Regression?

Christian never took a binky. He also refused to sleep with a blanky. Until baby Ashley came along. She enjoys those things and Christian took notice. He has decided that maybe they are not so bad after all. And the bouncy chair? It is now his seating of choice.

Ashley's Big Day

Yesterday was Father's Day. I tried to keep this in mind by making a yummy breakfast and dinner to thank Ryan for being such a great daddy, but baby Ashley stole the show. Father's Day was also her blessing day. She was an awesome kid through her blessing and didn't make a peep. But most importantly, she looked adorable in her white blessing dress. Mom and I bought this dress while on the island of Burano near Venice known for lace making. This dress was purchased for baby Charlotte, but she loaned it to me for Ashley's blessing. It was fun to remember this special trip that Mom and I took together 6 years ago while looking at this dress. Ahhh Italy...

Garden Time

We finally had beautiful weather for Ryan's day off on Wednesday, so we decided to make the most of it. We packed up the two tots and headed to Lowes to get seeds for our garden. We also picked out some colorful annuals to decorate the planter by the sidewalk. When we got home, we laid out our seeds for spacing and planted corn, beets, peas, carrots, tomatoes (yuck,) basil, sunflowers, peppers, and cucumbers. We are putting all of the viney stuff like melons and pumpkins behind the planters so they don't take over the lawn like they did last year. I've also learned that we only need ONE zucchini and yellow squash plant. We got really sick of eating those last year. We couldn't even give the stuff away as fast as it grew. Christian was a big help digging holes and watering. Especially watering.

Happy Easter and other stuff

This was the first holiday that Christian was able to participate and understand the purpose of (meaning looking for candy filled eggs left by the Easter Bunny, not the Resurrection of our Savior-we'll explain that to him later.)
Given that this boy loves everything that includes some sort of ball, I was pumped when I found eggs -or "iggs" as Christian calls them- decorated like basketballs, footballs, and baseballs in the dollar bin at Target. We had a sunny, warm day to start the festivities. Christian found all of his iggs around the yard but quickly learned that they contained m&ms or jelly beans that must be eaten before the next igg was found. The grand prize at the end of the hunt was a chocolate basketball bunny.




Ashley slept through all of the festivities, lazy baby. But she did make her grand appearance at church on Easter Sunday along with the other two babies that were born the same week. We had three new babies in Relief Society. That place is going to be a mad house in a few months when the other two babies are born. Here is a picture of my tiny girl in her best Sunday jammies. I promise to break out the adorable dresses next week.


I would like to add that last night Ashley slept from 9:30 to 2, and than didn't wake up again until 7:15. She wins the Best Baby in the World award. She is also currently asleep.
After church, we headed down to Belmont to celebrate with the Thomas/Romney crew. I mention this because I got to have my FAVORITE potato salad that Sherrine makes special for me. It is a pain to make so I only get it once a year, but it is worth the wait. YUM! I should have taken a picture of it. You can actually see the deliciousness.
The lovely weather continues this week. I can't tell you how relieved I am to finally have winter behind us. It was long, cold, and very snowy. My flowers are coming up and the blossoms on the trees are about to pop. Happy spring, everyone!

Sleeping Beauty

I love this little girl!

Introducing...

ASHLEY ANNE THOMAS
7 lbs 4 oz
20 1/2 in

Baby Ashley's arrival was ideal- no pain, no labor, no surprises. Ryan and I drove to the hospital at 9 am Friday morning for the surgery at 11. We checked in, handed the nurses the chocolate chip cookies I made (which were a big hit,) and got situated in our room. I got my IV, epidural, and was off to the operating room. Baby Ashley arrived at 11:27. It was just SO EASY compared to the way nature has planned child birth. We are all doing awesome, so much so that I asked to come home a day early. She nurses easily, sleeps a lot, and is very adorable. She is an angel baby. I hope it lasts!


Big brother Christian came to the hospital later that afternoon to meet his new baby sister.

He has done much better than I had anticipated with another little tot in the family. There has been a little bit of sitting on the stairs though. Overall, things are going very smoothly and we are enjoying becoming a family of four!

Updates

Nothing super important, I just felt like recording what the Thomas family is doing at the moment. Today is my little boy's 2nd birthday. He's TWO! He's still not talking a whole lot, but has no problem communicating. Today I went in for my pre-op appointment at the down there doctor. I realized as I was waiting for my doctor to come in that at that exact moment 2 years ago, she was delivering Christian. Happy birthday, Bugaboo. We will celebrate with a big par-tay on Sunday when Grandma gets here. Pictures and tribute to follow.
In other news, 7 days from now, I will be on the operating table again for baby #2. My appointment went just swimmingly today and we are scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 9am with surgery to begin at 11am. I am excited and feel blessed to have had such an easy, problem free pregnancy. I feel even more blessed that I don't have to go through labor ever again.
We got Christian's new room all ready after a long and exhausting search for a bed and dresser that was good quality and didn't cost an arm and a leg. We are almost all ready, just waiting for Grandma to come and do the final touches. Stay tuned for a very exciting week starting next Friday!