Whilst doing my weekly P90X yoga workout, I had just contorted myself into "crane", a very awkward balancing posture, when the key turned in the lock and my husband walked in the door. Here is what he saw.




I didn't move. "Hi honey, how was your day?" This from me upside down. Kyle actually managed to carry on a perfectly normal conversation while I wobbled and balanced for my 60 seconds. I made him capture the pose for posterity. I may need to have proof someday that I could do such things when my grandchildren laugh out loud in disbelief.

To commemorate his 5th month on this earth, August decided to break out into a rash. After discussing every conceivable explanation of rashes with my dear friend Sarah and searching the internet together (via cell phone), we narrowed it down to a plain, old viral rash. Brooklyn had something just like it when she was a baby. Head to toe spots, no fever, no complaints from baby, just tons of dots!

No sooner had the unsightly spots faded from his body did his little face splotch up with what looked like hives. His eyelids were reddish and his tongue was unusual-looking - what the doc called strawberry tongue. I hated it cause my little handsome man was so, well, SPLOTCHY! But it didn't seem to bother him. I did take him to the doctor just to make sure it wasn't something awful that I would later kick myself for ignoring. Apparently, all those things are common after a virus has run its course. A $25 co-pay for peace of mind seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

During the standard weigh-in, I was shocked to discover that my newly 5 month baby weighed in at 21 pounds and was 27 3/4 inches long! He'd gained almost 3 pounds in the past month and grown over 1/4 of an inch! Man! I seriously wish I could bottle and sell whatever stuff is in my breastmilk! I'm certain there's a market out there!!! Your baby too small? Try Ashley's Breastmilk! Failure to Thrive?? Ha! We'll fix that! Baby at 5th percentile? We'll shoot you off the charts!

Today, my wonderful mom is celebrating her birthday! I love that woman so much.

There was a time when I never sent Christmas cards. Pretty much from birth up to marriage. And then I came of age. And every year it gets harder and harder to get them together (whatever form that may take), addressed and out the door with the proper postage affixed before New Years!

I think I skipped last year entirely. Not on purpose, just because it got away from me!

I think I'm way behind this year, too, cause I have quite a smattering of photos and Christmas wishes decking my walls and my own stack of cards is still sitting on my coffee table, awaiting a lick and a stamp.

When does one find the time to take the family picture, select the perfect family picture (once taken), figure out what cards you're using and to whom the cards will be sent, address those cards, lick them (ack!) and stick them in the mail. I have been working at it piece meal for a week now. Seriously, is there a time by which most people have already prepared the cards? Should they be ready to go by December 1? December 15? Is New Years too late??

Sigh. I really am sending them out, people. And thank you for not thinking I am a bad friend because you haven't received your card (believe me, it's coming!) and sending me one of your family anyway. I love to get them and they stay up on my fridge wall for quite awhile. I admit, I'm not my mom - who keeps all 50 million on her fridge year round, like a photo wallpaper. I like walking in her house and trying to see how many new pictures I can spot within the shortest amount of time.

A Celebration for the Rest of Us. And a tradition in the making for our family. This year on December 9, we invited 8 couples, some of our dearest friends, over to our house for dinner and well, Festivus! The second annual Festivus! Complete with a Festivus Pole, Feats of Strength (ok, really just a chili stuff your face off), Airing of Grievances (my friends grumbled at me for keeping them up past 10) and a Wrestling Match between my husband and...some dirty dishes. He's too wily to be pinned by anyone and the party has to come to an end sometime. The dirty dishes, now they really were almost his undoing. He didn't come to bed until after 1. This man really really loves me.Our friend Toby had a moment where he couldn't find his wallet. He searched everywhere and it was starting to really worry him. Then he called home and the babysitter found it. It was a Festivus Miracle!
While the prep work for entertaining is exhausting (and double tricky with 2 kids): cleaning the house, planning the menu, making the food or assigning food to be made by others, organizing the dishes and extra tables, setting the tables, decorating (in this case, I wanted all my Christmas decorations to be up), making place cards, making sure the lights are still hanging up outside despite the sudden bout of humidity which unglued all the light holders (GRR!). But when it's all said and done, it is SO worth it. I can't tell you how much I love having so many of my loved ones under my roof at the same time. Seeing them all getting to know each other. Forming bonds, making new friends, laughing together, eating together, enjoying themselves.
This time, we purposely invited people whom we knew didn't all know each other. Thinking, rightly I hope, that if WE love all these people so much, then SURELY they will really like each other! And judging by the laughter and conversations I heard, we weren't wrong.

I actually used place cards, a first for me, in order to seat people by new people. I split up couples and just used my imagination. Since my formal dining room table only seats 6, I used my breakfast room table and added 2 card tables (all decorated individually) in my living room. I had to get creative. And I made sure not to seat myself at the "big" table.

It was so much fun! We had three kinds of chili, plus all the chili fixins you can imagine. And I even made appetizers. Cumin cheese puffs and herbed feta cheese/sun dried tomato bites. People need munchies while introductions are made. It's so much easier to be real when you are both stuffing your face with food. Pretension is just out of the question. Although I don't really worry about that. My friends are all unpretentious.

I borrowed some vintage table linens from my sister-in-law's mother, my life-saver! And I used one of my own, too. I am building my vintage linen collection and it's skimpy on the holiday end. I also borrowed dishes from my sister-in-law. Red fiesta ware chili bowls and plates. I was super happy with the end results.
I overheard some hilarious conversations and learned some things about my friends I hadn't previously known. We also had a surprise visit from Mr. and Mrs. Claus! It was such a success that we're contemplating a New Years bash. Or just something in January...

One of my best friends made a comment about the box fan in the back of our 4runner when we went to Big Cedar. Yes, it's true. We cannot sleep without a fan. We haul it with us everywhere. When we first married, it was a running joke between us. He had not grown up with a fan and I had. As a result, I couldn't sleep without one. And since he could sleep with it, it was non-negotiable. Turns out, it only took a few months for the fan to be a requirement in order for HIM to sleep.

And not just any fan, my friends, but a loud, powerful, Category 5 tornado/hurricane-level fan blowing right on us. Kyle would prefer it blow off in a different direction, but usually he falls asleep before me, so once he IS asleep, I tiptoe over and point it back at me (us). He sleeps with his head under a pillow anyway, so it's not like he'll notice! I, meanwhile, must have air blowing on my face. And I usually have several layers of blankets tucked up as close under my chin as I can.

We work these fans. Hard. We buy one every couple of years when the motors burn out. Once, while staying at Sarah & John's, our fan died. We promptly loaded up and headed to Wal-Mart to purchase another one. Priorities, people.

Another Ashley staple is Blankie. I'm sure I must have blogged about Blankie before, but Blankie's importance is such that a second mention is in order. The Blankie pictured now in my posts (the pink one) is Blankie II. Blankie I, boy, what a history. It was presented to my mother at a baby shower before I was born. And it spent every night with me until a few years ago when it disappeared on a family vacation to Sanibel Island.

I cannot tell you how I mourned the loss of my Blankie. Blankie, the Original, was about 3 feet wide and 4 feet long and once contained an image of a plump elephant standing on two legs, waving about his front feet. This image had long since faded to a mere memory. Blankie was trimmed in a border of soft, silky material that was perfect for my fingers to rub. My mom rubs feathers between her fingers, I rubbed Blankie's silky edges. Something about the subtle vibration of the fibers lightly rubbing across the other soothed me unlike anything else. And after Blankie I disappeared, I would have phantom pains, absentmindedly reaching my hand behind the pillows on my bed searching for the familiar nubby blanket and tattered silkies.

I don't know how many times my Grandmother re-sewed the silkies back on, but it was numerous. And my constant rubbing would eventually work the silkies out from under the layers of stitching, leaving looping strands which would tangle around my arms and legs at night.

I remember in high school, my buddies would tease me mercilessly about this Blankie of mine which accompanied me on sleepovers, trips, etc. They said I'd never take it to college with me, of course. Ha! Of course I WOULD! And I did. And then in college, as Blankie began to look its age, I got more scoffing comments on it and I covered its ears so it wouldn't be offended. I loved Blankie. Velveteen Bunny, nothing. People asked me if I planned to hang on to it once I got married. No doubt. Blankie came on my honeymoon with me! Blankie had been to Europe! Every state but Hawaii (and only cause I have yet to go there).

A select few even know the story of how Blankie earned its singe marks and almost, ALMOST disappeared.... but was saved in the nick of time.

And then, suddenly, the Blankie fairy took Blankie home. So I was lost. The pads of my fingers longed to rub the silky edges together again...And one weekend at the Farm, as I was sorting through blankets to add to our bed, I came across a pink blanket with just the right qualities. I stole it. I bundle August up in it occasionally, but mostly use it to snuggle with ME at night. Ah, I can't tell you how good it is to have a Blankie around again. And this time, my friends, I'm keeping it far from any candles...

Wearing comfy clothes in front of a raging fire reading a book or watching a movie (John Adams, in this case). No pressure. Nothing but time and my favorite people in the whole world.

Big Cedar at Christmas is a beautiful place to be. Every building is outlined in Christmas lights, there are seasonal things everywhere proclaiming the impending arrival of the big day, the air is crisp, the fireplaces stocked with wood to burn...Christmas is in the air!! It was contagious!

So much so that I got the idea to dress up my munchkins, find a pretty location and take some pictures just of August and Brooklyn. I was thinking potential Christmas presents here. Well, there was only one day that was possible and it turned out to be ridiculously cold. I mean, don't get me wrong - I LOVE cold weather. But my children did not. Noses streaming and red, watering eyes, frosty breath, frozen fingers and toes. All things NOT conducive to smiling faces, but rather screaming, wailing and crying.

These things did not deter me. I was resolute. We would have pictures of our beautiful kids in this beautiful setting in their sweet little outfits. We would.

We hauled our babes in their warm clothings down a big grassy hill to a relatively flat spot. I unfurled a blanket upon which to "place" my kids. Two seconds later, the wet ground is starting to seep through.
Undaunted, I put Brooklyn on the blanket as she wails and cries, her face red, nose gushing...I set August up against her side. He, too, begins to wail as his poor fingers turn red and his nose pours into his open mouth. Oh dear.
Too bad. They will smile, dadburn it. Suddenly, Brooklyn's body, already stiffened in rage, begins to fall backward beneath the weight of August. She wails louder! August wails louder!
She can't get up, August has her pinned! And he can't move because he's wearing 4 layers of clothing! Suddenly, the moment just got me, and I howled with laughter! Kyle joined me as we watched our kids crying miserably. We just couldn't help it. It wasn't meant to be. But boy, I almost peed I was laughing so hard.
Bless their little hearts. We did reward them with a warm cabin and some soft blankets. We aren't totally horrible parents.

I am discovering that "almost 3" is a completely foreign place. My sweet little girl is just...unexpected. Things she's always loved, she suddenly doesn't. Things she's always eaten, she suddenly won't. Things she's never done, she's doing. Attitudes are emerging that I do NOT approve of. Needless to say, the 2's were easy. The 3's may be something entirely different. We shall see.

Meanwhile, we're seeing every day that things may not go the way we thought they would. For instance, while at Big Cedar, we had planned to surprise Brooklyn with a pony ride! For anyone who knows Brooklyn, she loves to talk about riding horses ("I ride a horse yesterday!"), she loves to play with horses, read about them, look at them, pet them, etc., so we figured - awesome. We're gonna make her so happy.



We arrive at the stables on an incredibly freezing day, bundled to the hilt. She sees a paddock of horses and starts squealing. All good signs. We sign the papers, talking the whole time about how she's about to ride Chester the pony. She agrees gleefully! We approach Chester, she pets him enthusiastically. And Kyle lifts her to place her on the saddle. Oh NO, says my little girl. NO!!!! GET ME OFF! I DON'T WANNA RIDE!!!!! Tears, squeals, terror. What? Where is this coming from? Are you kidding me???

Our friendly Big Cedar employee has clearly seen this happen before as he doesn't bat an eye. "It's cool. I'll refund your room." Turns out August got more out of the experience than did Brooklyn.

The photos that don't make it into the cards, yet are just as much a part of who we are!

Just as I was sitting here writing some posts, I glanced over my shoulder and shared a special across-the-room-smile with Brooklyn. A few seconds later, as I turned back to the computer, I heard the pattering of tiny tennis shoes and felt her fling her body against me, pressing a kiss against my side as she squeezed me. Man, does life get any sweeter than that?

Anna and Zach got an English bulldog puppy, and she is seriously cute. We have all fallen in love with her. And it would seem Dottie has fallen in love with Brooklyn. It could be because of all the humans Dottie encounters, Brooklyn's closest to her level. And Brooklyn is equally crazy about her.

Man, I meant to get online last week and tell everyone I'd be away for a week! Kyle and I took the kids to Big Cedar for 4 days, 3 nights. It was a delayed anniversary trip, and a much-needed time of peace! We had so much fun and I have tons of pictures to post. My computer's been in the shop, so I haven't had any way to post, and today, I'm working my tail off to prepare for our annual Festivus at the Floyds! I will try to hop back on later and do some updating!

Oh, as an aside, we were actually able to keep up with our P90X even at Big Cedar. We scooched back our furniture and used their DVD player. You should have seen the face of the woman who knocked on our cabin door to give us our nightly gingerbread cookies. I stand there, wearing my sports bra and shorts, dripping with sweat, looking at her questioningly. She must have thought I was NUTS! But at least after working out, I felt no guilt eating her cookie!

AND, the follow-up bodyfat checking was very positive! My initial body fat was 17.7%. 28 days later it was 15%. SWEET!!! No word yet on Kyle's - he keeps forgetting to get his rechecked. But he's looking great!