Who says that boys don't help in the kitchen?

When I was in the girls room cleaning up toys, and getting them ready for bed. Zack crawled out of the room and went off to play. Now most of the time he goes into his room and pulls all his toys off the shelf. When I went into the kitchen this is what I found.

All the dishes in the dishwasher were dirty, but he was helping me unload anyway.

Thanks Zack for all your help and many great laughs.

What does a snow queen and a black eye have in common?

Emma!!!

All winter long Emma has been wanting to build a snow queen. So this last snow storm we got Uncle Craig came over and helped them build the best snow queen I have ever seen. You can't tell from this picture, but she is very well endowed(Andrew helped with that part). After church today they wanted to take a picture of her before she melted away.

On Thursday I got a call from Emma's teacher telling me that she fell on the playground and hit her eye. Three days later this is what it looks like. It gets more and more purple every day. The morning after she hit it her eye was swollen shut. She missed two days of school and got a lot of attention at church. She was kinda embarrassed, but I told her is looked really cool.

Just another week at the Ashby house!!!!

Changing

As I look back on the last year, my family has had many changes. The best change was having Zack come into our family. He is a great little boy, full of energy and spunk. In September Emma went to her first year of school, and then we moved. Four days before Thanksgiving we moved back. Why all the moving? Well, many reasons, but mostly because it was the best thing for my family. All changes are not easy, and ours were not, but now that we can see the past we are grateful for all that the change has brought us. I have many things in my life to be grateful for, but most of all are these wounderful kids. As you can see they have also changed in many ways.

Christmas Gift

This year for Christmas Marci & I gave my family their last name spelled on blocks. As part of the gift, we found a song by Dierks Bentley "My Last Name." It talks about being a part of something and how special it should be. Here is the link if you want to listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUYzCbZLS0Y
and here is the link for the lyrics:
http://www.lyrics007.com/Dierks%20Bentley%20Lyrics/My%20Last%20Name%20Lyrics.html
...more later...

Many of you know that we have moved. This is our new house. Yes I know that it looks like a old barn. That is because it is. We have some land not far from my parents house that we are trying to build a house on. We are living with my parents and trying to save money for the build. This little old barn has two bedrooms and a bathroom. We have a very close family. Life is good! We look forward to our future. While being at mom parents house we have come to acquire many animals. My brother Luke gave Emma a little puppy. She calls him Rascal. He is cute and loves to play with my girls.

The girls were playing around my parents house with this toy horse. They were all on it at once. They sure thought they were funny. Crazy cute girls.

Krista loves the kitties at my mom's. She has been so cute with them. She grabs them every chance she has and loves up to them. They are so good with her. They put up with so much. Krista and Jessica dress them up in doll clothes and push them around in the stroller.

I pulled out my kids holloween costumes the other day and all the kids tried them on. Zack is going to be a puppy. Emma thought it would be fun to take a picture of Zack with Rascal. I think she was right. They look alike don't you think. Zack has been growing up so fast. He wants to be playing with his sisters. He is so close to sitting up on his own, and I am sure that it will only be time before he is off chasing after them. He loved playing with the puppy and being outside. We have loved the fall weather, and look forward to playing in the snow.

Zacky-Po-Packy

Zack sure is growing up fast. He smiles every time I talk to him. I wish all of my kids smiled when I said hello to them. I love how easy going he is, just like his dad. Every time I change his diaper he laughs. His sides are so ticklish. He is my most active baby. I know that he will be running around the house before I know it. My mom tells him that he looks more like Andrew then Andrew looks like Andrew. My little boy is such a joy. I am so thankful that he is in our family. We call him Po-pack. Emma started to call him Zacky-po-packy when he was first born, and the name has just stuck.

The summer has blown by, and I have so much I want to blog about. The sad part is... I no longer have the internet. I only get the chance when I make time to go to my moms. So here is a little update.

Krista--My little girl just turned two. My how the time flies. She is such a joy in my life. I find myself just sitting back and watching her all of the time. Her smile is contages. She has been keeping me very busy this summer. She loves to take all her clothes off and run around the house in the nude. I don't love this so much, but she seams to be winning the battle.


My Zacky-po-packy-- I sure do love this little boy. He is so much fun and such a good boy. He is really getting to be fun. He loves to play patty-cake and laughs at me all the time. I love to see him smile. He looks so much like his daddy did when he was a baby. My mom tells me he looks more like Andrew then Andrew looks like Andrew. I can't belive how fast he is growing up. I feer that before I know it, he will be off on his mission and trying to conquer the world.

Andrew and I took the kids to the Zoo for Kristas birthday. Krista was being a monkey while looking at the monkeys.