Irelyn's Blessing Day

We were able to bless our sweet Irelyn Sage Ashby while we were in Oregon for a family reunion {June 22, 2014} and it was such a wonderful day! It was so special having both of my grandpas in the circle as well as my dad, one of my uncles, and a few of my brothers. Race gave Irelyn such a beautiful priesthood blessing to start off her life here on this earth. I am so grateful for the priesthood and for my amazing family. Here are some pictures from the day!

Irelyn on her special day. 

{A post with details on her outfit will be coming soon!}

Ashby family of four!

Race and his girls. 

Me and Irelyn 

My cousin, my mom bribing the kids with candy, my brother and sister-in-law and niece. 

My sisters with Irelyn, my aunt with my nephew, and my sister with her sweet baby girl. 

 With my Olmstead grandparents! So glad my grandpa was able to be a part of Irelyn's blessing day and so grateful to my grandma for arranging a brunch for everyone afterwards!

Dear Irelyn: One and Two Months

Dear Irelyn,

I had a one month post for you in my drafts that just never got finished. So now you are two months old and I'm just going to combine the two!

Your first month you were just about the gruntiest baby ever. Because of that you gained the nicknames Grunt-a-babe and Little Baby Grunting {among others}. You have since grown out of that and I have to say that I miss it quite a bit!

It's also important to note that you have taken a binky since the very start and have even taken a bottle {twice}! Your big sister never did either of these things so we're feeling pretty lucky!

During your first month you pooped almost every time I got your diaper open. It was crazy! It didn't matter if you had just pooped or I was just changing a pee diaper or anything! You were bound and determined to poop every time your diaper was off! Cleaning up baby poop isn't the best job but you always just looked like it felt soooo good to get it all out so I just couldn't help but laugh every time this happened! We sure did A LOT of laundry that first month! It was extra funny because Holland NEVER pooped or peed on us while we were changing her and then you came along and decided you needed to make up for her perfect record in the first couple of weeks! You are now past that stage and have only pooped two days in the last two weeks! Which is a whole new adventure. I'm always trying to figure out how many extra outfits I'll need to pack since your "poop day" means there will be A LOT of poop when it does finally come. Haha. You chose the day we drove back to Idaho to poop {and amazingly didn't get any poop on your carseat} and then your blessing day. But, being the little angel that you are you pooped after your blessing and even after you were out of your dress! Haha. So neither of those ended up being too disastrous--thank goodness! I'm sure we have many more poop adventures to come though. And I'm sure you'll be thrilled that I've recorded them all for you! ;)

This last month you traveled to Arizona and Oregon. On those drives you passed through Nevada and Utah as well. So you have been in five states now! You did wonderful in the car and sleeping in weird places and having your schedule messed up every couple of days. You really are such a mellow baby which has been a wonderful blessing!

You have been smiling for a while now but you smile at us more and more every day. I love to get you smiling and cooing at me. Your cooing {or talking} is just about the sweetest thing I have ever heard! You are almost starting to laugh. Sometimes we can get one little tiny giggle out of you and it's adorable! I think you'll be laughing pretty soon! You absolutely love to be talked to and are even starting to enjoy having Holland get up in your face...sometimes. Haha. She can still be a little overwhelming! I can't wait to see you girls develop your relationship over the next few months and then years though.

You are just such a joy to have around. Being a mom to two definitely has its hard days and we just got home from being with family for the past month so I'm sure we have lots of adjustments to make but we really are so happy to have you as a part of our family!

Some Stats:
One Month: 11 lbs.
Two Months: 13 lbs.

And of course some pictures!

In Other News.

This is happening. :] 

Holland doesn't seem to be too excited about getting a sibling! Haha.

We're all pretty excited to welcome Ashby Baby #2 next April and I'm attempting to teach Holland that there is a baby in my belly. Mostly she just thinks my belly button is super cool stuff. 

The official due date is April 13th, 2014 and we can't wait to meet this second baby! I am 15 weeks along today (Sunday) and we just had our first doctor's appointment on Friday. We love our doctor and I am really hoping to have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean). We'll see what surprises this labor and delivery brings though since Holland's birth story did not go at all the way I was planning! Hopefully I'm a little more prepared for the unexpected this time around!

I'm excited to talk more about my birthing plans and thoughts about preparing for the unexpected and stuff like that. I've been doing a lot of research on all things birth related {even more than I did with Holland--and I did A LOT with her!} and I'm really excited for this new journey--no matter how it turns out! 

I'll do a pregnancy update/comparison to Holland's in another post but I just wanted to finally let the cat out of the bag! We're having a baby!!!