Sad

It's sad that there are no pictures on this post because I have taken pictures, but I left my camera in my sister, Kortni's, car.
We have recovered fully from our Idaho trip and went to Spokane for Beck's eye appointment where we were in and out in about 15 minutes and everything is fine we just have to go back in 3 months to check again and then schedule an appointment a few months later to get the tubes out. But yes, everything is good!
We got back later Tuesday night and worked in the yard for a bit. It seems like we are always working in the yard. I should take some pictures, so that I can measure our progress. Stephen built me a great pathway in my garden while I was gone and it looks pretty good. There are still no sprouted seeds and I fear that there may never be until next summer when I can try again. We've had some very windy days with no moist soil because of some drip line mishaps and then this morning a water blow out that may have washed any hopes of a garden away and flooded my little foot path. Hopefully we have a lot of the kinks worked out, but I can guarantee that our trips to Home Depot have not ceased. Stephen is probably happy that they are building a Lowe's down the street, so he won't have to drive all the way across town. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a Target because usually when there is a Lowes there is a Target close by, so I am hoping that they are following suit. (Does that make sense? Suit? I hear people say it all the time...)
I got my prints back that I ordered from Paisley's photo shoot when she was 2 weeks old and I have been pouring over them all night. I love how beautiful my little angel is! Yes, she is the most gorgeous little girl out there and so wonderful! (Knock on wood) Stephen asked me last night when Paisley woke up to eat and I said oh, I dunno, about 1 am and then 4 am. And he says, "why is she not sleeping through the night yet? Beck slept through the night at 3 weeks old didn't he?" I told him that just because Stephen started sleeping through the night that it doesn't mean that the rest of us did! ha! I think that Beck slept through the night for the first time about 4 months ago! ahah! I know that I bring most of it upon myself, so I am not complaining, I am only stating that my husband is pretty weird sometimes.
I started getting my yard sale stuff together for this Saturday's "2nd Annual AHO yard sale." I don't have as much as last year because my sister-in-law and sister had brought over some stuff, but I have quite a bit and I can't wait to get rid of it all. My sister is still going to bring over more stuff, but I am pretty ready as of now. I am not as organized as I have been on the past and my house still looks as full as before, but I am getting rid of a bit and every little bit counts right?
Well, my angel just fell asleep, so I am going to try and scrapbook a few pages before I hit the sack. Hopefully I will have some pictures tomorrow or the next day.

Burley Trip

It started out good enough, armed with my Mountain Dews, a DVD player for Beck and Paisley's binky we headed out at 2 PM on Wednesday. The first 2 hours were pretty uneventful until my stomach started to hurt and I knew that I needed a restroom. Both kids were asleep, so I drove for as far as my stomach would allow. An exit came into view and my stomach decided maybe I could go a little further until I passed the exit and I realized that I had guessed wrong. I prayed earnestly for the urge to pass or a rest area to appear and believe it or not I looked up and one of those little green signs said, "rest area 2 miles" I was so happy and plowed into the parking lot and hit the parking stop thing pretty hard, so hard that it woke Beck up, but I grabbed some "yummy's" from Beck's yummy bag, the diaper bag, Paisley's car seat and a groggy Beck and raced for the bathroom. I made it just in time and then Paisley started crying and I had to nurse a baby while I was going to the bathroom (gross I know, but it's all for the journal writing right?) and I ended up giving Beck my camera to take pictures and keep him busy after he dropped his cheese and crackers "yummy" on the floor and tried to lick the cheese off the floor! (Hence the picture in the slide show of my feet) After that he hung out at the rest area for about 30 minutes to make sure that my stomach sickness had passed. And it's a good thing we waited because I got sick again. But Beck had a fun time playing with the hand dryer in the bathroom and I think that Paisley was just happy to be out of the car.
After that we made it to Caldwell in good time and pulled into Jake's house about 9 PM. We had a great 2 days there filled with shopping and picture taking, oh and Jake cut an inch or 2 off my hair, just for fun. :) Then we headed to Burley for the big surprise. (PS. I can fit 3 car seats in my car!) Jax, Beck, and Paisley were well behaved on the ride to Burley and we made it to the house and totally surprised Britni, so much so that she cried! (Admit it, Brit, you DID cry!) We had some fun watching Bridger play baseball in the freezing wind and my brother-in-law, Chad was in a Triathalon for the Scandinavian Festival (He is AMAZING! 1.3 mile swim in freezing water, 56 mile bike, and then 13 mile run) I was so emotional watching all these people do this triathalon thing, I seriously did cry. Beck got to ride a choo-choo at the festival with cousins Bridger and Branson. He was so excited and played with all these boys the whole time we were in Burley. He couldn't get enough of them. And they were so nice to include him. He was free to be a rough and tumble boy!
For Britni's birthday we went to breakfast with Grandma Mimi and then we had a BBQ that night and she had a cute cake, I put a Dr Pepper on top. My mom did a great job getting everything together. She only had 26 candles, but she really is 30!! haha! Grandpa Beck and Aunt Diane came to her party too along with Grandma Mimi. It was so fun to see everyone and we were crazy busy. After the party died down Britni, Jake and I went to Dairy Queen. I had to have my swirl cone dipped in cherry because only the Burley DQ has cherry dipped cones, crazy Washingtonians! Argh! Anyways, we got hit on by a young kid showing off to his friends, so we gave him a fake number for laughs then while we were driving home we drove past a field that had the old tractor in it and I commented that I couldn't believe that it wasn't dead yet, so of course we had to go get pictures of it with us in the field.
I think that we are all exhausted, but I did have so much fun! Mom had great food, Collin can BBQ a mean piece of chicken, and Grandma Mimi and Grandpa Beck finally got to meet Paisley. I think that Beck misses the boys and all the action, but we stopped in Othello on the way home for a bit and he got to see his Othello cousins and run around for a bit and after we had been home for a bit later this evening his girls came over. He was so excited to see Piper, Alizah, Hanna, and Aunt Kortni that he wanted to go home with them. I am so happy that my kids have so much great family. So all in all, I have learned a few things from this trip;
#1 Never ever again will I travel without a DVD player
#2 I will put Imodium AD in my jockey box
#3 A navigational system is a must
#4 Don't pack a suitcase full of shorts when I am going to Burley in June, it's freezing!
#5 I can travel with 2 kids by myself on an 8 hour drive, but it's really smart to break it up and then you have a chance of surviving! :)

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Long Time No Post..

I drove to Idaho with my kids for my sister, Britni's, 30th, yes, I said 3oth!!! Birthday on Saturday. I am in Boise (Caldwell) right now (stayed here last night) at my twin sister's house getting ready for the drive back. I am not sure when we will be taking off, but hopefully soon. Of course when I get home I will have a big post and some fun pictures of my time here in Idaho. But I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive, well, barely after some eventful stuff that happened to us on our way to Burley last Wednesday! Let's just say that I have a new found faith in prayer.

It's always fun at Aunt Kortni's House

Poor Kortni. She has these 3 great girls, yes, they do throw some major hissy fits, but all in all, they sit during church, they ask to do things, they stick together. And then she gets these nephews...... Bridger, Branson, and Beck, crazy kids AND little Broxton will more than likely be the same. They throw things, oh no! They write on things, yikes! They think that glitter glue goes on the walls or at least you should be able to dump out the whole bottle at once right? The sage brush across the street is not a play ground? What? Snakes stay OUTSIDE? Cleaning supplies aren't toys??? You can't run with scissors or use a razor to cut your lip and pretend to shave? Kortni's girls are quite creative, but these are all things that Beck has done at her house. She's never had to lock up cleaning supplies or put away scissors, or heaven forbid throw the tub of butter away in the OUTSIDE garbage!!! Nope, she threw it away in the INSIDE garbage and Beck saw her do it, so he went and got it then proceeded to show Piper how to paint the window and Kortni's lovely expensive curtains with it.... Oh Beck, thanks for sharing you imagination with Piper and Kortni's poor house and sanity.

And thanks to Aunt Kortni for watching Beck, so I could go take Paisley to her Dr appt without the nurse having to enter the room in fear! haha!

Speaking of, today Paisley turns 2 months! Wow! She weighs 10 lbs 2.3 ounces, is 22 inches long and her head measures 15 1/4 inches. She is between the 25-50 percentile. She's my little petite angel. So patient, sweet, and darn is she CUTE! I think that she really is an angel baby. And I always knock on wood after I say this, but really, she is so sweet! She is starting to coo and reach and hold onto my hand. She likes her swing and she lays in her craddle and falls asleep by herself, unless her binky falls out, whoa! You better run and get it back in before she gets too worked up over it. She likes to be wrapped up tight in a blanket to fall asleep and I am getting pretty good at reading her cues. Wake, eat, sleep, awake, eat sleep, major blow out, awake, eat, sleep, fuss a minute. That's about it. :) She is so sweet to let her older brother torture her and poke her in her eyes. She likes to suck on her hand and she sleeps 3 hrs straight at night eats, then back to bed. She smiles a lot and has a beautiful smile. I take all these pictures of her, but it is so hard to catch a good one because they just don't show her personality. Yesterday morning I went to work out at 6 am and that is the first time that I have left her. We've always been in the same buidling before at least, like at church, Stephen has taken her to Priesthood before or someone has held her, but I'd always been right there. I was gone for about an hour and it was weird, but we both survived. I came home and Stephen had her in bed and they were both knocked out. If I can't get her back to sleep in the night I lay her down with us and she stops fussin. I know bad habits start small, then Beck crawls in about 6 am or so, we need a bigger bed! I love my sleep, but my babies are only small once! (remind me of this in 6 months when I am sleep deprived and you can refer me to this post and say, "you said it yourself, it's all your fault") So it's hard to say it, but my baby is 2 months old and growing fast. Now I am waiting for my friend Bethany to have her little girl, so I can hold a newborn again! I know, Paisley is still a newborn, but when I had Beck, the only thing I was doing was watching him grow, and now that I have Paisley too, I am so busy raising a toddler as well, that all of a sudden she's 2 months old and I don't remember being able to just sit and watch her grow!

5 years ago

5 years ago on June 1st, 2003 I met Stephen Nephi Ashton. I had been living in Moses Lake with my sister for 3 weeks and decided to go to the Singles Ward and met Stephen afterwards at the "break the fast" luncheon. He said that when he saw me he thought that I was one of the girls just graduated, 17 maybe 18 years old. I still have the American Eagle shirt and levi skirt that I was wearing that day. He invited me out to his house later that night with a bunch of other people from the Singles Ward that usually meet out there every Sunday to play games and watch a movie. We watched Blue Streak and he asked me on our first date to a Brad Paisley concert for the next night.(hence my daughter's name, Paisley) We actually had a picture of us from the first day that we had met when he took me for a ride on his new Harley that he had bought the day before, but I lost the picture! Argh! The first picture is at the Brad Paisley concert. He proposed 2 months later at the sand dunes. I was also wearing the same shirt I had on when we met, the American Eagle one. We had been riding 4-wheelers out at the sand dunes and I had tipped one over, that's why we're on the ground in the 2nd picture.

It's crazy to think that in October we will have been married for 5 years. And who was to know that on this day 5 years ago my life was going to change forever by some smooth talking guy who's first words to me were, "you have the most beautiful blue eyes," and it was definitely for the better!