Mark & Ashley's Blog

Isaac Cole Stroup – born May 20th,2011

markandashley — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:50:08 +0000

Issac Cole was born on May 20th at 5:20p.m. :) He was 8lbs. 2 oz. and 21 inches long. He is beautiful and so far a very easy baby! My due date was May 12th and as we went more than a week over I elected to be induced. My midwife used a topical form of Prostaglandin to get my contractions started, and then broke my water when my contractions were less than 3 minutes apart. After that he was born in an hour. It was awesome! Start to finish was a little more than 2 hours. So it was a wonderful experience.

Just born. So happy to meet him!!

8 lbs. 2 oz.

My midwife, Amy Ginn. She delivered Elise as well.

As they checked his gestational measurements, heart, lungs etc… they found that he was actually only 39 weeks, so my due date was off and we actually evicted him a week early— oops :) But he’s doing wonderfully well!

Elise meets Isaac for the first time

Big sister just can’t get enough. She just loves him. … maybe a little to a fault. Always wanting to help (buckleing in the car seat, rocking him, holding him etc…) and as she’s still pretty little herself, she can’t really do much…so it’s been a little bit of a challenge trying to encourage sisterly love while also setting boundaries on when she really can’t help.

So far it’s been super sweet having two babes in the house. Definitely a lot of work, but truly fun!
xoxo

1 week Old

2 1/2 week old. Outing to watch Daddy play kickball.

I have to brag on Mark

markandashley — Sat, 07 May 2011 02:32:37 +0000

So we wanted to put a “mud-room” area in our pantry as it’s how we enter the house through the garage and all our shoes and coats are inevitably ending up on the floor or next to the flour ;)…. and so Mark just whips this out last weekend! What can I say…he’s just awesome. ;) I had to brag on him a little…

I think it’s important for every girl to have a princess bed…

markandashley — Sat, 07 May 2011 02:27:23 +0000

Mark and I use to have a canopy over our bed before we moved…and since it won’t work in the new house, i dug it up and put it over Ellie’s crib. You just have to make going to bed something special when they’re two….and want to stay up all night ;)

My mom has also been telling her she is a princess. I was calling her a silly goose the other night and she said, “I’m not a silly goose…I’m a princess!” And she is! She’s our little princess, but she’s also a princess in the Lord! I think that the desire to be a princess is “in our blood”; not just limited to those with the word “princess” in the meaning of their name! I think this is a God-given gift from birth as we are the bride of Christ and truly are princes and princesses!

Mark’s Video Tour of the House:

markandashley — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:10:01 +0000

Being Elise…

markandashley — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:37:01 +0000

So, we get up on Saturday (kinda planning on taking it easy before we had a party), took a shower and made some coffee, and Mark says: “Look at your daughter”:

I look out the door to see Ellie just as happy as can be in her diaper and rain boots sitting on the deck chair in the sun reading a book ;) ha ha.
What can I say, the girl knows how to live!

It’s done!

markandashley — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:44:59 +0000

Yay! The house is done. Here’s some pics pre-move in :)

Elise and Prego Pics…

markandashley — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:38:18 +0000

Mark took some cute shots of Elise and I today. It was a beautiful day, so we thought we’d take advantage.

I have a little over 2 1/2 months to go before the little man arrives…so I thought it would be nice to take some before I really pop! :)

Anyway, thought I’d share, I think some of Elise’s are just precious.

xoxo,

Click to view slideshow.

House Pics…

markandashley — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:51:22 +0000

A few more weeks to go…but making lots of progress~

Ignore the dirtiness of everything…cleaning now would be futile.

Click to view slideshow.

Dance Class

markandashley — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:01:10 +0000

Elise’s first dance class:

So cute! It’s just a bunch of little girls running around in tutus..;) but it’s so much fun!

House Pics!

markandashley — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:10:55 +0000

We have partial siding and drywall! :)

View from the deck

Our backyard

Partially sided! :) …unpainted.

The front….good thing they finished the roof before the snow came again!

xoxo