quality control

When Morgan's being a cranky crab,

and I find myself counting down the minutes to nap time,

and else fails,

we bake.

He loves it.

I love it.

My hips hate it. 

You win some,

you lose {err, gain} some.

xoxo,

Ashley

a beautiful wednesday

I finally got a DSLR camera {yippee},
and today I got in some good practice time behind it's lens,

I'm excited to learn how to use it better, but I'm thrilled to have captured these pictures of our beautiful fall afternoon today. 

The best of the bunch

{and only some edited to correct exposure}:

xoxo,

Ashley

fall 'round here

Fall is my favorite season.

And, I love bringing it into my home. 

The only thing I hate about fall? 

How terribly fleeting it is.

Our pumpkins. 

Why yes, they were purchased at the grocery store.

My owl which Frank finds creepy.

I like him so he stays {Frank and the owl}.

My mom and I modge podged the pumpkins last year.

And that cutie on the end? That's Morgan on his 1st Halloween.

Mr. Morgan's fall art. 

The pumpkins are his fists and the leaves are his thumbs. 

The candy jar that had to be moved on top of the fridge once a certain little person discovered its contents and began helping himself before dinner. 

A quote floating around Pinterest. 

I hear ya Anne, I hear ya.

xoxo,

Ashley

twenty-four

Pregnancy: 24 weeks

Weight Gain: Oh my this is getting depressing. The weight is finally catching up with me, just as I knew it would....and I'm pretty sure at least half of it went straight to my chest. And we all know I wasn't needing any help in that department.

How big is baby?: An estimated 8.5 inches and 1.5 pounds. 

Sleep: It's been pretty good lately {as long as I have all 3 of my pillows!!}. I've also gotten into a {perhaps bad?} habit of bringing Morgan into bed with me in the morning so we can squeeze in another hour or two of shut eye. And I don't feel guilty about it one bit.

Gender: All boy. It's nice on one hand to already have nearly everything you need when your second baby is the same gender as the first, but it also makes me feel guilty about buying things we don't really need. But, damnit when you're pregnant you want to nest and feel this need to buy things for your new little one. So you wouldn't believe how excited I got about buying newborn paci's, socks, and a new crib sheet the other day haha. 

Names: He has a name. We're still not telling :)

Feeling: Pretty good. There are some aches and pains and some fatigue that just come with the territory, but over all, I think I've been feeling pretty good this past week or two.

Movement: Loving every kick, thump, and roll. I'm going to miss this for sure.

Belly: I think it definitely did some growing over the last week which makes me feel a little better about the huge weight gain over the past 2 weeks too.

Countdown to baby: 15 weeks to go!

xoxo,

Ashley

moments in time

You know those moments when you wish you could just freeze time? For me, it usually starts when this feeling of utter happiness and peace washes over me. And, it usually hits me in the midst of one of those small, every day moments. One of those moments that under different circumstances may even be considered mundane. Tonight, I had one such moment.

After dinner I changed Morgan into his footie PJ's and we bundled up in our coats and headed out into the crisp fall air to Frank's work to drop off dinner for him. As we drove along the lake, to and from Frank's work, we caught the last of the sun setting over the water, lights from the homes that line the lake glowing, the beautiful orange leaves swaying, and the smell of a bonfire or two in the air. It was a beautiful night, and I was overcome with warmth and happiness. 

It's in these little moments that you let go of your cares and realize just how special life really is. It's the little moments like these that make an imperfect life perfect. 

I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have a loving husband to drop off dinner for, a beautifully sweet toddler all warm and snuggled up in the back seat in his PJ's, and the promise of a new little life growing in my belly. 

It's these every day moments that make life overwhelmingly beautiful. It's these that make life worth it. So worth it.

xoxo,

Ashley

twenty-three

We never got around to taking a pic for last weeks bump update, 

so we snapped one today.

I'll be 23 weeks tomorrow. 

xoxo,

Ashley

a weekend, just the two of us

This weekend was my weekend off of work.
It was a long weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off.
Sounds perfect right? So why did I dread it?
Well it turns out it was perfect, but it took me until Monday morning to realize just how perfect it was. 

This weekend also happened to be the weekend that my mom was away in Indiana visiting family, any and all friends were busy with plans, and the weekend that my husband decided to sign up for overtime {i.e. 16 hour days}, because, in his words: "Christmas is coming." {ok, now that's super sweet...and only made me feel more guilty about dreading it}. 

I love hanging out with Morgan and finding fun things to keep us occupied, but I like to have some adult company to tag along on our adventures too. It may make me sound like a bad mom to some, but I suspect there are many, many moms out there who would feel the same way when faced with three days of just you and your 2 year old, from sun up to sun down. 

Friday we went to Appleton for lunch and some shopping, just the two of us. It was fun, but exhausting. 

Saturday Frank was supposed to only work his usual 6am-2pm, so we filled up our morning with a short road trip to the Rippin' Good Cookie Outlet in Ripon {yummm} and then returned home for a nap and lunch, and started counting down the hours until Daddy would be home from work. At 1pm the phone rang and I just knew who it was and what it was before I even looked at it. It was Frank calling to say he got forced overtime that day. There may have been some tears shed, ok no tears, but I'm pretty sure I whined a little "But, we've been looking forward to you coming home alllll daaaaay". 

But, some time after that phone call we began to fall into a groove. I decided to stop thinking about the hours upon hours I felt the need to fill to keep me and my toddler from dying of boredom, and just enjoyed the freedom of all that time to do whatever we wanted. 

So we read books,
went for walks,
went out for ice cream,
hit up Goodwill,
tackled the mountain {and I do mean mountain} of laundry,
took naps {yep, mom took advantage of nap time too},
worked out together to prenatal workout videos on youtube,
went over to Grandpa's for dinner,
and hung out on the balcony with the country music blaring on our red kitchen radio. 

It was an absolutely perfect weekend that now leaves me dreading returning to work this afternoon. 
Isn't life ironic?

xoxo,

Ashley