32 Months

Our little Leif is getting bigger and bigger. I'm pretty sure he is going through a growth spurt because besides eating and sleeping a lot (which he does almost all the time anyway) he has been tripping and falling quite a bit lately. I think his body must be growing faster than he can keep up with and this makes him very uncoordinated. Its hard to actually see any growth though. Since it's summer, he's always in shorts, so I don't see his pants getting too short for him. And since he has to be just like his brother, he's always wearing 4T shirts that are supposed to be Asher's. (I don't really mind though since Asher will only wear about 3 shirts out of everything in his closet, so it gives some use to all those other shirts).
Leif's love for singing continues to grow. His favorite song seems to be "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". He belts it out at the top of his lungs and completely off tune all day long no matter where we are. Sometimes I try to sing along with him to help him get the tune better, but usually he just gives me dirty looks and tells me not to sing. He also likes "The Wheels on the Bus" (and he thinks it hilarious to say that the wheels go 'beep, beep, beep'), I Am a Child of God, and a pop song called "Sugar". One of his favorite activities is to "watch" kid music.
Another of Leif's favorite activities is to play outside. The boys love getting wet and muddy and jumping on the trampoline. Every time they go out, I remind them not to get all muddy, but just about every time, Leif ends up covered with mud. I guess that's what boys are for :)

Heidi's Newborn Photoshoot

When Heidi was 2 1/2 weeks old, we had photos taken of her and with the rest of the family. I just got the CD with all the images on it, so here they are:

And here is a more realistic picture of how the boys felt about doing a photoshoot :)

Four!

I can't believe Asher is 4 already. Don't kids have a button on them somewhere that you can push to freeze them and keep them their cute little selves forever? I don't want him to get any bigger, but of course I've been saying that for a few years now and I have always loved each new stage and watching him grow. Here are some of the things that I've noticed lately about Asher and that I just love:

Asher is very concerned lately with how things are made, what they are made out of, who made them, where they were made, why they were made, etc. It seems I can never keep up with the unending questions he has about the origin of everything and I usually end up saying "Ask your dad, he knows more about that than I do."

Asher is such a lovebug and tells me "I love you, mommy" out of the blue several times a day. He also loves to talk about how cute Heidi is, tell me that he loves her, and and talk to her, mimicking everything I say to her.

Asher's favorite (inanimate) friend continues to be JellyCat, his stuffed blue bunny. Sometimes I feel bad for that poor rabbit- Asher loves him so much that he is constantly drug around and beat up.

Asher loves to pick out his own clothes. Often this is the same outfit day after day until I finally make him put them in the dirty clothes basket. He has a few shirts that are his favorites is so excited when they come out of the dryer. He is very particular about pants too- he hates anything with buttons or zippers and prefers things that are soft inside. He is most partial to sweatpants and talked me into cutting a pair of his favorite sweatpants (they have pockets) into shorts so he can continue to wear them throughout the summer. I also got a few other pairs of shorts for him and had to convince him that they were nice and soft before he consented to wearing them. He is also very fond of dressing monochromatically with grey being his color of choice. When ever he has his favorite grey shirt on, he won't wear shorts unless they are also grey. To go along with his hate of all things with buttons or zippers, he hates wearing his church clothes. Most Sundays its a chore to get him into them and that's only when we allow him to wear his pajamas underneath so the buttons won't touch his skin. And the minute we get home from church, he strips his church clothes off and runs around in either his pajamas or his underwear.

Asher is a big philosophizer lately. He is always saying "If we didn't have________ then we would/n't___________. Examples include "If we didn't have teeth then we couldn't chew our food" or "If we didn't have a car, then we couldn't go to the store". My personal favorite is "If we didn't have a baby then we would cry and cry and cry". Asher loves to think about things and has been asking my "why?" about everything for at least the last year, but it seems to have intensified lately. He loves to ask me about every little detail in the pictures of the books we read over and over-and many of his questions have no particular answer. It gets difficult to read the book with him interupting constantly so I usually just answer the question quickly or say "I don't know". The other day when he was on question number one million and three, I told him "I don't know, Asher, you'll have to answer those questions for yourself". He got slightly offended and sounded very worried when he told me "I don't want to think about it all by myself."

Asher loves letters- especially "A" for obvious reasons. He can spell his name, but can only write the A. I have tried to help him learn to write the other letters, but he just isn't interested right now. He often makes A's out of various objects, including making himself into an A. Occasionally, he makes other letters too- once he made a "J" out of macaroni noodles and another time he made an "H" out of carrot sticks. He makes the letter "L" for Leif a lot too- out of blocks, out of magnets, out of food. He is always so proud of himself whenever he makes a letter. Last week Asher's cousin was singing the alphabet as she looked at an alphabet book and Asher got very excited and said "Mandy is spelling my name . . . . but that's not how you spell my name". Austin and I were cracking up about it for quite awhile.

Asher had a fun birthday and was very spoiled by all his family. He got a lot of nice presents, but of course he has no problem sharing them with his brother. He has gotten a little irritated with Leif a few times, but is happy to have someone to use his toys with him most of the time. Asher is a little ray of sunshine and I don't know what our lives would be like without him. We love this kid so much!


Below is an interview I did with Asher today:

Who is your favorite person? Heidi
What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Bob the Builder
What is your favorite outfit? Ninja Turtle Shirt
What song do you like the best? Twinkle Little Star (Leif just happened to be singing this before I asked the question :)
What is your favorite cereal? The one with the tiger on it (Frosted Flakes, which he usually calls Frosted Snow Flakes)
Who is your best friend? Leify
What do you want to do when your grow up? Work at home
What is your favorite book? Curious George
What are you really good at? Eating cupcakes (I can't remember the last time he had a cupcake)
Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Nonna's house (my mom)
What would you buy is you had a lot of money? A monster truck toy
What is your favorite dinner? Russian chicken (A meal he requests often and sometimes pretends to make on his own)
If you could have a wish, what would it be? Birthday cake
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Cookie Dough (this changes constantly- he gave me at least 4 different answers while I was trying to pick out the ice cream for his birthday party)
Who do you want to be like? Dad
What do you like to do with your friends? Play cars
What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Play
What is your favorite thing to do? Help mom
What are you proud of? Jumping on the trampoline
What are you afraid of? Bad guys
What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Clean up the house
How strong is Dad? So strong
What does Dad do best? Build stuff
What does Mom do best? Clean stuff
What do you like best about Dad? Helping him
What do you like best about Mom? Her hair

So there is a little snapshot of Asher for you. Maybe I'll get around to doing a post on his birthday party and other events, but probably not ;)

2 MONTHS

Our little princess is two months old today. As you can tell from the photos, this little girl is chunking right up. She loves to eat and it shows! :) She is sleeping pretty well most nights and is becoming very social. Austin has gotten her to imitate him quite a few times when he's blinking, opening and closing his mouth, or sticking his tongue out. Sometimes she makes funny faces though, like she isn't sure how to operate her facial features. She is very smiley and loves to have little "conversations" when we coo at each other. I've also found lately that she loves having her diaper changed. It doesn't matter if she isn't really wet or dirty, she just likes to be on the changing table and have someone fussing over her. She especially likes when I'm done changing her and I walk my fingers up her belly then poke her nose while making funny noises. I guess its just a different kind of interaction than she gets when I'm carrying her around, nursing her, or talking to her while she's in her swing. Heidi also loves "tummy time", which neither of the boys ever did. She will stay there and try to lift her head or move it from side to side for quite awhile before she starts fussing. The boys are still crazy about her and call her Little Miss Heidi. We are sure glad she is a part of our lives!

Cousin Campout

We decided to have the cousins over for a sleep over- and what better place to sleep than in the tent in the backyard. We had hot dogs then cooked marshmallows over a fire for s'mores.This was a bit messy and I'm pretty sure the only person who actually liked the s'more was Asher (and me of course ;) while the other kids preferred to just eat one ingredient or another. But they all loved cooking the marshmallows with Austin. The kids all watched a movie afterward then Austin took them out to the tent. A thunderstorm had just begun when they went out, so Amanda (who was having her first sleep over) got scared and wanted to come in with me when I went out to say goodnight. So she slept with Heidi and I and all the boys stayed up super late in the tent. We had crepes for breakfast in the morning and the kids played, did puzzles, and read books until it was time to go home.

As an added bonus: here is a picture of Asher at his first baseball game. He went this afternoon with Austin, his friend and his daughter (who Asher knows from church before we moved to our new house). Of course, Asher payed no attention to the game and spent the entire time playing with his friend. He came home crying that he wanted to play with her some more :)