One BIG Purchase!

Can you guess what Brent is signing? That would be the contract agreement for our new house! Yes, finally we are getting a house! We are building a house in Prosper, TX! (That is just north of Frisco!) We are thrilled! We went on Monday to make all of our decorative choices (interior and exterior) and can't wait to see how it all turns out! The projected closing date is August 28th! Woohoo!

So, calling all movers! Yes, this is you...Taylor! Haha! No, actually it is an extended offer to anyone who loves moving boxes and furniture!....Suddenly, I hear nothing but silence! Oh well! I tried! We are hoping to move Labor day weekend, but of course, it is a projected date!

Hooray for no more house hunting, and a BIG hooray for furniture shopping!

One Bundle of Joy!

Eastin Reid Moody

So, most everyone I know has heard the Moody family news....Eastin is here! All 9.6 lbs of him came into this world at 8:41pm on Thursday, April 2nd! Bless Kelcie and the epidural for making it through the 20 hour labor! There aren't words to describe the way I felt when Aiden and Conner were born, so why would this moment be any different! He is perfect! Brent and I were overjoyed to be there at the hospital when he was born and to experience Taylor and Kelcie's joy!

There were numerous family members in the waiting room when Taylor came out to announce Eastin's arrival. It was surreal to watch as my baby brother announced (through tears of joy) that his son was born! We were all so eager to go and meet the little guy, but naturally, with a 20 hour labor, there comes some much needed and deserved recovery time for the Momma, so it was about 11:00pm before Eastin and I met for the first time!

He was precious! He looked at me with those big curious eyes and perfectly round cheeks, and instantly, we were the best of friends! I enjoyed this moment, and just as I had with Aiden and Conner, I made Eastin a promise! I promised him that I would always love him, provide him chocolate, and that I would beat up his Daddy if he ever made Eastin cry! ;) I can promise that since I am still Taylor's big sister!

Here are pictures from Eastin's Birthday!

This is when we met for the first time!

Uncle B loves those cheeks!

Check out those hands! Great for throwing a curve ball!

This is Eastin admiring his Mommy!

The 1st family photo!

Over the past two weeks, Brent and I have been blessed to have spent time with Eastin! He is already changing so much! And, naturally, Eastin and I are already the best of friends! He lets me hold and kiss him whenever I want, and I always bounce him and allow him to look around when he gets fussy! It is a wonderful give and take friendship! ;)

Here are some more pics!

Eastin and Coach!

One proud Uncle B!

Look at this sweet face!

Eastin's first Texas Longhorn jersey!
Already a Texas Longhorn fan!
Hook 'Em!

We already love to cuddle!

Sweet Baby Eastin,
I am overjoyed to have you in my life! You are a true testament of God's miracles and a little piece of heaven! I pray that God bless you in all you do and that you find happiness in your life! I pray that your Mommy and Daddy be filled with joy as they raise you and that God give them all the patience, strength, and knowledge needed in order to raise you by His plan! You are and will always be one of my greatest joys! I love you and will always be here to love, spoil, and kiss you!~ Aunt Ash

One down...One to go!

Conner Brandon Gartrell

March 14th proved to be a great day for the Gartrell family! Conner Brandon Gartrell decided to join the world. At 6 lbs. 12 ozs. and 20", he is perfect! Brent and I were in Prosper taking care of some house stuff when Carol, my mother-in-law, called to tell us that Brandon was bringing Aiden to them and then planning to take Mandy to the hospital. It was around 5-ish when we got the call. At 10pm, she called to say that Conner was here! He came fast. So fast, in fact, that Mandy's water never broke and the Dr. didn't make it in time. Little Conner was born in his sack and delivered by the nurse! I know what you are thinking, "Ashley, what do you mean, "in the sack"?) I mean just what I said. Conner was born in the ambilical sack! Cool, uh? And, what a story!

I think that we all expected the little guy to come quickly because Mandy delivered Aiden fairly quickly, but this was quicker than I ever expected! Which was good for Mandy, I suppose! Anyway, Brent and I could hardly sleep the night before because we were so anxious and excited to meet little Conner. Sunday morning, we got up and went to Stephenville to see him! There aren't enough words in the English vocabulary to describe the precious-ness of this baby boy! He is fantastic! I was so excited to have another nephew!

Brent and I have had so much fun with Aiden over the past 5 yrs., and we are happy to add another "little man" into our bunch! Here are a few pictures of us meeting Conner and then a few from yesterday when I got to go play with my boys!

Aiden is such a wonderful and proud big brother!

Uncle B just loves this little guy!

Here is Conner wide awake!


I love these boys!

No babies yet!

Okay, so before I start getting comments related to my lack of postings, I should start by apologizing! Life has been a whirlwind lately! It's amazing how quickly time passes these days, which is ironic, funny, and true testament of God's sense of humor considering I can remember the days of when I was younger and prayed that time would speed up!

While there are many reasons why I haven't posted lately, the reality of it all is that I am lazy! I'll explain. It would be really simple to say that I haven't posted because I have a full case load of patients at work, an hour commute to and from work, regular everyday responsibilities which are limited to the time that I am home from work, etc....etc.... But the reality of it all is that the main reason I haven't blogged lately is because our laptop fried. And, yes, I mean fried. (My angry rant about stinky HP products can be saved for another day!)

Now some of you are probably thinking, "Well, that makes sense, you didn't have a computer!" But, you see, I did! We have a desktop too, but I am so accustomed to sitting on my comfy couch and blogging, that I couldn't get inspired to walk into our study/storage room and blog from our desk. See, I told you. I am plain lazy these days, but at least I am breaking the pattern!

So, in the past 2 months, so much has happened. Brent started back to school! I am really proud of him! I know that getting a graduate degree is hard work, but doing it while working full time and commuting 1 1/2 hours to and from work 5 days a week is sometimes near the impossible. Brent has always been strong in almost every aspect of life (especially academics), so I never doubted his ability to take on such a task with flying colors!

We started house hunting....again! I keep telling myself that God will provide, and he will, but I continue to question when and how much will it cost me! We have found several opportunities, but when you have been looking as long as we have, we just can't bring ourselves to settle on something we don't love! It'll happen, God will provide!

Our 2 (yes, 2) new nephews are due any day now! Brent and I are thrilled to add 2 little nephews to the list of kids we love to spoil! To summarize, Brandon and Mandy are having Conner Brandon, and Taylor and Kelcie are having Eastin Reid! We are so excited! The past 2 months have been filled with Baby showers out the whazoo! So much fun!

On Valentines' Day, Brent and I were waiting for a table at Olive Garden for dinner (along with what seemed like the rest of Fort Worth!)! Brent had bought me a iphone several weeks prior and was playing on it as we waited. He pulled up some True or False trivia game. One of the questions was "True or False....parents will lose between 450 and 700 hours of sleep during the first year of the baby's life?" Turns out....it's true!

So, to Taylor and Kelcie and Brandon and Mandy! May you get plenty of sleep during these last few days! Lord knows you are going to need it! We love you and can't wait to spoil these babies!

No Blues Singin' at the House of Blues!

Okay, I am really sorry that it has been a month a half since my last post. It had gotten so bad that even Mom dropped a hint that I needed to get on it! :) Believe it or not, I actually wrote a post about the Cotton Bowl, but I haven't uploaded the pics that I want to post along with it, so that will be posted at a later time.

With that said, I had to tell you about the fun "Date Night" that Brent and I had on Monday night! But, first I should start with this....

On Saturday, Brent and I were in GR (Glen Rose, for those of you who didn't know!). Our plan was to go see Aiden (our nephew) and Brent's cousins (Wes and Rachel) play basketball and then have lunch with his family! We were at my parent's house, and I was in the midst of getting ready when Brent popped his head into the bathroom! He had been playing on the computer and found concert tickets online! You should have seen his face! So mischievous and yet, cute! The conversation went as follows:

Brent: "So, what are you doing Monday night?"
Ashley: "Well, I am off on Mondays, so cleaning/laundry during the day....dinner at night...nothing I guess, why?"
Brent: "If I bought tickets to go see The Fray at the House of Blues in Dallas, would you want to go?"
Ashley: "Uh, yes, please!"

So, he bought the tickets and we made out a plan. He would be working on Monday, so it was decided that I would ride the TRE/DART to meet up with him! If only it were that simple in Ashley's little life?!?!

Monday arrived. I had several errands to run before heading to the train station. I got up at 9-ish (not because I was lazy and just didn't get up, but because I had a hard time falling to sleep the night before!) And.... I send a huge thank you to Taylor for texting me and waking me up! Seriously. I would have missed my train had he not woken me up because apparently I didn't set my alarm! So, I got up....got ready...now it was around 10:30-ish....and headed out the door to run errands!

I should make a side note here.....my hair is naturally curly! And, when I choose to wear it straight, it takes blood, sweat, and tears to make it look the way I want it to! Now, I didn't think to look out the window to see what the weather was like....which leads me to this.....

As, I opened the door, I instantly felt it...the damp, due, and moisture in the air. As, I stepped out my door and looked around, I realize it was raining. Now, because I work with children, I am typically very aware of my surroundings and who is near, but in this instance, I was not. I was beyone annoyed that I had spent an hour or so straighting my hair for nothing. I immediately slammed the door (with me standing outside) and yelled, "Crap!" (Which by the way is my word of choice when I am extremely annoyed! This has to be genetic because there is a particular family member that loves this word too....no names though!) At that moment, I realized that the lawn servicemen that our complex hired were all standing there staring at me! I politely smiled, gave a little wave, and ran to the car!

I ran the errands and got to the train! I rode the TRE to Union Station (downtown Dallas) only to get off and go stand outside (Yes...in the rain!) for the Red Northbound DART! Now, it would have been nice if the people making the TRE schedule got with the scheduling people at DART and made it so that the schedules were convenient and correlated with one another, but no....why would they do that? So, I sat in the rain for 15 minutes until the red train came. However, the destination stop listed on that train was the southbound listing, so I convinced myself to wait for the next one, only to watch it pull away headed north. Another 15 minutes in the rain!

Now, I am a huge "Friends" fan. There is an episode were the gang goes to Jamaica to see Ross speak at a conference! Monica's hair slowly grows throughout the episode due to the humidity. Let's just say this: Monica had nothing on me at this point!

I got on the Red Northbound Train properly labled for my destination and pulled my hair back in a clip. Once I arrived at my destination, I ran through more rain to a Starbucks, where I sat and waited for Brent.

Things finally started to turn around...We went and ate at the House of Blues. Which by the way....FYI...if you eat there before a concert, they stamp your receipt and you are able to go into the venue first and skip standing in the admissions line outside! The food was great!

When we finally got into the venue, we found a table, sat down, and enjoyed the concert! Vedera was the opening act...and I loved them! They were great, but The Fray! Oh...they did an amazing show! I highly recommend anyone and everyone go see them if given the chance! We had a great time! I am really excited about their album dropping next week!

Brent and I don't go out and do things like this too often, so it was really nice! We had a great time!

Oh...and the other good thing about my day...I got new ankle heel black boots!

Just Clown'in Around!

On December 6th, I was a banner clown in the Neiman Marcus Adolphus Christmas parade hosted by Children's! It was a blast! Yes, the morning started out extremely chilly, but by the time the parade rolled through, it was a beautiful day!

The morning started out like this! I had to be at the hospital by 5:30 AM (Yes, AM!) in order to pick up my costume and have my face painted! So, I had to leave our apartment at 4:30, which put me getting up at 4! I know, 4 AM! Anyway, I got to the hospital at about 5:35, due to some unexpected camera issues! I got a red and silver sparkle costume, my face painted, and rallied together with some of my co-workers/friends to grab a quick bite before getting on the TRE train to head downtown! Several of us from the PM&R (Physical Medicine & Rehab) dept. made our hats! I think they all turned out really cute!

Once I downed a bagel and some apple juice, we all headed to the TRE train! We had been told before that their would be unexpected passengers on the train and to stay in character! So, we did! When we got on the train, you should have seen the eyes of everyone, especially the children! We loaded on and started singing Christmas carols and having a great time!

We quickly arrived downtown where we had to head to our designated areas! Being a banner clown meant that I had to rally with the other banner clowns, get my banner, and wait in an organized line until my time arrived to start walking!

Walking was the BEST! You should have seen the eyes of the kids as all of the characters, clowns, ballons, and floats headed their way! There were so many "Merry Christmas" wishes being sent! I loved every minute of it and can't wait until next year! Hope you enjoy the pictures that Brent took! I think he did a fabulous job!

Here was the Santa balloon!

Here's me carrying my banner!Frosty the Snowman!

A view from down the street! Aren't the balloons fun?The parade logo balloon!

Babies, Babies, Babies!

So, as I have mentioned, we have 2 babies due in March! Well, not we as in Brent and me, but our Moody/Family gang! Kelcie and Taylor are having Eastin Reid, and Brandon and Mandy are having Conner Brandon! I am so ecstatic about these boys!

Yesterday evening, we had dinner with the Gartrell's (Will, Carol, Brandon, Mandy, and Aiden), and afterwards, they came over to our place to visit. During the visit, Taylor and Kelcie came by. If was fun to see Mandy and Kelcie stand side by side with their cute and round tummies! They are only about 1-2 weeks apart!

As the Gartrell's were getting ready to leave, I hugged and kissed Aiden! He was very quick to remind me that all of his kisses were being saved for the baby that I would have to give his back! This reminded me of the cute story Mandy told me over Thanksgiving. Aiden approached Mandy one day and told her to open up her mouth. She did, and then he blew a kiss in and said, "Quick, Mom, swallow!" She did and then asked why. Aiden said, "I am sending the baby kisses!" Isn't that great? I love this!

So, I told Aiden he could have the kisses back, but they had to go to Conner! He agreed! Needless to say, Aiden will be a great big brother!

To Eastin and Conner, I am so blessed to have the two of you as nephews! I know God has wonderful plans for you and the lifes that you will have! I can't wait to meet you and see your faces! When Aiden was born, I held him in my arms and made a very important promise, and I promise this to you, too! "I promise to always love you and provide you with plenty of chocolate!" I love you, Aunt Ash!