25 Months

I told myself I was going to stop doing monthly pictures for the boys once they were two, but I changed my mind. I think it is really fun to have a monthly record of their growth- both in pictures and in writing. Also, I'm planning on making the monthly blog posts into photobooks so that we can look back and
remember what the boys were like at each month milestone.
Asher is a full-fledged 2-year-old, complete with several daily tantrums and a will to do everything himself. The first tantrum of the day is usually when its time to change Asher's clothes. Like I mentioned in a past post, Asher has this weird thing about getting really attached to whatever he is currently wearing and doesn't want to take it off. It may be related to his habit of really liking routines- whatever the routine is, that is what Asher thinks we should always do and that's what he likes best. Sometimes Asher has a tantrum and insists that I put his PJ's back on, and other times he insists that he be "nakey". After having a HUGE meltdown about wanting to keep his pajamas on, I decided that wasn't something I really wanted to battle with him over, so now I just let him wear them. He typically decides within a half hour that he wants to be nakey (I insist on him still wearing a diaper), then a little while later he will pick up his cloths off the floor where I put them and bring them to me to put on. He is very particular about what he wears though. He usually wants one of three shirts- one with a tractor, one with a boat, or one with a truck. If I want him to wear anything else, I either need to convince him that it is from Paul and Ben (a good portion of his clothes are hand-me-downs from them anyway), wrestle it on to him, or if Austin is around have him put it on Asher.
Asher continues to adore his dad. He still has tantrums sometimes when Austin leaves for work, but lots of times now he will settle for a kiss goodbye then just stand at the window and wave to dad as he leaves. In the last few days, Asher has started calling Austin by his name every once in a while. I first noticed it when I left Asher in his highchair eating breakfast and Leif in his exersaucer playing while I took a shower. Usually when I do this, Asher starts calling for me after a few minutes and keeps it up until I come down. This time, when I got out of the shower, I noticed him calling "Austin". Maybe he had called for mommy while I was in the shower, didn't get the response he wanted, so he decided to use his dad's name. He says it to Austin sometimes and just walks around saying it sometimes. Its funny, but I try not to laugh at him too much and just keep telling him that to call him "dad".
Asher has also finally started saying his own name. The other day he heard Leif squealing in the other room and I told him he was saying "where is Asher? I want to play with my brother." So Asher pointed to himself and said "Asher" twice. Now, just like with Austin's name he will walk around and just randomly say Asher, but he still doesn't say it when you ask him who he is or what his name is.
Speaking of Leif squealing, Asher has also decided that he would like to squeal, but it usually comes out as a really annoying high pitched scream that he does over and over. I'm sure that he just does it for attention and it drives me crazy, so I'm trying not to give him attention for that, and give him more attention for other things. He sees me responding to Leif when he squeals- but its cute coming from a baby who can't speak and who does it just because he is so happy. It's not at all cute coming from a two-year-old who can say most things.
Asher loves his play kitchen and likes to pretend he is cooking. He says "make" while he is playing and also says that to me when I'm in the real kitchen cooking something. Asher also loves me to make him forts, which he usually calls "tents", he loves blowing bubbles, and he is recently in love with playing with water on our front porch.
Now that Asher is 2, he has been going out with Grandpa Brent, Paul, and Ben on Thursday nights. He was really well behaved the first time, but was a little more wild the next time. I tell him in the afternoon if they are coming that evening and he gets so excited waiting for them. When he sees them in front of our house, he starts bouncing around and can't wait to get out the door and when he comes back you can see that he clearly had a great time. I love that he is able to get some special time with his grandpa and cousins.
Asher loves to make silly faces out of the blue. He will just be sitting there eating or playing or something and will suddenly open his eyes really wide, raise his eyebrows, squint his eyes, or smile really goofy. This is probably because Austin and I make silly faces at Asher a lot, so maybe he thinks its just normal to do. Or maybe he is just trying to get us to laugh.
For quite awhile now, Asher has been saying my name over and over and over and over and over- even if I respond to him. It seems like most of the time, he doesn't truly want a response from me- he just wants to keep up constant banter with me.  About 50% of Asher's waking time sounds like this "Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mommya, Mommya. . . .Mommya, Mom. . . .Mom, MOMMYA!" I don't know where the Mommya came from, but maybe its like a nickname he has for me. He also calls Austin Daddya.
Asher loves getting into the refrigerator. Sometimes he will ask for milk just so he can take one sip then put it in the fridge, get it out 30 seconds later, take another sip, and put it back in, repeat. . . . So far he hasn't tried to get many other things out, but sometimes he will spot something then have a fit that he must eat that thing right then. I swore we would never be parents that put a lock on the fridge because we think its better just to teach him that he can't eat whatever he wants whenever he wants to, and I still stand by that idea, but I'm considering locking it up for a few months just for the sake of energy conservation. Some days he opens and closes the fridge so much, despite me telling him not to, that I'm surprised that anything stays cold in there.
Below are the pictures Austin got of Asher this morning before he left for work with the camera. You can see Asher playing with his latest obsession- his "phone". (Its really my super old iPod that I was convinced was dead after I had dropped it so many times, but Austin has gotten it to charge and light up, even though Asher just carries is around and pretends to call people on it).

Asher's First Hair Cut

I hated to see this day come, but it was finally time to cut Asher's hair. I love his curls, but sometimes I think the long hair looks a little too girly and some days it just looks like a huge mess. His hair is coarse and gets so tangley that we thought it would be best to trim some off. It went a lot better than we expected. I put lots of conditioner in his hair during his bath and tried to comb out some tangles with my fingers. Then after his bath we sat him up on a stool in the kitchen and bribed him with an "icee" (this is what Asher call's Otter Pops). He sat pretty still while Austin trimmed off some hair.You can tell his hair is shorter and he looks older, but he still has some curls.

Asher was more than willing to share his icee with me when I asked for some :)

Asher's First Sleepover

We had a sleepover with Asher's cousins, Ben and Paul, this weekend. I didn't tell Asher that his cousins were coming over until after he finished his lunch. Then I spent the next few hours with Asher all over the house running in place and saying "Paul" (He knows Ben's name, but for some reason, usually refers to them collectively as Paul). We started the sleepover off with a scavenger hunt with a stack of movies and some microwave popcorn at the end as the prize. Then we got on our swimming gear and walked to the pool. It was a little chilly, so after a few minutes in the pool, we switched to the hot tub (except Paul who insisted that the pool wasn't cold). Since the pool was too cold for Leif and the hot tub was too hot, we ended up leaving early. We came home and all the boys took a bath together. Ben and Paul brought glow sticks so we turned out the lights and they took their bath in the dark. Then we got PJ's on (Austin dressed Asher in one of Leif's shirts on accident, but he has this weird tendency to get attached to whatever he is currently wearing and wouldn't let us change him). For dinner we had something Austin invented called "Pizza Noodles" which is just noodles that they boys could put any toppings on that they wanted: Velveeta cheese, Parmesan cheese, mini pepperoni, butter, pizza sauce. They all actually ate more than we were expecting so we had ice cream cones on the porch then moved on to the part of the night everyone was looking forward to the most- watching a movie and eating treats. These are the only pictures we got and they aren't great since it was dark. Asher was thrilled to sit on the couch between his cousins and actually sat and watched the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, but he spent the rest of the time bouncing around the room, crawling in and out of the blanket fort, insisting that Leif and I go in the fort, or standing right in front of the TV so no one else could see.

Asher got to stay up way past his bedtime and was starting to melt down since he had had too much fun. He had to sleep in his own room because I'm sure he wouldn't have lasted long sleeping with his cousins. But they slept in our living room and no one got scared or had any problems all night. In the morning we had chocolate waffles with whipped cream and strawberries for breakfast and Austin threw the boys onto the love sack. This included climbing up to a rafter we have by our stairs and dropping the boys from ceiling height. Of course Leif is not allowed to do this and Asher is thrilled by it, but Ben and Paul kept urging the other to do it by promising to pay a dollar. Paul finally did it once but we couldn't talk him into a second time and Ben wouldn't do it either. Its funny- when I asked the boys what their favorite part of the sleepover was, they said it was getting thrown on the love sack. All the fun activities and food and they liked the part that terrified them the most- silly boys!

Sit back and watch this short film.

A Reptilian Visitor

This week, Austin took a work trip out to rural areas and got home pretty late. I thought he was going to be home just after Asher's bedtime, so I was planning on keeping him up to see his dad since Austin had left so early that Asher hadn't seen him that morning. Austin ended up really getting back about half an hour later than expected, but called me and insisted that I keep Asher up anyway. When he got home, he had a turtle in his lunch box that he had found crossing the road in one of the rural towns he was in that day. Asher was pretty worried by it and would only come near it if he was right next to Austin. We played with the turtle for a little bit, then let it go in a field by our house since we didn't know what it would eat or how to take care of it. It was fun to see Asher's reaction to him.

Eight Months

Leif is turning into quite the delightful little guy. Well, he has always been good tempered, he is just getting to be more interactive and more fun to play with. One of the things I love about Leif at this age is when he looks at me so cute and reaches for me because he wants me to pick him up. He loves to grab people's faces and does this to me a lot while I'm nursing him, which is cute, but also kind of annoying. Leif loves balls and is entertained by them for long stretches of time. He has also found a good toy in balloons. He loved having all the balloons around the house from Asher's party and watched or played with them quite a bit. Leif also loves to swim, which for him actually just means me holding him out in front of me while he bobs along in the water, splashes, and sometimes kicks a bunch.
 Leif hit an amazing milestone this month: He slept through the night!!! That is about 4 months earlier than Asher did. I couldn't get him to go to sleep until about 9 pm but he slept all the way until 6 am. I didn't get to sleep until about 11 that night, but that was 7 hours of undisturbed sleep, which hasn't happened in years.
I think we are still a few months away from crawling, but Leif is great at being set down one place and traveling to another place when my back is turned for a few minutes.He rolls sometimes, but usually gets around on his back by arching his head back and pushing along with his feet.
 Leif does this funny thing when we feed him solid foods of sticking his lower lip out. He does it especially when the spoon is just coming out of his mouth, but also does it while he is "chewing" the food. We caught a few shots of this, although it is much funnier to watch in real life. Below that are pictures Austin took to mark Leif's 8 months.

Birthday Party

It was the event of the season! -at least in my mind. I'll admit that I'm pretty sure I had more fun thinking about, planning, preparing, and executing Asher's birthday party than the kids had attending it. I loved throwing Asher's party in our new house.

For snacks we had veggies and chips with a couple different dips, grapes, and cinnamon bears (because Asher loves these). I served the snacks in Asher's trucks to make them more exciting to the kids.

I decorated with the same birthday banners I made for last year's party. I plan on using the birthday banner for all of our kids' parties. The balloons hanging on the ceiling were part of a game for Asher, Amanda, and Leif to pull them down then Paul and Ben to pop. Some of them had dollar bills inside for the kids to find. Unfortunately for Leif, he fell asleep just before the party started and slept through this game.

The game that I have been planning the longest was Punch Out. The kids got to spin a spinner, answer a question, then punch out a circle to get a prize. The cardboard grid I put inside the box to hold the prizes wasn't as well constructed as it should have been and we ended up with a few circles without prizes behind them, but everything worked out in the end. I think the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

Asher got spoiled for his birthday! He opened some of his presents the day before the party on his actual birthday so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed and opened a bunch at the party. He got lots of cars and trucks, markers, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, a paint book, snacks, a Legos set, a new water bottle and the most exciting present which was saved for the end of the party. Asher was a little confused about why he kept opening new toys but couldn't play with them and had to keep opening more new toys.

After presents we had cake and ice cream. I made a simple yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. I decorated it with a toy tractor, Oreo crumbs for dirt, and gummy worms coming out of the cake.

As you can see by the look of delight on Asher's face, the big present saved for the end was a new bike. My dad gave us money to put toward a bike and Austin's brother and sister-in-law pitched in the rest of the money to get it. Asher loves seeing other kids ride their bikes and was thrilled to get his own. It has a little bell on it, which he loves to ring and say "noise".

We ended the party by riding around outside (Asher's cousins brought their bikes too). He isn't quite big enough to get the pedals all the way round, but he loved his new bike! We look forward to exploring with our new bike for the rest of the summer.