20 Months

In the chaos of getting back home after being gone for a week, I completely spaced doing Leif's monthly post. Today has been the first day that I haven't been trying to get the house clean and organized, trying to catch up on scheduling for Austin's work, or taking little people to doctor/dentist appointments. We had some down-time this afternoon at a park when it hit me that I hadn't posted for Leif.

Leif is about the same kid as ever :) He can get upset really easily, but you can also make him laugh pretty easily. He is getting bunches of teeth in, so he has been crying a lot lately, but he still sleeps like a champ! Poor thing had only four teeth for over six months, and now they are all coming in at the same time. Here are some pictures from our afternoon at the park. Leif played in the sand a little but then was only interested in "Eat!" I let him have some fruit snacks and teddy grahams, but then made him wait until dinner (he wanted to finish the whole bag of teddy grahams and was offended that Asher wanted to have some).

Trains and Farr's Ice Cream

On the last day of our trip in Utah we went with my sister and mom to go see the trains at the Ogden train station. As you can see Leif was just exhausted by this time (like I've said in all my earlier posts, the boys were not sleeping nearly enough on our trip). Asher was super excited to see all the trains and kept asking if he could drive them. 

 He was particularly impressed with the blue train of course.

 To help us cool off after all that time outside in the heat, we went to Farr's Ice Cream. I spent a lot of time (and ate A LOT of ice cream) here during my high school years. They have more flavors than any other ice cream shop I've ever seen and they give you huge scoops. Lucky for us, they had a flavor called Blue Moon Vanilla which allowed Asher to have his much-desired blue ice cream without having to have a weird flavor that he might not like.

 

Leif got cookie dough ice cream and surprised me by eating the entire thing (finishing it even before Asher finished his).

Hogle Zoo with Cousins

On our Utah trip we met up with one of my cousins and her kids at the Hogle Zoo. It was really nice for the boys to get to visit with "cousins" about their age and I got to visit with my cousin. Although we were at the zoo for about 4 hours, we only got to see the main animals (lions, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, polar bear, seals. . . ) The biggest attractions for Asher seemed to be the water fountain that looked like a lion and the little train. With the water fountain, I let him stand there and get about ten drinks then finally made him move on for the sake of the other kids. A few minutes later I almost had a heart attack because I though he was with my cousin and found that he indeed was not with her. I left Leif with her to frantically search for him only to find him standing at the water fountain again watching some kids get a drink. He was only "lost" for a few minutes and I was pretty sure with so many other families around that nothing would happen to him, but it was still scary. With the train, I didn't get any pictures because it was the end of our visit and we were all tired, plus when the train finished and we had to get off, I literally had to drag Asher away from it. The little stinker even tried to sneak back in just after we went out the exit gate.

 

We were at the seals and sea lion exhibit just as they were about to start a training demonstration, so we got to watch them do some tricks. Asher really enjoyed watching them from under water though. 

Hogle Zoo has a splash pad to help the kids get cool- a very nice thing when its so hot. We played there for at least an hour. There was a big tube slide right next to the splash pad where Asher spent the majority of his time, but he made sure to stay nice and wet too. (I had some pictures of Leif in the splash pad, but I'm not sure where they went- sorry)

The kids also loved riding on the carrousel. For some reason while we were waiting in line, Asher and his older cousin, Jameson, decided that they wanted to ride on the bench instead of on animals. This made it easy for us, since we each had younger kids that couldn't really stay up on an animal without help- they were all very content just to sit on the bend and go "around and around and around and around". 

Asher and Leif were very excited when my cousin bought popcorn for a treat. They were even more excited when she spoiled them by buying them slushies in special zoo cups. I'm pretty sure neither of them had ever tasted a slushie before so that was a fun treat.

We have been to the Denver Zoo several time, but I felt like this was the first zoo trip where both of the boys were old enough to actually be interested in the animals and care that we were there. It was fun to enjoy it with cousins.

Hiking

While we were in Utah, we went on two hikes with my Dad. Asher loved hiking with Grandpa and Leif liked riding in the pack on my back (most of the time). On the first hike we went on, there we wild raspberries growing all along the way, so the boys enjoyed picking them and eating them. They sure helped keep Asher hiking right along. When we got to our turn-around point (which was a lot sooner than my Dad and his dog would usually go back), there were tons of ripe raspberries that provided a nice snack for the boys before we headed back down. We even took some of the raspberries home and added them to the raspberries from my Dad's garden to make yummy raspberry shakes.

  On the second hike we went on, Asher wasn't quite as speedy as the first time. I think because it was near the end of our trip and he was exhausted from not getting nearly enough sleep and being way too busy. The boys loved the turn-around point where I let them get into the water and play around for awhile.

Three Years

When did I get a three-year-old? Time has gone by way too fast, but we love this guy so much. He is FULL of energy and personality and definitely adds a lot of excitement to our family.
We were in Utah for Asher's 3rd birthday and had a party at my mom's house. For the last few months Asher has been asking for a blue monster truck birthday, so I did my best to comply. Mostly anything with wheels makes him happy though. And he loves anything that is blue. My mom and Abbey got a yellow truck pinata, but took the time to cover it with blue paper. Asher isn't really into hitting the pinata, but the older kids that came to his party (my friends' kids and his cousins) enjoyed hitting it.

 

He was sure excited to grab some treats out of the pinata after it was broken. He still hasn't quite gotten the idea of getting as much as he can. He grabbed one thing at a time and brought it to me to hold. It was nice to have the kids sharing the treats rather than fighting over them though. 

 

My mom made Asher two cakes! These are the ones that take forever to put each little dot of frosting on. She made some of these when I was little, so I thought it would be fun for the boys to have them. One cake had a blue monster truck and the other had a green tractor. For some reason when it came time to blow out the candles, Asher just pretended to blow and wouldn't actually blow them out. 

 

We had a temporary tattoo station at the party because Asher loves those so much, but none of the kids (including Asher) really seemed into them at the time, so we didn't really do them. We also had waterguns which some of the kids played with a little, but mostly Asher just played with Uncle Travis after the party. Once Travis convinced him to put shoes on, they shot each other with water for about 20 minutes.

 

 

After Asher's party we had a family reunion where he got to do another pinata (again, he just wanted to grab a few treats at the end) and got to pick more prizes and meet lots of new people he has never seen before. All in all, it was a very busy day and we were glad to get two exhausted little boys to bed.

The next day we went to my Dad's house in the evening to have the blue birthday cake Asher has been requesting from Grandpa for months. I'm pretty sure my Dad looked forward to going to the bakery and ordering a blue cake for his grandson just as much as Asher looked forward to having it. I didn't get any pictures of the actual cake (dang it!) but I did get some pictures of the fun before the cake. My cousin brought her daughter Lainey (who is just a couple days shy of a year older than Asher) and the two of them had a blast running around with each other and acting crazy. They spent the majority of the time chasing my Dad's dog around the yard and squirting her with the water guns. Then Lainey got to share Asher's birthday cake with him since her birthday was the next day.

 Leif wasn't quite as wild as Asher and Lainey, but he still had fun shooting Uncle Travis with the water gun.