100th birthday celebration

My great-grandmother turned 100 on Monday! What a milestone, huh? We went to Austin over the weekend for the party. So many people came, it was a great! Happy birthday Mama! Here are some of the pictures from the festivities.

Paul, Mama, Ashlyn, and me

My brothers Eric & Ryan sitting at the kids table with Ashlyn- who knew they could be sweet?

My sister Carly, Ashlyn, my cousin Jacy, Ryan, and Eric playing on the swingset. Jacy is especially sweet to Ashlyn, so Ashlyn is thrilled whenever we get to see her.

To go out of chronological order... but to recap our weekend...
Friday we drove into Austin during prime traffic time, but somehow we hardly even slowed down- even DOWNTOWN! We met up with my dad and brothers to watch a UT baseball game. It was a blowout and UT hit lots of homeruns- Ashlyn had a blast. She was cheering and would sing the"Texas Fight" song while doing the "hook 'em horns" with her little fingers. I am so sick about not having my camera then too!
Saturday revolved around the celebration of Mama's 100 years of life
Sunday we went to church with my parents, then out to lunch with my family, and then we came back to San Antonio. It was a good weekend.

Another huge thing going on with us this week is that Ashlyn is wanting to potty-train. I apologize if this is TMI (too much info) for anyone, but it is SO exciting to me that I still want to share. For some time now, she has been using the potty, but only on occasion- usually instigated by Mommy or Daddy. Once she goes, she wants to put a diaper back on. However, yesterday when we got home from Austin, she asked if she could wear her "pink Cinderella panties." I let her, and didn't think too much about it... until she kept asking about once an hour if Mommy would help her use the potty. (we put a cushy little Dora seat on the regular big potty- I think the little ones made for toddlers can get so stinky, even if you obsessively clean them) Once I sit up her up there she says"now go away" which I find hysterical- even if I have to remind her to add "please"! So yesterday evening she was a big girl w/o any accidents, but just in case, I put her in a diaper overnight. The first thing she said to me this morning was "I want to go potty" & "where are my panties?" This has never happened before! We even went on our first outing without a diaper and had no accidents! Now the last time we used the potty, we did have a little incident. Ashlyn said "go away...please" so I left her alone, a couple of minutes later, I hear the toilet making a strange gurgling noise. She had used 1/2 of the roll of toilet paper and then flushed- so we had a huge overflow!

I am certain that there will be setbacks, but right now I am so encouraged by her progress! I am not sure what made her decide to potty train now, but I have been hoping that we'd get here for months, again, I am thrilled. I wish there was more maybe non-toddler things going on for me to write about, but thus is my life right now!

Ashlyn's birthday portraits

Well, I am finally getting around to posting Ashlyn's birthday portraits from nearly two months ago. I thought they turned out great, but then this last Friday my friend Sarah took pictures of Ashlyn out at the McNay Museum and I am not sure if I will ever need to go back to a portrait studio again- she took the most incredible photos! Thank you again Sarah, I have never been so excited about pictures before!

The rest of last week was fairly hectic because we had some company staying at our house. Several members of Paul's family went out of town for Spring Break and while they were gone a pipe burst in the upstairs of their house. When Kari (one of Paul's older sisters) came home from work the water was all over the downstairs and was as high as her ankles! So Paul's parents came rushing home to a disaster area of a home and since it was both Spring Break week and the Women of Faith conference was being held over the weekend, there were no available hotel rooms in the entire city. So from Tuesday until yesterday we had 4 additional members of our household.

It really was fun, except that Ashlyn had to sleep with us which has really messed up her sleeping habits! For example- she wouldn't fall asleep until close to midnight instead of her usual 8:30. Also she would awake at least an hour earlier than normal. So after several nights of this, she has been an emotional wreck! We had to come get her from Bible class yesterday for the first time in her entire life. Last night, the first night back in her own bed, she refused to stay in bed. She came running out of her room about a dozen times, the last few times she was crying and pathetic-looking, but finally she was too tired to keep it up. I pray that this does not happen again tonight, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does.

Ashlyn & Barkley

Ashlyn LOVES Barkley and actually calls him her brother (or sister sometimes). I think their relationship is so sweet and only recently has Barkley been somewhat able to tolerate her bossing him around all the time. He is starting to obey her commands like "sit!" "come here!" "get in your bed" or maybe it is just that he is finally understanding what she is saying to him...

Last weekend my sister Carly came to stay with us and we went to Dave & Buster's (not my favorite place) but we did have some fun. Here are some pictures -
Ashlyn got very good at sliding the token card, and pushing the buttons to play the games. I thought I was just letting her play to keep her happy, but turns out she knew what she was doing. She hit the jackpot on one machine and got somewhere around 350 tickets! I was so impressed, I guess if we ever go to Vegas she is definitely coming with us!

Really she just wanted to do everything that aunt Carly was doing.

This weekend Ashlyn's aunt Noel came home from college and Ashlyn asked if she could spend the night with her. Ashlyn had such a blast having her fingernails and toenails painted, staying up late, and being able to sleep in the same bed as Noel. Apparently Ashlyn talks in her sleep- Noel said that around 3:00 Ashlyn sat straight up in bed and yelled "BARKLEY's HUNGRY!" and then laid back down and was sound asleep. Even though she was super cranky on Saturday morning from not getting a "normal" night's sleep, Paul and I really enjoyed having Friday night to ourselves. It also made it easier to put her to bed a lot earlier on Saturday night so that we could still go to early service on Daylight Savings Sunday.

Nothing else to report here! Hope that everyone is enjoying Spring Break. (what Spring Break?)