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! 

Hydrangeas

My favorites!   

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day

This little guy sure thinks his dada is great!

We're sorry you had to spend your special day like this...

(installing a new garbage disposal)

Luckily there was still lots of time for playing.

Splish Splash

Asher loves to splash in his new water table!

Waving hello (or about to take his hat off)

Deep in thought



Skeptical 

His usual expression - tongue out

 Upset (probably because he wants to get ahold of the camera.)

Playing happily

Pets

Last night we almost decided to adopt two of these...

Photos: East Coast Pygmy Goat Club

Pygmy goats!!!

Really, we almost did. 

Then we had a reality check.
Dog
Two cats
One year old
We are already frazzled.
Pets cannot outnumber people here. 
Pets probably should not outnumber adult people, but it's too late for that. 

But look at these cute faces... 

We were sad about no goats. 
Final decision--We will adopt two goats when we turn 40. 
We're planning ahead for our mid-life crises. 
No need for convertibles, just a couple of mini-goats,
and maybe an extended vacation to the Meditteranean too. 

It all started when we went to a friend's retirement party last weekend, discovered that Chris knew their neighbors, and met the neighbor's baby pygmy goats.  They are the perfect pet. 
Except we already have too many pets...for now.

Laundry Day

Asher spent the evening in the laundry basket.  He was quite content just to enjoy sitting in the basket.  It was the longest time period he's been still in ages!  I wonder if we can repeat this activity tomorrow! 

 Check out those knees!

This is how he tells me that he wants me to rock the basket back like a boat! 

Swimming

We took a little outing to the pool last night & discovered that Asher loves to swim.  By the end of the evening, he was stretching over trying to put his head in the water and seemed to want to go off to swim on his own! 

12 Month Update

12 months with our little guy has made for quite the amazing year! 

We spent today remembering this day...

 And celebrating this beautiful boy...

Asher got his first taste of cake tonight.  At first he wasn't too sure what to think. 

 He looked a little more interested once I put a dab of icing in his mouth.  He just didn't want to touch the cake himself. 

Once Chris started feeding him the cake with a spoon, he really got into it. 

Once I said the icing was all gone.  He informed me that I was wrong by pointing to the remainder of the cake that was sitting nearby on the counter.  Smart baby! 

Now we are so excited to see what the next year will have in store.