I took this picture of Ashlyn yesterday and thought I could find some other pictures that would illustrate her tendancy to organize and stack things. In my opinion, a little OCD never hurt anyone. Remember that these are things I had no hand in, but rather walked in on. I don't know too many two-year-olds who prefer order to chaos.

In the forth picture above Ashlyn had balanced her fork in her sippy cup flip-lid hole. She did a similar thing this morning when she discovered that a waterbottle Brock had on his nightstand could balance on top of the light shade. I've taken it off a few times, but when I go back in the room the water bottle is back. During mealtime she will also stack her little cheese squares or crackers neatly before she eats them, and if she has a few items like a cup and some utensils on the table beside her she will line them up and put them the same distance away from the edge of the table. Bathtime is also interesting. She currently has 17 rubber duckies representing different holidays in her bath which she will line up on the edge of the tub all facing outward. She does like to dump toys out all over her room, and knocks over her block towers after she builds them, so I'm not too worried about her.

I think whoever coined the term "terrible twos" was mistaken. Ashlyn is quite fascinating to interact with and observe. Kids are amazing.

No time to explain so just imagine the story behind each picture!

Sisters, Sisters, you've never seen such devoted sisters

Brock and I have been trying to decide if Claire will look like Ashlyn, so here is a study of our two little girls. Definately some family resemblance. I tried to get some similar poses from hospital to one week; Ashlyn is on the left and Claire is on the right. I can't believe she is a week and one day already. Ashlyn seems to be adjusting well. In one of the pictures of Claire you see a little bear and some stuffed animals. Ashlyn brought her the bear when she noticed that Claire's pacifier had a bear on it, and slowly she built a little shrine around Claire with her stuffed black dog that we named Dutchess and another bear. I took that as a good sign that these two little girls will get along just fine.

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.