every minute of waiting.

So, as you can see...this is why I hate Wednesdays.

Wednesdays force me to find some kind of cleaning or organizing project. So in honor of the snow, wednesdays and still fighting morning sickness, I'm protesting a cleaning project today. Instead we're going to talk about Tristan. My favorite subject.

He is learning sooo much sooo fast, it's incredible. I can hardly keep up. I keep reminding him that although his t-shirts aren't very accommodating for his big head, it's really a blessing in disguise. A big head equals big brains. He just stares at me. I know it's because his big brains are thinking such big thoughts.

Today, he learned that the big button on the TV is easily accessible and it really drives Mommy mad when you press it over and over, turning the TV on, then off, then on again, then off again, etc etc. However, he insisted that I have no sense of humor and that it is indeed, ahhbsolutely hilarious.

Tristan also learned ALL about vacuum's today. He learned what they look like, what they sound like, what they feel like, and even what they taste like. Yumm. I know, we're slowly entering civilization. Big step in our lives. We bought a vacuum with our tax return. Proud parents, we are. The last vacuum we owned was in 2008 and it got jammed with Chloe's hair.

LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST,

Tristan's toys. They've been driving me crazy. After begging and pleading with Eric, I was allowed to enter IKEA. I love IKEA. So does Eric, he just doesn't know it. He's in denial.

Before:

After:

We still have some work to do, but at least it is an improvement!
This room has been stressing me out since we moved in. Slowly, but surely... I am determined to make this room into a stress free playroom that I can stand to be in for longer than 10 minutes.


Until next time my friends, Happy Hump Day!

New Everything :)

We thought it would be appropriate to start our new blog with some NEW news- like, I mean NEW--it was just released to the Press (aka Dad and Con) today. Soo for those friends and some family that have not heard yet...

Eric is getting baptized.

He is scheduled to be baptized on March 5th at the Skyway building-- although we don't know the time yet-- we will on Friday and I will inform anyone who wants to know. Anyone who would like to support Eric in his decision is invited! We would love to have you :)

While I (Ashley) am very happy and excited about his decision, I can't help but realize that my lifelong goal of defying my parents has probably come to a halt right about now.

Sigh.

Oh well, we all have to give in at some point, right? I'm sure there's something else I can do... ;)

Some of you may be in complete shock, while others may not be so surprised. I can't help but admit, I am not surprised at all. Actually, when the missionaries showed up on our doorstep, I almost laughed. It was LITERALLY LIKE GOD SENT THEM!

Ever since we found out that we had to stop living off of Top Ramen and Beer and become parents, we've been trying to figure out HOW we were going to do that!For me, I knew we would end up here eventually, the day we found out that the food hungry fishy inside of me that was solely responsible for all of the vomiting I had been doing was  indeed, a boy. To be completely honest, I was a whole lot more scared than I was excited at that point. How do you raise a boy? How do you teach them to respect women-their parents? How do you turn all that pent up testosterone into something positive? Well, if Eric's mother was still alive, I probably would have just asked her for some advice because she obviously had a secret or two up her sleeve. I seem to have gotten a one in a million kind of guy for my husband, but I wasn't sure either of us knew how to get there with our own child.

So we started talking about how you do these things, and the only thing that we could both think of was, church. So we talked about our experiences with church and religion and god and our families and what we liked about all of it and what we didn't. All of my memories seemed really positive. Which is truly ironic...since I was probably a really pessimistic teen. Sorry Mom. Sorry Dad. Sorry Connie.

:)

ANYWAYS. We brought the subject up from time to time but never really did anything about it. So as we were driving home from a friends one day, we got to talking about how we need to get serious and figure out if we were going to bring our kids up in A church or not. Four days later, those missionaries were on our doorstep.

Eric went into everything with an open mind and heart. He was eager and ready to learn. I'm sure he was probably the easiest conquest they have had yet. It's not every day that someone has literally been waiting for you to teach them.

Our family has been so blessed, and we are so grateful!




xoxo