Vacations Bring Luck

Oh, goodness! Where to start? Well, Aslynn and I flew to Oregon at the end of May. Getting through security by myself with Z, a stroller, 2 bags, and a car seat was a pain in the kiester, but I survived with the help of the sympathetic mother behind me. It took us so long to get through security that we were able to just walk right onto the plane. Aslynn and I had three seats to ourselves with no one around. My sister in-law told me to feed the baby as we took off so that her ears would pop; it took us so long to actually get to the runway that we was asleep before the plane even left the ground. She slept almost the whole way to Redmond.
My mom picked us up. The airport lawn gave Z had her first real, green grass experience. From then on grass/being outside and Aslynn were like this *holds up crossed fingers*.
Luke surprised us all by showing up a couple of days after I got to Bend, and a few days before he was expected to be there. It made everyone’s day! He drove all night and day from California and let me tell you, that’s not a pretty drive.
The main reason we went to Oregon was for my brother, Alex’s graduation. YAY ALEX! College graduation is next!
Luke was quite the multi-tasker and also scheduled an interview for us in Portland with a company called Norris and Stevens. After three interviews in Portland and passing our drug tests we became managers for an apartment community called Hyde Park Terrace in southwest Portland.

We got a majority of our stuff moved up from California, thanks to our family. We moved on July 6th. I’ll post more about that later with pictures of our new apartment. You aren’t allowed to see it right now; it’s embarrassing.
We hung out in Oregon with my family for the month of June. It was a ton of fun. I was able to catch up with some friends and visit with my different family members. Bend is beautiful!
*New favoritest jumperoo from Grandma Sherry*

Aslynn’s getting sp BIG! She learned to sit up, “like a big girl”, before she turned 5 months old. By the time she was 5 ½ months she was working on her soldier crawl. When she first started it was more of a wounded-soldier crawl because she would get one of her arms stuck underneath herself every so often as she tried to move forward; she would have to roll over to un-stick her arm and she would start all over. She’s getting to be pretty good now. There’s no stopping her. She’s all over the place. When she doesn’t want to go around things, she crawls up and over them. She’s bonked her head a couple of times because of this habit but she recovers quickly. She's able to get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth. She also does the "sinkbug" pose where she braces herself on her hands and feet and sticks her bum high in the air.

She especially loves paper. If there is any kind of paper on the floor she will find it and eat it.

Another one of her tricks is playing with her pacifier. She knows what it is, what it is used for and where it goes. All someone has to do is hand it to her and she will put it in and take it out of her mouth herself.

A few weeks ago Aslynn started this “I want Mom; no one else will do” thing. She reaches and cries until I am holding her. It’s cute and makes me feel wanted…some of the time. There are times that I wish she liked other people as much as me. It’s not like I hog her. I am constantly letting other people hold her and play with her. When she gets upset and I won’t pick her up, she’ll crawl over and up onto my lap so I’ll give her attention. She likes to snuggle the people who love her…some more than other but everyone she loves gets some form of positive attention. Still, sometimes a girl just needs some loves and snuggles from her mom.

For quite a while she’s been reaching for our cups and food when we are eating. We decided that we would start her on solid food before she was six months old. We fed her rice cereal at first and she was okay with that. Recently we started her on veggie baby food and she LOVES everything we feed her. She wants to eat more than we’ll let her eat (aka more than the whole container).

We love her. She makes us happy!

We also LOVE our family! We would have never gotten this far without them. THANK YOU!