Nine Months

Our little Leif has been with us now for the same amount of time he was in the oven baking :) Leif's personality is really starting to show- very sensitive, laid back, curious, and a little goofy.
Leif has developed all kinds of skills for getting anywhere he wants to go. He is pro at rolling around and doing his trademark back arching to inchworm across the floor on his back. (I really wish he would stop doing that since I'm paranoid he is going to rub a bald spot on top of his head right in the middle of all that beautiful thick hair.) He went from barely being able to army crawl one day to army crawling across the floor at top speeds the next day. He doesn't crawl on his hands and knees yet and usually just falls over when we try to get him set up for it. He might never crawl with how fast he is at his other methods of locomotion. But its obvious that Leif is more than anxious to be going places. He watches Asher race around the house with eager eyes and he wiggles around like he's trying to figure out how he can start racing too.

Leif is a great eater- the size of his thighs proves that :) He has finally gotten really good at eating solids. He loves to eat his baby food,although he isn't a huge fan of vegetables, and usually gets it down as fast as I can shovel it in. When I offer him vegetables he will usually eat a few bites then start acting like a goof ball and blowing raspberries (spraying the food on me) and squinting his eyes. He does this sometimes when he eats fruit and baby cereal too, but only after he has eaten enough that I believe he is actually done. He also loves feeding himself cheerios.
Leif is almost always the instigator of laughing wars between him and Asher. He usually starts by blowing raspberries at Asher, who laughs at him or does it back, then Leif laughs and they just sit there and laugh back and forth at each other. I LOVE this! Its so much fun to see them interact and its especially fun that Leif is the one who starts it.

Just an ordinary day

25 Months

I told myself I was going to stop doing monthly pictures for the boys once they were two, but I changed my mind. I think it is really fun to have a monthly record of their growth- both in pictures and in writing. Also, I'm planning on making the monthly blog posts into photobooks so that we can look back and
remember what the boys were like at each month milestone.
Asher is a full-fledged 2-year-old, complete with several daily tantrums and a will to do everything himself. The first tantrum of the day is usually when its time to change Asher's clothes. Like I mentioned in a past post, Asher has this weird thing about getting really attached to whatever he is currently wearing and doesn't want to take it off. It may be related to his habit of really liking routines- whatever the routine is, that is what Asher thinks we should always do and that's what he likes best. Sometimes Asher has a tantrum and insists that I put his PJ's back on, and other times he insists that he be "nakey". After having a HUGE meltdown about wanting to keep his pajamas on, I decided that wasn't something I really wanted to battle with him over, so now I just let him wear them. He typically decides within a half hour that he wants to be nakey (I insist on him still wearing a diaper), then a little while later he will pick up his cloths off the floor where I put them and bring them to me to put on. He is very particular about what he wears though. He usually wants one of three shirts- one with a tractor, one with a boat, or one with a truck. If I want him to wear anything else, I either need to convince him that it is from Paul and Ben (a good portion of his clothes are hand-me-downs from them anyway), wrestle it on to him, or if Austin is around have him put it on Asher.
Asher continues to adore his dad. He still has tantrums sometimes when Austin leaves for work, but lots of times now he will settle for a kiss goodbye then just stand at the window and wave to dad as he leaves. In the last few days, Asher has started calling Austin by his name every once in a while. I first noticed it when I left Asher in his highchair eating breakfast and Leif in his exersaucer playing while I took a shower. Usually when I do this, Asher starts calling for me after a few minutes and keeps it up until I come down. This time, when I got out of the shower, I noticed him calling "Austin". Maybe he had called for mommy while I was in the shower, didn't get the response he wanted, so he decided to use his dad's name. He says it to Austin sometimes and just walks around saying it sometimes. Its funny, but I try not to laugh at him too much and just keep telling him that to call him "dad".
Asher has also finally started saying his own name. The other day he heard Leif squealing in the other room and I told him he was saying "where is Asher? I want to play with my brother." So Asher pointed to himself and said "Asher" twice. Now, just like with Austin's name he will walk around and just randomly say Asher, but he still doesn't say it when you ask him who he is or what his name is.
Speaking of Leif squealing, Asher has also decided that he would like to squeal, but it usually comes out as a really annoying high pitched scream that he does over and over. I'm sure that he just does it for attention and it drives me crazy, so I'm trying not to give him attention for that, and give him more attention for other things. He sees me responding to Leif when he squeals- but its cute coming from a baby who can't speak and who does it just because he is so happy. It's not at all cute coming from a two-year-old who can say most things.
Asher loves his play kitchen and likes to pretend he is cooking. He says "make" while he is playing and also says that to me when I'm in the real kitchen cooking something. Asher also loves me to make him forts, which he usually calls "tents", he loves blowing bubbles, and he is recently in love with playing with water on our front porch.
Now that Asher is 2, he has been going out with Grandpa Brent, Paul, and Ben on Thursday nights. He was really well behaved the first time, but was a little more wild the next time. I tell him in the afternoon if they are coming that evening and he gets so excited waiting for them. When he sees them in front of our house, he starts bouncing around and can't wait to get out the door and when he comes back you can see that he clearly had a great time. I love that he is able to get some special time with his grandpa and cousins.
Asher loves to make silly faces out of the blue. He will just be sitting there eating or playing or something and will suddenly open his eyes really wide, raise his eyebrows, squint his eyes, or smile really goofy. This is probably because Austin and I make silly faces at Asher a lot, so maybe he thinks its just normal to do. Or maybe he is just trying to get us to laugh.
For quite awhile now, Asher has been saying my name over and over and over and over and over- even if I respond to him. It seems like most of the time, he doesn't truly want a response from me- he just wants to keep up constant banter with me.  About 50% of Asher's waking time sounds like this "Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mommya, Mommya. . . .Mommya, Mom. . . .Mom, MOMMYA!" I don't know where the Mommya came from, but maybe its like a nickname he has for me. He also calls Austin Daddya.
Asher loves getting into the refrigerator. Sometimes he will ask for milk just so he can take one sip then put it in the fridge, get it out 30 seconds later, take another sip, and put it back in, repeat. . . . So far he hasn't tried to get many other things out, but sometimes he will spot something then have a fit that he must eat that thing right then. I swore we would never be parents that put a lock on the fridge because we think its better just to teach him that he can't eat whatever he wants whenever he wants to, and I still stand by that idea, but I'm considering locking it up for a few months just for the sake of energy conservation. Some days he opens and closes the fridge so much, despite me telling him not to, that I'm surprised that anything stays cold in there.
Below are the pictures Austin got of Asher this morning before he left for work with the camera. You can see Asher playing with his latest obsession- his "phone". (Its really my super old iPod that I was convinced was dead after I had dropped it so many times, but Austin has gotten it to charge and light up, even though Asher just carries is around and pretends to call people on it).

Asher's First Hair Cut

I hated to see this day come, but it was finally time to cut Asher's hair. I love his curls, but sometimes I think the long hair looks a little too girly and some days it just looks like a huge mess. His hair is coarse and gets so tangley that we thought it would be best to trim some off. It went a lot better than we expected. I put lots of conditioner in his hair during his bath and tried to comb out some tangles with my fingers. Then after his bath we sat him up on a stool in the kitchen and bribed him with an "icee" (this is what Asher call's Otter Pops). He sat pretty still while Austin trimmed off some hair.You can tell his hair is shorter and he looks older, but he still has some curls.

Asher was more than willing to share his icee with me when I asked for some :)

Asher's First Sleepover

We had a sleepover with Asher's cousins, Ben and Paul, this weekend. I didn't tell Asher that his cousins were coming over until after he finished his lunch. Then I spent the next few hours with Asher all over the house running in place and saying "Paul" (He knows Ben's name, but for some reason, usually refers to them collectively as Paul). We started the sleepover off with a scavenger hunt with a stack of movies and some microwave popcorn at the end as the prize. Then we got on our swimming gear and walked to the pool. It was a little chilly, so after a few minutes in the pool, we switched to the hot tub (except Paul who insisted that the pool wasn't cold). Since the pool was too cold for Leif and the hot tub was too hot, we ended up leaving early. We came home and all the boys took a bath together. Ben and Paul brought glow sticks so we turned out the lights and they took their bath in the dark. Then we got PJ's on (Austin dressed Asher in one of Leif's shirts on accident, but he has this weird tendency to get attached to whatever he is currently wearing and wouldn't let us change him). For dinner we had something Austin invented called "Pizza Noodles" which is just noodles that they boys could put any toppings on that they wanted: Velveeta cheese, Parmesan cheese, mini pepperoni, butter, pizza sauce. They all actually ate more than we were expecting so we had ice cream cones on the porch then moved on to the part of the night everyone was looking forward to the most- watching a movie and eating treats. These are the only pictures we got and they aren't great since it was dark. Asher was thrilled to sit on the couch between his cousins and actually sat and watched the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, but he spent the rest of the time bouncing around the room, crawling in and out of the blanket fort, insisting that Leif and I go in the fort, or standing right in front of the TV so no one else could see.

Asher got to stay up way past his bedtime and was starting to melt down since he had had too much fun. He had to sleep in his own room because I'm sure he wouldn't have lasted long sleeping with his cousins. But they slept in our living room and no one got scared or had any problems all night. In the morning we had chocolate waffles with whipped cream and strawberries for breakfast and Austin threw the boys onto the love sack. This included climbing up to a rafter we have by our stairs and dropping the boys from ceiling height. Of course Leif is not allowed to do this and Asher is thrilled by it, but Ben and Paul kept urging the other to do it by promising to pay a dollar. Paul finally did it once but we couldn't talk him into a second time and Ben wouldn't do it either. Its funny- when I asked the boys what their favorite part of the sleepover was, they said it was getting thrown on the love sack. All the fun activities and food and they liked the part that terrified them the most- silly boys!

Sit back and watch this short film.

A Reptilian Visitor

This week, Austin took a work trip out to rural areas and got home pretty late. I thought he was going to be home just after Asher's bedtime, so I was planning on keeping him up to see his dad since Austin had left so early that Asher hadn't seen him that morning. Austin ended up really getting back about half an hour later than expected, but called me and insisted that I keep Asher up anyway. When he got home, he had a turtle in his lunch box that he had found crossing the road in one of the rural towns he was in that day. Asher was pretty worried by it and would only come near it if he was right next to Austin. We played with the turtle for a little bit, then let it go in a field by our house since we didn't know what it would eat or how to take care of it. It was fun to see Asher's reaction to him.