Asher is Seven!

Happy 7th Birthday to the boy with the biggest heart! I love this boy so much and I can't believe he's seven. In some ways it feels like I've just always known him and been with him. In other ways, I it feels like he is growing up too fast. We started the day with chocolate waffles, as is our birthday tradition. Asher was mainly interested in the whip cream, but Leif was devouring the waffles faster than anyone else could. Trevor was even able to eat a little bit of waffle- apparently he can handle the milk as long as it is cooked. Asher wanted to go pick raspberries on his birthday and to his delight he had swimming lessons too. After Dad got home, we had dinner and opened presents. I also made a raspberry pie for dessert. We had a party the next night with a few friends over. Asher had a great couple of days.

Here is the birthday interview for Asher's 7th birthday:

 Who is your favorite person? Trevor

What is your favorite color? Green (just recently changed from blue)

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? The Incredibles

What is your favorite outfit? BB8 Shirt and pants (a Christmas gift from his grandparents that he wears as often as he can, even in the summer- he even has it on today)

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

What is your favorite cereal? Chocolate waffles (not a cereal, but a breakfast food)

Who is your best friend? Leif, Heidi, and Trevor

What do you want to do when your grow up? Someone who works with big machines, a farmer, and an architect

What is your favorite book? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What are you really good at? Building Legos

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To Alaska so I can visit Uncle Kenny

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? Bags and bags of Legos

What is your favorite dinner? Pot pie (he requested this for his birthday dinner)

If you could have a wish, what would it be? To go all the way around the world

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Tiger tail

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play and fly drones

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Open my presents early

What is your favorite thing to do? Have fun

What are you proud of? Do Legos that are for kids that are older than me

What are you afraid of? Nothing

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Be with Trevor

How strong is Dad? Super strong

What does Dad do best? Wrestle and work

What does Mom do best? Take care of us

What do you like best about Dad? He's fun

What do you like best about Mom? She's nice

A Very Happy Half Birthday!

Our sweet little Trevor is 1 1/2 years old! It seems like in the last few months he's suddenly become a real toddler and not much of a baby anymore, although everyone in the family still refers to him as "our baby". He is on the go and in to everything- constantly exploring anything that he can find. He has started to sleep better most nights, but there have been a few with me up 5 times or more just to rock him back to sleep. I credit these lovely evenings to the minefield of teeth he's got going on both the top and bottom of both sides of his mouth. His eight front-most teeth are all in, but all those sides and molars seem to be coming in (at various stages) all at the same time. Poor guy- its no wonder he's having a tough time sleeping. Trevor is definitely not the verbal prodigy that his sister was (he's a lot more like Asher, taking it very slowly) but he is coming out with a few more words a little at a time and he definitely understands a ton. He's pretty good at following directions, unless of course he gets distracted by something to explore :) His eczema is still terrible- I coat him in thick lotion at least twice a day and I have to keep him as much covered as possible to keep him from scratching himself too much. I don't want him to be too hot, but luckily it hasn't gotten all that hot here and I doubt it will get too hot for more than a few days this summer.  Trevor has mittens that he wears to bed (really long socks that come up to his elbows) to keep him from scratching in his sleep. I thought the older he got, the less likely he would be to wear them, but he really seems to like them as part of his going-to-bed routine and goes and grabs them and helps me put them on him before I read to him and rock him for a bit. Trevor is such a happy, delightful personality! Although his eczema is taxing and his sleeping habits aren't as ideal as some of his siblings, he sure is a delight to have around and we sure love him!
Here are the photos I got of him today. I realize they all look pretty much the same-he's just so cute I couldn't narrow it down any more :)

Palmyra Trip

We took a quick trip to upstate New York last weekend. It was exhausting, but fun. We stopped by Niagara falls on the way there, but didn't stay too long since we were just there a few months ago. We actually didn't even park to see the falls because it costs money and would have taken more time, but we did drive by them a few times and stopped at the souvenir place to eat lunch at see the giant moose.

I was so excited that evening to eat at Chili's! Canada doesn't have Chili's and we don't eat out very often anyway, so it was fun, even if the food wasn't quite as good as I remembered.

The next morning we went to see the sacred grove, the Joseph Smith farm, and visited the Hill Cumorah. The older boys were pretty interested, but Trevor got sick of his stroller really fast. Heidi was most interested in watching the squirrels jump around in the woods. We also stopped by the Palmyra temple just to walk around the outside a bit.  Austin got a little camera happy, so enjoy all the shots.

We also spend some time going to the mall where there are quite a few stores that aren't in Canada.

The highlight for the kids was the giant carousel $3 isn't bad for 10 minutes of sheer joy for four kids (and a dizzy mom)

The hotel room we had the first night had two queen beds and a sofa bed, plus a crib that Trevor refused to sleep in. The kids liked that room fine and kept jumping back and forth between the beds. I noticed a wet spot on the floor on the second day and Asher noticed a "spider" on the ceiling which was actually a place where water was leaking through the ceiling, so we got to change rooms the next night. They didn't have another room to accommodate our whole family, so we got two adjoining rooms instead both with king beds. The kids were thrilled to have their "own" room and I was so exhausted from the night before trying to get Trevor to stay in the crib instead of in our bed, that we just let them watch a movie on the iPad while Austin went to get a quick dinner. I think that was the highlight of the trip for them. I gave up on Trevor and just let him sleep between Austin and I in the bed and slept quite a bit better.

We found a cute little ice cream shop near our hotel. Here's an ice cream couch they had.

These were the smallest size cones they had

On the last morning we stopped at the Book of Mormon publication site and Asher and Leif got to see how a book is made (or used to be).

Then we found another ice cream shop before we headed back to Canada. The highlight here was slush puppies, which the kids thought were hilarious and delicious.