13 Months

Our little Leif isn't quite a toddler, if you define it only by walking, but he definitely isn't a baby anymore. He loves to get involved in all that he can and seems to learn so much each day. He is so close to walking and acts like he is going to several times a day. But then he just drops to his knees and crawls to where he wants to go instead. One of Leif's favorite activities is "cooking" at the play kitchen. He loves to stand there, with his little spatula in hand, moving pots around or taking the sink out. For Christmas, we got him some little wooden fruits and veggies that velcro together and can be "cut" in half with a little wooden knife. If his brother will leave him alone for long enough, he likes to put these in his pots and stir them around. Another of Leif's favorite activities is to play peek-a-boo. His version involves sitting on the ground and shoving his face into a blanket or pillow, waiting for someone to pretend they are looking for him, then popping up with a huge smile on his face before he buries his head again. This game is very entertaining to him and can go on and on long after the adult playing with him has become bored with it ;) Leif's all-time favorite activity is probably taking a bath. No matter what the ailment, taking a bath will always solve it for Leif. He loves to splash and play with the water. He tries to drink the water too. Out of little cups at first, but after I tell him no a bunch of time, he will secretly try to slurp the water up directly out of the tub. I have no idea what his draw to it is since he always ends up choking and coughing over it.
Its so cute to see Leif shake his finger back and forth and try to say "no, no". I guess I must have done this to Asher at some point, because he started doing it to me and Austin occasionally when we were doing something he didn't want us to. Leif picked right up on it, and since we thought it was so cute we only encouraged it by laughing at him and doing it back. So now, quite frequently, he wags his finger at us and babbles something very similar to "no, no, no"
Up until about a week ago Leif only had his two bottom teeth. Accompanied by lots of grumpiness and fussing, his top two teeth have finally emerged. I think they are still bothering him because he pulls at his ears a lot and gets fussy for no real reason sometimes.
Leif has nearly mastered sleeping through the night--we are talking 7 pm to 7 am. Its only been about a month since I started trying to get him to sleep through the night and it has gone smoother than I ever could have imagined. I just stopped feeding him when he woke up, but instead just gave him his binki, tucked him in, and stood by his bed until he fell back asleep. I thought he would be upset and try to get out of his crib, but he never even tried to get up as long as I was touching him. He quickly started waking up less often and now if he wakes up I only have to go in, give him his binki, tuck him in, and stay with him for about 30 seconds. He wakes up about once every other night, occasionally we have a bad night where he wakes up twice, but all in all I have been getting more sleep. I really hope any future babies take after this brother instead of their oldest brother when it comes to sleeping :)

Here is Leif busily cooking away at his play kitchen:

Christmas Morning

We had a fun Christmas morning! This was the first Christmas we've had with kids that semi-understood what was going on. It was nice that no one knew enough to get us up early, but they had fun opening up presents and eating sweets. Leif mostly enjoyed ripping the paper and Asher loved having lots of new things to play with. Most of Leif's toys have already been confiscated by his brother who seems to think that everything is his. Leif is pretty good-natured though and will easily find something else to play with. After we opened all the presents, Austin made crepes. We had whipped cream to put on them, and both of the boys loved that. They both ate quite a bit and we had lots of time to play with our new toys until they needed a nap.

29 Months

Time seems to go by so quickly. Asher is getting so big and changes so much from month to month, although sometimes I don't really notice the change until I look back at pictures or something I wrote down about him. Asher continues to be a busy little body. He wants to be into everything and wants to try anything he sees us doing. He wants to help with all the stages of food preparation, cleaning, crafting, etc. Since he wants to be involved with everything we do, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would want to do dishes. Its nice that he wants to help, but he misses minor details like making sure all the food gets off the dish, rinsing all the soap off, and making sure that food goes on the side of the sink with a disposal. I also don't think its the best idea for him to be handling dishes made of any material besides plastic :) Asher is no longer satisfied with watching me vacuum or using his popper toy to pretend he is vacuuming. He now wants to push my vacuum around by himself, but he usually just sticks to going back and forth in one little area and nothing really gets clean. Asher has very definite ideas about what he is going to do and does not like anyone to interfere. He usually eats at a stool next to the kitchen counter, but lately he has been moving it all over the kitchen and insisting that he eat in that spot. Whenever we are at the store he tries to push the cart by himself and won't let Austin or I help him. If we try to help direct it, even from the front of the cart, he will tell us "Hands in pockets". He is getting really good at speaking and astonishes us sometimes with what he is able to communicate. He tells us what to do a lot, with the majority of his commands ending with the word "now". The other night at dinner, kind of out of the blue, Asher asked Austin "How job going, Dad?" Austin and I talked about it later and tried to figure out if I had been asking him about his day before that, but we don't think so. Asher is good at his colors most of the time. He can usually name a color accurately, but is still way off sometimes. His favorite color continues to be orange, so he can name that one 99% of the time. Asher has started counting to three every now and then, but consistently says "one, three, two" no matter how many times we correct him. 
Asher's newest friends are a stuffed fox and a little toy cat my mom sewed for him about a year ago. It actually came with a whole set of animals, but he has taken a special liking to the green cat and calls him "Kitty Mouse". Kitty Mouse comes to church or on walks with us sometimes or watches Asher eat. When he does come to church, Asher likes to show him to everyone and tell them his name. Asher also loves a stuffed fox that I named Volpe (meaning fox in Italian). He can't say Volpe though, so he has named it Baby Boltay. Baby Boltay may actually be winning Kitty Mouse out in popularity. He goes on walks with us, gets wrapped up in a blanket and thrown around the house many times a day, and watches Asher eat. If Asher hasn't seen Baby Boltay in awhile, we have to search the house until he is found and can once more take the abuse of a loving two-year-old. Of course Asher's blue bunny, Jelly Cat, is still his favorite, but since he isn't allowed to come out of Asher's room (I don't want him to get lost or too dirty) except on special occasions, Kitty Mouse and Baby Boltay are the daytime animals of choice.
Asher loves to lock doors and often locks the bathroom doors-whether he is in the room or not. I have become pretty expert at unlocking the doors from the outside. Another big love of Asher's is sweatpants. He LOVES sweatpants and insists on wearing them everyday. We only have 4 pairs, so a couple days a week he has to wear something else, which does not make him happy. I'm happy on those days though, because sweatpants are so nerdy looking- especially when his cloth diapers make them look too short for him. 
 Here are some photos of Asher decorating the Christmas tree this afternoon (only achieved because I bribed him with two M&Ms :)

Thanksgiving and Leif's Birthday Party

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low-key, which is how we like it. In the morning my mom, Austin, and I all ran the Loveland Turkey Trot. Austin's brother, Brent and his wife, Niccolle, also ran, but we only saw them for a few seconds at the beginning. It was only a 5K, but I was pretty impressed with Austin, who hasn't run in a couple of months and usually only runs about a mile or a mile and a half at a time. He pushed the stroller with both of the boys almost the whole way and lead the way the whole time (except the last 20 yards or so, when I sprinted in front of him and beat him across the finish line :) Here I am pushing the stroller at the beginning of the race.

We spent the afternoon baking birthday cupcakes (Asher was thrilled to help mix them up) and pumpkin pies. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Austin's parents' house, then had Leif's party there. We just had a few games--Thanksgiving Bingo, a pinata, and tape the crown on Leif (kind of like "pin the tail on the donkey").
The theme for Leif's party was "crowns" so I made a crown for him to wear and decorated the table and cupcakes with crowns. Here is a picture of the cupcakes with Thanksgiving dinner in the background:

Leif isn't much of a fan of cupcakes, he only at a few crumbs and ended up mostly just playing with it. But he ate a bunch of pumpkin pie later on. I guess its fortunate for him that his birthday will always fall around Thanksgiving.

 Leif was pretty aloof during most of the party and Asher was really busy playing with trains, but their cousins seemed to enjoy it. Leif got some fun presents, which his cousins enjoyed opening much more than he did, but he enjoys playing with them when Asher isn't trying to steal them from him. Here he is trying to open a present.

Here is an action shot of the pinata. It may look like there is just a streak in the photo, but those are the goodies falling out of the pinata. (It was a pull-string pinata, so it was easier for Leif to open, although his cousins ended up needing to help him to get it open)

LEIF IS ONE!!!

It's hard to believe that our little Leif is already a year old! He's getting to be such a big boy and learning new things each day.

Leif is expert at throwing things on the floor. He loves to watch as he drops something and as soon as Austin or I pick it up, he'll drop it again. As I've learned with Asher, this phase will last for a long time yet, so we have resigned ourselves to picking things up for him until we get sick of it, then just hoping that he will move onto something else.
Leif is a ravenous eater. I swear he eats more than Asher most days. When he sees someone eating something and he feels like its not getting over to him fast enough, he will howl and whine until he gets food in his mouth. He is especially vocal while I am peeling Cutie oranges. Those seem to be his favorite food, although he will eat just about anything given to him.
Leif loves to stand up and cruises around a little, but doesn't show much interest in walking yet. He likes me to help him stand up, but if I try to get a step or two out of him, he automatically drops all his weight onto the floor.
Leif is delighted at the game of passing something back and forth with me. He is thrilled with himself when he passes something to me when I ask him to, then even more excited to get it back into his hand. This is a very easy and effective way to entertain him and get him giggling.
Leif loves to babble and when he is really talkative, he puckers up his lips for some reason. He says "dad" in reference to Austin, but when I try to get him to say "mama" he just laughs at me. My feelings aren't too hurt though, because Leif makes it very obvious that I am his favorite person with his separation anxiety. He's got a pretty bad case of it lately and wants to be with me all the time. I think our trip to Utah intensified it a little because he has been a little bit better since we've gotten settled back into home. He will usually fall asleep on his own now after I nurse him and he's okay staying in a room by himself or with Asher or Austin for at least a few minutes.
Something that I love to see Leif do is lie around and kick his feet in the middle of playing. Maybe a lot of babies do this--just hang out and look around--but Asher never did this, so we love to see Leif take a break in the middle of his playing to lie around and check out the world. Also, if someone leaves a blanket on the floor, Leif will go roll around on it and shove his face into it.
To celebrate Leif's birthday, we had crepes for breakfast.

 Then after his nap, my mom and I took Leif and Asher to downtown Fort Collins. We stopped by the toy store to pick out a toy for Leif then we stopped by the cookie store and everyone got a cookie.

 Leif liked playing with his, but didn't eat very much of it. He seemed to like drinking water out of a cup instead. We also went to the fabric store and kitchen store, but that was more for us than for the boys, although Leif was a pleasant little fellow the whole time (not something I could say for his older brother :) For dinner, my mom, Austin, and I took the boys to The Olive Garden where the boys could both enjoy some pasta.

Then Austin insisted that we go to Dairy Queen for dessert. Leif doesn't really like ice cream, maybe because its too cold for him, but he ate a little and enjoyed dancing on the table and flirting with the girl behind the counter. Here he is checking her out.
All in all it was a very fun birthday. We will have his birthday party along with Thanksgiving celebrations.

28 Months

Asher is getting bigger and bigger. Its fun to watch his personality get bigger and bigger too, although its not fun to hear his often-repeated "No, Mom". He usually says it when I ask him to do something he doesn't want to, but sometimes he just says it for no apparent reason. And yet, somehow I still find myself arguing with him "Yes, Asher" even though I'm not sure what he is saying no to. I've found that when I catch myself doing that, if I just say "No, Asher" back to him, he stops pretty quickly. Something else that Asher says quite a bit lately is "Oooh", like he has made some great discovery. From everything I can tell, he has made no such discovery and is just saying it to entertain himself while he is playing throughout the day or maybe because he heard someone, somewhere, say it once.
Asher is full of energy and if he doesn't get it out by running or some other physical means, he tends to take it out on his brother. Sometimes while they are sitting next to each other Asher will suddenly reach out and pinch Leif or pull on his clothes as hard as he can like he just can't contain himself. He also loves to jump on and wrestle with Leif but can't understand why Leif cries and mom and dad scold when he jumps on on lies on Leif's head. He also is very good about getting toys for Leif or trying to make him feel better when he seems upset. Asher prides himself on being a "good boy" and often tells us that he is one, or nods confidently when we say he is a good boy.
Asher isn't much for eating lately, unless it's a treat or Cheerios (he would happily eat those for every meal), but he does love cuties oranges. These are the only pictures I got of him-they aren't even in focus, but that's what you get :)

Halloween Fun

Here are all of our pictures related to Halloween! We carved pumpkins with the Wilkins side of the family a few weeks ago. Austin ended up carving both of ours since neither of the boys is old enough and I spent the night chasing boys around. I think he enjoyed it and he did a good job. Sadly, our pumpkins were moldy and gross by the time Halloween actually came around. I left them on the porch, but Austin wanted to get rid of them because he says they are a bio-hazard.

Sorry these are sideways. They are from last week when we went to our church Halloween party. They boys were excited to dress up.

Here are all the cousins Trick-or-Treating at HP with grandpa Brent. They all had a great time. Asher was very excited to see Grandpa and his cousins. He was also very excited to get so much candy.

This is Asher's candy haul by the end of the night. We went trick-or-treating again around our neighborhood after Leif went to bed. He got to stay up 2 hours late and eat too much sugar. He was not happy to go to bed, but he finally gave in after a few Curious George stories. We had fun getting to really take a kid out trick-or-treating since it was our first time :)

Eleven Months

Leif is turning into such a big boy. He has started eating breakfast and dinner with me and puts up a pretty big fuss if I leave him on the ground while I'm eating. He loves to eat "big people food" and often times eats more dinner than Asher does (who has taken to only playing with his food at dinner time lately). If I don't get enough food into him as fast as he likes, he lets me know it.
Leif is starting to become more socially aware. This is fun, but makes life a little more difficult since he is just starting to notice if he is getting left out of things. (thankfully he still doesn't notice most of the time, so we don't have to worry about it too much yet if Asher gets a treat that he is too young for :) Leif loves to brush his teeth (all whopping two of them) when Asher gets his teeth brushed at night. I think he likes the feel of the toothbrush on his gums, but he also likes to do what his big brother is doing. Sometimes when I have Asher laying on my lap while I brush his teeth, Leif will crawl over and try to stick his toothbrush into Asher's mouth too. He has also tried to stick it into my mouth while I was holding him.
Leif loves to clap, sing, and dance and will do all three on request, just not all the time (especially if I am filming him or trying to show it to someone). Leif loves music, so when we are in the car with the radio on, I often hear him singing along with a "Whooaa, whooaa". His dancing mostly consists of bouncing his head and shoulders up and down, but he stays with the beat pretty well.
Leif is pro at opening and closing doors and cupboards. This is fine most of the time, but occasionally he closes himself into a room and then sits or lays in front of the door so that I can't get in without running over his little fingers and hands. Sometimes he shuts himself into a room with me then stands against the door trying to reach the door knob. Of course, where Leif and I are, Asher is sure to be near by, so I usually have to lock the door so Asher won't come bursting in and knock Leif over.
Leif continues to be such a little instigator. If he isn't getting the brotherly attention he believes Asher owes him, he will yell or laugh at him and if that doesn't do the trick, he'll reach over and hit him or pull his hair. Asher doesn't seem to mind this at all and usually just does it back. I can't remember if I have shared this on our blog before or not, but Asher is very sensitive about having the tangles combed out of his hair and will tell us how much it hurts if we touch his head with a comb, but doesn't even flinch when Leif pulls out chunks of hair.
As you might be able to tell from the pictures, Leif had his first haircut the other day. Two haircuts in fact and they were both very traumatic, hence no pictures of the actual process. I trimmed his hair with scissors just taking off the parts that looked the most scraggley. He cried and screamed like it was hurting him. When Austin came home, he said it looked horrible and took the clippers to Leif's hair. He pitched an even bigger fit that time. I tried to hold his arms down while at the same time holding his head still so Austin could work, but that wasn't working, so I eventually ended up holding his hands, pushing my forehead against his so that he would hold his head still, and singing to him. He calmed down some, but every now and then would scream. It was pretty painful, but we got it done and Austin did a pretty good job.
Here are some photos of our big 11-month-old!

27 Months

Asher is so much fun and so much frustration lately. He comes up with all sorts of things to do- some of which make a lot of work for me to clean up after only a few short minutes of his enjoyment. Asher has always had a lot of energy, but lately it seems like he is extra busy and bursting with energy. One of his new forms of entertainment is running back and forth in a room, touching opposite walls and saying something that sounds like "Dra-coon" (Austin and I have tried to figure out what he is saying, but have no idea what it is.) He does this in his room to try to avoid nap or bed time or sometimes in other places in the house just to burn some energy.
Asher is a clever little fellow and sometimes tries to trick me. One of his newly discovered activities is getting all of the plastic grocery bags out of the pantry, dumping them all over the kitchen, and running through them and kicking them. He does this once or twice a day before I get sick of picking them back up. The other day, after he had already done this twice, he decided he wanted to get the bags out again. I was cooking dinner and not in the mood to have bags all over the place so I told him no. He stood by the pantry door (which has a kid's lock on it) saying "Mommy, open" over and over again. After I denied him a few times, Asher found some food that needed to be put into the pantry, took it over to the door, and said again "Mommy, open" like I was going to fall for his innocent "I'm just trying to help you clean up the kitchen" act. :) It made me laugh pretty hard, but I still didn't let him get into the pantry.
Asher also thinks he's pretty tricky when he tells me he is sleeping to avoid some undesired activity, such as eating or saying prayers. He closes his eyes and says "I sleeping" then peeks out at me to see if I'm buying it.

Asher has an undying faith that his daddy can fix any and everything and he makes a point of telling me this ALL DAY LONG. Asher points out anything that is broken (this can include a paper that is folded, something that is where it does not belong, something that made a noise once last week, something that doesn't look right to him, or something that is just fine, but interests him) and says "Broken. . . .Daddy fix" with a confident nod of his head.
Asher is getting great at formulating sentences and sometimes will astonish me with his great sentences. Lots of times he sticks to nouns and verbs, eliminating prepositions and articles. But every now and then he puts a full sentence together or only leaves out a word or two. He likes to narrate all of our activities--telling me everything he is doing, everything Leif is doing, and everything I am doing. My guess is that he does this because I do it a lot to try to teach him new words and I also repeat back to him everything he says using fuller sentences or different words that mean the same thing.
Upon Asher's constant request, we spend a good chunk of time almost every day watching the construction work going on across the street from our neighborhood. He loves to watch the trucks and other construction vehicles driving around and digging. The other day we got up pretty close to a group of workers digging a ditch and burying cement pipes in it. The guys noticed us watching and kept looking up and laughing to see a little guy so interested in what they were doing. (Leif is interested too and like to point and get excited, but he loses interest much quicker than Asher does.)
I made Halloween treat bags for the boys in late September and Austin and I have been working with Asher to teach him how to trick-or-treat. He says "tricky treat" and waits for us to put a treat in his bag. This is one of his favorite things to do (obviously he loves to get the treats) and he asks to get the "tricky bag" down a few times a day.
Asher loves to feed Leif, but sometimes offers him pieces of food that are way too big for him to eat. Even if it is something easy like yogurt, Leif always ends up a huge mess and there is sure to be food on the floor. Asher just loves to be independent and feel like he is doing things on his own.

Ten Months

Our little Leif is 10 months old and in a hurry to get big so he can do what his big brother does. Leif crawled on his hands and knees once a couple weeks ago, but never since. He is quite content to army crawl his way around the house, then once he gets where he wants to go, he is getting really good at pulling himself up. He mostly pulls himself up in the bathtub (I can't get the kid to stay on his naked little bum) or by the front window where he likes to look out to see what is happening. Leif is getting really good at sleeping at night and sleeps in about a 7 hour stretch most nights. I typically put him down to sleep, feed him just before I go to sleep (sometimes not until right after I have fallen asleep) then he sleeps until early morning when he wants to eat again and then snooze until its time to get up. Leif likes to mimic us and does this really funny thing with Austin where they swing their heads back and forth. I'm not sure who started it originally, but its really cute to watch. It was a bit of a hectic day, so I didn't get the chance to take nice photos of Leif like I wanted to, but Austin caught a few of the boys looking out licking the window together. They thought it was hilarious. I couldn't figure out why there was so much giggling coming from their direction, but when Austin showed me the pictures, I understood. Guess its time to wash the windows, again.