Daddy's creation

Before Ashley was born, daddy started making her some mocassins. He hand beaded them. It took many many hours, but they are finished! He finished them when she was about 3 months old. They look awesome!

Sadly, they are too small, so I think Ashley will get to use them for her dolls when she gets bigger!
To go along with the Indian theme, some friends let us borrow their cradleboard to take a picture of Ashley in...

Walk with Wildlife

Every year Nate and his hawking friends participate in Walk With Wildlife at the Great Plains Nature Center. I have attended every year with him too, this year Ashley and I decided to walk through the exhibit with Chase, Annie, Callista, and Carver.We saw lots of animals...tons of turtles, ducks, crayfish, a beaver, skunk, snakes, frogs, and hawks of course. It turned out to be a really nice day, not too hot.

Callista and the baby ducks swimming in the pond

Chase caught a crayfish

I think I can, I think I can

She did it! She didn't pick one up, but she touched one. More than I would do!

Ashley didn't think it was quite as fun. She really wanted out of the stroller and wanted to be carried

We'll see if next year she is brave like cousin Callista to pick up any of the critters

Carver didn't make a peep the whole time. He loved his stroller ride and loved the airplane he got!

Disclaimer: Chase was warned that there was poison ivy! We'll see if he gets it (or Callista, she wandered off into a patch of it)

#27

Happy Birthday to me! I celebrated my 27th birthday on June 7. It was a fun day and Nate helped make it fun for me. I had to work, so that was pretty uneventful, except we did have a mouse in my office which stirred a few things up for Patti and I.
After work I went and picked up Ashley from Maria's and then we went and visited our friends Lisa and Wayne! We hadn't been by Home Fitness in awhile to say hi, so we were excited to see them. After we left there we stopped at daddy's work so that he could take Ashley while I went and got a massage!!!  It was fabulous. Nate had got me a gift certificate awhile back...I was thinking I would use it for a pregnancy massage, but I changed my mind. And this was the perfect day for it! After my massage Nate had coordinated a fun dinner for everyone. We went to Red Bean's Bayou Grill. Nate and I went to this restaurant when it was on the East side of Wichita numerous times during our dating years. They have a delicious pasta that we both loved and so he thought that would be a fun place to go. We had a big group...Mom, Dad, Cassie, Jamie, Hudson, Tate, Annie, Callista, Carver, Luke, Allison, Jacob, Mike, Ariya, and Sophie, and Roger and Dianna stopped by. It was a full table! Nate got me a great gift. He came up with it all on his own too...the cookbooks "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Julie and Julia is one of my favorite movies, so I'm excited to make some recipes from these books. It will be an adventure. Thanks everyone for the great gifts and for coming out to celebrate my birthday!

Mathews Mash

Last weekend we went to El Dorado Lake with the entire Mathews clan. This was the first time we ALL had been together in over a year. We had not seen Luke and Allison since their wedding last July and that means that they had NEVER met baby Ashley! Hard to believe that she is 6 months old and they had never met her. We had all been looking forward to our fun filled weekend at the lake. The weekend started with a bummer though because Allison got sick the day they left Mexico and was not feeling well enough to come to the fun. So, she stayed home on Friday night (but did feel better Saturday and came out). When we finally got on the road on Friday night, Roger, Nate, Ashley and I were riding in the truck pulling the sailboat and of course the sailboat trailer ends up with a flat tire...and there was no spare!

Mom, is this seriously happening?

Of course, the bird came along too!

It was quite an adventure just to get out to the lake. Nate ended up sitting on the side of the road with Jacob and Lukas for a good 3 hours. Good bonding time right? :)
Pete, Caitlin, Claira, and John also came into town and met us at El Dorado for the weekend. There was lots to do, the boys played campus golf, we had kayaks, a tandem bike, and the lake. When we went down to the lake, Ashley was not enjoying the heat and it was about nap time, so we stayed at the water long enough to get sunscreen on and then decided to go in and rest in the a/c of our cabin. :)   No, we were not roughing it!

Ashley still hasn't had her first taste of swimming, but I know that will be around the corner! It was fun for the whole group to be together, we are looking forward to whenever the next time might be!

Maria

Our new part-time sitter is Maria. We found her from Cassie and Jamie's friends Mark and Stephanie. And they found her from a friend that my mom recommended. So, we felt pretty confident that we would like her. She has 2 boys, 2nd grade and kindergarten, and then she watches Avary, who is is about 14 months old. I was worried that it would be too much to have the 2 babies, but we've been over there for a few weeks now and it seems to be working out. They have overlapping nap schedules so I think that works out well. It should be fun for the girls when they both are able to interact more together. At this point Ashley goes to Maria's on Monday and Tuesday, Awma's on Wednesday, and Gigi's on Thursday. My summer work hours allow me to be off on Friday, which I love! We're not sure what we will do when school starts again, but for now our schedule seems to be working out. It makes the weeks go fast because it's something different all the time. That's kind of a bad thing though because that means my summer hours will be over before I know it!