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!

Jumping on the Bed

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!

Happy Chaos: Gelsey's 12th Birthday Party

Being home in Arizona with my family is always a little bit crazy. There are eleven grandchildren (and one on the way) under the age of four and all of those grandkids other than Holland and Irelyn live within about fifteen minutes of my parents' house. Whenever we come down it is a nonstop party!

I always want to capture the chaos that ensues when we are all hanging out but I never feel like photos capture it just right (my sister pointed out that pictures don't include noise and that could be why--haha). Nonetheless I wanted to post some pictures from my youngest sister's 12th birthday a couple of weeks ago. We all had a blast eating pizza, swimming in the pool, and just hanging out! I only got pictures of the hanging out part but it's my favorite part anyway!

Mimo with two of her eleven grandchildren {these girls were fighting over her the whole time I was visiting!} and some other happy chaos. 

The birthday girl {she had a lot of help blowing out candles and opening presents}!

 Some random cute faces of some of my very favorite people!

Our wide staircase being used as extra seating.

Cuddling Cousins

My sister Helena and I found out we were pregnant within a couple of weeks of each other. Helena found out first but I was actually due first. Our babies' due dates April 13th and April 19th. At first it was so exciting to be pregnant at the same time and due so close together. But then we realized a couple of not so great things about it: 1. We couldn't swap maternity clothes and 2. My mom wouldn't be able to come to Irelyn's birth. Despite the less-than-ideal timing we really enjoyed being pregnant at the same time, we were thrilled to find out we were both going to have girls{!!!}, and I came to terms with the fact that my mom wouldn't be able to be with me during Irelyn's birth {And luckily, I was blessed with an absolutely wonderful birth experience! Read about it here}.

Then we both had our sweet babies just three days apart!

Irelyn 4.21.2014

Iris 4.24.2014 

Turns out having our babies this close together is pretty awesome!

I was able to go down to Arizona {Thank you Angus, Jes, Race, and Mom for working this out!} for a couple of weeks to visit family and get these sweet babies together and then Helena has been up in Idaho for the past week! It has been so fun to have this time together with our new baby girls so that they can develop the best cousin bond from the very beginning! Haha. Mostly though, I have absolutely loved seeing my sister become a mom. I love seeing her cuddle and rock and whisper sweet things to Iris to calm her down. I love being able to see the many sacrifices Helena is willing to make for her sweet girl and I absolutely love seeing how much she loves being a mom even though it is so hard at times. I'm not the best with words {in writing or talking} so I don't feel like I'm getting all of this out quite the way I want to but I always want to remember what a wonderful experience it has been for me to witness this transition in my sister's life. I am so grateful that through the births of our baby girls our bond as sisters has grown even stronger and I can't wait to watch these girls grow up together {Hopefully eventually we'll all live a bit closer}!

So here's to sweet cuddling cousins! I love both of these girls so so much!

On Just Doing It

This morning I was lying in bed thinking about how I hadn't decorated mine and Race's bedroom in the almost year and a half that we have been living in our apartment (which is the longest we have lived anywhere by the way) when I decided to just do it. I love how it turned out. So sweet and simple.

Turns out starting my day out by "just doing" something helped me "just do" a bunch of other things as well. Who knew? I'm really not the most productive person out there and I'm usually pretty okay with that. Snuggling my girls is the kind of productive I like to be. But it really does feel good to be productive in other ways as well. So I'm really glad for the little jumpstart I gave myself today.

Good luck just doing something today even if that means just snuggling your babies or your husband or chatting with a friend or whatever it is. It feels good!

P.S. Thank you to Race for watching the girls while I was in my "just do it" mood and organizing ridiculous things around the house. Also, thank you for "just doing" the dishes and sweeping the floor while I blog! I love you!

Mother of Two.

This whole mom of two thing was really easy for the first month. I had my brother and my mom here helping out so Holland was entertained and we just all soaked in that wonderful new baby smell and enjoyed lots of snuggles with almost no stress. (Thank you Mom and Solomon!!)

Then they left and the past couple of weeks have been hard. I lose my temper with Holland much more often than I would like to admit, the house is a mess, the laundry is never done, I do a pretty awful job feeding the four of us (Well, three of us, Irelyn is packing on the pounds!), and I am beyond exhausted (possibly from low iron) even though Irelyn really sleeps quite well. 

But, despite all of that (and more) I still feel so blessed. Irelyn is so mellow and sweet. She rarely cries, just grunts to let us know that she needs something. It's adorable. And Holland is the sweetest big sister. She's still figuring out how to be soft and not to yell in Irelyn's face but she adores her "baby sisser Ire-win". Holland has also been so funny and sweet lately. Whenever she is being her sassy almost-two-year-old self and she knows she is about to get in trouble she'll hold my face and say something adorable like "You're so pwetty (or sweet or wonderful or boo-tiful) mama." And then she doesn't get in trouble because well, how could I be angry at that? Or the other day when I was exhausted and frustrated at the poopy mess on my bedroom floor and two crying babies and Holland dumping cups full of water out of the bath and I was just crying and nursing Irelyn she wrapped her arms around my neck and told me "It's okay mama. It's okay." I actually took a picture of that moment because I wanted to remember that even on those really hard days there are still things to be grateful for. 

So basically, being a mom of two is something I'm still adjusting to and I'm sure I will be for a while longer. But, I do love my girls and Race so much and am so grateful to have them as my family forever. 

And now to keep things real--here's the picture from the day I was crying and Holland was comforting me. I love her so much.