All about Ashlyn!

Zane sent me and email the other day that said "Poor Ashlyn" in the subject line. I opened the email and it was this picture:

He had entered our blog address into a program called Wordle. It generates these pictures to show you the words you use most often. Apparently I only talk about Bryson. However, in my defense, I think this is a little inaccurate since I just did a post completely about Bryson. But now today is Ashlyn's turn!


Awww, my sweet Ashy! Her soft, high pitched voice and brown curls always make me smile! She loves her babies and her "bawbie". She constantly wants to use the potty and loves taking baths. She would be happy eating chicken nuggets, yogurt, string cheese, and "bwalalalalalas" (bananas) for every meal.

Ashlyn is our little parrot. Thank goodness no one in our house has a habit of using bad words because she repeats everything! This is a good thing and a bad thing because even though she copies Zane and me quite a bit, she really likes to copy Bryson which is not so good! Oh well, at least she's talking and that calms my fears! One day we pulled into our driveway and I turned around and saw her chewing on something. I asked her what she was eating and she said "Doot" (dirt). I asked her where she got dirt and she said "my shoe". Ummm, okay...Gross! Another day I was in the post office with her and she got so excited and started yelling "mouse, mouse!" I (along with everybody in line behind us, I'm sure) looked over expecting to see a small rodent running across the floor. Instead, I saw Mickey Mouse on the boxes the Post Office was selling. Yes Ashlyn, that is a mouse!

She loves her brother so much and wants to do everything he does:


(they were waiting for the bathtub to fill up)

In fact, he's even trained her to always ask for Cici's or McDonald's to eat and she asks to watch iCarly.

Ashlyn is also our big helper, our overachiever...whatever you want to call it. She will jump up and perform any task we ask Bryson to do. She even runs to beat him to it if he is about to do something. And if she doesn't do what we ask her to do and Bryson starts to do it she will start crying. She loves to clean up toys and put clothes into the washing machine. Every single day at Bryson's school, she has to pick up at least 2 rocks off the sidewalk and go put them back in the rock bed where they belong (I think she would pick up all of them if I let her).



(Ashlyn was found hiding in her closet today rearranging the baby wipes)

Ashlyn pretends to be very shy when people talk to her. She is the child who will hide behind my legs while people try to say "hi" to her. She will also suck her thumb and turn her head away, refusing to make eye contact, if she doesn't want to talk to you. Zane always says she is definitely a girl with her attitude!

Along with all of her sweet characteristics, she can also be a bully. She loves her brother, but also loves to pick on him. If he's quietly laying on the floor playing or watching tv, she will run up and sit on his belly. If he's in his room playing with 2 cars, she will run in, take 1 car away, and run back out. If he's sitting down eating his afternoon snack with her, she will take his snack and add it to hers. When Bryson is playing the Wii, Ashlyn will turn the tv off. Well, why am I telling you about her bullying? Watch for yourself:

Oh, Ashlyn, you are quite the character!

Go ahead Zane, Wordle this! :)

My sweet boy!

I have decided it is time to give some individual attention to each of my kids. Today I will update you on some things about Bryson. I have heard many people comment on how they love watching videos of Bryson and hearing how he always says Mommy or Daddy in every sentence. This is so true! He will always address who he's speaking to. He also loves to say "pease" and "gangkoo" (please and thank you). He asks if we're okay anytime we make a sound (hiccup, cough, say ouch, etc.) I'm not bragging on my son, but I do have to say that he is so, so polite! I have a feeling that it is because these are words that we understand and that makes him feel proud. He will use any word we know as often as possible (but, hey, I'm not complaining when it means being polite)! Some examples:

*Bryson thanks us for EVERYTHING we do! Sometimes we don't even realize we've done something nice for him, but he does. The other day I was getting him dressed and asked him which new shirt he wanted to wear (we couldn't pass up the $1 clearance shirts). He chose his shirt and then ran out to Zane and said, "Oh gangkoo daddy my new sirt" (Thank you daddy for my new shirt). It was so sweet! At any meal time he thanks us for everything. He just recently said, "Gangkoo mommy daddy my caco, caco dell" (Thank you mommy and daddy for my taco at Taco Bell). Even if we do something tiny like wipe his nose or open his curtains we hear "Oh, gangkoo mommy/daddy".

*He also likes to act things out. Anything he can show us instead of telling us, he will. It is common around our house to hear "My moomie do dis" or "Nor moomie do dis" or "People do dis" (my movie/your movie/people do this) followed by an action of what was done.

*Usually around the age of 2, kids start asking all their questions (Why?). Bryson has learned to ask "Who dat?" (Who's that)? He asks this all the time! It's kind of embarrassing at his school when he asks me who every student and teacher is and I have to tell him I don't know.

*The other day I was dropping him off at school. I take him straight to the cafeteria where he eats with his class. As Ashlyn and I were leaving he yelled at the girl next to him to "Thay (Say) bye bye to Ky Ky!" He kept yelling this at her until I told him that he could say bye to Ashlyn and the other girl didn't have to. He loves his little sister!

Some funny converstations I've had or overheard from Bryson recently:

I took the kids through the drive thru at Burger King one night while Zane was at class. Bryson wanted to eat his cheeseburger in the car but I told him we needed to stop and get gas in the car then we would go home and they could eat. As I was leaving the gas station I heard Bryson say "Go mommy go!" I told Bryson I couldn't go because I was at a stop sign and I had to wait for the cars to move. All of a sudden Bryson yelled from the backseat, "Moob cars, my got theesegurger!!!!!!" (Move cars, I've got a cheeseburger!!)
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One night I got the hiccups and this was our conversation:

B: Noo okay mommy? (Are you okay mommy)

Me: Yes, I'm okay. I just have the hiccups.

B: [Grabs my hand and pulls me to the kitchen] "Noo dink narnar pease mommy." (You drink water please mommy.)

Me: Okay, is that what you learned at school?[I take a drink]

B: Yes. Noo okay mommy?

Me: Yes, I'm okay now Bryson!

B: Oh, gangkoo dink narnar mommy! (Oh, thank you for drinking water mommy)

Me: You're welcome. Thank you for the good idea!

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And finally, on the way home from school the other day (after his teacher had said he had a great day at school) this was our conversation:

B: My thit titeout aday (I sat in timeout today)

Me: You sat in timeout? How come?

B: My do dis... [spitting noise] (I did this...)

Me: Bryson we don't spit on our friends. That's not a nice thing to do.

B: People do dat...[spitting] (But people do that)

Me: I don't care if other people spit. You're not allowed to spit!

B: Oh, okay mommy.
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These pictures had nothing to do with the post, but I knew it wouldn't get read without any pictures! :)

Oh, and don't forget to check out the post below if you haven't yet! I'll post the videos again with subtitles in a few days!

What's that you say??

Happy Veteran's Day to all! Zane and Bryson were out of school today so we have been able to spend time together. We had an awesome lunch! I had leftover roast from a couple nights ago and I was going to try to make baked taquitos with it. Instead, we turned it into a great Mexican lunch. Zane fried up some tortilla chips and taco shells and even a couple taquitos while I made the homemade guacamole and salsa. I will definitely be making roast all the time if we can always have leftovers like that!

We've been doing a whole lot of this lately since everyone except Zane is sick:

It was brought to my attention that it would be fun to put up some videos of Bryson and see what all you guys could understand without me translating. I see a major improvement from the year and a half he's been in therapy but I also know a lot of it is the fact that I'm home with him all the time and I'm learning his new language (which his therapists have told me is a good start). Zane has noticed that since he's working all day now teaching, he doesn't understand Bryson as much as he used to. So, what do you guys understand?? If you're competitive and want to try, grab a sheet of paper and a pencil and jot down what you hear. If you want to put it in the comments you can. In a couple days I will put the videos up again but with subtitles at the bottom. Should be fun!!!

This video is of us all playing kitchen. This is usually one of the easiest topics for us to understand because he has to practice daily on telling us what he wants to eat or what he ate at school:

And to give you guys another "easy" one, this book is colors and then 1-2 items of that color (and please disregard the drama at the end...I have another video to put up another day to show that Ashlyn is usually the bully) :)