Daddy's Field Trip

Last Friday Tommy took Abby on a field trip of his own.

They visited Quinlan Tree Service and watched 

Uncle Shane and Uncle Jeff cutting down some pretty big trees.

 When I see pictures like this, I can't help but wonder how the Father/Daughter dance will turn out some day.  Will Abby have more than one guy on her arm?  Her Father and her God-Father? 

 I'm sure she was being supervised near all the heavy machinery?  

Right?  

Sure she was.  

Absolutely.

......I think.

Of course, a field trip organized by Tommy ended with a stroll

down the Star Wars isle at Meijer.  Did you expect anything else?

That's it for now!  

Stay tuned though, there is always exciting stuff happening!

Love,

The Ascencio's

George's First Birthday Party

When I was on JV, I wanted to be on Varsity.

When I was in College, I wanted to be finished with classes and making money.

When I started my career, I worked to be promoted as fast as possible.

The grass is always greener, right?

Well, not always.

I've slowed down.

I'm smelling the roses.

Sometimes a thorn gets in my way, but I'm enjoying where I am.

I am NOT taking my life for granted.

I am truly blessed.

My grass is the perfect color green.

My family has been complete for an entire year.

AN ENTIRE YEAR!!!

We started to build it over twelve years ago...

So, Saturday we celebrated.

George turned One!

His favorite thing all day long was the balloons.

He held on to one most of the day, and just walked around the house having a heck of a time.

I made cupcakes and tried my best to keep Abby from eating them.

I stopped her many times, but she succeeded once.  She came over to me with a mouthful of cupcake and showed me.  She was very proud of herself, the little devil!

All the cousins came to party.  Here is Brenden and Ryan.

Here is Loretta and Katie sitting down.  I put them to work most of the night, so I wanted to make sure I got at least one picture of them having fun so I have proof in case of backlash.  Seriously though, sisters are great.  I hope George finds Abby a great sister-in-law one day.

It wouldn't be a party without Uncle Shane!

Or Uncle Jeff, Uncle Sean or Aunt Monica. 

I decided to buy a pinata for the kids.  I took my husbands blood pressure into mind and made sure it was a pull-string pinata.  Can you imagine Tommy with kids blind-folded swinging a long stick... in his house?  The funny thing is... none of the strings worked, so they had to beat it open anyway!  Everyone survived.  Abby figured out very quickly she was supposed to hoard the candy and she had a BALL!

Uncle Johnny and Family gave George a rocking horse. He liked it, and all three 2-year olds LOVED it! I think Abby thought it was her Birthday. 

The video below is everyone signing Happy Birthday to George,

and him having free will with his Birthday Cake.

I have a feeling it might resurface during George's high school days.

 

I tried to get George to try his cake, but he refused. 

He got close a few times, but quickly changed his mind.  

Things in our past:

Breastfeeding.

Nighttime feedings.

Formula.

Pacifiers.

Rear-Facing carseats.

Baptisms.

Baths in the sink.

First Birthday Parties.

I'm not sad.

I enjoyed them.

Just as I am enjoying today.

And looking forward to tomorrow.

Just a quick update. We're fine. How are you?

I don't have breaking news on any big event we've done.  

Our life has been low key for the past week or so.  But, the purpose of this blog is for me to record and share things regarding our family.  And, George & Abby change so fast that if I wait too long I will forget something.  If I'm boring you, I apologize.  But, watching my kids grow up is anything but boring to me.  I don't want to miss a second.  It's fascinating.

I've turned into a doting parent.  

And I love it!

George

We are getting ready for his 1st Birthday on Saturday.  Wow!  We have made it an entire year with TWO kids!  Do we get a prize for this?

His hair is growing longer.  When he wakes up he has morning hair, and I am quite confident it is the cutest morning hair that has ever existed.  It even curls in the back.  The gerber baby has nothing on my Georgie.

He is still sleeping like a champ.  On average, 11 hours a night!!  Just don't tell him that he is using a pink sleep sack that used to be his sisters.  Hehehe.  

As long as he is trying to fall asleep I will rock him before bed.  He has figured this out and snuggles up so sweet it is hard to put him down in his crib even after he has drifted off.  I will miss this when he no longer wants to do it.  Don't call in the evenings, I'll be occupied.

Abby

She has started to say her name this week!  And she can tell you that she is 'Two'.  She has a little bit of a speech delay, so to hear her say her name was a very sweet moment.  She can't say 'George' yet.  Instead, she calls him "Hi". 

We went to the library this week and Abby picked out some books.  I forgot how exciting it is to read a book from the library.  We had to read ALL FOUR of them before bed that night.  I mentioned that we needed to return them and tears were falling immediately.  She is dramatic... I wonder where she could have picked up that trait?

She has started to have an opinion on what she wears.  I like her enthusiasm, but we are not agreeing on her choices.  What do you think, should she be able to leave the house wearing the outfit she picked out?

Abby experienced a minor tragedy this past Sunday.  She fell face first on the bathroom floor and busted her lip.  Blood everywhere.  She cried long enough to find her Daddy, who made her boo boo better by just existing (seriously, I offered to do anything and she didn't care at all).  Then she took her nap on his shoulder why he watched football.  They both were in heaven. 

Happy Wednesday,

The Ascencio's

"A Time for Sleep" is now!

Have faith, and everything will work out.

George is sleeping through the night!! 

Hooooooorrraaaaaaayyy!

About a week ago he started to cry about 2:30am and Tommy and I were so tired we just turned down the volume on the monitor, rolled over and fell back to sleep.  (We discussed this with our pediatrician, don't worry!)  Well, at least we tried to sleep.  After a few short minutes George stopped crying and put himself back to sleep.  The rest is history.  Last night he didn't even cry in the middle of the night, he just slept right on through.  

11 hours and 15 minutes of glorious, blissful, SLEEP!!!

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Since we are on the topic of 'sleep'...

it is worth mentioning that Abby is still finding her way into our bed in the middle of the night.

And, we are a little nervous about when it will stop, because this is what we found in her dollhouse...

Seems harmless.  

A mommy & daddy sleeping in their bed.

But, take a closer look!

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!

Looks like we have one problem solved, and another one to work on.

Parents work is never done.

L8R.

Happy Birthday Tommy!

I've been sitting here trying to figure out the perfect words to wish  

Tommy a  

Happy Birthday.  

Everything that comes to mind, I imagine him asking me if I'm going to use it in my stand up act.  You see... he teases me that anything I say that I think is funny, actually isn't.  So, he says I should compile all my 'not-funny' lines, write a monologue and then perform it in my very own stand-up act.  Trust me, the only person who would be laughing would be him (an maybe my brother and Shane).

But, I also think I'm having trouble coming up with something because Tommy is 'my person'.  

Yes, he can annoy me.  

Yes, he can make me mad.  

Yes, when I'm tired I say mean things to him that I immediately regret.  

But, he knows me and loves me anyway.

Without him my world would crumble.

Tommy gives me that content, warm-fuzzy, cared about, comfortable feeling by just being near me.  

When he's not there, everything seems a little off.  

Even if I'm gone for the weekend to visit my sister... I miss him.  

How do you put that into words?

So, I'll say this.  

I'd marry you again in a second.

Someone bigger than us brought us together, and I couldn't be happier.

Watching our kids grow up with you seems like the perfect way to spend the next couple decades. 

There is nothing I want more.

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On a related topic, I was thinking of using some old pictures for my Stand-up act.

Do you think these would be good ones to share?

To the far right, there is the infamous Mullet-Mustache Tommy.

And this picture captures the Christmas when Tommy begged his mother to send him to China to be trained as a ninja.  He has throwing stars in his hands, which are now somewhere in my house.  

He still loves them.

Love you Tommy!

Happy Birthday!

Forever.