Eleven

It's hard to believe that in less than a month my baby will be 1! What a fun month this has been! Like I said last month, Asher has changed so much so quickly. He is hardly a baby anymore. He is a little toddler now, and we love it. He sure keeps us busy, though. He is just a busy busy boy, and all over the place!

He even took his first steps last week, just a few days before 11 months. It was the cutest thing we have ever seen. Tim and I were so excited, and Asher was so proud himself. I'm so glad Tim and I were both home to witness it. He is still working on it and I'm sure in no time he'll be walking all over, more like running probably. He is ALWAYS on the move.

He also figured out this month that he can open the cupboards and drawers and is pretty much obsessed with the kitchen. We have had a giant diaper box sitting in front of the cupboard under the sink for over a week now because I can't find the right baby proof locks for our cupboards. Everything else has been rearranged so he can get into it and he loves it. Earlier today Tim and I were sitting in the living room while Asher crawled into the kitchen. A minute later we heard a drawer open and Asher laughing to himself over and over. We walked in to see him just playing with the box of ziploc bags, he thought it was hilarious. We love that he can entertain himself like that these days. He loves to explore and is very curious.

He is also such a good eater now. It has taken a while and he was such a picky eater before. He will eat just about anything we give him. Right now he is especially loving watermelon, spaghetti, yogurt and graham crackers. I limit the graham crackers but he would eat them all day if he could!

Asher is super talkative right now. He is always "chatting" and sounds like he is trying to say real words all the time, and sometimes he is. He copies us a lot, it's so cute. One of my favorite things is listening to him through the monitor when he wakes up, he'll stand in his crib and jump up and down while yelling for us "Mamamama, Dadadada". As soon as we walk in he gets a big smile on his face and jumps even more. I love that he is so happy to see us.

I'm so excited for his birthday! I started planning his party last week when I realized it was only a month away, I chose a theme, made the invitations, and made most of the decorations all in one day while he was napping. Now I'm getting antsy waiting for it. I can't wait to let him open his present and try some cake. I'm sure he'll love it! I think he'll especially love the cake part, he already has a sweet tooth. We love seeing him grow and learn new things all the time. It's definitely more work everyday to chase him around, and sometimes I wish he could stay a little baby forever, but I certainly wouldn't have it any other way! We love our Asher boy!

 Our cute boy! Asher loves to be outside.

Eating spaghetti and LOVING it!

Splash Pad

A couple of weeks ago Asher and I went to the splash pad with Ashley, Hunter and Brin. It was Asher's first time. Asher and I did go into the water a little but for most part we sat in the shade and chatted with Ashley. I'm so glad it's summer! I think we will be spending a lot of time outside this summer :)

 Cute Asher!

 Me and my boy

Ashley and Asher

Tulip Festival

Asher and I went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point with Ashley, Hunter and Brinley. We had so much fun. Asher was so good the whole time and loves to be outside. He happily sat in his stroller while we walked around. The Tulip Festival was beautiful. I'm so excited because my mom bought us a family pass to Thanksgiving Point for Easter. I can't wait to use it all the time this summer!

 My happy boy!

 

Cute Brinley giving Asher a kiss :)

10 months

10 months already! Actually, 10 and a half months now. Asher has changed so much this past month, probably more than any other month so far. He is such a happy boy these days. He is getting over his stranger anxiety, slowly but surely. He doesn't fuss much these days since he has become more mobile. I guess he likes his freedom.

 Here are some things he has been up to lately. He finally, FINALLY, started traditional crawling just before he hit 10 months. He had been doing this funny army crawling/scooting thing forever. I didn't think he was ever going to really crawl. All of a sudden though he is just all over the place. He would still much rather walk than crawl so he's always pulling at our hands for us to walk around with him. It's pretty cute. When he's not walking with us he's usually walking along the furniture, the walls, with his walker, or anything he can get his hands on. I knew he wouldn't crawl for long. I'm sure it will be any day now that he takes his first steps. He is already getting brave and letting go of us while he's standing. He gets so proud everytime he's standing alone. He'll get a huge smile and start clapping for himself. It's adorable. Every time we go to get him out of crib he's standing in the same spot jumping up and down.

His little personality is coming out more and more. He sure has an opinion about things and may be just be a little stubborn already. I don't know where he would have gotten that ;) He is so sweet and happy though. He likes to play peek a boo and will even put his hands over his eyes and say "a boo!". He can wave now and thinks it's so funny. He copies our words every now and then. We have heard him say yum, a boo (peek a boo) and book. He actually said book unprompted the other day so we're counting that as his first word. He is a great eater now and will eat just about anything we give him. He's figured how to bite the lids off of things like his Gerber puffs and it's one of his favorite things to do. He'll pull them out of the diaper bag, bite the lid off and take a big handful. Sometimes I let him just because it's so funny.

We love how much he's growing and learning. It makes us so proud when he learns new things! We love our Asher boy!

Easter

We had such a fun Easter this year! I have decided that holidays are at least a thousand times more fun once you have kids. Even though Asher is still too young to understand any of it I still get excited for him :)

The week before Easter we headed to my Dad's house to make our traditional panoramic Easter eggs. We had a blast and Asher was of course spoiled and got his first Easter basket, which he loved. It was filled with some goodies and fun toys. He especially liked the toy phone, the Baby Einstein DVD and of course the Gerber Puffs, his favorite snack.

This is what Asher did while the rest of us made our eggs...

The finished product

Asher going though his goodies from Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth

All of us "kids" (minus Mathis) with our eggs

The day before Easter was actually mine and Tim's 5 year anniversary. Yes, it really has been that long! We decided to go out and leave Asher at home with Tim's parents. We don't leave him often but it was fun to have some time alone, even though we missed him the whole time. We first went to the movies and saw The Hunger Games, which I loved, Tim not so much. Then we headed to PF Changs and had a delicious early dinner complete with dessert. We made it home in time to spend a little time with Asher before his bedtime.

Sunday morning we went to church. I think it was probably the 2nd time ever I have been able to sit through all of Relief Society with Asher. It was an Easter miracle. After church and a nap we gave Asher his Easter basket. His favorite part was the fake grass filler, and of course his Baby Mum Mums :) That evening my Mom, Rudy and the Davis family came over for dinner. We had fun just visiting and playing at the playground outside our condos. Here's just a few pictures of Asher going through his Easter basket.



We had a great Easter and loved spending time with everyone!

9 Months

Asher turned 9 months old on Wednesday. He is changing and growing so fast! I can't believe he'll be one in just three short months! He almost doesn't even feel like a baby anymore. He had his 9 month well baby check yesterday. No shots this time, yay! The dr said he is doing perfect. Here are his 9 month stats:

Weight: 20 lbs even- 42nd percentile
Height: 29 inches- 74th percentile
Head: 16th percentile

He is still a tall boy! In fact, it's just about time to switch to a convertible carseat already since he is so long. We certainly didn't get as much time out of this one as I thought we would but it will be nice not to lug that big thing around anymore.

So this is what he's up to these days. For awhile now he's been doing this funny worm crawl where he just uses his toes and wiggles himself around with his bum in the air. A couple of days ago it turned into an army crawl which has been much more efficient for getting around. He still doesn't go far but it gets him where he wants to go. He has started to clap every now and then, which is so cute.
He does a great job feeding himself finger foods. In fact, he hardly even lets me put food in his mouth unless it's on a spoon. If it's not on a spoon he wants to do it himself. The only problem right now with food is he does not seem to like the texture of fruits or veggies if they aren't pureed and won't eat them as chunks so we are working on that.
He has turned into an AMAZING sleeper. He sleeps from about 7:30pm til about 7am and naps twice a day for about 1.5-2 hours each. I guess all that sleep training has finally paid off! He even falls asleep on his own in his crib for naps now too. It makes me one happy mama :)
He loves books, songs, tickles, peek-a-boo, when we babble back to him, and he especially loves bath time. He also loves to stand up while holding our hands.
He's not much of a cuddler because he is always too busy looking around to lay his head down but he loves to be held and carried around. His stranger and separation anxiety has picked up a little lately and he does not like when we walk away from him. He has started this new thing when he gets mad now and "yells" at us. He yells "Da da da da ba ba ma!" or some other combination of those sounds. It's pretty funny, even though I probably shouldn't think so.
Overall, he's doing great and we are having more fun with him everyday. We love our sweet guy!

Even though this is so not a good picture of me Asher's face here is just too funny not to share! This is when we went to Thanksgiving Pointe a couple of weeks ago with my mom, Ashley, Hunter and Brinley.

I don't usually have many non-Asher related things to post but we are super excited because Tim just got a new job! Today is his last day at Universal Systems and he'll be starting with a company called EMC as a technical support engineer on Monday. It's only like 5 miles from our house so he'll have a much shorter commute and more time at home with us, which we love :) I am so proud of him and hope he loves this new job!

Family pictures 2012

Last week we decided to finally take some family pictures. I had been wanting to do them for months but was waiting for the weather to warm up. My sister came along with us to help us out and take our photos. We had originally planned on taking them at a dock in Daybreak but once we got there it was way too windy. We came back home and headed to a dirt road behind our house. It's a great spot but the lighting was terrible, thank goodness for Photoshop! There are still a few things the photographer in me wishes I could fix but I'm actually really happy with the way they turned out! Thanks for your help Ashley!