La Famille Armstrong

Asher's Dr. appt got cancelled b/c his doctor couldn't make it in; not that we would have gone anyway. But his 9 month well check was already going to be 2 weeks late and now they want me to call on MONDAY!! Ugh, I guess it's looking like it will be closer to a 10 month appointment. Oh well, such is life!

The forecast on my phone is looking a bit better... it says the snow will keep coming until Friday! The whole week has said rain with snow but we've gotten nothing but snow here! It says there will only be rain on Saturday but now I'm not so sure what to believe! I'll be really sad if we don't make it down for Christmas until after the New Year... I'll be hoping and praying for the best! 

In the meantime, Kory's business has been doing really well. He's got a couple major pieces of equipment that he's been using to clear parking lots for businesses in town and he's making a killing! Granted, he's been working in 24 hour chunks and sleeping at random parts of the day but this is such a blessing for him. After last winter, he pretty much spent the whole summer catching up from how far behind he had gotten - just with all the equipment and staff overhead - so it's great that the snow has been a blessing to his business! He did a lot of restructuring with employees, selling equipment and his own personal workload and it's really beginning to pay off! 

Anyway, I'm tired, crazy, bored and stressed at the same time so I could use a little prayer... and a nap! Being in the house all day is usually great for getting work done... but after the 3rd day of it I am just too stir crazy to want to do anything. Luckily Asher is still being good and not terrorizing us... pray that it stays that way! Love you all...

Church got cancelled today. The furnace in the ballroom was out of service so we couldn't very well have 150 people there in the freezing cold so, no church. And once again we are stuck at home going crazy. What is worse is that the forecast doesn't show it getting much better even until the day after Christmas!!! I might have to make some different arrangements Mom and Dad!! I'll call you today :-)

On a happier note, Mark's sister Mary and her husband Nate found out they are having a baby girl!!! Yay!!! Her name is Analeigh Lillian Brown. I think she said there is only 1 'n' in Analeigh... sorry if I messed it up Mary! We can't wait to see their little girl!! 

Have a great day everyone.

I went out to take some more photos today and it was rough going! Everything looked amazing... but just the angle, the cold and the lighting was a challenge for me. I'm definitely not much of a landscape artist... but photoshop helps! Plus, I'm used to everything needing to look perfect at 100% for all my stock work but that's not what most photographers judge themselves by. I'm hoping to branch out into other markets (already starting to with all the portrait work I've done lately) so here's something that's kind of different from my regular stuff... I would say I'm pretty happy with it... just disappointed that I can't use it on all my stock sites! 

Happy snow days!

While Asher was sleeping, I took the monitor and my camera outside and got a few photos... here's one.

I just love seeing the snow! I hope to get some more photos while it lasts. Once the roads are clear (probably after New Years) I'm hoping to go to the Gorge again and get some more photos. Everything will look so nice all iced over!!! Anyway, that's pretty much it for now... lots of knitting and taking care of Asher... oh, and we'll be watching some more Lost tonight... yes!!!

We put the photo of him grinning, wearing his Christmas hat... we'll let you know if we win!

Oh, it does require putting in an email address... I just used an old email I never check... Thanks!

He really turned a corner this week. He stopped chomping on his fingers so much so I realized that must have been what was making him so cranky... I mean I knew that teething sucked but I didn't realize how much it was affecting him. So, now he has 4 teeth which he loves to chomp together and it looks like one of the bottom ones might be coming up soon too. 

Asher has been so entertaining for Mark and I lately. He'll make the funniest sounds and he really seems to be enjoying making us laugh. In his highchair, he'll grin really big, make his fists really tight and just make this most hilarious sound! Oh, and did I mention he really has a set of lungs? I mean, the first second I heard Asher make any sound I knew he was going to be loud, but lately, it's gone up quite a few notches! But they have been mostly happy sounds so I'm not complaining at all. 

Anyway, not much else has been going on. Mark and I have been staying busy with church activities (him leading worship, me helping plan the women's retreat and wreath making event) but it's been fun. The wreath making thing was on Saturday and it was super fun. I had lots of help with cleanup too which was such a  blessing... I probably would have died without it! 

Well, I did some work for Jeanne this morning and I thought I post a photo I edited that she took of us the last time we were out there... so cute!

Hopefully soon we'll be getting some photos done of all 3 of us... maybe before Christmas... we'll see. Love you all.

A couple weeks ago I thought he was dropping his 3rd nap... the past 2 or 3 days he's almost decided to drop down to 1 shorter nap... moms agree that this is not good! He slept great last night, woke up totally stinky at 6am but went right back to bed until 8am (whew)! Still, he only slept for 1/2 hour in the car this morning and maybe another 1/2 hour on the way home in the afternoon... then another small power nap around 4pm (which was totally weird) but now he's sleeping soundly, hopefully until 8am again.

His separation anxiety is mildly entertaining while out and about with friends and family. Then, it becomes incredibly frustrating alone at home while groceries are melting in the car b/c you can only carry 1 bag with the baby, but it's raining too hard to make more than 2 trips... then the baby screams for his life when I turn around to walk 5 feet into the kitchen to set down the 1 bag of soggy ice cream sandwiches... I'm not going crazy right... everyone else gets annoyed with these things yeah? Some days I just have to look through all his cute photos and remember the fun things to keep from going completely crazy... I say completely b/c I think I am past a certain point of no return. I know my husband would lovingly agree.

Anywho, I needed to at least jokingly say/type out some of these entertaining frustrations that I PRAY and PRAY I will laugh about SOON! :-) Thanks so much other moms for all your support in these early motherhood months... I hope to live through it with enough sanity to at least have 1 more!

Here's one of those cute photos I was talking about... I know! How can a baby this happy and joyful looking be annoying and whiney? I'll have to find another photo for my next post!

These shoes are really adorable! I really do think they are cuter than the Robeez shoes plus it's always great to help out another entrepreneur! When I get Asher his next pair I think I'll get the ducks... they seem to be his favorite animal so far :-)

We are so bad about writing on here lately. Sorry for all you faithful blog-checkers :-) Anyway, it's been crazy (what's new) lately. Especially this week for Mark. He's got meetings in Portland today, a drive to Olympia and back tomorrow and a drive to Redmond on Friday! His work for PDR has been such a blessing even with all the driving! I don't know what we would have done without it.

My world has been really up and down lately too. Asher is a pretty good kid but his schedule has been weird and off the past month. I think he's getting ready to give up the 3rd nap but he's still to cranky without it. We had over a week where he was awake from nap #2 by 2pm and it took all our energy and strength to keep him up just barely until 6:30pm. He sleeps great at night... but a 5am start is more than either Mark or I can take... especially when it starts with a bloody murder scream! Haha. Well, it really isn't too funny but we've come out of that a little bit. He got a cold last week too so that certainly didn't help. But I've tried some new methods of keeping him awake and just learning more about what is helpful for him so that past few days have been far more pleasant.

Which brings me to my next topic... Asher was so unpleasant that I was going crazy! I was angry all day, frustrated, feeling helpless and just tired. One night I went to bed at 7pm, slept until 6am when Asher got up and I was still feeling as miserable as ever. I was struggling so badly with feeling like I didn't know what I was doing, thinking that God should have never made me a parent and that I just couldn't do it that I started avoiding talking to people about how I was doing. It's tough! But after a good talk with my friends Kristi and Chelsi I started talking to a couple other people about it and I just feel so much better. Well, the point of all this is I'm going to be doing some research on Thyroid problems b/c a couple people suggested that might be it. The fatigue and rate of weight loss I get with exercise are key things to having a hyper-thyroid. I just need to find some more info on it and see if it would be worth it to see someone even without insurance or what. 

Well, other than that it's just been the daily grind. Jeanne's in Hawaii so I've been doing some work from home. I'm actually going to do a shoot with Tracy and her dog this week... Chloe is so cute! It should be tons of fun! I should get back to editing though... I still have some senior photos to finish up. Here's a cute one of Asher the other day...

It was so nice... Mark came along with me out to take photos in the Columbia River Gorge! He took care of Asher the whole time for me and everything!!! I'm sure I'll be showing many more pics but here are just 2 for starters!

So life has been kinda busy :-) I feel bad, I even missed blogging about Asher being 7 months old! So terrible!!! Anyway, it's been a bit hectic around here lately. I jumped into working for Jeanne so fast and then I just had so many events planned every week that I hadn't really gotten the chance to just sit, think and pray about everything. I really do feel I'm doing what I should but getting organized and my head wrapped around it all hadn't happened yet. 

I've been going/sometimes going to our women's bible study in the evenings and it has been great! It's hard for me to go to an evening study but I go with Tracy and we've been so blessed by it. Most of the women are a bit older than us with grown up or almost grown up children so it's not our typical scene... it is incredibly rewarding though. And I know other women are blessed to see some younger gals coming so it's been just amazing all around.

So... about Asher. Man, he's a great kid. I'm constantly stumped by what he is doing! Yesterday he really started to pull himself up to standing when you hold his hands. And he gets so excited about it too! Plus he loves to hang on to the side of the bath when it's filling up for bathtime. He's also been "talking" a lot more and just taking great naps. He's getting quite a few teeth in... some on the top, some on the sides and he's always chewing on his fingers to try and ease that. I can tell when it's really bad b/c all he wants to do is be held and walked around with... no playing, no nothing... just walking. But he actually still sleeps pretty well considering. Last night, he went to sleep at 5:30pm and we assumed he would wake up and eat one more time. Nope... not until almost 11pm when Mark and I were about ready for bed. He took about 20 minutes to drink 2oz and fell asleep almost instantly. Poor kid... plus I was worried he would be up at 4am, wide awake! Nope again!!! He slept until just before 7am and he didn't even cry out once... well, if he did I just slept right through it so it couldn't have been too loud! And on top of all that, he's getting more hair and cuter every day! I've been putting a little gel in it every once in a while and giving him a mini-mohawk... it's so cute! 

Thanks everyone for catching up! One more thing... I'm going to Coos Bay next weekend and while I'm down there I'll be doing the 2nd half of Austie's sister's senior photos... here's one from the studio...

She is incredibly photogenic and has amazing hair! Hope the rest of all your weeks go well... talk to you again soon!

Well, working for Jeanne again has been great! She's such an encouragement and I'm glad to be able to be helping her out as well. We got a ton of great photos of Asher on Monday... he's such a great model! Some of hers are so cute!!! Here's one of mine...