Christmas was pretty exciting. We got to see a lot of friends and family and now we're back home to relax a little with 20 more days of Brock's vacation from school ahead of us. We'll have another ultrasound at the end of January where we will be able to confirm or retract our statement of having another girl on the way, and life is good.

Here's a little summary of what we've been up to over the holidays...

We had the opportunity to enjoy a little bit of white this Christmas holiday with the Solanos in the ice arena. Ashlyn did a few laps in her uggs and loves to say the word ice now.

Ashlyn enjoyed being with cousins and Aunts and Uncles and friends throughout the week. She also enjoyed her 4 dachshund "aunt and uncles" which for some reason I didn't get a picture of, but she kept telling them to "shhhh!" She loves Doggies. She definately got into the unwrapping thing this year which was fun.

Before leaving to visit the Solanos, we spent Christmas morning sampling "food" from Ashyln's kitchen. She loves to pretend and gets a kick out of carrying a plastic plate and fork around. Hopefully the novelty of this toy doesn't wear off too quickly as it has already afforded us a good sum of blogging time today.
(Christmas continued in next blog)

We spent Christmas Eve Eve with Emily's family, which will be our last time all together for a while since Emily's parents will be serving an 18 month mission in the London South mission starting this March. Ashlyn was pretty excited about her bus and grass skirt. Then Christmas Eve we were able to enjoy a nice evening with the extended Plumb fam.

And that concludes our Christmas saga.

Hope you all had a merry Christmas!!! And will have a Happy New Year.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
We'll the verdict is in...
50% chance its a girl, and 50% chance it's a boy.
Good to know, good to know. Our ultrasoundist wouldn't give us better odds since our little fetus kept his/her legs properly closed the whole hour. We feel pretty strogly it is a girl, however, Brock watched the ultrasound pretty closely and saw no evidence to the contrary, so that's what we're telling people if they ask. We're scheduled for another ultrasound in January, so we will let you know if we're wrong.
Here are some fun pictures. I still need download our pics from our Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandmas, and from our visit up to Bakersfield. I'll post those later. Here are a couple good eating shots and a few from our trip to seaworld with Jared and Missy Fox and fam.

(smiling with a mouth full of pasta is no easy task)

Brock captured some pretty incredible shots of Shamu. I was pretty impressed. Ashlyn loved seeing the seals, sharks, dolphins, fish, polar bears, walrus, etc. The flock of pigeons flying around during the Shamu show was especially exciting for her. It was fun to have the Fox family visit from Utah. Their little boy Cade had a laughing/screaming match with Ashlyn on our way out of the park they had a great day holding starfish and seeing the animals. Ashlyn also had fun with their baby daughter Macey. She'll be a good big sister.

It was a fun hair day today, and Ashlyn had a good time at breakfast. Usually breakfast is the biggest meal of the day for Ashlyn. She isn't a big eater at dinner time. This morning it was eggs with cheese and shredded squash inside with a half a slice of toast and a cup of strawberry applesauce. She is doing pretty good with utensils, and gets most everything in the vincinity of her mouth. When in doubt, just use your fingers. Sometimes she will eat her whole bowl of cereal in the morning with her hands...very talented.

If you look closely we did finally get pigtails into Ashyln's hair. It is amazing how two rubber bands can make someone look so much older. We were carving pumpkins the day before Halloween with the Plumb cousins. Ashlyn took the scooper and started eating the raw pumpkin pulp. YUM
Cruel and unusual punishment #1
Brock thought that feeding more pumpkin pulp to Ashlyn might be funny...she ate it.






Cruel and unusual punichment #2
Emily thought it would be great fun to climb inside a 77 lb pumpkin. Ashlyn did not and gave us a her "very confused/offended" look. She was shocked we made her get all slimy...The fact that Cinderella rode in a pumpkin did not make any difference to her.




The Plumb cousins on Halloween night. Rachel was the only one not too distracted by candy to actually look at the camera. I kept having to be the mean mom that night in wrestling tootsie rolls and other candy (graciously given to Ashlyn by her cousins because she said please) out of Ashlyn's hands.

Trick or Treat

Ashlyn’s log: Day 559

Friday I discovered this strange custom called trick or treating. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. It was dark, and lots of other kids were running around. People kept putting stuff in my bag. Finally Bob let me take whatever it was in my hand and then wanted me to put it in the bag...I wasn't born yesterday. It was candy, and I knew if it went in the bag I would never see it again. However, when we got to the next trunk I found it impossible to take the next piece of candy with the Hershey bar in my hand. The marshmallow/gummy eyeball was too enticing, so I surrendered the chocolate to the bag. Bob/mom finally let me suck on a Dum Dum given to us by a girl that looked like a BYU cougar cheerleader (go cougars!) and eat some popcorn while we watched a costume parade led by a man dressed in a kilt.

When we got home we were pleased with our loot. I was generous enough to offer the marshmallow/gummy eyeball to my mom...she wasn't born yesterday either. She had bartered for a few Almond joys as her fee for the evening. When the photo shoot was over the candy was slipped back into the bag and placed in the middle of the kitchen table. My Kermit jacket was removed and my parents proceeded to get things ready for bed. When they left the room I seized the opportunity (quietly...maybe too quietly) to climb up on the table get my loot back. It was my cute face that had gotten the candy in the first place right. I decided to get up, and stand up for my rights. Unfortunately, I've discovered that wrappers are a little tricky, and I only managed a few sucks on a root beer dum dum when I was caught red handed. I ran for it, but no mercy was shown. Life's not fair folks.

Ashlyn's log: Day 560
Managed to get my hands on a box of Dots. I'm long and lean and I always surprise my mom by what I can reach.

I thought this was a cute little scene. Ashlyn is picking up coloring, and loves little books. She adopted (confiscated off of Brock's desk) a small little spiral notebook and likes to scribble in it whenever she finds a writing utensil. When Brock laid down on his stomach to color with her, she kept trying to copy him and lay down too. I don't think she ever really got comfortable laying there on her stomach because she kept getting back on her knees. But then she would look at Brock and try again. A great Daddy/Daughter moment.

Wikipedia defines Oktoberfest as a German celebration at which beer, brätwurst, hendl (chicken), käsespätzle (cheese noodles), and sauerkraut, along with such Bavarian delicacies as roast ox tails are consumed in large quantities. My definition is F U N! What better way can a guy spend a Saturday afternoon than by watching his wife and daughter dance to music played by a guy in lederhosen while he stuffs his face with free spicy sausage. Life is good my friends. Life is good!

Pictures of this event will not be submitted because we felt that lederhosen might be a little too risqué for our younger viewers. However you may get your Ashlyn fix by viewing two new videos (#11 and 12 - found under the "links" category on the right). These are from the end of July, but you see the start of her "talking". Now she can say shoes, please, ball, bubbles, baby, etc. adding new words each day trying to parrot what we say. We'll have to capture some of her real words on camera now.

What every parent should teach their child #2
FASHION! FASHION! FASHION!
This is the hat of the future. Everyone will be wearing colanders on their heads by the year 2010. We're thinking of solidifying our position in the market by selling them now for the low price of $19.99. Act now and we'll give you free shipping and handling.

Ashlyn's End of Summer Highlights:


First time in a swing and a shark cage



Finally got to meet the missing Uncle Riley who returned from his mission in Colorado (warmed up to him later) and mom stumbled across the worlds largest sand crab down in Baja...an incredible zoological discovery.

AND we got to see my brother or sister who will be born April 13th, 2007 who currently measures 6cm. :)

Too much excitement to handle.

What every parent should teach their child #1

I am a firm believer that teaching your child to stick out her tongue and make "throw-up" sounds is essential for proper psychological development. It will help them not to overreact in the case of a real throwup experience. It also makes for good laughs when your child does it at social gatherings. If you're lucky you might hear someone say "wow I wonder what she ate".

For just $2 at the wild animal park you can by a cup of nectar that will make the Lorakeets go crazy and land all over you. I had one on my head for a little while, and the one on my shoulder was pretty ticked off because the bigger birds boxed him out so he decided to sqwak right in my ear until they were done. We were some of the fortunate people that did not get pooped on. check out our new videos over in our links section.

It is amazing that one so small can already have such strong opinions on how life should be. For instance..."my cousin Bronson should NOT be eating my bucket!" The tongue sticking out adds more emphasis, and sometimes if we are napless and really frustrated it helps to throw ourselves on the floor, scream, and then start laughing. We are all developing wide ranges of emotions, which makes life that much more enjoyable.

Here's Brock swimming through the mud at the Camp Pendleton Mud run (more info in the posting below). Ashlyn and I were so proud. He only let one 70 year old woman lap him, but she had his number from the beginning.

Another cool thing that happened recently was our trip to the zoo resulted in a great polar bear encounter. Previously we had only seen the bears sleeping up on the rocks, but this time we went at 7:30pm and they were going crazy swimming and tackling eachother, and we watched them for almost an hour, it was awesome. Unfortunately we forgot our camera at home so the picture here is from the zoo website, but this is really how it was, so we are no longer thinking of suing the zoo for false advertising. I think there is an uncanny parallel between picture of the bear and the picture of Brock...what an animal.

Here's a Solano update...Brock and Branner ran the 10k camp pendleton mud run on Saturday June 17 and lived to tell the tale. I had to soak Brocks clothes for three days and wash them twice to get all the mud out. The sole of his shoe came completely off and it was very entertaining to watch Brock and Branner swim through mud. They are looking to get a team together to run it again next October if anyone is interested. Ashlyn learned to jump on the trampoline while we were house sitting this last week and a half. Her Plumb cousins came over and played a rousing game of crack the egg with Uncle Brock as the Crackin. Will and Kari moved out here from Buffalo after finishing dental school, so we are up to 7 local cousins, and we had one more born abroad. Jesse and Cami's little boy Ezra was born on July 4th and they are still up in Henderson. The last picture above is with Aldy, and as you can see, as Ashlyn's older cousins lose more teeth she gains more. If you want to know anything else concerning Ashlyn give us a call because she now likes to talk into the phone and likes to have her say in conversations. She answers all the questions in Sunday school and now makes elephant and bear sounds.

Wow Ashlyn, you seemed to eat those delicious green beans extraordinarily fast...