Wild Weather

We survived the wild weather this week.

The earthquake. 

The hurricane. 

   The aftershocks that are still waking me up nearly every night.

We also survived the first week of school. 

That's a big accomplishment.

 Did I mention that Asher has gotten really into wearing shoes recently?  He wants to put them on as soon as he wakes up in the morning and wear them all day.  He even wants to wear them with his pajamas. 

I'm glad he likes to accessorize! 

Hello

Can you hear me now?

First Day of School

New Preschool Student to Teacher: "Are you having a nice and relaxing day?" 
Does a preschool teacher ever have a relaxing day? 
No. 

Last year on day one...

Crying preschool student: I want my mommy. 
Teacher:  You'll see your mommy after school.  Your mommy wants you to be happy at school.
Preschooler: My mommy wouldn't do this to me.

We love trucks!

Asher is home with a fever today.  Oh no!  

 Luckily there was a really cool scene outside our front window this morning.  It was a truck-loving boy's dream!  I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a truck! 

 Asher even put his dump truck up on the windowsill, so it could see the real dump truck on the road. 

 Hopefully we will have our healthy boy back soon!

La Escuela Ahora

"La escuela ahora! ... that's what one of my new students said pleadingly yesterday when I stood up to say goodbye after visiting her at her home.  She burst into tears when she realized she couldn't go with me to start school right then and there. 

Are we ready for school to start? 

Yes and no. 

We could use a few more evenings, like this one spent at Walnut Creek.

We were practically the only people there!

Here Asher is apparently getting ready to clip some coupons for back to school shopping at Target!  Nice! 

14 Month Update

.  We've been busy lately traveling to Michigan to visit with

Nana

and oodles of cousins!

What's new with Mr. Asher at 14 months?

He's now an expert plane rider able to keep very busy on flights by opening and closing the window shade, tearing up Sky Mall, and pushing the arm rests up and down repeatedly. 

He proudly takes about two steps before crashing to the ground! 

He races to the window at the sound of the garbage truck going down the street. 

He's growing his hair out rock star style!

He has tan little legs.   

He loves to eat cheese (and of course yogurt too).

He's fascinated with belly buttons.  He's eager to show you his belly button and definitely wants to see yours too!

Running to Key West Update

Miles We've Run                     Miles to Go

     297                                       876

We're more than a quarter of the way there! 

As soon as Asher starts running, we're going to strap a pedometer on him, so he can start contributing some mileage here too. 

Hola, Mi Amigos

Happy Saturday! 

Wearing a sombrero makes everything more fun! 

Paying bills, grocery shopping, watching the news, or even just sitting in a laundry basket. 

Asher recommends you try it today! 

A Dog and his Boy

 

It's so nice being greeted by this welcoming committee when I come home!

They're tired of being trapped inside because the heat index is 110 degrees! 

Someday they might figure out how to work together to open the door & run out! 

They are best buds you know. 

(excpet when Asher throws trucks at Rambler or uses him as a step stool to try to climb up on the couch)

(or when Rambler climbs across Asher while he's trapped in the car seat or plows him over while running to catch of glimpse out the window of a dog walking down the street)

I guess they're typical brothers. 

Vacation in Maine

Maine - June 2011

Highlights
-Hyland - our awesome vacation rental where we spent hours on end lounging on the deck overlooking the water
-Watching Asher wave to every single person in each restaurant where we ate
-Having to turn on the heat in the house as soon as we arrived. Oh we miss those 70 degree days!
-Sleeping in until 8:30 on the first day
-Eating lots of ice cream and seafood (not together)
-Beautiful hikes along the water
-Watching for wildlife

Around the House

Scenes from around our house this week:

Rambler, Dog Wonder

Princess Cricket

A parade of cars in the front window arranged just so by Asher.

Asher takes his cars for a ride.  These cars go with him most everywhere he goes. 

Whenever the house seems unusually quiet for a minute and Asher is nowhere to be seen, we peek into his room, expecting him to be getting into something.  This is usually what we see though.  This little guy loves his books, especially his Sesame Street books, which he happily reads 50 times a day.

The weather was a "cool" 93 today, so we were able to venture outside for a few minutes. 

Little Mr. Independent

Little Mr. Independent likes to hold his own spoon
or two spoons
and a dish too. 

This guy is not afraid to get a little goopy!

Still Running to Key West

After taking a bit of a hiatus, we're continuing our push to run to Key West. 

I've signed up for the women's four miler, and Chris and I have both signed up for the Lynchburg 10 miler, so hopefully we'll see our mileage start adding up as we train for the races.

It's going to be us runners versus the hot weather for awhile though. 

Miles We've Run          Miles to Go
        247                            926

Next stop, South Carolina border. 

Techo-Baby

Texting, Tweeting, Updating their Facebook Statuses?

The only thing that is for sure is that Asher will probably be more adept at new technology than us in just a couple of years!

Did I mention he clearly understands how to swipe through pictures on an iphone to view them all? 

I expect he'll be writing these blog entries for me soon.

Meal Time

New Developments at Meal Time...

Asher likes to hold at least one spoon during every meal.  Two spoons is preferable though!  He gets a kick out of tossing them down to Rambler too, which Rambler loves.  It's not uncommon to go through four or five spoons per meal! 

Occasionally he gets a spoon from the dish into his mouth, but usually he just stirs and stirs and stirs and stirs...

 After eating for awhile, he smashes his hands onto the food on his tray.  After that he usually examines his hands as if he's surprised to see so much mushed up food on them. 

Every meal concludes with Asher throwing his arms up in the air & squacking to announce that he's finished eating.

In conclusion, my favorite photos.  Asher keeping it casual at dinner time.

Examining his peaches.

7 Year Update

7 Years of Marriage:

1 Baby - Asher!

2 Cats - Cricket & CJ

1 Dog - Rambler

2 Fish - Severus & Ziggy

2 Homes

3 jobs (2 for me, one for Chris)

6 Countries Visited - Ireland, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico

11 states visited - MI, NJ, NY, CA, WA, NC, WV, ME, NV, UT, CO, AZ

2 Very happy people!

13 Month Update

We're back!!  Just a day late for the 13th month update. 

Surprising new foods that Asher loves:  pickles & lemons.  Both elicit puzzling looks from strangers in restaurants.  Yogurt is still his fave though.  Don't dare eat one in front of him unless you plan to share.   Also, he really likes to help stir up his food now.  He's reall thorough about stirring too...taking a long time! 

Asher's favorite part of our vacation to Maine:  The fan at the top of the stairs in our cabin.  He climbed the stairs over and over again just to get a glimpse of the fan.  If we had the stairs blocked off, he would sit at the bottom of the stairs giving his sign for fan, which consists of flailing his arm round & round.  He's demonstrating the sign in this picture, which is why his arm is blurry!  Prior to this trip, he had only been exposed to ceiling fans, so I think he was very excited to discover a new type of fan. 

Personality type:  extrovert.  Asher loves being surrounded by lots of people.  In a crowded restaurant or store, he will wave at every single person and persist with the waving until he gets a response.  Once someone smiles or waves back, he will get so excited and wave even more!  Luckily his waving is cute enough that even groups of teenage boys will oblige him by waving back & smiling. 

New direction:  forward facing in the car.  He's so tall that he has outgrown his rear-facing seat.  He seems to like facing forward so much that he doesn't want to fall asleep for even one minute in the car any more. 

Favorite daily routines:  Brushing his own hair & teeth.  He also likes to brush Rambler's hair or the hair of anyone else in the room.  Sometimes the hairbrush can double as a toothbrush too!