Asher is 1!

So,our little man is growing up, on Tuesday he turned one! He is such a joy to have in our family. His favorite things at the moment are standing up (still holding on though), filling and emptying containers, and anything involving him getting attention from Mommy, Ayana, or Daddy. He finally decided it was okay to crawl on his hands and knees, but still army crawls when he wants to get somewhere fast. He will walk with help and is beginning to cruise along the furniture, but I think it will be a little while before he really walks. No words yet, so maybe he will be a late talker like Ayana, we'll see. He is definitely a Momma's boy, he prefers Mom to anyone else, but will settle for Dad when he has to. I am sure that if Ayana was able to carry him around he would like her best though, he always wants to be where she is and do what she is doing. He is a very happy little boy quick to smile for his family, but a little shy around strangers. He loves to eat cheerios and kix and just about anything else he can get his hands on. He is still my little snatcher who will grab a hold of anything and everything, even when you are sure it is out of his reach. He is a wonderful addition to our family and we feel so blessed to have him!

Here are his one year old stats:

weight: 21 lbs (20th percentile)

height: 28 inches (3rd percentile)

5 teeth

and

The cutest little smile ever seen!

Asher's first picture

Asher at 5 months

Asher at 10 months

Asher as a One Year Old!

So last week we had Weinhard's Root Beer with our dinner. THe kids were enthralled with the bottles. Trever saved the last few sips of his for Asher and gave him the bottle. He couldn't quite figure out how to drink from the bottle, but he sure loved playing with it. So here's some cute pictures of my two crazy kiddos. We are excited for Asher's birthday in a couple of days, and I will be sure to post some pictures of him enjoying his birthday cake.

Ayana trying to play her bottle like a flute

Dad, this bottle is just too tall!

The Mouse House!

So I am finally getting a time when the computer is available and I am awake and the kids are not needing my attention for a moment, it is a miracle! Life around here is jam packed and wonderful as usual.

A couple weeks ago between semesters we went on a whirlwind vacation to Disneyland, or as Ayana likes to call it "The Mouse House." It was a belated 5th anniversary trip and just an opportunity to do something besides the same old same old in Rexburg. After the LONG drive to California we spent the first night at my sister Shannon's house. The kids did amazingly well on the drives. Asher decided to get 2 new teeth just before the trip and had been super fussy so I was worried, but it turned out to be a blessing because he slept much more than he normally does during the drive. Shannon was kind enough to add my two crazy kids to her brood for a couple of days, so the next morning Trever and I (sans kids) left and headed to Anaheim.

We spent two blissful days just he and I and it was fabulous. This is the first time since Ayana was born that we have been on a date longer than about 8 hours and certainly the first nights without any kids around. It sure was a nice break and made me appreciate them more when they came back. We had a ton of fun riding the rides and enjoying all the fun. We enjoyed a number of the rides, but I think our favorites were Indiana Jones and Toy Story Midway Mania where you ride through and play a bunch of midway games in a video game type format. We thought it was a blast. We also went and saw the Aladdin show that is a live musical theater presentation. It was cool to see and made us excited for the day in the future when we can afford and have time to go t regular theater events. We also swam in our hotel pool, ate at some yummy restaurants and I got to sleep for 8 whole hours 2 nights in a row. All in all it was a great two days.

The third day we met up with Shannon to get the kids back and took them with us to Disneyland. It was sure a different place when you experience it with 2 small children. Asher was too young to do much, but I think he still enjoyed himself. Ayana was a little overwhelmed at first, but once we got in the swing of things she really enjoyed herself. She LOVED meeting Mickey Mouse and going through his house. Her favorite ride was Autopia where she got to drive a car around the track with a little help from her Dad. She also always talks about "going on the boat to see sharks" For some reason she loves sharks and remembers vividly the nemo ride where you go on a submarine and see clips from Nemo as well as some underwater scenes. At the time the ride scared her a bit, but now she talks about it constantly. Asher was a great kid who just enjoyed hanging with his mom a lot and the few rides he was able to go on. Now every day Ayana asks "to go to the Mouse House."

It was a wonderful vacation and we had a great time. Now we are counting down till the end of July when we get to go camping in Utah for a week. Vacations are always the best, especially with Trever who can make anything fun and enjoyable.

Other than that, life is the same as always. As you saw, I cut my hair pretty short, I don't think it looks very good in the picture below, but I've figured out some other ways to do it that look better. All in all though, I have now had short hair and know for sure that it is not the look for me. Though short hair is amazingly convenient, and to never have it in your face is great!

My very smart husband finished another semester with straight A's and only has another year and half to go. Now we are beginning to look into Grad school and taking the GRE and all that fun stuff. Right now he is thinking about either MIT or BYU in Provo. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, after all my jabbering here are some pictures from the mouse house...

My Wonderful Life

Today I just feel blessed, I am not sure if it is because of conference reminding me of what's important, or why I feel it so strongly right now, I just know that I do. I have the most amazing husband. He takes such good care of me and the kids. He doesn't fill the traditional breadwinner role right now, but he does so much more. He cooks dinner almost every night and breakfast on the weekends. He is so great with the kiddos, even doing things he doesn't want to (like reading Dora books to Ayana). He is the glue that holds our family together. Whenever I am in a bad mood or something he is always understanding and when there is even the tiniest bit of fault in his corner he is always the first to apologize. My favorite thing about Trever is how he can always make us smile. It is such a blessing in my life to have a fun-loving husband. We don't get to spend more than an hour or so a day together right now, but he always makes it count. We are so looking forward to the time when school is done and I don't work overnight and we can see each other more. He is my greatest blessing and I am so grateful to have his love in my life.

I am also blessed to have two of the cutest kids that ever existed. Ayana is so sweet and is always telling me that she loves me and giving me kisses. It is so much fun to watch her learn and grow, and always exciting to see what she'll come up with next. Asher is so quick to smile and always makes you feel special when you do the littlest things for him.

My life is far from where I dreamed it would be at 28 years old. However, it is more full of happiness and blessings than I ever imagined it could be.

Anyway, just wanted to post my happy thoughts of the day; hope all of you are feeling much the same!

We found one!

Well, we are officially van owners. I am a little sad about not having my car, it was the first vehicle I ever owned that I really loved and it was very reliable and great mileage. However, I am very excited about the van that we got. It is a 2003 Chrysler Town and Country Limited. It is really in great shape with only a few small scratches, and no stains or anything. It has lots of fancy extras like memory seat positioning, heated seats, DVD player for the kids, etc. I would probably never pay for those things if I was picking all the features myself (especially the DVD player) but when you buy used you just get what you get as far as that stuff goes. We feel really good about the deal we got. They took $3000 off the original asking price (which was the blue book value) and gave us $1500 more than what blue book said to expect for our trade in. In the end we got a much nicer van than we were expecting to be able to get and we are very excited about it. I already love how much space we have. It does feel really strange to be way up high in the van instead of really low like my car. We will probably take a picture or two this weekend and I will post one for you all to see

Well, it seems like it has been forever since I posted on here. Not much is going on in our lives, The kids are growing like crazy and are more fun every day. Asher is still working on the crawling, but I know it will be any day now that he is an expert at it; he is so close! He started waving a few weeks back but now he just loves to wave at you, especially if you wave at him first, then he tries to copy the way you waved at him. He loves to be held, and gets mad if you ever put him down, though the other day at church he thought being down was alright when there were two little girls on the floor to watch and steal toys from. Ayana is turning out to be a real character. She loves to play the xylophone that Dad made for Christmas and sing at the top of her lungs "La, La, La" Her latest thing is whenever Dad asks if she wants a piggy back ride, or to ask for a ride she starts oinking like a pig, it is pretty funny. She loves to play ghost, and to be outside, luckily the weather has finally started to warm up. She likes to crawl around the house to try to show Asher how, or to push on his bum to try to get him to crawl. She is not good at sharing toys, but in every other way is a wonderful and helpful big sister. Trever and I have just been doing the same old thing. He is doing well as always in his classes. He is also getting very excited for the warmer weather because that means it is almost time to get his RC truck out again! We spent a good few hours yesterday getting our car all cleaned and ready to sell. Hopefully by this weekend we will be able to trade it in, and between that and some cash we have end up with a van. I always said I never wanted a van, but now I can't wait to own one! If any one has any recommendations for a good type of van let me know.

So Asher had his 9 month checkup yesterday, and he is doing great, he weighed in at just over 16 lbs. Still very small for his age, but he is finally actually on the charts. I am amazed that the kid is not huge, he will eat anything we are willing to give him and if Ayana leaves her snacks in his reach for even a few seconds he is doing everything he can to get them He gets more and more active every day and is turning out to be a real crack-up. He is a total Momma's boy, he wants very little to do with anyone other than me. Even when Trever is holding or playing with him he spends most of his time watching me to make sure I don't get too far away. He is still doing his Army crawl, but occasionally lifts up on his knees when he is really mad at me for walking away from him.

Ayana is doing great, she is finally starting to really get the talking thing. Still not many real sentences and still a few of her own invented words, but there seems to be at least one new word in her vocabulary every day. She is definitely a kid who likes to do things at her own pace and I guess talking just wasn't appealing before. Lately she loves to have stories read to her, luckily, I also love to read stories so sometimes we will sit and read books for an hour or more at a time. She loves the library, and almost any book is a hit, but she especially loves those with bears and "Boots" (the monkey from Dora the Explorer) She had her first real primary activity day on Saturday, and won her first black eye in a game of tag with the big kids. She took it pretty well all things considered.

Trever is doing well in school as usual. We decided to have him quit his job because to tiny amount of money was not worth the amount of time he missed with the family and the time I missed sleeping, etc. It has worked out well because now most days I am able to get about 5 hours of sleep, and still see him for at least a while during my waking hours. He is very good to me and cooks dinner almost every evening while I am asleep so I don't have to wake up early. That's about it for us.