The Leaves Are Changing

Well, they would be if we had some trees out here in Nevada. There's just something romantic and comforting about fall. Suddenly the temperature cools, the pumpkin cookies and spiced drinks pop up everywhere, and I find myself wanting to be at home snuggling in a blanket, or making up a pot of homemade pumpkin bisque.

But that's not all that's changing.

Take Josh for example:

He Got A New Job!!! He loved working for NAHAC and had a lot of friends that he was sad to leave. But when a big opportunity presents itself, you can't let it slip away! Especially one that offers more money, better title, and job security (working for the federal government is pretty scary nowadays since dumb-a** got re-elected). We are pretty dang proud of him and I feel so lucky to have such a hard working husband for our son to look up to.

Josh also got a new calling in Church as a Stake Employment Guide. I'm not sure if that's the official title, but it sounds close. So every Thursday he will be helping people try to find employment in this terrible economy. I feel this is the perfect job for him since he has had so much experience in this area, and he is such a compassionate person.  

And then there's me:

I feel myself changing constantly, depending on what day it is.

On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays I am Nurse Ashly. That is truly what some of my patients call me and I smile every time they do. I don't know why, but it just sounds cute to me and it makes me feel so grown up. On those days I am saving lives, playing therapist, dealing with doctors who think their butt is gold, and trying to get enough sleep at night to go back to the hospital and do it all again!

The rest of the week I am Momma/Wife Ashly. I don't know how well I am doing in either of these two areas because I feel like there is just so much to do all of the time. But both of my boys seem to always have a smile on their faces so I must be doing something right. I spend my days/nights taking care of our beautiful baby boy which includes: playing, feeding, bathing, snapping cute pictures, going on walks, and changing lots and lots of diapers. While he is sleeping (if I'm lucky) I clean the house, plan meals, eat a meal (Austin doesn't like me eating because it takes attention away from him so I find myself going hungry a lot lately), catch up on errands, and prepare for all the company we constantly have coming over. I try to get some "me time" in each day so I watch a TV show, go to the gym, or hang out with my Sister Sadie when she has a day off. When Josh comes home we watch football, eat dinner (lately I have been cooking new recipes but for a while there we were eating a lot of take-out), and talk about our days.

I would have to say I have it pretty good and besides the lack of sleep, I don't have anything to complain about. The hardest part of life lately has just been trying to juggle my three different identities and trying to be the best I can be at all three of them, let alone trying to keep my own personal identity which makes four. I know Josh feels the same way and we try to help each other out the best we can so that neither of us feel like we are losing our minds.....at least not too much anyway ;).

And of course, Austin:

I feel like every time I look at him he looks bigger. He has learned to smile and is constantly making us laugh with his adorable little expressions. He has fun watching football with Dad, and enjoys his walks with Mom. He has even gotten used to Grandma Porter watching him while we are at work and has a lot of fun with her too! She is always sending me cute pictures of the fun stuff they do together and it makes me so happy that he is getting to know his Grandma so well. I have always been extremely close to all of my Grandparents and I am so happy that my son is getting that experience too. For a little while Austin was learning how to only wake up twice at night, but lately he has fallen back into his old ways of waking me up every two hours. I'm not sure why, but it seems to have something to do with his tummy not feeling well. Maybe the stress of working has messed with my breast milk? Or maybe it has to do with him drinking out of bottles more now that I am working and getting too much air when he eats? Whatever it is, I hope it ends soon because I am dying here and husbands are pretty useless at night since they aren't the ones with the ability to breast-feed.

Having ourselves a 49'ers kickoff party

Watching football with Daddy

So dang cute in his Kaepernick jersey!

Duck Down!

Kiss me I'm Irish!

We've caught on to his tricks. This is his "fake cry" face.

Hanging out at the mall with Aunt Sadie

He loves cuddling with Daddy when he gets home from work

Wearing his Utah onesie for the BYU/UTAH game! Of course, Utah won ;)

Cuddles with Aunt Briana

Stealing the show at Sadie's birthday party

Married Talk.... it's always interesting...

Conversation at 5:45am while I am feeding the baby and Josh is getting ready for work:

Me: Josh, what's the story with that weird bag of meat and cheese in the fridge?

Josh: Oh, that's my lunch I made.

Me: Umm.... Josh? Where's the bread?

Josh: It was hard. It's okay though, I like meat and cheese.

Me: Seriously???

Josh: Yeah seriously Baby, it will be fine.

Me: Alrighty then, have a good day!!!



I won't deny it. My husband is a much better person than I am.

I went back to work this week and it has been challenging in so many ways. So of course I have been letting the whole world know about it, as if telling people that I am hurting will somehow make it better. Here I have been, complaining about no sleep, and how I want to die every time I have to say good bye to our baby. Meanwhile,  my sweet husband has been working overtime for months now, skipping lunches, and is eating sandwiches with no bread! And the crazy part is he hasn't even felt it necessary to tell me about it!

So, to make it up to him, I am making homemade bread today! No husband of mine is going to work with a pathetic lunch like that ever again! I start laughing every time I think about what his coworkers must have been thinking when they saw his lunch in the staff refrigerator.

The Nursery

It was so hard on us not being able to set up the baby's nursery before he was born, but we didn't have a house of our own at the time so we had to make due with a makeshift nursery in our bedroom at my parent's house.

So when we finally moved into our new house, the baby's room was the first to be decorated because we were so excited! Here's the final product of Austin's room/fan cave. We still have a framed jersey signed by Joe Montana to put up but besides that, it's finished!

Hanging out with Daddy in the new rocking chair!

For the crib set, we decided to go with a sports jungle theme

We are huge 49'ers fans so of course we had to make sure our son is too!

Josh is so happy  to have a son to share his passion for sports with

Austin even has his own 49'ers jersey

another view of the room

Maternity Leave

Sadly, my vacation is almost over..... I go back to work on Monday :(.

To say I am depressed about it is an understatement. I have had so much fun over these past 8 weeks just being a mom and setting up our new house. I feel like I am a little girl again playing "house" with my dolls. Household chores have actually been fun while my baby sits in his swing and watches me. I have also enjoyed being able to exercise now that my doctor has cleared me to do it and I actually have the energy to do it because I haven't had to work! We go for walks around our new community a lot and Austin thought it was hilarious watching me do yoga yesterday. I kept waiting for him to start crying because I wasn't paying attention to him but something about watching Mom do really weird poses had him intrigued. I feel like this is the life I have always dreamed of.

Spending the morning with my boy before we went to Daddy's work to surprise him and show off to all of his coworkers!

Going back to work will bring new challenges that I haven't wanted to face. The hardest one being that I will have to leave my baby. I am so lucky to have a Mom who is willing to babysit for us while I work and I know that she will be so great with him. However, that doesn't make the situation any easier. I will also be faced with having to function on even less sleep than I am already getting and having to still try and be smart so I don't accidentally kill someone. But then again, some adult interaction wouldn't be such a bad thing.... and now that we have a house and a baby, we could always use the extra money.

Over the past 8 weeks Austin and I have developed a fun little routine which has gone as follows:
1) wake up and feed the baby while watching my favorite morning show (Live with Kelly & Michael)
2) pump whatever he couldn't eat and freeze it for future use
3) get both of us ready for the day
4) possibly eat some breakfast if I get a chance
5) go over the to do list for the day and then go for a walk or do some form of exercise
6) feed the baby again and put him in his swing so I can get some work done, or go out and run errands and then come home and put the baby in his swing
7) baby always falls asleep in his swing (yay!)
8) watch something on Netflix and eat lunch
9) continue working on projects around the house and play with the baby/cuddle when he wakes up
10) Daddy comes home and we make dinner/talk/watch TV together
11) shower and get ready for bed while Dad holds the baby
12) feed the baby, fall asleep, and then it starts all over again!

Now can you see why it is going to be so hard for me to go back to work?!

I've never been big into superheroes, but this little Superman has won my heart!

Somehow he fell asleep like this... must have been comfortable

We were feeling patriotic that day

Austin got his shots and was a very sad boy all night. He had done great and didn't even cry until 8pm when he woke up screaming bloody murder and his right leg was red and swollen. Dad ran to the store to get children's Tylenol and Mom got the fun job of staying up with him until he calmed down enough to sleep. This is where our new rocking chair came in very handy!

This silly boy is so much fun in the mornings because he is so happy and makes the funniest faces!

Austin's latest achievement has been learning how to smile. He is the most smiley in the mornings when he first wakes up and he melts my heart every time he does it.

Austin's first jersey.

Dad came home from work and we had a football party to kick off the start of college football! We had wanted to watch the first Utah game of the season but it wasn't on TV so we cheered on UNC instead. I felt so nostalgic while I was putting Austin's jersey on him because we lived in North Carolina when we found out we were pregnant and giving Josh this little Jersey was the fun way I broke the news to him.

The baby's bassinet sits right next to our bed and we love to watch him sleep. He does the cutest things!

This is our little monkey as of today, Friday September 6th. At 7 weeks he is now big enough to start wearing 0-3month clothes (although they are still a little big on him). I am going to miss spending every second with this adorable baby boy!

Austin's Baby Blessing

We had Austin's Baby Blessing on September 1, 2013. He looked so adorable in his little tuxedo (thank you Grandma Janis)! The bow-tie was to die for.... needless to say, he got a lot of attention that day. I had planned on taking lots of pictures of him in his outfit but there was no time before church and he decided to poop all over himself after church..... so that didn't happen. Then I realized that all the pictures I HAD taken were too dark because I had forgotten to turn the flash on :(. So here's the best of what we got and sadly my side of the family isn't in many of them.

All the women in the kitchen preparing the luncheon we held afterwards (left to right: Ashly, Grandma Janis, Grandma Jill, Great Grandma Wiegel).



I love this picture with Papa Art



Austin with Grandpa and Grandma Ronnenkamp (he was being so fussy before church and cried through most of the picture taking).

The Hafen family, Cousin Jessica, Great Grandma Porter, and Aunt April hanging out while the food was being prepared.

Josh did an amazing job giving Austin his blessing and the spirit was so strong in the church that day. Josh and I both got up and bore our testimonies during sacrament and then immediately afterwards Austin got fussy and I had to take him to the back of the gym to feed him where I could be more discreet. The luncheon was held immediately afterwards and it was a lot of fun! We had a lot of people and a lot of food! We pushed our couches to the wall to make more space and set up tables for everyone to eat at. Austin was passed around from person to person like a little rag doll which I loved because it gave me a chance to actually eat for once and enjoy the company! Besides going through 7 poopy diapers that afternoon, and having a blowout on Aunt April, he did really well!

Grandma and Grandpa Ronnenkamp stayed with us over the whole Labor Day weekend and we had a lot of fun! We went out to eat at Chili's the first night they were here and had breakfast at Coco's Bakery before they left. We also had a movie night and I made Muddy Buddies for our treat. They even babysat for us so Josh and I could go on our first date since the baby was born. We got Subway sandwiches and went to a movie. It was soooooo nice to be alone together for a couple of hours!

Austin's face cracks me up in this picture!

Grandma Janis was in heaven the whole time

He loves his Grandma!

Since I didn't get pictures of everybody (or they didn't turn out), I have made a list of those who came for future reference:
-Great Grandma & Grandpa Porter
-Great Grandma Wiegel
-Great Grandma Helm had fallen on our porch and broke her pelvis a couple weeks prior so she was only there in spirit :(
-Grandma & Grandpa Ronnenkamp
-Grandpa LaFeber
-Grandma & Grandpa Porter
-Great Aunt Heidi & Uncle Dave and their family (including Cousin Jessica)
-Great Aunt April & Uncle Allen
-Aunt Sadie
-Aunt Briana
-Cassandra & Russ Hafen and their family
-Jura and Adrien Kool

We are so lucky to have so many friends and family who love us and were there to support us on that special day!

Baby Austin's Newborn Photoshoot

I asked for a professional camera for my 25th birthday so I could take nice pictures of our children throughout the years and not have to hire a photographer. With technology nowadays, it really wasn't as hard as you'd think. The difficult part was getting the baby to cooperate. He cried a lot, and didn't appreciate being manipulated into different outfits and settings. So out of the 100 pictures we took, there were only a few that I really liked. Here they are!

(2 Weeks Old)



 

My only regret is that Josh wasn't able to be in them. July was a crazy month and there was just too much going on. We had a baby, Josh was working lots of overtime, and we moved into a new house. Oh well....maybe next time.