Christmas Celebrations

I did a pretty bad job at documenting our Christmas this year.  We had so much fun celebrating and watching Asher enjoy the day. I would say the highlight for me was watching him be so excited and thrilled about his new fish.  He couldn't stop talking about it, and I loved it.  At first he didn't catch on too much about the actual opening of the presents.  We had to help him open the first few, but once they were open he loved his new presents.  He was definitely spoiled by his grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.

We spent Christmas Eve at the Webbs and had a delicious shepherds' dinner, read the nativity, sang hymns and played lots of games.  Asher stayed up late and fell asleep talking all about "ish".  It was the first thing he talked about when he woke up too.

Christmas day we headed to my parents and were able to skype with Joe.  It was so good to see him and see that he's still our cute and goofy little brother, just working harder and being more responsible than he's ever been before.   We had a delicious dinner and had so much fun all together and exchanging gifts.

Thanks to Kate for snapping these pics.

As always we had a very, very Merry Christmas.

17 Months

Time continues to fly by.  Asher seems so old lately and seems to have turned into a little boy.  Just a few things I want to remember about him right now:

-He is taking a much longer nap lately.  He'll nap around 2 hours each afternoon and sometimes even more (while other times a little less...)

-When Asher likes things, he really likes them.  He becomes slightly obsessed and is always talking about them.  Right now he is obsessed with owls, ducks, birds, and cheese.

-He will sit and play by himself so well.  He has a really long attention span and doesn't mind playing by himself.  He loves his duplos and has learned to build tall towers and then take them apart one block at a time.  His other favorite toys are his cars and race track and balls.
-He absolutely loves to dance.  Anytime he hears music he starts stomping his feet, spinning in circles, and swinging his arms like crazy.  It is quite the sight.  I'm not sure who he gets his moves from...

-He is getting less picky again and will eat lots of things we eat.  His favorite food is cheese.  

-He says lots of words, but some are a little hard to understand.  He says: dada, mom, go, hi, cheese, fish, shoes, tree, water, juice, no, yeah.

-He loves making animal sounds.  If he doesn't know what sound it makes, he usually roars.  He knows what the owl, lion, tiger, bear, monster, dog, duck, bird, and monkey say.
-He communicates by making sounds (he says "mmm" when he's hungry, wants more food, wants to feed his fish, etc.), shaking his head (shaking his head no while saying "mmm" means he's not hungry), a few signs (all done and more), and is pretty good at getting his message across.
-He definitely keeps us on our toes but he is constantly amazing us and always making us laugh.  He is such a fun, pleasant little guy.  

Introducing...

...the newest member of our family...

"ish"

asher's little goldfish.  we got it for him for christmas and he is completely in love with it.  I have to admit i kinda like it too...

oH cHrIsTmAs TrEe

Somehow it feels like Christmas was already ages ago, but I'm now getting around to posting a few pictures of our tree.  The tree is long gone, it's been on our porch since the day after Christmas.  I was ready to take it down and move on, but I sure loved it while it was up.

Please excuse the fact that I do not know how to take pretty pictures in dim lighting, obviously I am not a photographer.  These are kindof the worst lighting ever.  I guess I still like them anyway.  

I changed the whole look of our tree this year and did everything in silver and gold with a woodsy theme.  I dipped pinecones, made some felt feathers, used old gold and silver balls, and some fancy gold leaf things as well as buying a few new owls.  I ended up loving it and enjoyed having something different this year.

Asher was so sweet and loved the tree.  He is currently fascinated by owls so he constantly pointed to the owls and would say "whoo whoo".  We talked about how he wasn't allowed to touch the tree and he was pretty good about it.  He would walk up to the tree, point to it (and occasionally barely touch the branches) and say 'no no no' in his sweet little voice.  It was pretty cute and lots of fun.