Ashlyn: Three months!

WOW, WOW, WOW is all I can really say about my baby girl right now. She is advancing super fast and is already waaaaay past any sort of newborn status. At three months and 1 day, she mastered rolling over. At three months and 2 days, she can now sit up with the boppy around her! I could continue like this over and over. She doesn't give me any time to delight in her new milestones before she is moving on to the next one! Pete and I call her our little overachiever.

Here is our little overachiever at work! Much to my surprise/dismay, she's starting to scoot once she's on her belly! Yikes! My baby is determined to not be my baby for long!




It's amazing how different she is from Preston. At this time with him, I was one frazzled momma with my still colic baby boy. There is none of this with my baby girl who now only wakes up once in night to only take two ounces!

She is always quick with the smiles and seeing those chubby baby cheeks get even chubbier in a big toothless grin is enough to make my whole day!

Pres is totally in love with his little sister and loves to give her big, messy kisses. She has completely gotten used to him running up to her, scream out "HI ASHWYN" and give her a not gentle at all hug! He loves to help me as I work with her on belly time and motor skills. The favorite game is Open-Close which consists of us opening and closing our hands in front of Ashlyn and then doing it to her hands (Pres loves to grab her little hands and open her fingers and then close them!)

While she is 99% of the time happy, she has her moments and they are so sad. She gives the lower lip wobble and then just breaks out in the most pathetic cry I have ever heard. It's not the piercing scream of baby Preston but rather a whimper that can progress into a forlorn, tear filled sob. It already makes her daddy almost breakdown with the feeling of failure at not getting her what she wanted/needed before the bottom lip wobble! As for me, it nearly stops me in my tracks at how patient they are compared to her brothers. (I know you are scratching your head and wondering what a patient cry is, but I'm telling you that's what it is!)

Like her brother was, she is not content to sit still. When you grab her hands, she not only wants to pull herself up into a sitting position, but would rather go all the way to standing. Once she reaches standing, she is so pleased with herself that it is usually followed by a lot of cooing and squealing!

Here Ashlyn is after bath. She loves bath time! Can you believe how big she is?! She's 27 inches long!!!!!



I could go on and on, but will end this as it's just meant to be a quick update. I will say that my son was a huge blessing and never ceases to inspire me and now I have this beautiful gift in my daughter. Preston will force the world to change for him, but Ashlyn will be the one to make everyone in the world feel better!

One last picture! Here she is playing with daddy!

A Walk through New Brockton

We live in this really quiet and wonderfully quaint town in Alabama called New Brockton. I absolutely love it here! The only drawback is that there isn't really any place to shop here so I have to either go on post (a 30 minute drive) or go into the dirty and annoying city of Enterprise (not all parts, just near the Wal-Mart). Besides being out in the middle of nowhere, it is a wonderful place to be with young children. We live in this subdivision called Mayberry (it makes me chuckle every time I tell someone). Our subdivision is right outside of New Brockton and an easy walk into the main street of New Brockton. Every day I go on a three mile walk through the city and every day I see something completely crazy and new. There are some everyday sightings from the pot bellied pig named Tallulah May to the homegrown Joe that always comes out of the woods with a big stick that he keeps with him because of all of the diamond back snakes!

I was lucky enough to have Megan come with me on one of my walks. I handed her my camera and she deigned to take pictures with my Canon!!!!

Sooooooo...without further ado, welcome to my daily walk in a small southern town!

Our first stop is always to bring a treat to the horses. The friendly ones are Rocket and the Young One. Their owner, Dwight, is a sweet southern man who has welcomed us to used his pool, ride the horses, and has given us permission to bring them treats at our leisure. Preston loves this part of our walk and will gladly feed the horses treats. He has learned that apples are their favorite and gets pretty annoyed with me when I only bring the horses carrots!



After the horses, we always get to walk past the old black school. It is a beautiful building that is now used for Sunday school by one of the local churches. This very friendly stray dog is always there and on some days much to Preston's delight, she joins us for the rest of our walks!


The next part of our walk is past the mission house and church. The building used to be some sort of business and the name is still in big letters on the side. They have a weekly auction of donated goods to help and provide for the needy of New Brockton. It's always an adventure to walk past here because you never know what you will see-including the cowboys from the local cattle farms taking a mid-afternoon ride!



Next we pass the police station and the post office. The police station has a broken window that has just been fixed with a piece of plywood!

After there we pass the house with all of the animals. On the front porch there are kittens, birds, a little annoying dog, and as of last week, a rodent of some kind. The house looks a WHOLE lot nicer on film than in person. The people that live there always run inside when ever we pass.

This "animal house" is right next door to the post office. We continue along and turn down one of the residential streets. This is my favorite part of the walk! There are all of these vines that grow over everything and they are just super beautiful!




After we pass the vines we walk up the road to head back. The last thing on our walk is the stinky sewer system that overflows and puts poop water down the road every time it rains! You can see Ashlyn in her favorite place...strapped in the baby carrier close to mommy!!!!!


Finally, our neighborhood. This is always Preston's favorite part because I let him get out of the stroller and he runs/dawdles the rest of the way home!


There are so many other crazy things that happen on these walks. Everything from being invited to house parties by the cousin to the Mayor (he told me that which is the only reason I know) to dodging copperhead snakes! Life in a small town really is small, but it is also never the same two days in a row!

Family Day

Friday was Family Day for Pete's flight school. The Fox family joined us for the fun and all of the boys LOVED the helicopters. My crazy daughter fell asleep with all of the noise. It could have something to do with the ear protection we used. She looks so funny in the big 'ole headphones!

It was really fun to see Pete fly. Pete's stick buddy (the other student that is in the helicopter with Pete), Brandon, pointed Pete out to us up in the air and I had a blast watching him do all of these maneuvers that he's been studying here at home.

There was a cool set up at the airfield of food, drinks, and a helicopter for the kids to play in. Pres and the Fox boys took over the helicopter the whole time we were there!

Pres found his favorite friend of Daddy's, Mr. Mawk (Mark) right off. Mark was flying in the second shift, so with his daughter Rachel in one arm and Pres in the other, he walked them around the airfield. Don't know what we would do with out the Davis family!!!!


Pete was flying 76F so here he is doing one of the landing maneuvers.



Here's a picture of Ashlyn in her gear. She spent the whole time we were there in the carrier alternating between watching everything that was going on and sleeping!

Here's Pete in the air!

Pres in the helicopter! Notice his big, fat lip! He fell on the tile at Ms. Jodi's house while running around the house like a crazy man!


Here is Pete after he landed. He is wearing the new Army Aviation uniform. It looks a lot like the regular ACU's, but it has special pockets and a cinched waste. It is also fire retardant.

Pres was so excited to see daddy!

Not the best picture of Pete and I, but the only one we took! It was so windy so excuse all of the hair in my face! Also, can you see my crazy daughter all zonked out in the carrier?!

Last but not least, here is Pete's stick buddy, Brandon. He's a sweet guy and I'm so glad the the other student in the helicopter with Pete isn't a ding dong...makes me feel much better about the whole possibility of crashing thing! If you look in Brandon's eye protection, you can see me!