Introducing Claire Micaela Solano. Born 2:45 am on April 17th. 7 lbs. 14 oz. 20.5 inches long. Look at those skinny little legs. The black band was a security alarm so no one could steal her. The swelling in her face has gone down, and she is looking more and more like Ashlyn did except her hair is darker. Another little miracle. She is a good little baby.

Can you remember the last time you've been this upset? Come on Claire the world isn't that bad of a place.

Ashlyn turned two on April 18th, and hopes that Brock doesn't get his wish of only having to organize one party and buy one gift for her and her little sister to share. I love how Ashlyn got Brock's curls but unfortunately her hair is super fine like mine. It's great that balloons make it stand on end and every time she goes down a slide it flies up in the air. Who knew that static electricity could be this entertaining.

The sad truth is that I have not posted a single thing since January 26th, and I wish I had a really good excuse, like going into labor or something, but I don't. In fact, now that I didn't go into labor conveniently during Brock's spring break last week, I now need to wait until at least Sunday so Brock doesn't miss out on some very important meeting/tests on Friday and Saturday. We'll see how compliant our new little girl will be.

So, I finally got the pictures off our camera, so lets catch up on what the Solano's have been up to lately.

Easter was fun with an egg hunt at the church Saturday morning that Ashlyn seemed to really enjoy after I showed her that the eggs had candy in them. We dyed some eggs Sunday morning, but Ashlyn just wanted to eat the eggs and try to grab the cups of brightly colored "juice". We hid more eggs Sunday morning around the house and Ashlyn got really excited this time raising the eggs up above her head, yelling yeah and shaking it whenever she found one. She didn't know how to react however when she came across the brain-shaped "stress ball" that Brock decided to hide along with the eggs. Ashlyn had also been excited about a new toy provided by Great-grandmother Plumb. An exercise trampoline with a hand crafted denim/sequin spring cover/pad. This girl loves to jump, and she always wants daddy to "come" and jump with her. She'll go grab his hand and "pull" him up off his chair and kind of makes a grunting sound like she is straining and using all her strength to help him up. I guess I just do that whenever I am trying to heft my 200 pounds around the house. If you tell her to jump high she'll jump and wave and say hi while she's jumping...a smart-alec in the making.

We've been enjoying some beautiful weather and try to get to the beach from time to time and take walks around town by the fountain or to the park. Ashlyn is expressing herself more and more with new words, and it keeps Brock and me on our toes. It gets tricky when she combines words into one like minethose and morethis. She is also revealing to me the phrases I must say a lot like "you ok?" and "here you go!" She also says "YES!" and "all right" and whenever we toss a ball to her, even if it hits her in the face, she says, "Nice!" She also just chatters a lot and has lots of things to say where she will intently look at you and thinks you should understand what she's saying. Bibo means rainbow, and Obie is Mowgli from the jungle book, but most of the other nouns she know are very clear like "trampoLINE!!" Ashlyn is now in the process of bringing me all of the plastic food from her kitchen, putting them on the computer desk, and telling me to eat. I guess she might be trying to tell me that she's hungry and that I should post this and get on with the day. Hopefully our next post will introduce the newest Solano to everyone, and that it won't be two months from now.

Ashlyn will now smile for the camera if we say cheese. She also surprised me one day when we were looking in the mirror after a bath. She came up with this funny face where she pulls the sides of her mouth out with her fingers. She will do a tame version of it when she is looking at people, but she really gets into it when she is looking into a mirror. I really don't know who to blame for teaching her this behavior.

We had a fun day at the zoo at the end of last week to celebrate Brock's last week-end of freedom before classes started up again. Ashlyn's favorite words are now Rhino and Whale. We didn't get to see either at the zoo, but she has a favorite book called, "Get off my tail little whale", and we had seen the rhinos at the wild animal park a few weeks earlier and that must have made an impression. She's jabbering more and more and we are waiting for the magic day when we will develop the parental gift of tongues and are able to understand more than a few words at a time.

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.