Easter & Roseola

So, we had a great Easter. 
We dyed eggs with Ashlynn for the first time and she had so much fun.
 We went to my dad's house to do it and dyed with my little brother. 

She wanted to stick her hands in all of the dyes and was great at putting her eggs in the cups herself. 

Here we are in our dye safe clothes :) 

And here she is with Daddy!

And she always has to run off to the puppy kennel ... 

My grandma was visiting so I wanted pictures ...

And I got some with my dad too ...

And then Sunday Morning we woke up to something crazy ! There was a sandbox in our apartment ...

The Easter Bunny must have been feeling generous :) 

"Mom, Please get me out of bed and don't take pictures of me with bed head." 

"What is it?" 

"I don't know if you noticed but there is a big turtle in the living room."

"Oh .... It has DVD's !"

Poke!

"Sidewalk Chalk! Can we open it now?" 

 This nice turtle fellow is still sitting in the living room and his 100 pounds of sand in the back of my car because we've had a week straight of rain, thunderstorms, and some tornadoes thrown in for good measure. 

Here is my hubby in his nice "Easter" apron ... We made dinner at his mom's because she had to work all day. 

And Monday morning we woke up to a baby with a 101 fever that went up for the next two days. She finally started getting better Wednesday night and then Friday morning she woke up with a rash. . . 
She has Roseola.


She's been laying on the couch with mommy and/or daddy all week. 
Poor Buggy :( 

Daddy and Baby

I realize that Ashlynn is not really a "Baby" anymore, but to me she will always be my baby. 

It's hard to remember that on days like this one though.

Here is her Daddy teaching her to play some ball. 

She looks ready to knock one out of the park ... or at least my dad's front yard ! 

(And she's carrying the random paper because that is what she does. She finds something random that catches her fancy and you can't get it away from her for hours sometimes.)

Linking up here for Saturday Snapshot ...

My name is Megan .

So, It has come to my attention that I haven’t really shared much about who I am,  where I’ve come from, or what made me who I am today.  I’d like to rectify that, so I’m going to start sharing more with you about me and my past and what is going on in my life.

My name is Megan and this is an introduction to my family.

I was born 22 years ago on April 1^st to a man named Don and a woman named Kathy. I have an older sister and one younger brother. When I was eight, my sister was ten, and my brother was four, my parents divorced. My dad remarried about six months later and mom about a year or so after that.  They each had another son with their respective spouses. Those little brothers are 8 & 9. 

My favorite thing about my dad is that he paints army men.

 Like this. 

Yea they look gross but it requires a mad amount of skills. 

My second favorite thing about my D.A.D is that he is an attorney who has decorated his office with Superheros. Yea. And he's a good attorney, not some nut job. 

He’s a big old nerd. And he instilled that in me from birth. Actually when I have time, I like to nerd out by playing World of Warcraft … yea … I know.  In addition to this he introduced us to things like Dungeons and Dragons and Talisman. There is a picture of me floating around somewhere where my dad is teaching me to play Talisman. I was about six weeks old. He is now separated from my Stepmom, but we still see her pretty often.

My sister is two years older than me. To say we’ve been through a lot together is an understatement. My parents got divorced when I was eight and she was ten. It was not a pretty time in our lives. And neither were the next ten years really. I have a pretty intense belief that if it weren’t for my sister being there to go through that with me I wouldn’t have made it. The only thing that kept me going through pretty bad depression was my awesome older sister and my desire to not leave her. She is now in college, about to start Grad School and I am very proud of her. The day she got accepted I might have cried a little bit.

My Mom is a stay at home mom to my youngest brother.  She used to be a teacher. She is an incredibly strong person. My brother is 8 and has Asperger’s Syndrome. If you don’t know what that is I’d suggest reading up about it. It requires a lot of love, patience, and faith in something higher to parent a child of Asperger’s. My brother is amazing. He is very intelligent and just about the best snuggle buddy in the world. He loves my daughter fiercely and feels it is his job to protect her from the world, which I think might be the most adorable thing ever.  But he is also the most frustrating kid I know, and that is why I respect my mother more than pretty much anyone, because honestly, I don’t think I could do it. My mom isn’t perfect. She admits that she thinks she’s made mistakes, but no one else I know could do half the job she has done of raising that kid. And that is a fact. She is still married to my Stepdad. He camps with my older brother, and both he and my mom are really involved in Scouts. My Stepdad has to travel a couple days a week usually for work. He moved here to get married to my mom and start his life over from Pittsburgh, PA. 

My oldest brother is an Eagle Scout. In fact, he just turned 18 and he just became an Eagle Scout. I’m super-duper proud of him. This is the main wall from his project.  

He, and his helpers, painted this mural in a local Elementary School. I think it is absolutely beautiful. My brother is one of those kids that can go camping for weeks and not really care that he’s off in the wilderness somewhere. I’ve never gone real camping with him, but I hear he’s pretty much amazing out there and it is where he belongs.  He is also one of those kids that is amazing at video games. He’s been playing them from birth practically and just knocks them out. He now has a youtube where he shows other people how to beat video games. People like me who aren’t savvy enough to figure them out for themselves. *Sigh* He’s now teaching his mad skills to my middle brother, who is nine. I’m pretty sure he’s giving my older brother a run for his money.

So now you know a little about my family. We are all a little nutty and there have been times when I’ve wanted to run away from all of them, but they are my family and I love them. Without each of them I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Luckily, I get to see all of them relatively often and I still live in the next town over. I wouldn’t mind moving one day, but for now I like that my daughter is getting to know her extended family so well. 

Waiting to Try

So, as you know my husband and I went on a vacation this past week. 
We were gone for a week and each day I missed my little bug more and more than the day before. 
It was amazing to come home and see her. She looked like she'd grown four inches and was saying about 37 more words, including the phrase "What is it?" Which may be the most adorable thing I've every seen. She is picking everything up right now, looking at me, and saying "What is it?" 
It makes my heart smile. 
And it's things like this that make it hard to wait to have another one :) 
But we are. 
Because we want one of these babies: 

Before we have one of these babies: 

Yea. We want a little boy :) 
We've even picked out names for the next, and last, one. 
* Sigh *
How adorable will it be to have Ashlynn holding her little sibling ? 
Too adorable <3
But for now it's on hold. 
For 17 months to be exact. Josh and I have decided to start trying September of 2012.  
We hope to buy a house in Spring/Early Summer 2013 and we want to have a baby shortly thereafter. 
Yea ... we're a little crazy :) But at least Ashlynn should be potty trained by then ! She will be 3 1/2. 
But until then I'm going to enjoy all of the time I get with my little bug and the little moments that make me want to make her a big sister. 
So ! Does anyone have two little ones around 3 1/2 years apart? How do you like it? And of course how do you make it 17 months when you have baby fever ?! I have a feeling I will need help with that ! 

Highlights From Branson !

I thought I would share our trip with you ... or at least the bits you may be interested in ! 

This is our condo ... or rather my in-laws. My favorite part is the Jacuzzi tub . 

<3

Here we are on our way to Branson and the yummy watermelon I brought with us!

We always spend time playing cards when we are on vacation. It's something fun we don't usually make time for at home. The next two photos are us at Panera ... yea ... we had to spend about half a day there so that I could finish my research paper for Sociology. It was about 70 degrees and all I could think about was how much I would rather be any where else during my vacation ! 

Here we are at Cantina Laredo ! A great gourmet mexican place on Branson Landing. It is a strip with tons of shops and yummy food on the lake. During our meal a random water and fire show started. It was pretty neat! 

After lunch we checked out some of the shops. Josh's favorite was this great shop that sold nothing but olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You can see about a third of their stock in the photo. We sampled a bunch and they were so yummy ! Josh decided to get the Red Apple Balsamic and I can't wait to make a salad to have with it !

We also stopped by and got a new charm for my pandora bracelet, a piggy in honor of my piggy bank collection. We got this handmade doll for Ashlynn at another set of shops that focused on handmade sellers. There are a ton of this little shops in Branson ! It was fun to roam around them and see what people could do !

 Here we are when we decided to roam off the map. We were actually looking for the beach ... but it was closed !!!! Apparently April is too early to go to the beach ! But we got to see this AMAZING view and visit the trout farm and the big Dam in Branson. A cool sight to see. The trout farm was neat as well. I'd never seen anything like it. 

 We of course went to an ice cream parlor and it was DELICIOUS ! I had chocolate chip cookie dough :) 

We also went to Dick's 5 & 10 store. It was pretty interesting ... They sell anything you could imagine, including the original Slinky Dog, pre Toy Story ! My face in the bottom corner was me being mad at Josh because he hit my camera against something and I was worried he had hurt my poor baby :) 

We went to the Stone Hill Winery in Branson as well. I'd never been to any sort of Winery so it was neat. It was a cute little place and we got to taste a lot of different wines. We ended up getting a bottle of the Cream Sherry. We had it with dessert after we got home Thursday night and it was very yummy ! 

The last thing we did was to go to this water, light, fire, and music show on Branson Landing Wednesday Night. We got frozen yogurt at the Orange Leaf and went to the show. It was amazing ! Definitely worth a trip down to the Landing just for the show ! 

On Vacation !

Just stopping in to let you all know that we are having a fabulous time in Branson ! 

I miss my little bug but other than that this trip has been great. We've done a ton of eating, shopping, and lazing about so far.

Today we are camped out at Panera Bread so I can work on some homework and then we are probably going to a winery tonight. It will be my first time and I'm excited for the tour.