My Mom's Mother's Day/Birthday party!

Not this past weekend but the weekend before that, we celebrated my Mom's birthday! We also celebrated Mother's Day!

That weekend I made 2 cakes, one was for my friend, Ann's little boy and one was for my Mom's party. These are the first 2 big cakes I have done since the Breaking Dawn cake. I decided not to do cakes while I was pregnant. I was just too sick and tired. Well now Ashlyn is here and she is not a newborn anymore, I decided to try making these cakes to see how things would play out with the new baby. It went well.

The first cake I did was, this Lego cake for Ann's son Christian! I think it turned out great and I had fun making it!

We had my Mom's party on Sunday!

Ayla and Ashlyn wore matching dresses that Grandma Perry bought them, to church that morning! This was taken after church. Notice Ayla's hair has fallen out?

Ashlyn looked so cute, so did Ayla! I love my girls!

My Mom's cake!

I made the simplest cake I make! I think I went a little overboard with the sprinkles!!!

My sister, Marion showed up an hour before the party to get things ready. She wanted to get the food cooking a half an hour before everyone arrived because it never fails, our family has a BBQ and we sit around for an hour while the food cooks. Apparently, everyone else thought about the same thing and came a half an hour late.

Here is me and Marion partying it up already a half an hour into the party and no one was there yet! At this point we were wondering where everyone was!

Marion did all the cooking! Go Marion!

Hamburgers and Hot dogs!

Everyone arrived at the same time! You can see Lane Brain eating in this picture!

My Dad holding Ashlyn sitting with Cody!

Ian and Ayla had a blast jumping together!

Oh and one more thing I haven't mentioned on my blog is...

I got a new camera!!! I want to learn how to take good pictures of my kids, so I don't have to deal with taking them to get them done. I am actually learning photography on Lydia.com. So far I have learned a lot. Kurt got me the Sony Nex 7 camera. It is awesome, I am still learning how to use it but I love it!

All the pictures above were taken with my powershot camera and now all the pictures below were taken with the Sony camera.

I took a couple of pictures of my friend, Melissa with it! I think they turned out cute! They are a little over exposed but like I said I am learning my new camera. Then I will learn more about editing photos. I still think the pictures are awesome though, with just taken them!

Here is the other one I took!

Melissa and her boyfriend, Aaron came to the party. Melissa always comes to my families parties. She is pretty much part of the family!

I took a picture of my yellow Gerber Daisies I bought for my yard this year! Notice the to blooms in the front? They are conjoint! I think they are pretty cool!

Angie and Raye!

Raye is too cute!

My sister-in-law, Carolyn!
She is Cody's and Angie's mom. And Angie is Ian's and Raye's mom

Melissa again!

My mom while we sang "Happy Birthday!"

This picture is totally over exposed but like I said I will learn!

My brother, Robert and his son Lane!

We had a great time as a family! We always do!

Ashlyn turned 2 months! Ayla today!

Of course this post is 3 weeks late but oh well, I want to document it!

Ashlyn turned 2 months old on May 2nd!

This picture was taken that day!

At her wellness checkup on May 3rd she weighed 12 lbs. 2 oz. and was 22 1/2 inches long!

My baby is growing so fast!!!

Here is a list of the things Ashlyn has learned in her first month.

*She is holding her head up more and more each day. She is pretty strong.*

*She discovered her hands. She loves to hold them up in front of her and look at them.*

*She started to smile for real! This time I know it is not gas.*

*She is getting better at gripping things.*

*She sounds like she says, "mom" when she cries. I know it isn't her real first word but I love to hear it! It is so cute!*

*She started to sleep 4 hours straight at night. She even slept a whole 6 hours once. It has been so nice!*

I always put her in her crib after I change her diaper and she loves to listen and reach out to her "Glow Seahorse." It is so adorable! Thanks to my friend, Melissa for the seahorse! She loves it!

Daddy loves to make her fly!

We put her in the walker for her first time. She was propped up by blankets of course. You can kind of see her looking at her hands in the picture!

She met my Grandma and Grandpa! 

I am so glad she did because my Grandpa passed away 2 weeks later.

Grandma holding her!

She is such a wiggle worm! She loves to kick! She kicked me a lot when I was pregnant with her. She moved so much, sometimes she would give me motion sickness.

I love polka dots!

Sitting on Daddy's lap!

Laying on Mommy!

This is not a flattery picture of me but she is darling in it!

From another angle!

See her trying to hold her head up?!

Sleeping on grandma, Perry!

Now onto Ayla!

She had her 4 year old wellness checkup on the same day as Ashlyn. I got them both in at the same time.

Ayla is now 33 lbs. 2 oz. and 42 inches long!

She is quite the little turkey!
Here are some things she has said and done in the past month.

She loves to eat anything sweet. It is so hard to get her to eat something that is actually good for her. She is such a picky eater. The other morning she told me, " I don't want breakfast, I want candy." Ya, right like that was going to fly.

She is usually up with her Dad before he goes to work and I lie in bed for that hour. One morning I got up and Ayla asked if she could have some frosting. I asked her if she had eaten breakfast. She told me she had with her Daddy and that Daddy had put her dirty dishes in the dish washer. I looked in the dishwasher and the dishes were clean. She has learned how to lie! AWWW!

The other day I caught her under her bed with a tub of frosting eating it. I told her it is not nice to sneak things and that it has got to stop, that she would have to go in time out the next time she sneaks something. She told me, "It is fun to sneak things, that is just what kids do." Luckily, I she has not snuck anything since that day but it doesn't mean she wont.

The funniest thing she has done recently is one day she had a 2 hour nap so she wasn't tired when we went to bed that night. She asked to watch "My Little Pony" in her bed. I let her thinking she would fall asleep after an episode or 2. Oh, NO, she was still up watching it when I got up with Ashlyn at 6 in the morning. She had been watching it all night. I was so not happy. I told her she needed to go to sleep. She then told me that she wanted to see the sun come out and that it was an accident!  

She is quite the little character but I would not change her a bit. I have my work cut out for me but I love being her mom!

She got to go in her aunt, Marion's hot tub at their new house. She is wearing her new swim suite and sunglasses that Marion bought her!

Her in the hot tub!
Of course my sister had the heat down.

My cute little turkey!

I love when she coordinates clothes and accessories when she plays dress up!

She is such a hoot! 

I took this picture and then...

She started to model for me!

LOL!!

Of course she has had her moments acting like a baby!

She loves cupcakes, she has cupcake bed sheets and 3 sets of cupcake PJ's. I love that my Dad cut out the cupcake that was on the empty bag of flour and taped it to his chest so they can be twins! I love you Dad!

Ayla is too funny! She has actually fallen asleep on my feet right now as I type this post! I love her!

Now for some of pictures of the girls through out the month!

Isn't this amazing?!
If you look closely, you can see Kurt holding Ashlyn!

Tummy time!

Ashlyn by herself!

My girls!

Oh and Ashlyn has learned how to wink!! LOL!! J/K!

Here is a picture of the girls together when we put Ashlyn in the walker!

I love my girls and I love being their Mommy! There is nothing better!

Grandpa Paul's funeral.

It makes me so sad to post this post right now. My dear grandpa, Paul passed away 2 and a half weeks ago. We had his funeral almost 2 weeks ago.

He is a very handsome man.

Obituary.

He is actually my great uncle but him and his wife had stepped in as parents to my mom and grandparents to us kids. My mom's parents both tragically died when she was 4. I posted about it a couple of years ago. You can read it here.

I am so glad we were in my grandparent's neighborhood a couple weeks before he passed. We decided to go pay them a visit. I was so glad he got to meet Ashlyn. Grandma, Marion is holding Ashlyn in the picture. Yes, my sister was named after my grandma.

I am glad I got one last picture with my Grandpa.

I want to share a cool little story. About a year ago my aunts were in town visiting. We all met over to my grandparents house one day while they were here. The next day, my mom and her sister met up over at their house again. I was supposed to go too that evening but didn't because I had something going on. I figured I had gone over the day before anyway. Let me just tell you something, I wish I would have gone because my grandparents had some very special visitors. 

Are

you

ready

to

see

who

came

to

visit?

Elder Oaks and his lovely wife!

They had come to pay my grandparents a visit and to check on my Grandpa. My Grandma is a seamstress and she had done some work for sister Oaks before. 

My mom didn't know who they were. She just new he was a man of the church. She told him, "My daughter is very involved in the church and that I would know who he was." Then she asked if she could get a picture of him. He of course had no problem with that. That night my mom told me to go onto facebook to identify who she had met and I was floored! I of course was not happy that I had missed out! 

The viewing.

I didn't take any pictures at the viewing because I was not in the mood, so I took some of the pictures my Mom took. I got them off of her facebook photos.

Here is Ashlyn and me.

I didn't have Ayla. I left her home with her dad. I didn't want to have to chase her around because she would have been bored. I wanted to go reflect and morn without interruption.

My aunt, Kathy is holding my little sweetheart in this picture.

This is my great uncle, Allen with my Mom.

He is grandpa, Paul's brother. I feel really sad for him because he is the only one left out of all his immediate family. He is such a sweet man too.

This is my Grandma with her cousin and her sister, Norma. My grandma is the one on the right. I am so glad my Grandma has her sister and her cousin. They are all really close. Plus, Norma lost her husband years ago and knows how my Grandma feels.

Me with my uncle, Allen.

My cousin Jessica and me.

This is Jennifer. 

She loved holding Ashlyn. She is my cousin too. Grandpa always talked about her when I was around him. He really loves her. She really is a cute girl.

The funeral.

I was still not in the mood to take pictures the day of the funeral.

But when I walked in and saw my brother wearing one of my Grandpa's suites. I lost it. I had to get the camera out and take a picture. I had never seen him in a suite. I felt that it was so appropriate that he wore it that day in honor of Grandpa.

After that I kept the camera out.

Here is my aunt, Pam holding Ashlyn.

Aunt Shirley and uncle, Allen.

Aunt Shirley holding Ashlyn.

One of my siblings and me with Grandma.

Some beautiful flowers that matched the flowers on the casket.

It reads, "Loving Sons, Daughter."

We had the funeral services at the grave site.

His pallbearers were 5 of his sons and his brother.

My Mom took this beautiful picture. I love it!

The flowers read, "Husband."

 Jennifer and one of her friends played their violins for the services.

Me and my sister, Marion putting our hands on the casket.

We had a luncheon at my Grandma's church after. I had to share this cute picture of my little peanut sleeping.

The services were beautiful. 

There was an opened mic and my Mom said a few words. She said the most wonderful things. It was so appropriate.

Some of the things I remember her saying were...

Paul and Marion were the closest thing to parents that she had.

They taught her what love was and how to love herself.

She would not be who she is today without them.

Paul taught her to swim and how to ride a bike.

I will always be grateful to my grandpa, Paul and grandma, Marion for what they did for my mother. I have a loving mother because she was taught love by them.

I am going to miss visiting with my Grandpa at his house and at Denny's. He loved to go to coffee in the morning at Denny's. We would sometimes go and meet him there.

We miss you Grandpa.
Please keep my Grandma in your prayers.