ashton with his greatgrandmom

well, we finished laying tile. it looks awesome. i love the tile we picked out. we started laying down our wood floor yesterday (it looks equally as awesome). david and i can't wait until we are finally able to move in. we even hooked up the fridge last night. rest of the appliances should be going in today or tomorrow. the one i am the most excited about is our washer! i have put off laundry for the last few weeks. ashton is wearing clothes that he hasn't even grown into yet! lol. i just don't see the point in paying for my laundry to get wet and not clean anymore. we should have internet at the house by wednesday and i switched over our mail. i can't believe this is finally happening! 

i am grateful that david's dad has helped us. david and i went in thinking this would be an easy project. it's been far from easy and we would have not be able to complete it on our own! our house looks as good as it does because of david's dad. i'm not looking forward to the move. we have so much stuff. i almost want to say we have more than enough and even though our new place is much much larger (by 1100 sqft) i will still have to find things to get rid of. i hate clutter. it only makes my life miserable. 

progression pictures.

i had enough questions of when i was going to finally post progression pictures. so here you have it. in slide show form. i am too lazy and tired to post them one by one here on my blog. enjoy! we **finally** finished painting last night. tile started going down today. i hope we get to move in this weekend. internet/phone/cable is supposed to be hooked up on april 1st. i still need to get our mail switched over. sand and refinish several pieces of furniture. 

i don't think i like this whole sleeping through the night business

ashton slept 5-6 hours twice last week. i was happy and thrilled because the much needed rest was awesome! well. i put him to bed at 9pm last night (though he was asleep at 8:30pm. i rocked him for an extra 30mins. i wanted to make sure he was asleep since david didn't sleep here last night). i woke up at 5:30am with super rock hard (painful) breasts and a really deep sickening feeling in my stomach when i realized that ashton hadn't woken up. i thought he had died or something. omg i will never forget this night. he slept almost 8 HOURS! i know they say you shouldn't wake a sleeping baby but i did. ashton is fine and ate like a pig. i think i prefer him to wake up several times a night. at least until this whole SIDS thing is over. for my sanity sake and boobs sake. 

now i can't go back to sleep. i pulled ashton into bed with me. i don't think i want him sleeping anymore today lol. 

i bet david won't believe me when i tell him he slept that long lol. david decided to stay at the house with his parents so he could work late and get up super early and start right away again. we managed to get the flooring out. (what a pain). david told me that the tile we are putting down is staying down forever. we had some ugly tile in the entry and they had to rent a tool that looked like a jack hammer to get it all up. we picked out our paint yesterday. i am going to paint ashton's room a super light blue. it was called "italian ice". oh la la. 

our new fridge and oven are now sitting in our garage! i can't wait to get the tile down in the kitchen so we can plug those in. lol. we pick up the dishwasher today. 

teething?! already?!

ashton has been a handful the last few days. real needy. cranky. moody. fussy. crying a ton. refuses the breast. gnawing on his fists. drooling. won't take naps. won't sleep at night. no fever though. at least not yet. i didn't think babies teethed this early but apparently they do. poor little boy. i'm calling the pedi tomorrow to make sure it is what it is and what i can do to help him. at first i thought maybe it could be a peanut allergy since i eat a lot of peanutbutter. i am still going to give up peanuts for awhile and see if that helps his eczema.

   

still kicking.

i have resorted back to my kit lens. i need a new zoom lens. i love my primes but they are hard to use for normal "snap shot" photography. too bad we spent all our money on a new fridge, oven, dishwasher, and elfa storage. lol. i guess i will just have to get my butt into gear once i move in to our house (if i am even able to get everything moved over there) and start selling my junk on ebay. right?! i really really really want a $$$ canon L series lens $$$. i am very impatient in waiting for that to happen so i might just settle for a tamaron lens. maybe in five years i will be able to finally own a L series lens. oh how i wish i was super rich. okay maybe not. we are very blessed and i am happy with what we were given/have. 

david's parents are coming in today! i am sooooo excited. they get to meet ashton for the first time and see our first house. and it also means our flooring is going to be installed (yipee) and the walls repainted (the current walls are dirty and are not washable) we ordered the flooring yesterday. moving over there has been a slow taunting task. i can only get things done when ashton goes to bed. so that means we are over at the house until about 1am-2am every day. i can't wait for all of this to be over. i finished my pantry! i am in love with my pantry! i bought some elfa storage and went to town on it. every time i walk by i make sure to stop for a few seconds and appreciate my new pantry. i love my kitchen. REALLY LOVE it and it's going to be even more awesome once we get all the new appliances in. we are so blessed to be able to afford beautiful new appliances. 

i am going to go into our appliances. if you don't care about that stuff i would suggest you to stop reading here :o).

my oma (grandmother) is buying us a washer. i can't wait for that to happen. i am so sick of paying $1.50 per load to wash all our stuff in crappy top loader washers that don't even get breastfed poop out. we plan on getting a front loader. i have researched front loaders for years. i really want a miele but they are just way to expensive for us (worth every penny if you can afford it though!). i need a washer that is energy efficient, doesn't waste water but also has an internal heater (to heat the water even hotter since our water heater is set at 120F for safety reasons). we plan on getting the bosch 500nexxt plus series.

it heats up the water to 170F to kill germs or 150F for heavily soiled items (awesome). it also needs a high spin speed. bosch is at 1100rpm which is pretty decent. this is important because it spins out A LOT of water making drying in a dryer faster which equals to less energy ($$$) used. (the government doesn't require dryers to be energy efficient.. have you ever noticed that they NEVER have the energy efficient tag inside to let you know how much it will cost to run in a year? yeah, well that's why). i am having david install a clothes line in our yard since i plan on taking advantage of the texas summer sun to dry our clothes and help save money. plus the sun is a great bleaching tool. every time i visit my family in germany they get our dingy dirty clothes WHITE. for the longest time i couldn't figure out why. it's because, a)they use a great washer with an internal heater, and b)they line dry in the sun. live and learn! 

oh and one more thing. ::steps on soap box::  i was researching reviews regarding this washer. a lot of people complained that front loaders take too long to wash their clothes. yeah that's normal. americans are so used to short washing periods and don't realize that clothes aren't really getting clean. TRUST ME you think your top loader is doing it's job. it isn't. every single time i go to my family in germany it shows us how dirty our clothes truly are! it takes A LONG time to completely wash your clothes correctly. so the hour or so that it takes to wash clothes in a front loader is normal and expected. that's what makes them so awesome! quit leaving bad reviews for something that is supposed to happen. tia! ::steps off soap box::

david and i purchased a fridge and oven from a sears outlet store the day we closed only to return it the next day. we weren't happy with it (didn't have that "feel good" feeling). i am soooo glad we did. we purchased our fridge and oven from lowe's yesterday. both samsung brand. wasn't intentional. it was just what we loved and the reviews for both items were pretty awesome. eek i have a true convection OVEN!!

i am going to love our new dishwasher. it's quiet. i hate loud dishwashers. i thought the one in our apartment was loud. our current one in the house is a million times worse. david and i were both taken back by how EXTREMELY loud it was. we could hardly hear ourselves talking lol. it could be just the fact the house is empty and has tall ceilings causing it to echo and sound louder. either way it was loud enough for us to want a  new one. 

happy st.patty's day!

i am beyond stressed right now. to sum it up. ashton + moving = A LOT of work. tia. 

here are some pictures i took of ashton today. cuteness overload.

we closed. finally.

we signed our closing papers yesterday and went straight over to the sears outlet to get our fridge and oven tonight. then we drove to our new house to find out the electricity was never turned on (or the water! grrr. making some phone calls tomorrow). we ended up walking around in the dark. we are so excited. david wants to wake up super early tomorrow to head over to lowes to get him his drill and a few other things we need (dishwasher. yip) and then we are headed back to the house to gut it. i am sort of sad to see the carpet go. i dislike carpet  since we have cats and it gets nasty real quick. but the softness, warmth, and squishyness of carpet will be missed. we plan on getting a REAL (4000gram) flokati rug for the living room... someday, when we can afford it :o/. 

we have a lot of work ahead of us. it's going to be a stressful month. i can tell. tons of our main furniture pieces have to be refinished. david's dad is coming up tuesday to help install our new floors and paint. i might start packing tonight and take stuff over tomorrow. not exactly sure what.  you have no idea how much junk we have. on top of it a 2month old who is still demanding to be held constantly. we can't take his swing back and forth as it's too big. his bouncer is portable but he doesn't sleep well in it. i need the swing for nap times. he doesn't like the amby during the day for some odd reason. if i am down at the house during the day anyway i guess it doesn't matter if it's at the house or apartment lol. 

when we walked in tonight it smelled like a house. i can't explain it. david said it smelled like someone elses' house. not ours. i liked the smell, it was fresh and clean. ::sigh:: anyway. david wants to start living in the house by the end of next weekend. doesn't mean we will have all our stuff moved over.

annoyed.

no, not at ashton. although he did put up a fight going down for bed tonight (no crying involved just a bunch of happy smiles and squeals lol). david always puts ashton to bed and because of our little happy guy i had to take over so david will be able to be fully rested for work tomorrow.

i am annoyed because we were "supposed" to close on our house last friday. they told us due to the title company not having their end finished (something about a survey) they wouldn't be able to. david set a date and time to close for today, wednesday at 9am (before he had to go to work. it was the easiest for him). but tuesday our realtor called and told us that the title company still hadn't gotten their act together and wondered if we could close on thursday. david politely told her that he had to get it done today since he asked off for work (which is true). she changed the 8am to 4pm. around 3pm this afternoon david receives a call from our mortgage loan officer. she tells us we are going to sign the closing papers and we need to hand over the cashier's check and the "seller" (which is a bank since it's a foreclosure) would sign their part tomorrow and we would then receive the keys to our new house. we were annoyed but figured at least we would finally be getting somewhere. then our realtor calls us minutes later (10 to be in fact) letting us know she just talked to our loan officers supervisor and we would not be closing today! wtheck!? the realtor NOW tells us we will be closing on THIS friday. but our loan officer is out of town on friday and she sort of has to be there for the closing. UGH. so the realtor tells us to call the "seller aka bank" to get them to come down tomorrow (thursday) for the closing. unfortunately, they are legally allowed to have 48hours to finish the closing and since our loan officer didn't send or get everything done until tuesday night that means they have until friday. so here we are.. sitting around.. wondering when we will finally become homeowners!

david has to ASK off again. i feel like this will never happen. i feel like everyone but us are dragging their damn feet. we are not happy with our realtor or the loan officer (who was recommended by our realtor). we also found out that our realtor has not been honest with us. for example. she told us she couldn't close this morning because the title company or whatever. but we found out from the loan officer it was because it was her kids birthday and she took them out to lunch. (PROFESSIONAL!). david is sick of all of it. he just wants them to close so we can put all this behind us! ON TOP of that our locked rate at 5.5% expired today. we are READY to close! we have done everything they have asked for us to do ON TIME and they are the ones screwing up and we are going to lose our locked rate of 5.5% (rates have gone up). thankfully they called back to let us know they extended it until friday. seriously. this is such a damn headache! LETS HOPE they pull their stuff together and we end up with a house BY FRIDAY! considering what has happened so far i bet it won't happen :o(

BREAKING NEWS!!

ashton: "what?! what do you mean it's gone?"

me: "you'll get over it" ::does a happy dance::

that's right! ashton LOST HIS UMBILICAL CORD TODAY @ 8weeks 5days old!

feeling like a bad mother already.

my poor sweet boy.

gosh. ashton puts up with so much. he really does. today was his 2 month well check. i went in thinking he had cradle cap and baby acne and came out knowing he has eczema. not a big deal really. but after reading the symptoms it makes sense. ashton sleeps pretty well. though, often he squirms with his eyes shut and acts as if he is super uncomfortable (he doesn't make any noises). now i know why. he was itchy. can you imagine having an itch and not being able to scratch it yourself? how miserable for him! all this time! :o( i know it's not my fault and i can't blame myself . i can't help but feel like i should have known something was not right when he acted uncomfortable. 

::::::::SIGH::::::::

pedi gave us some Rx hydrocortisone cream with some instructions on how to keep it under control. i have to put lotion on him three times a day plus the cream if there is a flare up. poor kid. it could be worse. but i still feel badly for him. 

his umbilical cord is still attached to his budah belly. the  nurse asked me if i had any concerns or questions. when i told her i twas still attached she looked at me as if i was joking. lol. pedi put some silver nitrate on it and told me if it hasn't fallen off in a week to come back in for another silver nitrate treatment. i really hope it falls off before then. stubborn thing will NOT COME OFF!

ashton is a little chub for sure. weighing in at 13lbs and 3ounces and measuring 24inches long. he went from being in the 50th percentile to the 90th! other than above, everything is perfect just like it should be.

a day at the zoo.

it was a warm day today so we made sure to enjoy it! it was also ashton's first trip to the zoo.

soooooo...

i haven't updated in a week. shock i know. truth is. i am reallllly sleep deprived despite the fact ashton sleeps really well. we learned that his "fussy" period was actually a put me down for sleep period and we have been trying to figure out how early and how late we are able to put him to bed without complications. lucky for us he can go to bed at 7:30pm and "sleep" until his normal wake up time at 8am (which is unlucky for me because i am not a morning person. just ask my mother).he isn't sleeping through the night yet. but he will wake up, nurse, and go RIGHT back to sleep. so, how am i sleep deprived? i go to bed at midnight when i should be going to bed when ashton does. ::le sigh:: i will get the hang of it somehow. 

we were supposed to close on our house this friday! but the mortgage broker called us letting us know the title company is being slow at getting what they need to finalize it. ugh. i hope they get their act together. david had planned on ripping out the flooring in the house this weekend so we could install our new flooring (pergo and tile) sometime next week. ::double le sigh::

i haven't started packing. we have to pay two months of rent at our apartments. no rush in moving things over right away. besides i want to wait until our flooring is installed. i might start taking things i don't need or need to be stored in the attic before we move in. which has me worried because ashton is still a clingy little fella. how in the world am i to move with an 8week old attached to me? unfortunately, ashton is still not enjoying babywearing. of course we have only tried the moby and hotsling. moby.... well, i am going to be honest. sucks! i know there are a lot of lovers of the moby and i understand why. but for me, it's just too cumbersome. ashton doesn't like to be snuggled tightly. he hates it! the moby does just that. it literally squishes him up against me which makes him root for milk. doesn't matter if he JUST ate  (and not hungry) he will still do it. then he gets frustrated and starts crying ::triple le sigh:: you see where i am going with this? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! it's 18feet of FABRIC! i have tried nursing him with it on but it's just a messy disaster. so i have to unwrap 18feet of fabric while still holding on to ashton to nurse him and then (somehow) re-wrap 18feet of fabric and put him back in. it's TIME consuming. so why keep it if i am only going to whine about it? i am hoping that someday ashton will learn to love it/and/or stop rooting for food all.the.time. i really love the forward facing position. i think ashton would love it once he knows how to hold is head up really well. ashton does have some "good" days in the wrap where he falls asleep for hours but they are far and few. 

hotsling. made me feel fat. i'm not even going to get into the hotsling issue. just take my word and don't buy a sling until AFTER you have had your baby!

i haven't tried my mei tai just yet. it came in the mail a few days ago and ashton was so flustered by the moby (pictured below: i had to wear it down to the office ot pick up my babyhawk) and hungry that i figured i would try it a different day. maybe today i will find a reason or ashton will give me a reason to try it out. we shall see. ::crosses fingers:: 

i haven't updated with pictures in awhile. which i know bothers my mom! lol. i am itching for some new actions from MCP. omgosh her stuff is awe-some! i really really really really want her blog it board actions! it's been tough convincing david i need them because i don't really need them and he knows it. but, i find it highly unfair he gets a new kegerator while i get nadda. okay so i am over exaggerating. i am trying to find a good reason why i deserve them and frankly i have none. unless you count breastfeeding for two months.. oooh yeah! whoot. let me just say, i love breastfeeding. a lot. i didn't in the beginning but it's true what they say. hold out and it will get better and it DID! way better!

i was going through ashtons official birthday pictures. man. he has changed so much. i already miss how tiny he was!  someday i will share that day with people. but for now i will share only one picture. as most of you know, ashton was born frank breech. frank breech babies have funny legs when they are first born. this picture cracks me up!

look at his toes.. hahahaha. omgosh LOL!

ashton, crying in the moby wrap :o(