gender ultrasound!

baby ashby #2 is a boy! we are so excited! i think sean and both kind of expected it to be a boy. i had a feeling it would be and sean was sort of up in the air but we were not shocked at all when it was a boy. maybe its just because we already made one boy? so maybe we are just good at making boys? haha who knows. i would have loved to have a girl for a couple of reasons, one of them being that if we had a girl, i feel like we could be done having kids if we wanted to. which i do think we will have at least 3 kids, but its nice to have one of each first, if you know what i mean? also, i struggled a lot when ben was born. i know everyone already knows all about it, the post-partum, ben's allergies and acid reflux, almost always crying in pain, not sleeping ever, and throwing up ALL THE TIME. everyone says baby's spit up a lot, but if you were to spend 5 minutes with ben you would have seen that it was much more than most babies. anyway, i am glad we got that all figured out, but it was a very hard 6 months until we did. i think when i found out it was a boy, i got scared. scared because at this point all i have to compare this baby to is how things went with ben. and in my mind, since ben was a boy, this boy will be the exact same experience. now i don't need anyone to tell me that it is ridiculous to think that. i already know that. i know every baby is totally different and this experience will not be identical to my first. and even if it is similar, i learned a lot through that and would handle it different this time. but its just how i felt at the moment. i was scared. i just had to be honest about how i was feeling. part of me thought that maybe if it were a girl, i wouldn't be as scared, because at least something about the experience would be different, if that makes any sense at all? i know, it's so silly. anyway, once i got over those feelings, the excitement set in. i am so excited for benny to have a little buddy! and there will be 4 grandsons, 2 1/2 years apart on my side! it will be so fun for them.

i feel like i let people down by not having a girl. that is even sillier than my above statement. but sooo many people were hoping for a girl since there haven't been any in quite a while in my extended family. but i know this is going to be so much fun. i think God knew that if i had a girl, i might in my mind feel like we could be done haha. so this is his way of insuring that we have at least one more child :) i am okay with that. i really do love being a mother. i feel like maybe i have not given off that vibe, because i tend to be really honest about the really hard times. that's just how i am though. i have to be honest about the good and the bad. it can be so hard at times. sometimes its harder more often than its amazing. but those amazing times make all the hard time worth it. i wouldn't change anything about this journey. and i do want more than two kids, just for the record haha. i know i say i would be good with two, but i think i just say that because i am scared of the unknown.

anyway, we went in for a gender ultrasound at 15 weeks and 5 days. when we went in for ben, right away i knew it was a boy. i saw that flash on the screen right at the beginning. there was no mistaking it. this baby was definitely not as open and flashy as ben. he was curled up in a ball almost the entire time. it made it really hard for us to really be able to see anything. when she finally got to the legs, to get that gender shot, it took a while. and for a few seconds there, you couldn't see anything in between the legs. that was basically the only moment in this pregnancy so far when i thought "wait, is this a girl??" i even said that. but the tech kept trying and said she thought she saw something in between the legs, and sure enough after some maneuvering she found the boy parts. they weren't the clearest, and she even went back at the end to double check. i mean there is no doubt it's a boy, but she definitely seemed more confident about ben being a boy. she said we would check again at the big 19 week scan. i feel pretty confident that nothing will change though.

it's so cool to me to finally know the gender. it makes it seem that much more real. calling it a he instead of it. i am excited to start feeling this little guy kick. i wonder if he will look like ben? i can't wait to meet him. i am scared to be a mother of two. and to be honest, it's not really even the newborn that scares me, it's just trying to give my attention to a newborn and a very active toddler that scares me. but people have been doing it for years and years and years obviously so i know i will figure it out :)

sorry, this post it all over the place! it's been a crazy week, and i guess i just needed to type it all out in a very chaotic mess of words. please excuse all the grammatical errors. in other news.....

last saturday sean hurt his back really bad. he was helping his brother move a compressor and his back just gave out. he has had back problems for a while, but this just was kind of the last straw. he couldn't move at all and an ambulance had to be called to get him to the hospital. after lots of steroids, pain medication, and muscle relaxers, he was finally able to sit up and go home. the x rays didn't show much so we were told he needed an MRI first thing on monday. that was a nightmare trying to get the insurance to pre-authorize it. i cried all day trying to get that taken care of but finally they pulled through last minute just as we were about to pay cash for it. which we will end up paying anyway, since we have a high deductible no HSA insurance plan. i won't get into that, but long story short, sean has a herniated disc that is pressing on a nerve. he will most likely have to have surgery, but we are waiting on a second opinion. he has basically just been lying in bed most of the week. not able to do much. he did got to work towards the end of the week and he is starting to feel a little better, but still very sore.

anyway. that was our week. very hard and very exciting :) we also celebrated moe's 5th birthday! i can't believe my first little baby is 5. it's so crazy to me how fast that went. i love my moses. even though he can drive me bonkers sometimes when he wakes up ben, i still love him. here are a few cute pictures of him and ben! love my boys!!

to my almost one year old

these are just many of the many pictures from his cake smash photo shoot with his little girl friend elliette jane. she was born just 3 days before him! thanks maddie for the awesome pictures!

wow. i didn't plan on letting 4 months go by without blogging.. but here we are. i have been thinking all week about this post. it has been such a nostalgic week for me. exactly one year ago from this exact time we decided to head to the hospital because my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. the pain had started to become unbearable. that last week of pregnancy felt like months. i know that sounds dramatic, but when you spend 9 months with a certain date in your head, and then that day goes by and nothing has happened yet? well time decides to slow down and every hour feels like a week.

anyway. yes. 1 year ago today i was in labor with my sweet benny blue. we didn't really know yet if that was going to be his name. but we knew we wanted to use blue somehow since that's what he had been called from the first weeks of my pregnancy. we got to the hospital around 9 pm and they would not admit me until i had dilated higher than a 2 even though my contractions were 1-2 minutes apart at that point. i don't ever remember being in so much pain. walking those hospital halls in a gown while holding on to sean trying to not scream through every contraction. it was without a doubt the most painful night of my life. i remember when they finally decided to admit me at midnight and how relieved i was. i was still in so much pain but so happy that i could finally get an epidural. my water broke on its own right after i got the epidural and we didn't expect to have a baby 4 hours later but we did.

at 4:26 am benjamin blue ashby made his entrance into the world and into our lives. and what a year it has been for us. i don't really even know how to explain how much he rocked our world. i feel like it will be best to just write him a letter so i will do that below.


dear benjamin blue,

i can't believe that tonight was the last night i gave a bath and put my sweet little 11 month old baby to bed. tomorrow when you wake up you will be one year old. you will basically be a toddler. not my little baby anymore. i can't even seem to find the words to explain how this makes me feel. there are so many emotions going through my heart right now.

benny, you are the best thing that has ever happened to your dad and i. you have done more for us than you will ever understand. at 1 years old you are walking and talking. you took your first steps on the day that you turned 11 months old. i wish you could have seen the look on your dads face when you took them. we were both so not prepared but both so excited that we both got to experience that "first" with you. we were so proud of you.

you still only have 2 teeth right now. your bottom front two. you are about 21 lbs. you have dark dark brown eyes. they look like chocolate almost and your hair matches them perfectly. your eyes twinkle when you smile. you are so busy. always on the go and you never sit still. you like to keep us on our toes but we wouldn't trade it for anything. you are a curious little boy and love to get into everything. i can see your little brain trying to figure out how everything works. you just have to know so you like to take things apart and put them back together. i can already tell that you are going to be very smart. you love to learn.

your favorite things to eat right now are hashbrowns and cinnamon graham crackers. you don't like vegetables that much so i have to sneak that in with your fruit. you are still drinking soy formula and doing so well on it. i have tried to give you some foods with dairy in it and you haven't had too bad of a reaction so i am hoping you are outgrowing that allergy.

you finally started to sleep good at night around 10 months old. you still have some bad nights but you are sleeping much better than you were, so we are too. and we love that and thank you for it.

you are quite the momma's boy. like.... a lot. it can be exhausting for me at times but i love it. you love your dad so much and moses is your absolute favorite thing in the world. you light up every time you see him. i am so glad that he is hear to watch you grow up and to play with you. he is so good to you and it makes me so happy.

benny, i didn't just write this letter to talk about your milestones. i want you to know how much you changed our lives. please don't take this the wrong way... but this last year with you? it has been the hardest year of our lives. there were nights when i honestly thought that i could not last another day. tears were shed from every member of this family on multiple occasions. there was a lot of guilt on my part when i made the decision to stop nursing you. you hated it and we both cried through it every time. there were even more tears shed when i decided to stop pumping. i can't even tell you how much guilt i felt and how i still feel guilty that i stopped. but then i see your happy smiling face now, and i know i made the right choice. you were happier when i was happier. i was happier when you felt better.

the first 6 months of your life were very hard. we didn't know what was wrong with you and we spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. we finally found out at 6 months that you were allergic to cows milk protein and once we figured that out you were an entirely different baby. i am so sorry it took us so long to find out. i promise i tried everything and did so much research. i took you to so many doctors and so many tests were ran. please know that i tried everything. i just wanted to see you happy. i knew there was a happy baby in there somewhere. and boy was i right.

you have the power to light up a room, ben. your personality is so much fun. your laugh is infectious and it honestly makes me so happy. it makes me forget any pain or sadness i am feeling. i love to hear it more than anything. you are a very special little boy. you are going to change the world. i just know it. you are so strong and i know that you are going to be a leader. just like your daddy. i hope you end up just like him. he is a smart, kind, loyal man. he is such a hardworker. and i can already tell that you are going to be a lot like him.

you have taught us a lot this past year benny. you have taught me a lot about myself. you forced me to see parts of myself that i did not like. parts that i needed to change. you taught me how to grow up. you taught me how to depend on people more, but to also trust myself and depend on myself more. you taught me that i was stronger than i realized. but also weaker than i realized. you taught me to see the world in a different way. a way that i needed to start seeing it.

so yes, this last year was hard. so hard. people warned us how hard it would be. and we believed them... and we knew it. but we didn't realize that it was going to be way harder than we expected. people also told us that it would be amazing. but we didn't realize that it was going to be way more amazing than we expected. it was way better than we ever could have imagined. you are the best thing that ever happened to us. and i can't believe it has only been a year. we look forward to so many more amazing years with you. we are so happy you are in our family.

just as i was typing this up, you started to cry in your sleep. you didn't finish your bottle before bed, so i had a feeling you would wake up hungry shortly after going to bed. i am actually glad that you did, because i got to go up there and hold you one last time before you turn one year. i got to feed you one last time and kiss you one last time before you are not my little baby anymore. don't get me wrong, you will always be my baby obviously. but it's just a bittersweet feeling that i am feeling. as i sat there in the chair, feeding you, kissing your head.. i started to cry. i realized that the reason this is a sad time for me is because the older you get, the more you will see how scary this world is. the world is such a scary place right now. and i know it is only going to get harder to live in the older that you get. i wish i could protect you from all the evil and scary stuff in this world. i know that i can't. but i wish that i could.

i know the world is a scary place. and i hope that you will always be smart and make wise choices. but i also hope you know that there are good people out there. people that want to make the world better. i hope that you try to seek out those people. i know that you will be one of them. you can be a stubborn, feisty little boy.. but i hope you use that for good. i have always felt like those people are the strongest. they change the world. i am already so proud of the man that i know you are going to become. please know that your mom can be a little dramatic and emotional. i give you permission to laugh at me when you read this and actually understand it.

i guess i better wrap this up here. benny, i hope you never ever forget how loved you are. your parents are no where near perfect. not even close. but we love you. we love you so much that it physically hurts. i hope you never forget that. thank you for the hardest, but by far the best year of our lives. i hope we can spend the rest of your life making you as happy as you have made us.

i think one of the reasons that I'm so emotional is that today marks 1 year that we made it through one of the hardest years we have ever had. we did it even though it was hard. one of our family mottos since your dad and I's engagement is that we can do hard things. I hope you never forget that you can do hard things. they will make you stronger in the end. they will give your life purpose. they will make your life worth it.

happy birthday my sweet little benny bear.

love mom

| Benny Blue | months 6-8

i am really sad that i got so behind on benny's monthly updates. life has just been crazy the past few months and it never seems to slow down. i figured i better just get on here real quick and post about the past few months with ben before i forget. sadly, these past few months have been the most exciting and i have failed to document it!

so i will just start with what i can think of!

- i think i last mentioned that benny was for sure allergic to cows milk protein. he is on a soy formula now and doing great. he rarely spits up now. i mean maybe once or twice a week now? it's amazing. we had him on enfamil prosobee because it was the lightest color and didn't stain. once we realized that he wasn't spitting up at all we tried the target up & up brand and he has been doing amazing. it is A LOT cheaper and we get a lot more per can. so that has been amazing.

-he is on no reflux meds. wahoo!

-he had to go to instacare today. he weighs 19 lbs 5 oz. we also found out he has croup and another ear infection. which is another thing i missed in his monthly updates, but this is now his 2nd ear infection.

-and that leads me to us finding out that benny is allergic to amoxicillin just like his momma! he got hives all over on the last day of taking it. poor guy.

-benny has 2 teeth now! the first one came on the bottom right 1 week after his ear infection and the one right next it came about a week later.

-benny drinks about 4, 6-7 oz bottles a day. about every 4 hours.

-he has 2-3 servings of solids a day.. whether that be fruit, veggie, oatmeal etc. he also snacks on multigrain cheerios and puffs. he loves multigrain cheerios! and tortillas. i wish he didn't have his milk allergy because i am sure he would love dairy.

-he takes 2 naps a day. usually one around 9-10 and one around 2-3. they usually last anywhere from an hour to 2 1/2 hours.

-he takes a bath around 7 and usually is in bed by 8.

-he has not slept great at all these last few months. he slept better as a newborn. in fact i can't even remember the last time he slept through the night without making a peep. i took him to the dr. 2 weeks ago to make sure he didn't have another ear infection and they said he looked great and that we were probably okay to just let him cry it out. so we have been doing that. well, he still wakes up. we can't prevent that.. but he is crying for shorter periods of time and seems to do it less. we also aren't feeding him anymore when he does and now he is eating more in the day which is good. now that he is sick again sleep has gone out the window.. but oh well :)

-benny is crawling! he started to sit on his own at 5 and a half months and at 7 months he started to scoot! he started crawling at about 7 and a half and is now all over the place. he pulls himself up to stand and gets into everything. he has knocked over moe's water bowl several times.

-he is wearing anything from 6m-12m in clothes, size 3 diapers in the day and size 4 at night.

-he loves to watch mickey mouse clubhouse. the hotdog song is his favorite. he also likes jake and the neverland pirates.

-he is way more interested in cords and things he shouldn't be playing with vs. his toys.

-he has had quite a few haircuts. one professional and the rest by me. it's a disaster right now and he needs another one!

-he went to lagoon last week for his first time! it was freezing and late but he was such a trooper. he has gotten so much easier to take places. we also went to gardner village and it was a blast. he is so much fun.

-since it is not halloween yet, i won't post his costume yet, but we have some pictures. i want to take some with my real camera on halloween! he is so cute.

-benny is quite the momma's boy. he sure loves his dad but he is getting separation anxiety when i am not holding him. i really don't mind it though. he is my little buddy. he also doesn't love it when i hold other babies. funny boy.

-benny loves fruit. not so much a fan of veggies so we usually have to mix them with fruit but he will eat sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and squash. not so much the green stuff. bananas are his favorite. or at least i think.

-we got a new car after chuck (the honda) got totalled. benny now seems to like driving in the car a lot more. and so do i!

-he still loves animals so much. moses is his best buddy. they are so cute together.

we sure love our benny blue. i can't even seem to find the words to express how much i love him. he has changed our lives in every way possible. it is so much harder. but it is a million times better. i love being his mom. i love seeing the world through his eyes. it has changed me for the better. he is such a happy boy and such a sweetheart. he means the world to me. also, i know it seems like i don't post much, but i upload everything that i post on instagram to tumblr, so i feel like in a way i am still documenting A LOT of his life. i am going to try and not beat myself up about it that i don't blog about it as much. my tumblr is like a daily blog in a way. so yeah. :)

i have a lot to catch up on, like my trip to D.C. and some other things. i will someday get to that. maybe. but for now i am just enjoying spending my days with benny.

h a p p y .

these pictures are from our softball game last night. i love that we are both playing again. it's fun to have something that we do together. ben loves his daddy. i love these boys. they are my whole world. today was a really good day with ben. he slept pretty good last night finally.. he woke up once at 2:30 but went right back to sleep after i gave him his pacifier. i will ignore the fact that he woke up at 5:30 since he took an awesome morning nap later.. he talked to himself until 6:15 and then i finally got up with him. he was so happy after a 2 hour nap and i was as well because i slept the entire time. we went to target later and i pushed him around in the cart really fast and made noises like a race car and he laughed so hard. he smiled the entire time. i had to write this down because i know i too often focus on the negative things and the hard days. today i had a fun day being a mom. i want to remember this day.

little life update.

6 months ago from this exact minute i was walking the halls of the hospital with sean. moaning in so much pain. having intense contractions that were 2 minutes apart but not making any progress. i literally felt like my hips and back were going to break in half. it was the most painful night of my life. and it has been a painful 6 months if i am being completely honest. i have always promised i would be real and open on here. but on that note, if i am being completely honest, he has brought me more joy than i ever thought possible. i love being his mom. he is the happiest, saddest baby in the whole world, haha. i tell people that he is kind of bipolar. he is very dramatic in his emotions. which is hard when he is unhappy, but when he is happy? gosh, it sure is amazing. his smile is infectious.

i plan to write a 6 month post eventually, but he doesn't have his 6 month appointment for a couple more weeks. i will probably still write it and just update after i get some stats on him. we have confirmed finally that he is definitely allergic to milk. had i known he wasn't just intolerant to it, but actually allergic, i might have tried to keep pumping. but let's be honest, completely cutting dairy out of my diet would probably be impossible. i am sad it took 6 months to learn all this but i am happy we finally know. i know it's not like the worst thing in the world. i am not trying to be dramatic about it. it was just hard for us to diagnose because he really does still have acid reflux. he is now on soy again, but this time a soy that he seems to tolerate. he is drinking double what he used to just within a matter of days. it is pretty neat to see. so many people have commented lately on how happy he is. when we go to church he usually screams and cries the whole time. this last week? we could not get him to stop smiling and laughing. it was such a sweet change. i know there is a happy baby in there. it has been nice getting to see more of him these past few days. he still is very dramatic when he is unhappy, but that's okay. he has quite the personality and i can tell he is going to be quite the social butterfly.

sean and i are doing great! sean is just working like crazy and i have been working a few hours each day this week. i have been answering phones while the receptionist is on vacation. i am going to go back to work 2 days a week and then on 2 of the days that i am not working, i will be watching my nephew jack! his mom sarah will be watching ben on the days that i work. it's a nice little trade off and a win win for us both! we both get to know our nephews better and make some extra cash!

we have been toying with the idea of selling our house and moving closer to orem. property values have gone up quite a bit in our neighborhood and we have had lots of people on our street make some good money by selling. we aren't sure that this is the right time for us, but we also like the idea of making some money off this house. we never planned on living here forever. we will most likely stick around, but it is nice to know that we can sell if we need to! we love living in this neighborhood. we love this ward. i just wish we could move it closer to orem!

let's see.. what else is new? oh yes! i almost forgot! i am going to washington D.C. in a month! i am so excited! i have never been! my friend juli has rheumatoid arthritis and has been selected to go speak to congress about it! she just had a baby 3 days before ben but she invited me to go along with her for a girls trip! i booked my flight today. i am so excited. we will be there for 5 days. just her and i! we have lots of fun things planned! she has been before so she knows the ropes. i got a great deal on a flight and her friend hooked us up with a deal on a hotel! 2 of our nights are free thanks to her for getting selected to speak, but we decided we might as well stay a few extra days and make it worth it! i will miss ben and sean so much, but it will be nice to get away and to possibly get some sleep. i have such a sweet husband for letting me go do this.

that is about all that is new with us right now! i haven't updated on all of us in a while so i thought it was time. this blog has turned into benny's blog :) that's okay though. he is pretty darn cute! also, it seems like all i do in my free time is play around with this blog layout. just like old times. i will admit it has been nice to get my mind off things and it has given me something to do this week at work while i answer phones.  i better get to bed though! ben will probably wake up soon haha. good night!