14 months

Heidi is 14 months old and learning new things each day. She has finally decided that she is interested in walking (although not too interested yet). She took her first two steps without any assistance at my grandma's house when we were visiting last week. She did it all on her own without any prompting from us and I thought it was really special that my grandma got to see it. Since then she has taken a few more steps here and there. The most is 5 or 6 steps in a row and she still prefers to crawl since it gets her where she wants a lot faster, but we should be on to walking pretty soon- which means big trouble for us, but also not having to carry her so much. She will be very glad to be able to better keep up with her brothers once she masters walking.
Heidi still loves to eat, but she has now decided that she must feed herself almost every bite. She will often refuse when I try to feed her and insists that she feed herself, which is very messy. We sometimes out-smart her by having Asher or Leif feed her if something is really messy, although that isn't any cleaner sometimes ;) On top of having to put everything into her mouth herself, she has also decided that bibs are not for her. She rarely will just leave one on, but pulls and pulls until it comes off. I only have two bibs with really tight snaps that she can't break, so we may be exclusively using those for awhile.
Heidi's language is picking up lately. She is currently going through the "no" phase and says it all the time with a cute little shake of her head. She says a word that kind of sounds like "yes" sometimes, but not nearly as often as "no". She is also very fond of the work "gook" which I think is supposed to mean "look" since she usually says it while she is holding something up or pointing to something that interests her. These are the two words she says most often in a day, but she does have a few others- I think I mentioned them in her last post.
We love this little princess so much and are happy for the sunshine she brings into our family! Here are some photos Austin took of her getting into Asher's birthday present :)

FIVE!

I can't believe Asher is 5! We've been talking about his upcoming birthday for weeks and he is so tall that most people assume that he is 5 or 6 anyway, but it just doesn't seem possible that he is already 5 and getting ready for kindergarten. Asher is such a loving and caring person. He tells me at least a dozen times a day "Mom, I love you". Sometimes he says it just because he doesn't have anything else to say and occasionally he says it just before he asks for something, but mostly he says it just because he is so sweet. It is so nice to hear :) Most of the time he is very alert to his little sister's and brother's needs. He is especially apt to run to Heidi's aid if she seems to need something and often will help Leif out too, even for silly things that he could do himself.
Here is the birthday questionnaire I did with Asher this year:

Who is your favorite person? Mom

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Rescue Bots

What is your favorite outfit? Yellow Robot Shirt

What song do you like the best? I Love to See The Temple

What is your favorite cereal? Honey Nut Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Leif

What do you want to do when your grow up? Build buildings

What is your favorite book? The Hungry Caterpillar (we only own this is Russian, so we don’t read it much)

What are you really good at? Making piles of dirt

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To Oregon (we are going there in 10 days)

What would you buy is you had a lot of money? A big toy combine (Lucky for him, his grandparents gave him a big toy combine only hours after he told me this even though he never really mentions combines specifically as a favorite truck- Crazy!)

What is your favorite dinner? Russian chicken (he requested this for his birthday dinner)

If you could have a wish, what would it be? A big toy truck

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Blue Vanilla (A flavor we've only ever found at my favorite ice cream shop in Utah. I'm pretty sure he likes the color more than the flavor)

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play with them

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Get an early birthday present

What is your favorite thing to do? Play Rescue Bots

What are you proud of? When I help clean up

What are you afraid of? Monsters

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Play with me

How strong is Dad? So strong

What does Dad do best? Make stuff

What does Mom do best? Sew stuff

What do you like best about Dad? He wrestles with us

What do you like best about Mom? She makes us stuff (like costumes)

 To celebrate Asher's big day, we started off with chocolate waffles with whipped cream and strawberries. We hung around the house the rest of the day. The boys did what they usually do- play and make messes and I let them watch a few episodes of Pokemon and Rescue Bots while Heidi was napping. In the evening we had Asher's favorite dinner with homemade ice cream for dessert. The boys were very interested in helping make the ice cream because they are so fascinated with the ice cream maker.