Christmas 2012

What a fun Christmas we had!! I was so excited for the holidays this year. The older Asher gets, the more fun holidays are. Since we are building our house we really tried to keep things simple this year. Tim and I decided not to get gifts for each other, which was actually great, and way less stressful. For Asher, we just got him a few things that we thought he would love. It was perfect, and something that I think we will continue to do every year. I love that he didn't end up with a crazy amount of toys that he won't play with. I feel like this way, as he gets older, we can focus on Christ rather than gifts and Santa.

We started our celebrations on Christmas Eve with my dad and Leslie at their house. It has been a tradition since Tim and I were dating to spend Christmas Eve at my dad's. We started out with our traditional cookie decorating for Santa. Asher enjoyed sneaking cookies while the rest of us frosted.

 

After cookies, we had a delicious dinner, as usual. Then we exchanged gifts and enjoyed spending time with everyone. Asher loved playing with everyone, playing the piano and climbing up and down the stairs all evening. He did get some super cute gifts, that he loves, and is still playing with everyday a month later. He got the little people zoo as well as a cute piano with a microphone.

We tried to get a photo of all the kids in their cute Christmas jammies, this is as good at it got! 

Christmas morning was my favorite, Asher was so cute when he got up. The first thing he did was run over to his stocking, pull out a sucker and then ran to turn on the TV, ha ha. Not quite the reaction we were expecting but it sure made us laugh. Once we directed him back to the gifts he got pretty into it. He loved the ball popper and his puzzles, and of course the sucker :)

Later that morning we had my mom, Rudy and the Davis bunch over. We had yummy cinnamon rolls and opened gifts. Asher loved the play kitchen he got from my mom and Rudy. We knew he would love it! He plays with it all the time still. He is too cute with it, he makes all the sound effects and always pulls us over to his kitchen "cook" with him. Asher loves it these days when we have people over, and he loved that Grandpa Rudy gave him chocolate milk! Tim and I also got spoiled with

new couches for our house, which I can't wait to start using.

Christmas afternoon Tim's parents, Aaron and Jonathan came over. We had a relaxing time visiting, and watching Asher show off all night. He is such a ham when he's the only little one around. He loves being the center of attention. It's so funny, he starts off shy but once he feels comfortable he can't get enough of the attention. He got the perfect gifts from Grandma and Grandpa McDonald, books and a quiet book for church. He loves books so much! And the quiet book has been great for sacrament. I love that he didn't get toys from everyone. He already has too many, but can't get enough books.

We had a wonderful Christmas and we feel so lucky we live close enough to spend the holidays with family. We are also grateful for everything our families do for us!

18 months

Is there a way I can slow down time just a little? Where did my baby go?! Asher is such a little boy now! He turned 18 months on Dec 21, and seriously, I don't think he could possibly get any cuter. He amazes us everyday with the things he does and his fun personality!

18 month stats:

Height: 34.65 inches- 95th percentile
Weight: 26.46 lbs.- 56th percentile
Head: 18.7 inches- 39th percentile

He's such a monster! I know I say this every time, but how did we end up with such a tall kid? Most people are surprised to hear he is only 18 months just because he is so tall!

Where do I even start? He is doing so many fun things these days. He is talking up a storm. He says 30+ words all on his own, and repeats us like crazy. I feel like I can have little conversations with him now. Even if he doesn't know what we are talking about he still responds to us and keeps the conversation going. One of my favorite things he says is "bummer dude!" And if Tim or I ever say "bummer" he always adds the "dude" for us. Too funny!

Some things that he loves right now include being chased around the kitchen table. He likes to peek through the chairs and say "I see you!". He still loves his books and bath time. He's obsessed with yogurt and fruit cups right now. He always wants to get into the fridge to pull one out then runs over to get his "poon" (spoon) so we can feed it to him. He is really into trucks lately and gets excited every time we hear one out the window. We have to watch the garbage truck each time it comes, and he is sure to wave and say "bye truck" each time it leaves. He also loves the vacuum, a little too much. Which,that one is nothing new but he still loves it just as much ever. He still loves music and dancing. I am pretty certain we are going to have to get him a piano one day. He loves it so much. He would sit and play at a piano for hours if he could. He is climbing up on everything. His favorite place to climb is on top of the kitchen table, and then jump. Crazy boy! He knows almost all of his body parts now and loves to color. He loves any kind of game, he is so playful and such a little tease already!

We have been trying out nursery for a little while now. I wish I could say it was going well. He is so not loving it though. He screams bloody murder and holds onto us with a death grip each time we drop him off. I want to cry each time we leave him but I know he has to get used to it. He always calms down eventually though and they never have to bring him to us. Once we pick him up though, he does not let go of us for anything! We always hear he enjoyed singing time, so that's one positive note. Last night in the tub he started doing some little actions over and over again and singing to  them. I have no idea what he was doing so it must be something he picked up in nursery. It was pretty cute!

 Overall, we pretty much have the cutest boy around. We love seeing everything he learns each day. He is getting so big and we love seeing his personality come out more and more everyday! Love you Asher boy!

Great changes!

So many exciting things going on with us these days! We are sure keeping busy with everything going on!

The most exciting thing happening right now, we are having another baby! Another BOY! We are so thrilled and can't wait to have our 2 cute boys. I am due May 28, which makes me 20 weeks already. This pregnancy sure has flown by. We can't wait for the little man to get here. I'm sure he and Asher will be the best of friends. They will be just shy of 2 years apart, which worries me just a little ;) I'm sure once we get past those early newborn stages though, and can get into a routine, it will be fun to have them so close. Our only problem right now is trying to come up with a name for this little one. Coming up with one boy name was hard enough for us! 

Exciting news #2: We are building a house, in Lehi! This one is still hard for me to believe. It doesn't feel quite real yet, maybe once we are a little closer to moving in. So far it has been super fun and super stressful. Honestly though, it isn't nearly as stressful as I expected. A lot of people told us "if your marriage can get through building a house, you can make it through anything!" Now that just seems silly to me. We are on the same page with just about everything. It's actually been really easy to make decisions together and compromise on the things that are really important to just one of us. Our finish date is set at March 12 right now, we'll see if that sticks with all the snow. I hope so! I want to get in and have everything ready and settled before our new babe comes. Tim's favorite thing about the house: Geothermal heating and air (we feel so green!), my favorite thing: white cabinets in the kitchen! We will post some photos along the way :)

We feel so lucky and so blessed for these changes coming our way. This is going to be a great year for our growing family!

Halloween 2012

This was my favorite Halloween yet. It's so fun to enjoy these holidays that are new for Asher, especially as he is getting older and having fun too. He was a super cute, furry little monster. It was adorable. He was by far the cutest monster I have ever seen.

Trick or treating was even more fun than I expected. When we first walked outside, he was a little disappointed when he realized we weren't going to the playground, but luckily he got over it pretty quickly once we got started. He was understandably a little confused and afraid the first couple of houses. He would wait patiently at the door with his cute little bucket until someone opened and tried to hand him candy, then he was hiding behind our legs or bolting it back down the driveway. It was too funny.

After a few houses, he got the hang of it. Actually, he didn't want to leave any of the houses after he got his candy. He was too cute. He especially loved the houses that had dogs, he would get so excited and starting barking. We were out for about half an hour or so. At our 2nd to last house he got a Tootsie Pop, and it was all over from there. He dropped his bucket of candy and tried to eat the sucker through the wrapper. We finally pried the sucker out of his hands and tried one more house, where they gave him the exact same thing. There was no way we were going to get his mind off of a second sucker so we headed home. His favorite part of the night was probably when we got back home and got to eat his sucker.

Overall, we had a great Halloween. Asher was super cute and I think he had a lot of fun. We love our little monster!

I guess he was hungry...

I was just looking through some photos and found these from August and knew I needed to post these. I am not very good at blogging the everyday things.

I had been in the other room getting ready for the day while Asher was playing in our front room. I came out to find him in a pile of cereal. He was eating it as fast as he could and shoving handfuls in his mouth. Silly kid. Good thing he's so cute. We did find a new home for the cereal after this, though :)

15 months

Our Asher boy is already 15 months! He just went in for his well check and sure has grown since his 12 month check up. Here are the 15 month stats:

Height: 32.67 inches- 90th percentile
Weight: 24.36 lbs- 48th percentile
Head: 18.3 inches- 31st percentile

He shot up from the 59th percentile to the 90th in 3 months! He has always been a tall boy but I couldn't believe the difference. They even had to measure him twice just to make sure it was accurate! I guess I should have expected it, though. He can reach just about anything he wants now, including the top of the kitchen counters. One of his favorites is to reach into the silverware drawer and pull out a handful of spoons so he can "stir" in the mixing bowls.

He is just getting more and more fun as he gets older. This age has been the best so far. He is sure energetic and keeps us busy, though. He never holds still and is always on the go. He loves to dance, be chased and jump on everything. Each morning when we go in his room he is jumping up and down super high in his crib. He actually doesn't even want to get out most mornings. He just wants us to stand there and watch him jump around, silly boy!

He is learning so much and catching onto everything right now. He is a little parrot and also says a bunch of words on his own. He says about 10-12 words consistently (and mostly in the correct context) plus copies us all the time. Some of his words include mama, dada, kitty (which basically means every furry animal), binky, snack, up, all gone, thank you, no, book, duck and uh-oh. He understands the names for most objects and will go get his shoes or any toys when we ask him to.

He loves to play outside, especially the playground and going down the slide. He loves to walk around and look for the "kitties". Every time we see one of the neighbors cats he gets super excited and runs over to see it. He loves to flip through the pages of his books. He LOVES his milk, a little too much, maybe. He loves toothbrushes, unfortunately. Luckily we catch him before he tries to chew on ours :) He also loves to play/watch other kids now. It's fun to see him try to interact with them and share his toys.

He also loves keys and can't stand to not be holding them whenever he sees them. We were out for a walk the other day and he was holding the keys when all of a sudden he threw them in a storm drain. It had all of my keys, which meant we were locked out of the house and Tim was at work. My sister came to help me look for them. With the help of a police officer and my neighbors we were able to fish them out. It was quite the afternoon!

Our Asher is one crazy, busy, little boy and we love it that way. Not to mention, he's pretty adorable :)

Party #3

Lucky Asher had 3 birthday celebrations. The final celebration was about a week after his birthday with my Dad, Leslie, Mathis, Keaton and Ryan. They came to our house for dinner and cake.

After dinner Asher opened his presents from my Dad and Leslie. He did such a good job unwrapping them, must be from all the practice he's had lately :) 

Asher with his presents. He got the one on the left twice :) He also got a cute outfit with new shoes.


After presents we had some delicious cake that Leslie made. She makes super awesome cakes that look amazing. She pretty much put the cake I made for Asher to shame! It was adorable, and yummy!

Asher's cute dragon cake

 

We tried to get a photo of him with the cake but he just wanted to pull off the dragon's spikes and eat them :)

We had a super fun night celebrating! We are so grateful that Asher has so many people who love him and want to celebrate with him!