In the past week...

We've had crazy weather. Snow on Easter, followed by more snow.

Then this weekend, beautiful.


Ashlyn attempts to hit the ball. Perhaps her boots or back pack are hurting her progress.


Or maybe the way she is holding the bat.

We ended up grilling for dinner, which made it feel more like spring. This is the point when Ashlyn started complaining that she was freezing.

So, maybe still a bit chilly.

On Tuesday, I was rushing to get ready and put Christopher down on Ashlyn's bed while I got her stuff together. Ashlyn started jumping on the bed. As I told her to stop jumping on the bed, I thought I heard something from Christopher, so, being the consistent parent that I am, told Ashlyn to jump again. As she jumped Christopher's laugh just got bigger until it was a full fledged giggle. I tried to call Allen so he could Christopher's laugh as well. He ended up calling me back later, and proceeded to tell me that Christopher had been laughing for a couple of days. This is when Allen received the lecture on "when the baby does something new, you share the news." At this point, he tried to get out of it by saying that maybe Christopher didn't really laugh for him, but it was just a pre-laugh. Either way, I'm calling Tuesday Christopher's first laugh.

Ashlyn has been getting a little out of control with the stickers around here.

And, oh yes, there are many, many other stickers on floors, walls, clothing, etc.

Things that Ashlyn has been doing:

• describes her emotions, quite frequently. She generally describes herself as happy or sad, where sad requires a bit of a sniffle at (fake) tears.
• qualifies everything with "so," as in "I'm so happy," "I'm so awake," or "I'm so all done."
• helps fold clothes, puts away her dishes and clothing.
• makes up songs and dances to them around the house.

We've had a pretty slow week. I've taken possibly a couple hundred pictures of Christopher just this week. His smile is just adorable, but when I put that camera to my face, there will be no more smiling. He immediately frowns and will not be convinced to smile again, no matter the silly faces or noises I make. I did get a couple of half smiles, but seriously, I took many, many pictures to get those.

At least he is looking alert, and not frowning.

Oh, a bit of a smile.
Um, yeah, getting closer to me with that thing, not helping, Mom!