Asher and the Giant Onion

I took Asher and Madeleine to the Grocery store yesterday. Talk about multitasking. I have to simultaneously try to get out of the grocery store with ingredients for actual meals and avoid toddler melt downs. For those of you who have ever had two kids under age three I am sure you know what I mean. To keep Maddie from melting down I have to constantly present exciting toys and snacks and keep Asher from invading her personal space, but she has a seat belt so at least I don't have to worry about her personal safety.
Asher on the other hand, has full reign over the basket of the cart. If left un-entertained, he likes to pile the groceries onto one end of the basket (particularly bread, chips and other soft items) and leap onto them repeatedly with all of his force. He has also been known to secretly snack on food that hasn't been purchased yet. Keeping him entertained means keeping him involved with all aspects of decision making. We keep a running dialogue about everything from the variety of produce to the color of the trucks that most likely delivered the food. If Asher thinks he is in charge, he is happy. We have wonderful sweet onions that are grown locally all summer long and I always pick a few up. I parked the shopping cart so that the onions were within Asher's reach and he got a look of glee on his face. He had spotted "the one". The biggest onion I have ever seen. No manner of reasoning could convince him that it would take us a whole week to finish this onion; it was nearly as big as his head and he had to have it. I ended up giving in and we are now the proud owners of one huge onion.

Chill in the air

I absolutely love Autumn! It is my third favorite season. I absolutely hate matching and finding socks for little feet or else it would surely move up in the rankings. Autumn is Paul's favorite season of all because BYU football is in full swing and his months of angst and speculation over the future of the program finally come to an end and he can put all of his theories to test. I insured Paul's undying devotion to me this week by making BYU's fight song my ringtone. We are going to Seattle this weekend to watch BYU play University of Washington and Paul is beyond excited.

The kids thought it was so fun to put on warm jammies and read books under the covers with their Dad. You just can't do this in July.

Best Friends

Asher is such a good big brother. He doesn't know how to read yet, but it's amazing how often he remembers what the pages of his favorite books say word for word. He likes to tell me that Maddie is his "best friend" Then again best friend isn't an exclusive term to Asher. Just about everyone he knows has been described as his best friend at some point.



Madeleine loves her cow as much as Asher loves Dumbo. Asher has started making up stories about Dumbo. He told me that Dumbo walked away from him today. Dumbo also routinely drives a garbage truck. My favorite question from Asher is, "Mama, where is Dumbo's family?" Notice the cow's threadbare tail, it's Madeleine's favorite part to chew on.

Asher has been really sweet to me lately. He will be staring at me and say "Mama, you're a beautiful princess." He also tells me how yummy his dinner is. He even gushes with appreciation when I remember to wash his favorite blue plate. I think he gets his good behavior from watching my wonderful and kind husband. I hope Asher grows up to be just like him. So far, so good!

Not so Domestically blessed

I'm sorry I haven't updated for a long time and I will spare you excuses.

I tried my hand at homemade bread for the first time in my life! I'm not sure I will ever do this again, so I figured I would document it for posterity. It took four hours to make the bread! I must admit though, it took an extra long time because I managed to accidentally turn the oven off about 20 minutes into the baking process. It was really ugly, Paul actually laughed when he saw it, but it was really yummy! I'm not entirely sure what homemade bread not baked in a bread maker is supposed to look like. I followed the picture directions in Better Homes and gardens. Asher thought it was the funniest thing ever that I sprinkled flour on the counter before I kneaded the dough. He said "I want to make a mess with you!" and I let him. He has become my assistant chef, every time I cook lately he's right there, ready to stir; and more than willing to try to take over as head chef.
I'm so proud of my sad little loaves.



This is where you will find Asher and Maddie every morning as Paul leaves for work and every garbage truck day (commonly referred to as Wednesday). Asher consistently pulls up the blue chair for himself and finds the green chair for Madeleine. He wants Madeleine to do everything with him, which she loves and it warms my heart. Check out the Thomas underpants, I'm sure he'll love that picture when he's a teenager. This is the smile Madeleine makes when she is looking for a compliment. She loves to hear she is beautiful.



Madeleine has been really into shoes lately. It's even more fun when she wears our shoes around the house, casually discarding one in the bath tub and one in the toy oven. And I thought I misplaced my shoes before! This is Maddie trying Paul's shoes on.

Once again, the "beautiful" smile.

One of those days

Any tips on getting extreme amounts of bubble bath out of the carpet? This is not rhetorical.

I'm thankful for Thunderstorms

The sweetest thing happened today and I (Paul) had to post about it.

Last night in the middle of the night we had a window shaking thunderstorm. It carried on for maybe half an hour and I was worried that Asher and Madeleine wake up scared, but they slept soundly through the whole thing. This morning there were a few more rumblings and Asher and I watched the far off lightning before I headed off to work. This evening when we were working/playing in the yard another storm rolled in. Asher loved it and kept saying that "the thunder is loud like a garbage truck." I had told him that the thunder can get so loud that it shakes the house. We sat out in the yard watching until it started getting too close.

We went inside, laid on the floor and watched through the open back door. Then suddenly a monster lightning bolt and thunder cracked simultaneously, directly over our heads. It made me jump and yell "Whoa", but Asher and Maddie scrambled away from the door crying.

Asher was really scared and was having a hard time settling down so I suggested saying a prayer and asking Heavenly Father and Jesus to not let the thunder shake our house any more. Asher has had a hard time praying lately, but tonight he asked me to pray to ask Jesus to not shake the house. When I was done he said "amen" but then informed me that I forgot to ask Heavenly Father to not shake the house too. So Asher prayed and although I may not have understood every word he was definitely pouring his heart out for the first time in a long time.

While Asher was thankful that God made the thunder stop shaking the house, I was certainly happy that he sent it in the first place.

We miss our friends!

Our good friends Melinda, Jeromy, Lydia, and Carter Riggs just moved to Colorado to attend the University of Colorado. They were our first friends that we made when we moved to the Tri-Cities. Lydia was also Asher's first friend ever. I hate it when people move away. We've moved so much since we've been married that we're used to being the ones to move so I guess it serves us right.