Adam: He continues to be an incredible husband, dad, and student. Sadly, he decided to withdraw from his family history course so that he would have more time to work on his graduate courses and his master's project. On the 11th, he went to Salt Lake City and presented with his team at the West Coast Conference for the Association for Asian Studies. Also, he got officially accepted to present on a online education panel at the AAS's national conference in the spring! He also got a scholarship for next semester which will be a HUGE help since I will no longer be working then. He is such a hard worker.
Ashley: I'm still working for Wasatch Mental Health and enjoying it for these last few months. I am getting more used to being a mom which has helped my PPD. I still am getting treatment and slowly improving. There are still bad days but hopefully I'll feel closer to my normal self soon. I'm used to feeling the anxiety but the depression is so new to me that it is difficult to deal with sometimes. But as Eli grows, my strength and love for him increases.
Eli: He is now two months old and a very happy baby. I think the Lord knew that we needed to be blessed with a good baby at this time. He is now just over 11 lbs, fitting into his cloth diapers, gets the hiccups ALL the time, and smiles lots. He is just starting to laugh more and occasionally grab or wack at toys. He also is getting better and better at head control. He loves sitting up on the couch, sucking on his fist, and having us talk to him. He's very social but is also content to just lay on a blanket and look around (a perfect mash-up of his parents' personalities). He enjoys when we sing to him and smile at him. We love him so much and are looking forward to all the new things he will learn.
Blessing: Eli was blessed on the 12th. We were so lucky to have Adam's parents, Adam's sister Sharon and her family, and my sister Jessica all in town. Sadly, my dad came down with shingles right before they were going to leave to come down here so my parents weren't able to be there. They were sorely missed but hopefully it won't be too much longer before they get to meet their second grand-baby. We had a fun filled weekend spending time with both sides of the family. We hadn't seen Sharon and her family in over a year and were so excited to meet our newest nephew. All the kids enjoyed meeting Eli as well. Eli was a good sport for the blessing and the pictures afterwards. He slept all through church and then woke up happy for the pictures and just started to fuss when we were finishing. After the blessing, we all went to Adam's cousin's new house to chill and party the rest of the day.
Halloween: We had a pretty low key Halloween, not doing too much on the actual day except playing games with friends and watching Hocus Pocus. We did enjoy going to the church Halloween party! I'm always amazed at how creative people get with couples and family costumes. We were Charlie Brown and Snoopy last year and we decided to use them again. Funnily enough, we were trying to get pregnant this time last year and talked about that if we had a baby next year, we could do a Woodstock costume. So this year, I made one and it turned out super cute. I used every bit of the minimal craftiness I have to make the hat. He looked so adorable :)
<3 Ashley
P.S. I hope no one on facebook minds the numerous baby pictures :)
