The Wilkins: July 2022

This handsome, sweet, and funny boy is now 11! Asher is so responsible (and tall!) that it seems like he has been older for some time, but he's also very silly and we are in no hurry for him to grow up too fast. Asher loves all things trucks, gears, and robot and also has a love of space and Legos and video games. He is as active and social as ever, although we've seen some shyness in some situations emerge in him this year. He is usually very helpful and always fun to be around. He loves to be around his family and loves to tell me things that he learned from reading books. He is quite the delight to be around!

Asher's birthday is just a few day's after his grandma's and before his cousin's, so we had a combined celebration on Saturday. All the kids enjoyed bowling (with some arcade games at the end), going out to lunch, having cake and ice cream, and going to see Minions at the movie theater. On his actual birthday, Grandma and Grandpa came over for chocolate waffles and stayed to watch all the kids while Austin and I went to get our Colorado driver's licenses and open savings accounts for all the kids. Asher is very eager to get all of his money into his account to start earning interest. I've been saving the majority of birthday and Christmas money he gets over the years, but we didn't want to open an account in Canada and have been promising the kids we'd do it once we moved back to Colorado- we finally did it for them and it will be good for the kids to reinforce the importance of saving their money. I believe the kids played card games, played with giant balloons, and watched a movie with their grandparents while we were gone. Once we got home, we hung out a bit then had a pizza/movie night. Asher picked the movie out, but lost interest in it once his dad went to the garage to change the oil in his car. Asher ended up helping his dad instead (something he loves to do!) and only came in to have ice cream. I didn't want to make another cake after all the cake from the Saturday party, and the kids love ice cream the most anyway, so we just had ice cream for his birthday celebration before bed.

No one in our family is a great bowler, but everyone had fun. The younger kids had bumpers on their lane to make it a little easier for them. At one point, Asher was playing on three different lanes to fill in for a player who was missing, or just to get to play with everyone in the family.

I think what the kids love most about chocolate waffles is using up the extra whipped cream in a game they call whipped cream face- which is just squirting the whipped cream into each other's mouths.

Since Trevor can't eat whipped cream, they gave him a powdered sugar face- which didn't turn out so well for him or for the floor.

And here is Asher's birthday interview:

Who is your favorite person? Leif

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Playing Mario

What is your favorite outfit? Moon phases shirt and blue Under Armor Shorts

What song do you like the best? How Great Thou Art

What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Leif

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be a robot engineer

What is your favorite book? The Good Master and The Singing Tree (one is a sequel to the other- they are excellent books about Hungary in WWI times. Asher just reread both of them last week)

What are you really good at? Legos

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? Every R/C car and every Lego set and SpaceX

What is your favorite dinner? Pot pie

If you could have a wish, what would it be? go to the moon or get a diamond window from a space probe on Venus

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Mint Chocolate Chip

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play lots of stuff

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday?

What is your favorite thing to do? Play Mario

What are you proud of? Being good at Legos

What are you afraid of? Fear