3 years old!

3 years of Asher!




I can't believe my baby boy is 3 years old. He was born just 8 minutes before Halloween. He can be mischievous sometimes, but when I'm finished cleaning up the schemes he concocts, I love him even more.

He is my backseat GPS system. He knows when I've missed a turn and likes to tell me where everything is along our routes. I don't turn on music in my car because I just love to listen to him chatter about all of the landmarks.

I love the way Asher learns about the world. He tries so hard to figure out all of the rules. He has learned the difference between asphalt and concrete when learning about when he is in the street or the sidewalk. It means that I can let him walk ahead of me on the sidewalk because I know he won't run into the street, but he completely freaks out if he isn't holding my hand on any type of asphalt. Even if we are walking on a bike trail or basketball black top, he tearfully begs to hold my hand. If there is a stop sign anywhere in his sight, he Demands that we stop whatever we are doing.

He loves music. He is a huge fan of the Mormon Tabernacle choir, he could watch them perform forever. He is always singing, right now his favorite song to sing is the Happy Family song from our church's "Children's songbook". Mostly he sings "we are a happy family, I love Madeleine, Mama and Daddy, and they love me, we are a happy family" over and over, not quite the right words but it makes me smile every time.

He is always saying sweet things to us. He likes to tell me that I am a beautiful princess and that he likes my hair, shoes, or dress. The little guy is in love with me and I eat it up. I am such a softie when it comes to him. He tells Paul that he is "so big and strong" and he tries to be just like him.

an impromptu haircut

I just never know what my day will bring. Today while I was in the other room and Asher was having quiet time, I came to check on him. He sneaked out of his room, climbed over the baby gate, and found my craft drawer. In about ten minutes he spread construction paper all over and painted himself, the wall, and the computer keyboard with glittery puff paint. Oh, and he wet his pants.This kid thinks of some good ones. I'm tempted to cancel his birthday on Thursday, but I'm pretty sure it's against the Geneva convention.

SHOES!!!

Madeleine just loves to go into the closet and find shoes to try on. They all fit her because she has the smallest feet. She has the cheesiest smiles! I love this girl!

Oh and sorry about my pity party, I am feeling so much better!

The tables have turned

When I was a school-aged kid, being sick was always a welcome vacation. I loved Sleeping in, watching TV, and having my mom bring me ice cream to help with my sore throat. My-oh-my, has life changed since then. I have been sick for the last few days and it is startlingly different from how it used to be.

No one cares that I am sick. Paul still has to go to work; he can't just stay home and bring me ice cream. I still have to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and change stinky diapers. All I want to do is lay on the couch and watch mindless day time TV. Unfortunately, I have to keep Word World, Super Why, and Thomas the Train on because I am too tired to respond to a mutiny.

It hasn't been that easy for Paul either, but he has been wonderful. He brought home orange juice on his way home from work. I haven't been sleeping well at night, which means that he hasn't been getting much sleep either. Apparently, I kept yelling things out in my sleep last night. He said that at one point I grabbed his arm and asked him if he had to go PooPoo in the potty. Nice.

Luckily this time I am the only one in my family who is sick. The only thing worse than being a sick mom, is being a sick mom with sick kids.

Pumpkin Patch

I went to a pumpkin patch for the first time in my life last weekend! It was so much fun! It was so much fun that getting good pictures was nearly impossible because the kids were much too busy to pose. Asher's favorite part was riding in a big wagon behind a tractor that took us to and from the pumpkin patch. He made sure that we rode the blue one and he also insisted that we sit as close as possible to the actual tractor.

Here are the kids choosing pumpkins. Madeleine tried to pick up about a dozen pumpkins before she found one that she could pick up all by herself. Then, she didn't want it out of her sight for the rest of the day. Asher studied several pumpkins until he made his choice, I'm not sure why he picked the one he did.Here we are at a display tractor.
Madeleine's favorite part was visiting the little barn with the animals. There was a great big pig there that caught her eye. She kept going behind it and saying "tail, tail!"

It is so wonderful to live in an agricultural area. We also bought a 20 pound box of runt apples for $5, that made terrific apple sauce. Hooray!

One Small Step for Man...but Won't Your Parents be Proud

I (Paul) was looking through some recent pictures, and there was a repeated theme of our kids' sense of triumph while performing tasks that for most people aren't a big deal, or even desirable, but for them the tasks might as well be lunar landings.

Madeleine has followed Asher's lead in the can stacking art, but she has some catching up to do since Asher has had a head start on her. Check out her concentration in this picture.
Sorry its a bit blurry, but her pride is unmistakable, and why not? I doubt I could stack cans to my height.
About the same time, my company was moving offices so I was kicked out of work on a Friday afternoon. We spent the afternoon at Country Mercantile. It is a few miles outside of Pasco and its a cross between Tillamook Cheese Factory (except its Chocolate), a fruit stand, and country craft store. I imagine it is a little like Thanksgiving Point in Utah (although I have never been there) except more rural. In fall they have a harvest festival with hay-rides, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, petting zoo...Vanessa has claimed the "Pumpkin Patch" post so she will tell you all about it, but one of the attractions for the kids was a hay-stack for the kids to climb. Asher was one of the smaller kids trying to climb it and it was a little out of his league as shown in this picture.It was a tough go since some of the blocks were taller than him, but when he finally reached the top he was as proud as any one summitting Mt. Everest.
Finally the other day I caught Madeleine doing this.
Better yet is when she noticed I was taking her picture. Note the look of triumph.

It is a feat of coordination for an 18 month old, but she is going to love these pictures later in life.

Tagged

This is the Fourth Picture in My fourth file. I just wish it was a better picture, at least it has a funny story! This is Asher at about 4 months old. Paul had been holding him upside down to make him laugh and he spit up all over his face. Nice, huh? Notice Asher was missing a neck and hair as a baby. His big round head sat squarely on his shoulders, I miss those days.

If you want to be tagged, I hereby tag you!

5 Years!

our engagement picture

I remember being a newlywed at BYU, counting how long we'd been married in months and meeting people who had been married a year or two and being impressed that they had been married that long! I couldn't fathom what it would be like to be married for years. If I had a crystal ball to tell me what was in store, I could have seen what an amazing man Paul was and how he only gets better and better the longer I know him.

5 years ago we were married in the Mesa, Arizona temple on October 11, 2003.

I want to say that it was the happiest day of my life, but I don't think that's true. I wanted to be married to Paul with all of my heart, and I appreciated my wedding and the family and friends who came to support us, but I couldn't wait to get the wedding over with so we could start our lives.

We got engaged in the middle of July after dating since the beginning of July and thought the prudent thing was to set our wedding date for December 20th, in between semesters and to give us a lot of time to plan, and sell our housing contracts.

Then around the middle of August, we knew that the only thing that mattered was being married, we didn't care if we had to get married in a whirlwind weekend and be back to class the next week. So, we called up our parents and told them we had changed the date. My mom planned nearly my whole wedding and reception from Arizona while I was in Utah and I was too busy being smitten with Paul to care about any of the details. I think she did a great job without me!

The temple was 45 minutes away from our house and I was supposed to be at the temple at 8:30 am for wedding pictures. Advice to any future brides and grooms, if you have time, do not do your wedding pictures on the morning of. I was 45 minutes late and the photographer took 37 spectacular pictures of Paul nervously wondering if he had been stood up. By the time I got there, there wasn't much time until the wedding so we had to hurry and take as many pictures as we could.

Isn't he so handsome? No wonder I was smitten

The rest of the day was wonderful though. I was so happy that Ocober 11th had finall arrived.

I can't believe everything that can happen in 5 years! I graduated from BYU April of 2005. Asher was born in October 2005 and we became parents and came even closer together through all of the trials becoming parents bring. We left Provo when Paul graduated from BYU in 2006 and moved to Washington. We bought our first home and Madeleine was born in May 2007. I am so grateful for the blessings that Heavenly Father has given me. Everything good in my life has come from him and through following his plan for happiness. The road I've taken hasn't been easy, but I am so happy.

I Love You Paul!

If anyone cares about our engagement story, you can find it in this back post