Aquarena Springs

Today Nanna, my Mom, and I took the kiddos to Aquarena Springs in San Marcos. Aquarena Springs is now part of Texas State University and they have glass bottom boat tours and an aquarium on a beautiful part of the campus. We really enjoyed the grounds and the kids loved looking underwater throuhg the bottom of the boat! At the end of the tour the gide asked if there were any other questions and Emma asked "where are the octopuses?" It took a second but he realized she had thought that he said "aquafer" not "octopus"... I wonder if all along she was looking for an octopus?! When I was very young my grandparents took me and my brothers there when it was more of an amusment attraction. There was a submergable theater, it looked like a submarine with a huge window on one side, where we saw aquamaids and their swimming pig preform. Now the theater is mostly underwater due to a slow leak but it was neat to see it again!

Olivia's Baby Dedication

On Mother's Day Olivia Faith was dedicated at our church First Baptist Kyle by our pastor Brother Jeff English. It was a wonderful ceremony where we promised as her parents to raise her in our faith. To teach her the love of Christ by being the love of Christ in her life. Our church made a promise to encourage her and nurture her as well. The whole ceremony was beautiful! She was give a little certificate and miniature pink bible to commemorate the day. It was a special Mother's Day!

Yet Another Attempt!

Here it is six months into 2009 and I am just now sitting down again to update this blog! So sad! Now that I've learned that I can print and bind my blog into a book I am going to keep all of my family journaling here. Here is a quick up date on the past umm... 7 months or so! Since October of last year, my last post, we've gone through a failed attempt at adopting through the Texas foster care system, we celebrated EC's 4th and Josiah's 2nd b-days at Chuck E Cheese, Olivia had a tumor removed from the back of her head 2 Days before Christmas, we celebrated our first Christmas alone in our own home, I took my first vacation without any of my family memebers (Tonya took me to NYC for my 25th birthday in January), we've moved, for the 5th time in 5 years, to Plum Creek in Kyle, I have accepted the position as Coordinator of the new MOPS group for First Baptist Kyle, we have committed to homeschooling Emma-Claire this up comming school year, we've lost our beloved puppy Lucy, we've gotten a new puppy Bella and we are praying about how God wants us to grow our family! So many changes in the past seven months! And you know what? God has been so good through it all!! Enjoy these newer photos of the clan!




Ashley and Tonya in NYC! Our first girls trip :)

Josiah's Easter Pose!

The Spellings family came to Austin to celebrate my 25th birthday!

Olivia Faith at 10 months. Our littlest soccer player!

Cute kiddos riding in the grocery cart. This was our first trip with Olivia sitting in the cart and it was a success!

Our newest family member Bella. She is a 1 1/2 year old Cocker Spaniel. She was my Mother's Day gift!

It feels like FALL!

Olivia's two month photo! Her cheeks are so big
I lift them to get her car seat straps positioned right!

Self photo taken while EC and Siah were getting lost
in the hay bale maze; with other moms watching them of course!

The kids and their Moms club friends at the pumpkin patch

Miss Priss!

I pray that they always are so in love with each other!

We are welcoming every hour we have that feels remotely like the much anticipated relief from the Texas scorching summer heat! We have had a handful of days in the past three weeks that remind us of fall; the temp hovers in the 70's (insert laughter from our Yankee friend and family) during the day and 50's at night. Though the falling temps are the only natural sign of autumn around here (since the foliage turns from green to dead brown, if it turns at all) we are enjoying the fall festivities of our small town life! The kids and I have decorated the house with small pumpkins and other "fallish"decor, we visited a Christmas tree farm that has a pumpkin patch and hay rides, and we went to the Kyle Fair as a family. We all enjoyed the fair food and rides!

Family Photos

Early September we had family photos taken by our good friend Alison Joe. She did such a great job and we all had a good time! Its amazing to look back and see how much we all have changed since we last had professional photos taken.

Once we convinced Emma-Claire to smile for the camera she really got into it! She and Olivia were so precious together!

Sam and I like this one of us with Olivia

All 5 of us! Its hard to remember what it was like 5 years ago when it was just Sam and I living the college lifestyle in Eastern Europe!

What precious creations of an AWESOME God!

Blessing # 3!

Summer Fun #2

This is our little rental house in Kyle. And "Ruby" our Toyota minivan!

Princess Emma-Claire enjoying the parade!

Josiah and Sam watching the fire truck :)

Emma taking pictures of the fireworks with Daddy's phone!

We had a great summer! For Independence Day we celebrated with Nanna and Pawpaw (Rance and Lynn) The kiddos loved the parade and the fireworks! The best part of our summer was the birth of sweet blessing number 3!

Olivia Faith's cheesy face just after delivery




Olivia Faith was born August 1st at 11:15am at home! We LOVED having a home birth and our midwife, Amber Clarkson, was a gift from God. She was incredibly patient and empowering! Sam helped deliver Olivia and was the best labor coach! The entire labor and delivery, all 17 hours of it, was incredible! Being at home, having the greatest partner, and outstanding midwife, made for the perfect delivery! It amazes me what the woman's body is designed to do. God's magnificence is defiantly glorified through the untainted labor and delivery process.

Olivia tanning! She spent 48 hours under the billy lights for jaundice treatment. The funny thing in her nose is nasal cpap. Positive air way pressure to ease breathing.

Mommy and Livi

Daddy feeding Olivia

Once Olivia made her debut she had a hard time clearing the mucous from her little lungs and Amber decided she needed to go into the hospital for some help. We spent 5 days in the Dell Children's NICU where Olivia was treated with surfactant, a drug used to expand her lungs. Very quickly after she received the meds her little body perked right up! She just needed some help getting a good, deep first breath she missed right after delivery. The rest of our stay was to monitor her. We had excellent care in the NICU and highly recommend Dell Children's hospital!

Olivia's first bath. She was so tiny and yellow but she LOVED the bath!

Olivia's first photo at home! 5 Days old :)

We've spent the past two and a half months getting adjusted to having three kiddos under 4! WOW what a crazy wonderful life we have! I (Ashley) am still not getting sufficient sleep and running on God's grace! Both Josiah and Emma-Claire are totally in love with "livi". Sweet Josiah tells her "wee-u Ya-ya"! Translated "I love you Olivia!" Emma-Claire is such a big girl and most of the time eager to help me; what a blessing! God's grace is sufficient!! I've made a goal of posting every week... So please keep me accountable if you enjoy reading about our family!

Enjoy this fall y'all!

Summer Fun

This is an attempt to catch up our blog!

In late April we moved to Kyle, Texas. Sam was transfered to open an extension of Mason's Mill and Lumber to service the Texas hill country. We've been here three months now and love it! We are about 20 miles south of Austin and 60 miles north of San Antonio. We are enjoying the smaller town life and have recently joined First Baptist Kyle where we've made several new friends. Also, Ashley joined the MOMS club and MOPS group. Both are international organizations supporting motherhood. We have been blessed with many new friends through both groups! Since our move we've visited Houston a few times and here are a few cute pics of Emma-Claire and Josiah in Papa's pool!



We celebrated Independence Day with Nana, Papaw and Chase at their house on Lake Travis. The kids had a blast at the parade and loved the fireworks!