2009 Ashton Family Catch-up Blog


Ok, well now that it has been almost a whole year to the day since I have posted anything, I thought I would write a blog....a crazy thought, I know. But as a gift to Mike's parents a started a family blog and I thought hopefully that will help inspire me to update our blog more often then yearly.. the goal would be at least monthly....we will see how that goes.
Life for the Ashton's has had a lot of changes in the year 2009. We started the year out buying our first house together in February, also for all you who don't know our family has grown since last year. We now have three children....Reighlyn who is 3, Keegan who will be 2 in January and Kairington who was born in November. Life with three children has been an adjustment, but we are now in the groove of things I think. It was a hard start with a new one because we came home to sick kids and a sick daddy and we all took turns being sick for the first couple of weeks of Kairington's life. Luckily though Kairington never really got sick. Kairington is now 6 weeks old and has started smiling. We have yet to get a picture though...she just started a couple of days ago and it only lasts for a couple of seconds. She is a spitting image of Reighlyn when she was a baby though...so it's kind of weird to see Reighlyn holding a mini her...crazy. We had a bit of a scare with Kairington a couple of weeks ago because she was throwing up so much that we took her in and after 2 ultrasounds, we found out she has the beginnings of a blockage in her stomach that if it continues to grow will have to be fixed surgically, but as of right now she is medicated with some medication for acid reflux and it has been working great. So cross your fingers we will get by without any surgery. She was the smallest baby of the three so she has taken a little bit longer to sleep through the night, but we now have 2 nights of 8 straight hours of sleep....so mom is loving life right now.
Reighlyn is defiantly a 3 year old through and through. When we are in a store and she is deciding to tell mom what is up, someone will look and say you must be 3 and I just have to laugh and agree. She is a VERY talkative little girl and a lot of the time she talks as though she is 10, not 3. I am sure my dad would laugh and say like mother like daughter. Reighlyn's favorite things right now is anything princess. She loves to dress up like a princess( hence her choice for Halloween), she loves to watch them, and seems to think she needs anything that has a princess on it. Reighlyn started preschool this fall and loves it. I called around and found a preschool that would take her in September even though she was still 2 since she was potty trained. She goes 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 to 11:30. It is a great thing all around, she gets to go have fun and learn and mom gets a little break and time to spend one on one time with Keegan more. In the new year, I will hopefully use that time to start doing learning time now that I am finally getting sleep.
Keegan has hit the terrible 2's quite early it seems. He seems to be into everything if you give him half a seconds chance. He has decorated our house with some colorful crayons, washed his hands with toilet water, climbed onto the table to eat anything left, and decided that our couches are best when you climb on top and jump off the back. He is quite the dare devil and has hit his head so much I am amazed that we have not had to visit the ER for stitches or broken bones yet. I am sure it will just get worse as he gets older, the life of a boy I guess.
Mike has recently started a new job. He was working for the local radio station selling advertising and decided to change things up a bit and now sells radio advertising for a Internet radio station called yourldsradio.com. The new job brought more that just a new employer...it also meant his new office was our basement office. It was hard adjustment at first, going from getting up and leaving the house to go to work to not leaving your house sometime for a couple of days at a time. Also learning to deal with the daily noise level that happens when you have 3 children 3 years and under. I think that we all have adjusted pretty well. I am still trying to adjust to being booted out of the basement from 8-5 everyday, but have learned to just check my email in the evenings. I am really trying to talk Mike into buying me a laptop, so I can have Internet access during the day too! We will see how that goes. Mike also we recently called to serve as the Elders Quorum president in our ward. He loves his calling and seems to be getting things all organized in the Quorum.
I am of course sometimes running around with my head cut off it seems since I have 3 very young children, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Along with being a busy mom, cook, house cleaner, taxi driver, and counselor I have found somethings to keep me sane. Back in May or so I started sewing skirts fora local lady who owns her own business. It is the best thing in the world. About once a week or so I go and pick up a load of fabric and the instructions for the skirts I am to make for the week. It is a great stress reliever for me. During the day I can just put the gate up blocking my sewing room and sew while the kids playing the other room and Kairington is either sleeping or hanging out in her swing with me while I sew. My other outlet is I go into Mike's old job, the local radio station, once a week and file paper work, etc for one of the guys that works there. It is great no one is there, so for an hour or so once a week I go and work in complete silence! Church wise I am currently on the enrichment activities committee which is a great calling. We meet once every couple of months and plan things, and then I help set up for the activities. It's great because it gets me involved in things with the ladies at church. Plus its a calling that lets me go to all of my Sunday meetings. I was in nursery from the time we moved into the ward at the beginning of the year until I had Kairington. It was fun at first, but it got old the bigger I got pregnancy wise, so it was good to be done with that calling.
Well that is kind of the short version of what has been happening in our lives this past year. I will post some pictures of the kids to update everyone what they all look like now. Happy Holidays!