Family of Four

Quick announcement! Ashford Harper Galbreath was born on Thursday, June 24th at 11:41 a.m. weighing 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 in. long. He has a decent amount of brown hair, chubby cheeks and a little bit of back fat.

I think the jury is still out on who he looks like. Upon examination of Helena's baby pics, there are definite similarities. :) But, I think this little guy might end up with blue eyes instead of brown. We'll see!

I'll be more long winded about everything once I've had a little more sleep, but labor wasn't nearly as long as with Helena (thank god) and thankfully this time around having a baby around doesn't seem as daunting as it did the first time either. However, juggling a 2 1/2 year old AND a newborn is chaotic.

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from the past few days...I'll try to post a link to more very soon!

Emily :)

Rock the Block?

This past Friday we attended a block party on our street. The flyer promised to "ROCK OUR BLOCK!" Sounded exciting. And maybe some really cool people were throwing it...you never know!

Well...many of you have hard me kvetch that our neighborhood seems quite conservative (in Utah speak that means "mormon") and in our two years living here I think I've met a total of about six households of neighbors. Of those six, only one set regularly chat us up. I'm not really sure why...maybe it's just living in a bigger city or people just have so many kids they don't have time for their neighbors, but that's the way it is. Everyone just kind of keeps to themselves for the most part.

Leading up to the big event I made some yummy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, joked about how there would probably be 200 kids there, and argued with Ash about whether or not we should take a cooler of beer to share. Which, in ANY other part of the country would be a totally normal and almost expected thing to do, but in this neighborhood where we've had 8-year-olds heckle us for 'hearing' beer bottles in our trash, I was kind of leaning against it. Ash has a rebellious, antagonistic side that I don't have. I don't like to make anyone mad, usually, no matter how silly it is. So, we compromised and he took a couple of beers for himself in our sack with the rest of our food.

So, we walk down half a block to the house that was hosting the party. We were immediately greeted by a very nice group of women and then Helena TAKES OFF down the sidewalk back to our house. Literally sprints yelling "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE PARTY. I'M GOING HOME!" Great first impression, Helena. Jeez. Ash retrieves Helena, who is screaming, and we try to ignore her and make nice with the neighbors. Bribing her with cookies doesn't help, she refuses to play with the 50 other children there, and eventually settles into playing on her car by herself. We obviously need to get out more.

I would guess there are probably more than 50 houses on our street...kind of an isolated bend in the road for the massive suburban subdivision we live in. I would guess there were probably 15 households in attendance at the block party. I think I chatted with almost everyone there by the end of the evening. I met some nice mom's who have kids around the same ages as ours and hopefully that might materialize into some play dates down the road.

All in all, an OK time. No new best friend, or anything, though. Despite my nervousness I think I did a good job chatting people up. But nothing spectacular. Except for the fruit pizza, in my opinion. I love a good fruit pizza.

Oh, and Ash was the only one with a beer at the party. Which pretty much confirms our suspicions about our surroundings. And not that we can't be friends with people who don't drink, but it's a good starting point. :) Hopefully next year they'll have a better turnout -- I'm still holding out hope that there are at least a few people around the 'hood that we have a bit more in common with. Look at me being optimistic at 39 weeks pregnant!

-Emily :)

Fishing with Daddy

Helena's new favorite thing to do with her dad is to go fishing. Surprisingly it keeps her attention really well (she's more patient than me!). The first time we went she stood out there for more than an hour! We've decided she's more of a bass fisherman than a catfish angler...she LOVES to throw it out and just reel it in as fast as she can.

Ash broke the reel off of his rod right when we got there. Not a happy camper. So then all we had was the Dora pole.The first weekend we took her fishing, we didn't catch anything. This last weekend, Ash caught this catfish on his new pole:

Helena was very excited. She immediately started yelling "Let's eat it Dad!" Ash asked her if she wanted to pet it before we threw it back in the water and she politely declined. But she did want to say 'Bye bye' to the fishy.

After that she wanted Ash to catch a fish on HER pole. They ended up going fishing twice that day because she wouldn't give it up. :) We'll keep everyone updated as to when the Dora pole actually lures one in.

-Emily :)

New Kid Nursery

The new kid's nursery sure did turn out cute, if I say so myself. :) Neutral baby rooms are definitely a challenge, and usually tend more toward the boy side of things, but definitely can be done. Our theme...OWLS!

My favorite element in the room is this tree/owl vinyl decal (found on etsy.com). Special thanks to my friend Ja'Naye who helped me put it up. It was slightly labor intensive and required a lot of attention to detail since once it was on the wall you couldn't take it off! Had Ash and I put it on the wall together, we might not be married right now.


The bed sheet and blanket are from Dwell; I can't ever bring myself to buy the entire $500 bedding set (who does that?!?). Just the sheet and stroller blanket, thank you very much. Bumper is from IKEA. The bedskirt I made MacGyver-style with the leftover fabric from the bottom of the curtain I hemmed in the room. Lots of hodge podge going on with the textiles. :)

And here are the !CUTE! owl pillows my talented Grandma Sarah made for the room. Helena has stolen the middle one as her permanent bedtime pillow. I love how these turned out. Thanks Grandma! You're awesome! What great keepsakes.

This owl pic was a gift from Aimeeliz.


I picked up these two sets of hooks at Urban Outfitters...so cute and unique. I have no idea what I'll hang on them (especially the owl & tree ones)...if anything. Ha!

I also found this owl bank at Urban Outfitters. So retro. So adorable. I had to really control myself there...they had a plethora of owl decorations.

And finally...hopefully...the last round of belly pictures. Me at 37 weeks. Let's just say I'm hanging in there. Let's all hope my next post is about a new baby!

-Emily :)

Park City Weekend

My apologies for the weirdness of the font in this post. I can't figure out how to fix it for the life of me!!! Arrgh!

We decided to visit Park City for part of the holiday weekend. Mostly as an ‘add-on’ to the fact that Ash wanted to see a concert there on Saturday night that I wasn’t interested in going to…at all. So, instead of him making the big drive back & forth late at night we decided to stay one night (Ash went to the concert late while Helena & I watched a movie and slept) and try to relax and have some fun.

We stayed in downtown Park City, hit up the outlet mall, took Helena swimming, and ate some really good food. The weather ended up being nicer than expected…about 60 degrees…and despite the really crappy night of hotel sleeping, it was very fun to get out of Salt Lake and away from home and to-do lists for a bit.

Some pics from our stay:

The trees by our hotel while I was sitting by the pool watching Ash & Helena swim.

Helena semi-politely eating french fries at the restaurant we ate dinner at on Saturday. Funny sidenote: I'm not sure this restaurant sees 2-year-olds very often. We had to custom order her chicken strips and french fries. :) Oops!

Stopping to rest while walking around downtown Park City. Helena looks so old in this picture to me!! Her sunglasses got a lot of compliments. It looks like I'm trying to hide my bandaged hand, but I'm really not.

Springtime aspen grove in East Canyon on our way to Park City.

At the top of East Canyon looking down on the Salt Lake Valley way in the distance.

Helena attempting to jump in the pool to Ashford. Swimming lessons are definitely on the agenda for her this summer!! As soon as mommy can fit back into a swimming suit. :)

In our hotel room very excited to go swimming in her new swimming suit. Then, when we got there it took us about 15 minutes to convince her to get in the pool. Lord...

-Emily :)

For All You '30 Rock' Fans

I just have to share this website I happened upon yesterday. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the TV show '30 Rock' and this website is a compilation of everything Tracy Jordan said on the show this past season. As you can guess, some of the lines could have been left out, but there are some doozies in there and it's definitely entertaining.

My favorites:

• "We have to be cool to everybody. Because the future is like a Japanese game show: You have no idea what’s going on."

• "No, I’ll brush my own teeth. Now I don’t want you to have any resentments towards me. From now on, I don’t want you to do anything for me."

• "Every day. I thought having a family was going to be like the Cosby Show. ‘Oh, no, Vanessa went to a concert. Oh, no, Rudy and I are making a sandwich for 25 minutes.’ The Cosby Show was a lie. Having a family can be the worst. For example, I have a strip club story from this weekend I need to tell you, Jackie D. It is disgusting. But I can’t because I got this little D-Bag here."

• "We’re gonna name her after the place that she was conceived. It was a pretty wild night, so we’re either gonna name her, Virginia, NetJet, or Bathroom at Teeterboro Airport."

• "Oh, yeah. There’s a garbage bag in the hallway with a reef shark in it. Just put him in the tub with a reef. What’s for dinner tonight? I want pierogies."

• "Can’t do it, Lee Lem. On Valentine’s Day, Angie and I rent a room with a heart shaped hot tub and cook chili in it. Then we take it to soup kitchen and that’s when it starts to get sexy!"

• "OK, but whoever she is needs to be someone as amazing as I am. I want to see a list of names. Like when they was looking for John McCain’s running mate. Hahaha. I’m kidding, this needs to be taken seriously."

And...the quote that made me literally cry during one of the last episodes of the season where Tracy is describing his very ghetto childhood:

• "I’ve seen a blind guy bite a police horse! A puppy committed suicide after he saw our bathroom! I once bit into a burrito and there was a child’s shoe in it! I’ve seen a hooker eat a tire! A pack of wild dogs took over and successfully ran a Wendy’s! The sewer people stole my skateboard! The projects I lived in were named after Zachary Taylor, generally considered to be one of the worst presidents of all time! I once saw a baby give another baby a tattoo! They were very drunk!"

And...Here's the whole list for you super fans like me. I've got to quit reading these or the laughter is going to send me into labor. :) Let me know whose a fan too and what your favorite line is!

-Emily :)