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

just a few other things.

{sorry here are just a few more random pictures that didn't quite go with my other posts}

> isn't that adorable gold tipped feather banner adorable!? lee made it and gave it to me at the shower! she has made so many cute things for the nursery and i can't wait to show them all off! lee knows the exact look that i am going for. i love it. once the nursery is finally complete, i want maddie to come and take some awesome pictures of it all. we have changed somethings around and ended up getting another dresser. it's not quite done yet, but if baby were to come now it would be just fine!

> this handsome man turned 27 on tuesday. words can never explain how much i love him. i know that is cliche to say.. but i really do love him so much. he really is my best friend. he has put up with so much from me, and i am so lucky. i still can't believe he wanted to be with me forever. he is so excited for this baby and i just know he is going to be such a great daddy. for his birthday we kept it low key. we are still trying to save up as much money as we can since we just paid off all of our student loans debt. we went to dinner at ruby river. his favorite. i gave him 2 batman shirts that he has been wanting for a while. i tried to plan to make him breakfast in the morning but he caught on the night before and decided he wanted breakfast for dinner the evening before. and he ended up making it. so much for me surprising him... haha.

> i drink 4 of these jugs of water a day. and i still have swelling in my hands, feet, and face. but oh well. it seems to help a lot, and i feel better when i do it. i am always thirsty. always. the doctor says everything is normal though and it's normal to retain water at this stage in pregnancy. i think everyone at church thinks i am pretty silly for carrying this around with me all the time but oh well! a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! also, my mom got me some awesome lounging outfits from victoria's secret to wear at the hospital and after the baby comes.. but i have already been wearing them. even out and about and to work... i love them. this sweatshirt is one of them. i love the PINK clothing line there. thanks for the lounging outfits mom! they already have been and will be put to good use! you are the best!

> my little big moses. i love him so. even when he throws up on my new bedding.. and even though i caught most of it in my hands and had to rush to the toilet to throw it all in there while he was still gagging and it all caused me to have contractions and almost go into labor because i had to chase him around the room with a towel on the floor while he continued to dry heave... i still love him. it was actually pretty comical. and that was a very long, improper sentence. and i don't care. we also found a new thing that he is scared of, aside from the vacuum, blow dryer, blender, my electric toothbrush, and drill. the diaper pail. yes, you read that correctly.

am i really 25?

first of all, thank you for the birthday wishes! i don't know how i got so lucky with sean. but i sure do thank my lucky stars everyday for him. he is definitely a keeper. he is my best friend. and makes me laugh every single day. he loves his family so much, and would drop anything to help them out. he is a great man. i sure do love him. his post was really sweet. it made my day. man, i had a great birthday. i know that 25 is not old. but i still can't help but feel a little old. 25 just sounds so much older than 24 for some reason. i have never been one of those people that wished they were older. i have always hated growing up. i always wanted to live in neverland like on peter pan when i was little. haha, oh well. it was a great birthday and i loved every bit of it. 

my birthday wasn't a huge big event. there wasn't a big party or anything. but it just seemed like every little thing that happened made me happy. and usually i hate mondays. but it was a pretty good monday. the day before on fathers day we celebrated that and my birthday with sean's family by having an awesome dinner made by sean's mom. i love her. it was so sweet of her to do that. she made some delicious scotcheroos for dessert because she knows how much i love those. she makes the best scotcheroos. it was a great day. then i woke up on my birthday morning to moses snuggling up to me.  then i didn't think that i would have enough conditioner left to condition my hair. but magically i did. then? i had a rice krispy treat for breakfast. awesome. then when we went outside to get in the car to leave for work? one of our yellow flowers had finally bloomed. i heard my favorite song on the way to work. then when i got there my wonderful friend lee brought me a HUGE diet dr. pepper. and she brought my twin sis maddie a latte. it was awesome. then my mom treated us to lunch at the slab. our favorite pizza place in the world. you need to go get the buffalo wing pizza. NOW. trust me. go do it. it will change your life. we try (and are not always successful at it) to only eat out once a week and when we do? we go to the slab on fridays. 

then my friend sara got me a gift card and some white spray paint! because you can never have too much white spray paint :) lee brought us some beautiful flowers, treats, gift cards, and a coupon for a free massage from her. she is the best massage therapist around. we got lots of birthday wishes on facebook and it was just all around a really great day. i felt so happy. after work sean and i decided to celebrate by going golfing. i knew he wanted to go so bad. we have been before together, but not in a while. it was a lot of fun. even though i lost a lot of balls. meh.. oh well! after that we went and grabbed some cafe rio and took it home to watch the bachelorette. it was such a great birthday. i feel truly blessed and lucky. 

this month has been so busy. sean and i planned to go up to salt lake for my birthday and possibly spend the night at the anniversary inn because we have a gift card there. but there just doesn't seem to be anytime this month to go. we have had weddings galore this summer. i have 3 cousins getting married within a few weeks of each other. 2 on the same day! we have lots of family stuff going on and things are just crazy. next week sean is going to pebble beach, california with my family. haha. i know. without me. he is not a horrible husband though. trust me. i am making him go. (not like that is hard though.. i mean it's a vacation.. in pebble beach. a golfing mans dream!) i have been there several times with my family. we go pretty much every summer. the first year we were married, sean, lee, maddie and i headed up there a few days afer my family left. sean got really sick on the way there and what should have been a 14 hour drive took about 20 hours. poor sean. it was not a good experience. and we only got to be there for like 3 days. i wanted him to go again and make up for the last trip. also? he works so hard. it was a rough year school wise. and he needs the break before he jumps back into 2 more hard semesters. plus he pretty much will be golfing the entire time while he is there since there are like 20 golf courses in the area. like i said, a golfing mans dream. not that i don't enjoy going though. but i plan to spend at least one entire full day here in bed. hahaha. no sean to wake me up by vacuuming. and i won't even feel guilty at all. but i will sure miss him. 

so why am i not going? well to be honest? i don't want to leave moses again. i know that is silly of me. but it's just too hard. i know i could find people willing to do it but it's still hard. i just feel guilty for leaving him and for making people take care of him. and also? lee and maddie and i work together and we can't all be gone at the same time. plus i don't have as much vacation time left as sean does. i feel good about staying but i will miss sean and my family a ton! sean and i haven't been apart for more than 3 days since we have been dating. it will be so fun for him though and i'm excited to bond with moses. plus we are going to see his brother in colorado a few weeks after so we have that to look forward to. and we get to take moses! 

anyway, i didn't mean to go off on that tangent. i mostly just meant to say that when he gets back we will try and go up to salt lake. for now sean got me this thing called lightscoop. let me preface this by saying that i love the camera that my sister gave me a few months ago. i have realized though how awesome natural light is and i hate having to use the flash. i don't think that the flash light is very flattering. it blows out a lot of things and can just be too harsh sometimes. it creates red eyes and blown out backgrounds. but sometimes when you are inside and it is late at night? you have no choice. well i heard about this thing called lightscoop that you slip on to the top of your camera and a mirror on it redirects the flash off the wall to display a more flattering light on the subject. i got it in the mail yesterday and with the help of my sister maddie we tried it out today. i usually shoot on auto on this camera. but when you use the lightscoop they recommend using it on manual and adjusting the settings so that you get the most amount of flash. it works better with the lightscoop. here are some of the pictures that i took with it today.

keep in mind that i took these on manual and didn't adjust the settings more than once. so the pictures don't necessarily look as good as they could have on auto. but since you need to set them on manual to use the lightscoop, this is how they turned out.

my wonderful model maddie.. don't kill me for posting these maddie!

the beautiful flowers that lee gave me on my birthday! the flash doesn't look too bad on this but notice how it kinda blows out the background? the light is much calmer with the lightscoop.

my computer. see how the glare is gone with the lightscoop?

sean doing what he loves to do..

our laundry closet. yes. it's in a closet. and we love it that way.
but i guess anything is better than having it in the kitchen like it was in our old apartment.
but hey? it was extra counterspace actually and we really enjoyed that! no joke.

much more natural calm light. the flash one still looks okay,
 but i like it with the lightscoop better. the paint color is much more accurate.

oh and in case you were wondering? that basket full of laundry may or may not have

been sitting in that exact spot for more than 10 days. and it's possible that dryer door has been

open for just as long. i know.. i'm the worlds best housewife :) but who cares? certainly not me.

and i married mr. housewife.. so it works out k? ;)

anyway.. i love it! i am really excited about it.  i like how it creates more natural light and less harshness on the subject. here are some pictures i took with them later. it was a good night. sean was playing the guitar and moses was listening, watching, and sometimes singing along with him. gosh i sure do love my boys.

anyway, i am no pro and don't intend to be, but it sure is nice having another option for 

taking pictures inside! thanks sean! i sure do love you and hope you never forget that. 

thank you for a wonderful birthday.

addi's party.

we celebrated addi's first birthday tonight! she is so stinkin' cute. i can't get over it. we went over there around 5 to eat some delicious ashby burritos. after that addi opened her presents. sean and i got her a pretend cell phone because she loves playing with her mommy's cell phone. this phone even lights up and calls you back. you can record stuff on it too. she loved it. they had to keep taking it away from her so she would open her other gifts. the funny thing was that the phone would start ringing and she would perk up like "where is my phone??" haha. it was so cute. she had 2 of the cutest cakes made for her. one that she could tear apart, and one for everyone else. she wasn't quite so sure what to do at first. she would daintily pick up some of the frosting flowers.. then she finally started to go to town. slowly but surely. eventually there was frosting all over her hair and eyelashes. i am not gonna lie...  i was pretty jealous that she got an entire cake to herself and people were encouraging her to eat as much as she wanted with her hands. note to self, i want to do that for my next birthday. anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of the night! happy birthday adders! we love you!

{my favorite picture}

the evening ended with tired moses laying on my lap. and tired sean laying next to me, passed out on cold medicine. poor guy. anyway, it has been a great weekend. good night world!