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.