Yesterday was my birthday!  Not near as exciting as turning the big 3-0 last year, but I’m happy to have made it another year nonetheless.  I continue to be blessed with a happy, healthy family.  Life is good great! 

Van got Ashley up and ready in the morning so I could sleep in.  And when I came downstairs, I was greeted by a Bojangles and Starbucks breakfast.  YUM!!  He also got me a new lens and larger SD card for my camera.  Which I have been playing with all day as evidenced by the random pictures above.  I have fallen in love with my camera all over again! 

Then we went out for dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  Oh, it was lovely.  Let me just tell you, we are now one of those families.  It seems like not that long ago we would go out to eat and be annoyed by the misbehaving children sitting at the table behind us.  We would comment on how “bad” the parents must be.  HA!  Well, now the tides have turned and we are the ones in the lime light.  At first, dinner was going great.  Ashley was content in the high chair, she loved the bread, and played with the crayons.  Then the meal came.  She threw about half of her grilled cheese sandwich and broccoli on the floor.  We watched as it got mushed by the servers walking by and other customers tried to walk around it.  Van told her “no” when she attempted to toss more food behind her and then she started crying.  I guess her feelings got hurt, but the crying was so loud and animated you would have thought she had gotten spanked.  So I pulled her out of the high chair, much to the delight of the surrounding patrons.  And she sat in my lap as I tried to finish my dinner.  That is, until she noticed there were people in the booth behind us.  At which time she decided to stand up and stare at them, bang on the back of the booth, and then yell at them.  Van:  “Check please!”   So I chugged the rest of my beer as fast as I could and boxed up my food.  Once we got home, Van gave her a bath so I could eat the rest of my steak.  Oh, the joys of toddlerhood!  Happy birthday to me

As for Miss Ashley, she is growing like a weed.  Well, more like a beautiful flower, but you know what I mean   She will be 7 months old tomorrow and her development is really picking up lately. She has 2 little teeth buds on her lower gums.  She’s been teething for a while, but you can just now see the teeth that are about to come through.  You can feel them too!  It’s so neat.  The past few days the amount of drool she puts out has really increased.  So between the dogs and a teething baby, I’ve got drool coming out of my ears!  I can’t imagine my baby with teeth.  I’m going to miss that gummy smile of hers!  She is also on the verge of crawling.  If she’s sitting up, she’ll flip foward on her tummy and reach out for things.  You can tell she wants to move but doesn’t know how just yet.  It won’t be long now.  She also does it if you are holding her.  She’ll bend down like she wants to be put down to crawl.  I feel like she just mastered sitting up, so I hope I can enjoy this little milestone before she goes to the next.  But whatever she wants to do is fine by me!  She also has this fascination with the tags on her toys.  Not sure if this is a baby thing or Ashley thing.  But she loves messing with the tags on her stuffed animals.  It’s like she’s trying to figure out what they are.  She looks at them real methodical like and concentrates on them.

Anyway, so much for a short post.  I’m listening to Bob Marley and I guess he’s making me ramble.  Enjoy the picture show!