A couple days late

Piper turned 9 months old on the 9th. I decided I had better take some pictures of her so that everyone can enjoy the little girl that I am loving to death. Her personality is starting to come out and she is finally starting to sleep through the night. We are both so much happier! :) She is such a joy to our family and we love the smiles that she puts on our faces every day. She truly is a joy!

Morning coversation :)

So this morning I Ashtyn, Piper and I were up at 7am. I usually let Joe sleep in because he works and has school so I want him to be well rested. Anyways, around 8:45am we went upstairs to wake daddy up. I usually tell Ashtyn to rub daddy's back but this morning I though I would be mean. So I whispered in Ashtyns ear, before we went in the room, "suck on your finger and then put your finger in daddy's ear!" He was so excited that when we went into our room he announced "DADDY! Put my finger in daddy's ear." Naturally Joe knew exactly what was about to happen and covered his ears. Ashtyn tried his hardest, and after numerous failed attempts, he said "come on dad, it'll be fun!" We were laughing so hard, but what made it even better was after a few more attempts Ashtyn finally said "Okay, fine!" and stuck his not-so-wet-anymore finger in my ear.

Let's play catch up

We had so much fun in Idaho last month. We left PA on the 6th of March and came back on the 14th. There were so many pictures that I wanted to use, but I don't have enough space and time to put them all on here. Here is my brother Burke with his girlfriend Tiffany. She is so much fun... I do not know how Burke got ahold of her :) I was so excited to learn that while we were going to be in Idaho, that Barrett was going to be able to have his "Farewell." He is going to Balem, Brazil and he just reported to the MTC in Provo, Ut yesterday. He was supposed to go to the Brazil MTC, but his visa didn't come through so he has to wait.

Since we were planning to be in Idaho in March we waited to bless Piper so that family could be involved. She was so gorgeous and I was so happy that all of our family was able to participate.

Here she is with her dad!

Later that night, after the dinner that we had for Piper and Barrett, Burke and Tiffany came over and spent the evening with us. They brought their rats and I thought he was going to be scared of them, but Ashtyn absolutly LOVED them. As you can tell from the pictures, I could not get Ashtyn to look at me. He was way to busy with those rats.

I love this picture! He was having so much fun and you can just see it in his eyes.

Piper Lynn is here!!

So my original due date with Piper was the 4th of December. I knew from my previous pregnancies that there is no way I was going to deliver early. On the 7th my doctor gave me the option to be induced and I was game... I was ready to be done and he said that I was 40% effaced and 4cm dialated. This was on Tuesday and so we scheduled for my induction at 7:30am Thursday (the 9th). Joe's mom flew in Wednesday night and on the way to the airport to pick her up my contractions were about every 8 minutes apart. I didn't think to much of them because they were not very painful and I figured that I would be going into the hospital the next morning anyways.... so why get excited. They continued at about that rate the rest of the evening and at aroun11:30 Joe and I decided to go to bed. Right before we turned out the lights Joe made me laugh really hard, to the point of tears, and I had one really strong contraction. We got in bed and from there my contractions were every 3-5 minutes apart. I tried going to sleep and finally gave up at 1:00am when they were starting to hurt pretty bad. We headed into the hospital at 1:30am. I was 80% effaced and 5cm. The nurse asked if I wanted to go ahead and get my epidural and because I knew it took some time to get it all organized I told her yes. By 2:30 I was comfortable again and slept off and on until 6:00am when I had an urge to push. I called the nurse and told her. She checked me about 15 minutes later and said I was ready. We did a test push and she said that with that one push that she had crowned. They called the doctor in and 4 pushes later, at 6:23am Piper Lynn was born. She weighed 8Lbs 8Oz and measured 21 inches long. And of course my doctor gave me so much crap about not waiting until the following morning so that he could get some sleep :) Here she is....

We were so excited when we asked if we could go home early and the doctors said yes. We had only been there for about 30 hours. Here is Piper ready to go home, just waiting for dad to come pick us up.

Your watching him, right?

The other day I was having a "tune out" day. I had been clashing with Ashtyn all day and was ready to give up. So when Joe got home I kinda automatically tuned out and let him watch Ashtyn. Obviously, Joe thought I was watching him as well and all the sudden I heard him smacking his lips. I looked and saw the bathroom door was open.... he loves watching me put makeup on in the mornings and figured he would try himself. He just got my brown eye shadow instead of my bronzer and decided that it would be fun to try and eat it. Oh, it gets better, read on.

So, after we got him cleaned up I was sitting on the couch and he would run to me and I would hold him over my head and tickle him. Well, I guess the makeup didn't agree with his stomach and about ten minutes into us playing Ashtyn threw up on my face and all down the front of me. It was sick! I wasn't about to wait for Joe to take a picture of that :) And, needless to say, Joe thought it was very funny because right before I lifted Ashtyn up the last time, I had told him to go run to his Dad. Joe loves that fact that I got thrown up on and not him. We don't play that game anymore..... :)

My Little Monkey

Joe and I always call Ashtyn our little monkey, so it only seemed appropriate for us to dress Ashtyn up as a monkey this year. He loved his costume!! We found it at Goodwill for 10 dollars and when I got it home found out the zipper didn't work. I took it back and told them that if they refunded me 5 buck then I would still take it and figure out how to jimmy-rig it some how. They refunded me the 5 and when I got it home and took it appart, Joe was able to get the zipper back on! Needless to say, now I have to hide the costume from Ashtyn or he drags it around the house all day talking to it. He knows the word monkey to, so he asks for it all the time. Here are some pictures of the ward Trunk-or-Treat. Joe wasn't able to go cuz he had to work, so here Ashtyn is with our good friends Rachel and Kenny!

My favorite is his little banana hooked to his sleeve

I thought for sure that he would not keep the hood on, but he did.

How could you not love this little monkey!?

Fall is here!

I am so excited for the fall weather here in PA! It is so beautiful with all the trees. Tonight Ashtyn and I went to Brady Run park and took pictures. It was so much fun and brought to my attention again, #1, how much I love being a mother and a wife, and #2, how greatful I am for the beauty all around me. I have been blessed with so much and even though we have very little right now (college students :)) and no money to do anything, I wouldn't change it at this point for anything. We are so happy and find great joy in the little things that life brings.

Joe is doing very well in school and has only a couple more flights left before he is finished and has his private pilots license. He is working as much as he can to support us and gets along really well with all of the people he works with. He is a teacher over the young men in our church and from what I can tell enjoys his calling. He is working very hard and I love him very much for the sacrafice that he is putting into our little family.

I am getting more and more busy. Just this last week I had 4 people call and schedule photo shoots. It is nice to have a little extra money, so Joe and I are going on a date this week:) YAY! I am also staying busy practicing the piano as much as I can. The primary music gal asked me about a month ago if I would play the piano for the primary program. I have a huge phobia (?) of playing the piano in front of people, and I figured this would be a good way to hopefully get over that. As of this weekend I have 7 weeks until this little girl is supposed to arrive.... we are so excited! I can't believe how fast time has gone buy. So needless to say, I am getting tired easier and try to take a nap each day so that I can keep up with my two busy boys:). I have also taken up crocheting and making girls hair bows, just for fun, and that keeps me busy too.

Ashtyn is so full of energy! He is becoming much easier to understand and learns a new word almost every other day now. His new thing is telling me he has pooped his pants buy holding his rear end and saying "mommy, bubble!" At least he is telling me, right? I think it is so funny! He also loves Veggietales. He brings me one at least 10 times a day swaying side to side and trying to sing so that I will hopefully give in and let him watch it. We try to stick to one time a day. He is now opening doors as well and gets so mad when he can't shut them. But the thing that I would say that he loves the most is his cars. He drives them everywhere and loves to crash them into eachother. He is so much fun and I am glad that he will have a little sister soon. I think he will love it. I'm sure he (and I) will have a lot of adjusting to do, but I know that we will love it.

Here are some of the pictures of the park and Ashtyn.

This is my absolute favorite! This is his personality... just like his dad.

The hat... Grandma Anderson made for him.... and he won't put it down:)