3+1=4

I know I said I was done blogging, but I just couldn't do it! I missed expressing myself and its so much easier to do here than on a piece or two of notebook paper! Things are so different now. Dad is doing better, but mom had an incident last week. I guess you can say our family is accident/health prone. On her way to church she slipped on their throw rug in the enterance way and fell to the ground in so much pain! They had to have a resuce squad come because she could not move from the laying position without an extreme amount of pain. She is bed ridden now due to a torn pcl, mcl, miniscis (spelling i'm sure is way off) and another pulled joint in her knee. She will go into the surgeon on Tuesday and have surgery in the week to follow. It has been kinda nice me not working because I have been able to do some cooking, cleaning, and even grocery shopping for them. Ashalyn has also been able to keep grandma company while over there because she is getting rather bored sitting around all day! we are just thankful dad is back to work now.

And as far as in our immediate family of Nicholas, Ashalyn and I, we are overwhelmed with joy and pleased to announce that our family of 3 has grown! One day I was feeling a little nausous and all I could think was man, not the flu! Please God! Then it dawned on me that I was over a week past my regularly ontime cycle and sure enough our cheap generic test had two lines. So once again we found ourselves on the way to walmart to buy a more expensive and more trusted pregnancy test.

After the initial shock and realizing Ashalyn was only 5 months old we were so grateful and very excited. Yes, there was the scared feeling of what our families would think, and a few people that were just flat rude with us because we just had a baby and told us we wouldn't be able to handle it and were crazy, but overall we were filled with excitement! I have always had a burning desire to have twins, but wanted it to happen naturally. Since my grandfather was a twinI just thought it'd be neat to carry on the gene. But maybe I won't be able to do that so this is God's way of getting me as close as possible....who knows!! My chances for twins are still pretty high because Nick's dad is also a twin...but having them close together like this could bring some of the same things that a multiple birth would! I have had the chance to be around several sets of twins and even triplets throughout my life and just find the whole process and thought of it absolutely amazing! So with this closeness in age, I look forward to the challenges we will encounter and all the excitement of watching them grow so close over the years! The only one challenge I could skip i think is that when Ashalyn finally gets all her teeth in and no more mouth pain it will start all over with the next one.

The teething process has not been fun. She has been chewing on EVERYTHING! Pretty much anything she can get her hands on becomes a teether. She gnaws on her hands and jabbers and fusses throughout most the night and day. She has been running a low grade fever now for about the past week. You can feel her front teeth and see where they will be coming in, her gums are all white, but no signs of them breaking through yet.

So far the pregnancy has been so much different than that with Ashalyn. I have only had one awful day so far but other than that have felt great!! I really have not had a desire to eat though so I've had a hard time making myself eat when its time. I find myself sleeping pretty heavy at night but havent had the need yet to crawl in bed and sleep my day away like I did with my first pregnancy!! Which is a blessing since now I have a little one to take care of during the day! She has really helped keep my mind off of being pregnant that I havent really had time to get tired i dont think!!

Ashalyn is growing so big and so so fast! In 3 days she will be 6 months. I cannot believe it! But at the same time, I don't remember life before those 6 months. She has truly changed our lives in so so many ways!! WHAT A BlESSING!!!

And just one more recent picture of our beautiful princess!!! This is one of daddy's favorite pictures ever I think!! Chris "Beanie" Wells from THE Ohio State University! We're hoping for a draft pick with the Cleveland Browns this year!! We will see!!