Fall

It is now officially fall, and it definitely looks like it.  Today was cool and rainy, which was a little disappointing since we had to change our plans.  As soon as the weather cleared up just a bit, Asher and I headed up to the mountains to explore.  This was just past the Draper temple and it is gorgeous and so full of reds and oranges.  Love it!  

I seem to be loving fall more than ever this year and I love having a little buddy to go enjoy it with me!

Snowbird

Marcus and I were able to get away and stay at the Cliff Lodge up at Snowbird Friday night.  My mom was so sweet to watch Asher and it was so nice to just relax and have a mini vacation just the two of us.  We hiked and ate out, relaxed, swam and slept in.  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves; it was so gorgeous up there.

Donut Falls & Willow Lake

I love the mountains and all of the incredible places there are here to go hiking here.  The last few weeks we have decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and get to a few hikes.  

We all load up our babies (with the exception of Kate, who has her baby boy inside still...) and set out on our hikes.  I love having girls to go explore with!

{me + Asher, Krista + Ethan, Nancy + James, Cara + Eva, and Kate + baby boy}

Donut Falls was fun but I especially loved Willow Lake.  You head up the Willow Heights Trail up Big Cottonwood Canyon to a gorgeous hike.  It was steep, but only about a mile to the lake.  You hike through quakies almost the entire way up and it is just so pretty.  

Asher was so comfy he zonked right out for the hike home.  So sweet!

13 Months

So I don't know how long I want to continue doing monthly posts on Asher, and obviously not forever, but for now I love looking back on them.  This is the only place where I write all of this down, and if I don't do it here I don't know if I'll do it at all.  

Some things I want to remember about Asher at 13 months.  He:

-Loves pointing everywhere.  All the time.

-Has 8 teeth.

-Is a total ham, and loves getting attention from everyone.  

-Says hi all of the time.  He says it to everyone.  Especially when it is quiet, somewhere like church, he just looks around at everyone and says hi, waiting for people to say hi back.  If you don't, he'll continue saying hi over and over and over.  But if you do, he'll probably continue saying it anyway.  :)

-Says no, no, no, no, no.

-Is basically always talking or making noise of some sort.  He is rarely quiet.

-Has mastered going up and down the stairs.

-Walks everywhere.  He never really crawls anymore, and when he falls down he just gets back up. He is starting to even get faster already.

-Is a great sleeper.  He sleeps from about 8:15 until 7:30 each night and still takes two naps.  

-Loves milk and his sippy cups.  He didn't really have a problem at all transitioning to milk and no bottle.
-Has a love/hate relationship with cords and ropes or anything that resembles them.  He goes crazy wanting them, but once he has them, he gets so frustrated.  We're not sure what he wants to do with them, but he gets tangled up or trips on them as he walks and just gets mad.  So generally cords and ropes make him super happy and then super sad.
-Always wants to play outside.
-Is crazy about playing on the couch.  He'll sit and smile or else crawl around up there.  He knows how to get down but not up.

-Plays so well by himself.  He'll play with his toys, read books or just explore the house without needing any attention or help from us.

Asher is one happy little boy and we just love him to pieces.  He is growing up before our eyes and it is so fun watching him grow and learn.

**and whenever I have a really good picture of Asher on my blog, it was either taken by my sister Katie or my friend Christine.  Christine took this one!**

Flaming Gorge

You think before you have kids you know how you'll parent. And people always tell you not to judge because you just don't know until you have kids.  I must admit that before I had kids, I would sometimes judge, or at least say something like, "I'm never doing that when I have kids."  But then you have kids (or in my case, kid) and realize that you totally might do that, whatever that was, now that you have a kid.  I am realizing that I don't always know how to parent little Asher.  He is starting to throw real tantrums and I don't know the best way to approach them.  He is such a little sweet boy but he can throw a killer tantrum.  It stresses me out because he is 13 months old, and you can't really reason with a 13 month old.  So it's kinda crazy.  Also, I am a clean freak and I never thought I would be able to relax and let my kid play in the dirt.  But I am realizing that being a mom is a lot more fun if I can relax and just let my kid be happy.  So over this Labor Day weekend, Asher played in the dirt a lot, and he had a lot of fun.  Don't judge me and I won't judge you, K?

We went to Flaming Gorge with my family and had a really good time.  The weather was chilly and rained a lot, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well Asher did with camping so the weather didn't bother me too badly.  We camped and boated and had lots of fun with the family. 

Little Stella loved being the driver.  She'd climb right up and steer and honk the horn.

Asher was quite literally a happy little camper, just hanging out, crawling around in the dirt, playing with rocks and sticks.

Sunday we took a long drive and took a tour of the dam and explored the Green River.  It was gorgeous.

Asher pleasantly surprised me and slept really well in his pack-n-play in the tent even though it was loud with rain, cars and other really loud campers.  

WALKING?!?!

How can my little baby be walking?  

It seems like crawling was the last thing that made my baby a baby, and now that he can walk he is no longer a tiny little baby.  He toddles around everywhere, and even though he is really wobbly and plops down a lot, he pops right back up or either goes right into a bear crawl without missing a beat.  I love his little bear crawl and will miss it when he doesn't need it anymore.

Here he is doing three of his favorite things: walking, throwing rocks, and screaming.  And don't mind the fact that he is only half dressed.  And that these are so blurry.  (Why are they?  They aren't on my computer, until I put them on here.)

The Big Race

On Saturday me and Marcus, along with Katie and Elise and their husbands ran the Top of Utah Logan half marathon.  We have all been looking forward to this (or dreading it?) all summer long and the day was finally here.  This was my third time doing this race, and for once I wasn't crazy nervous.  Even though I hadn't trained as much as I had wanted to, I knew that it would be fine and I would be able to finish the race.  I had a goal to beat 1:50 but was nervous that wouldn't happen, so I wasn't worrying about it too much.

Elise, Me and Katie waiting for the race to start at the top.  It was chilly, but not freezing, and like usual it was pretty chaotic and frantic up there.  Everyone gets nervous and the gun goes off and there are thousands of people running all around you.  You have to maneuver your way around everyone and I kept thinking I was going to lose these guys.

I absolutely LOVED running with these two.  What is better than a good race alongside people you love?  Mike and Marcus were ahead of us, and Mike was out of our sight pretty quick.  Me, Lise and Katie ran together for the first five miles down the beautiful canyon.  I caught back up to Marcus and was happy to see he was still doing good.  I was so nervous for him because he had hurt his Achilles earlier in the summer and had only ran for the two weeks prior to the race.

The final 5 miles or so I ran alone, and I felt so good and so happy.  I felt like I was able to push myself harder than I ever have before, and felt so good doing it.  I was so grateful that I could be running and couldn't help but feel blessed to have a healthy, functioning body that was allowing me to do this.  I have never felt that as much as I did for those final miles and it made the race really great.  I finished in 1:48 and was thrilled.  All six of us finished within only 15 minutes of each other too which I thought was so awesome.

I was so proud to run this race with Marcus, Katie + Nate, and Elise + Mike.  What a fun, neat experience.  Tierra and her boyfriend and my mom and dad were there to cheer us on as we crossed the finish line, so it really was a family event.  And even though I felt so sick all day Saturday and Marcus couldn't even move on Sunday, we look forward to the next time we'll run this race.