Sunday, September 15, 2013

9 and Mostly Fine


So, a month ago, I wrote a post and forgot to publish it.  Here's Ashy Boy at nine months and yes... he will be ten months in four days.  I'll do better.  I swear.



Ash at 9 months is a spitfire.  He will give you a smile that will bring the world to a stop one second and the next second he is a raging inferno, complete with hair pulling and gnashing of gums.

He has been much harder to get on a schedule than River.  He mostly goes to bed around eight, wakes up at five to nurse and then at 8:20 am for the day.  He should be taking two naps still, but it seems like a miracle when he actually does.  I try to put him down twice, but usually only have one successful nap and unlike River's 3-4 hour naps, he averages about an hour and a half.  I then try and put him to bed earlier, to make up for the lack of daytime sleep, but if he goes down at 7:00 pm, he wakes up an hour later and thinks that was his second nap!  It is beyond frustrating.  It pretty much makes both of us feel like this....





Speaking of bad moods, you can see the nine month photo shoot was not Ash's favorite thing.  


These pictures kill me.  How can someone be so upset and still so stunningly beautiful?  Ashy Boy, I feel a little guilty looking at these pictures, like I should have stopped clicking and maybe tried again later, but it is your fault for being so handsome.  I just couldn't help myself.  Plus the onesie decal wasn't going to last for a second try.



9 months, no teeth yet and still multi-colored eyes.  He is crabby and producing enough drool to fill a shark tank, so we keep thinking teeth are about to cut through, but not so far.




This just reminded me of all those Sears portraits from the eighties, so I had to include it.





Ashy is a messy eater!  All infants are a little messy, but he is one of those babies where it looks like a bomb went off every time he eats.  I never had that with River.  I mean we have baby food on our ceiling people!!!  We nicknamed him Baby Thor and joke about him dropping the hammers.  He seriously just bangs his arms down as hard as he can and food, spoons, and jars fly everywhere.  Much to my chagrin, he also like to grab his hair once his hands are nice and sticky.  Since he absolutely loathes getting cleaned up with a washcloth, more often than not, he just ends up in the tub.



This is nerdy, but I was excited about his new sleeper for winter.  I made him take a few pictures in it.



This one cracked me up.  He looks like he's a super hero about to morph.



The boys are playing together more and more, whether Ash wants to, or not.  Mostly, he loves it, but sometimes I have to tell River to give him an inch... just an inch.



Obviously he listens really well.




River wanted to see a white temple, because the Salt Lake Temple is gray, so we made our way up to the Brigham City Temple, which was a first for all of us.



It was hot and Ash was grumpy he couldn't go for a swim, so the photo session was short.



I think I must need a different lens to get the whole temple in.



He is getting pretty "wordy" these days.  Momma has made a return to his vocabulary and Dadda is getting said more often, but mostly it is jibber jabber that sounds like ahbah.

He has started clapping.  It rocks my world.  Here is a common scenario in my house.  Ashy pulls River's hair.  I tell Ash, "No!"  Ashy bats his lashes, smiles big and starts to clap.  I forget any sort of discipline and shower him with kisses.  I am not proud of this.  It is just a fact.

He started waving too.  Now goodbyes take twice as long.  Who can walk away from a smiling baby waving with his whole arm?



He's a nose crinkler.  It is so cute... especially when he huffs and puffs.




We went for our first overnight camping trip.  This wasn't just Ashy's first time, but it was River's first time as well.  We have been to the mountains a lot, but never braved the night.  We were always worried our kids would keep our friends up.  This was a ward camp out, so I figured my little ones wouldn't be the only ones making noise late at night, so we did it.  Bear had to work, since it was a Friday night, but the boys were easy on me and friends in my ward helped me juggle setting up the tent and wrangling the boys.



Can you see Ash's tent inside the tent?  It is to keep the Bears out.  Not black bears, or grizzly bears... River Bears.



Ugh... it didn't works so well.




My best friend was in town for two second at a work training in Logan, so I took my future Aggies up for a visit.  This was Ash's first time in my beloved Logan and he seems to be a fan.



The Aggies Biggest Fan!



I tried to get a picture of Ash kissing me on the A, but unlike River, he was not thrilled to have his mom make him a True Aggie.



Do you see the hands covering his face.  He kills me.  Ash, my love, get used to the kisses.  I will not be stopping anytime soon.


Here is my River at nine months for comparison.


River might have Ash beat in the arm roll department.









Thursday, August 22, 2013

35 Things




Last year, on my 34th birthday, I quickly scribbled down 35 things I wanted to do during my 35th year of life.  I then put them in the front pocket of my purse to keep them safe, until I got home from Wyoming.  I'm sure all of you wise readers can guess what I just now stumbled across eight months later, leaving me less than four months to reach my goals.

I debated throwing the list away and trying again next year, but what the heck, let's give it the good ol' shot it deserves... or I deserve.  Plus, I can cross of two of them already!  That's like half way there... ish.

Warning... The list is not sexy.  It is not a lifelong bucket list filled with exotic, faraway places.  It is merely a list of things that I really wanted to fit in amid the baby food splatters and bedtime battles.  When making the list, I debated a few things like learning to ride a motorcycle, or paragliding.  I don't claim to have the most adventurous life, but I've already rappelled down elevator shafts, ridden 120 miles an hour on the back of a bullet bike... in a canyon... at night, skinny dipped in a mountain lake under a full moon, jumped off a higher cliff than all the boys and out of an airplane too.  So, I'm all good in the daredevil department for now. Whatever force of nature used to drive me to drink adrenaline has been replaced by stronger than life attachment hormones.  I just can't participate in anything that could take me away from my babies.

Without further adieu, here is my sort of boring, not sexy, please don't confuse me with just a daily to-do list, list of 35 things I want to do during my 35th year-

1.       Switch to cloth diapers
2.       Set and stick to a family budget
3.       Buy first home
4.       Get a backyard for my boys
5.       Take the LSAT
6.       An overnight trip with just my husband
7.       Take Krav Maga classes
8.       Figure out a system to back up photos
9.       Update the boy’s baby books
10.   Do a session in the Logan Temple
11.   Do a session in the Kansas City Temple
12.   Take a photography class
13.   Go to a concert with my husband
14.   Renew my passport
15.   Travel to a new place
16.   Get at least one stamp in my passport
17.   Attend a self-improvement class/retreat/workshop
18.   Run a race
19.   Get my concealed weapons permit
20.   Buy a gun
21.   Stop using plastic water bottles
22.   Dye my hair purple
23.   Read the Book of Mormon in a month
24.   Take a photo shop class
25.   Overhaul my ward robe with a stylist
26.   Create a post-partum blog
27.   Camp overnight in a tent with the boys
28.   Read a Jane Austen novel
29.   Print a hard copy of my blog
30.   Add to my family
31.   Finally see the Redwoods, since my family went without me
32.   Work on my junk/therapy
33.   Start a business
34.   Record family stories
35.   Do a random act of kindness for a stranger

      Krav Maga, guns, permits???  Why yes, I am preparing for World War Z.  Don't hate.  Appreciate!

P.S. If I hadn't been so entirely consumed by trying to do #3 and #4 I would have more of these done by now.  Wish me luck!




Saturday, August 3, 2013

Eight is Great




Ash turned 8 months and then I had to unpack from my San Diego trip and then I went camping and then my best friends came to town and now I am finally blogging about it.  Whoohoo!  I am determined to make it through all twelve months.  No middle baby lack of photos for this guy.  Though technically he isn't a middle child yet, but just in case, I will not let photo shortage be his fate.

At eight months the big debate is whether Ash looks more like the E-trade baby...



Or the Gerber baby...


And even though the Gerber baby is a girl, just learned that while googling the image, I am going to have to go with the Gerber baby.  I think it is the little hair wings flipping over the ears that tip the scale for me.  What do you think?  The San Diego girls all called him the E-trade baby.  Hmm... either way, I want to start seeing some residual checks popping up in my mailbox.


(Ashy with his lovey Kiss Kiss)

So when we left the sleep saga at seven months Ash was still having four wake-ups; two being feeding and two where I soothed him back to sleep within about ten minutes..  Well thank the Lord and glory, glory, alleluia, things got even better in a hurry.

The first coupe days into the seventh month and he started to calm himself back to sleep during his wake-ups within minutes. I did NOT have to go in for the two non feedings!  Then a week into the seventh month, I accidentally fell asleep without turning the monitor on and woke up around 5:00 am, when my husband came to bed.  Holy Crap!  I felt so bad.  Had Ash just been crying ever since his normal 3:00 am feeding time?  My husband said he had been home since 3:30 am and Ash hadn't made a peep, so if he did cry, he didn't cry long and now we are down to one feeding!  Booyah!  Slept through it!  All right by me!!!

So now at eight months he has consistently slept through the night with only one wake-up to nurse.  I am much better rested and am already up to my old habit of staying up way too late.  His typical schedule is to go to bed at 8:00 pm, eat somewhere between 5:00 am-6:00 am and then sleep till about 8:30 am.  He has even maintained this through shared hotel rooms and not napping on vacations, so although I know their will be hard nights from teething and occasional illnesses, I feel safe announcing the worst is over!



This is Ashy doing tummy time.  I mean, I can barely get a head lift, much less an army crawl.  This guy is in no hurry to be mobile and I am okay with it.  It is pretty cute that River demonstrates crawling for him when we do force him to do tummy time.  Such a sweet big brother, or a show off, I'm not sure which?

On a related note, he still won't put any weight on his legs and maybe tolerates the bouncer for two minutes, tops.




We started bathing him without his mesh bath chair and now he gets to share bath time with this crazy dude.



Good thing he doesn't seem to mind too much.




 Every now and then we get a bit of sibling rivalry.  It mostly occurs from a toy being taken out of Ashy's hand.  River is getting better about not just snatching the toy out of his hand and at least offering him a different (though usually very sub-par) toy to play with.  Small victories, that is all I ask.



He celebrated his first Fourth of July.  I dressed the boys All-American Baseball style for Ash's first Independence Day, but they both were covered in food stains before we walked out of the door.  Good thing lots of boy clothes come in red, white and blue.



At the Fourth of July party he came across a pair of girl dress up glasses, which he somehow managed to make look like a super hero mask.... well... until... I put this hat on him.



My Grandma Ashy, what an adorable double chin you have.



He was a little more hesitant with the fireworks River was his first time around, but with dad's hands over his ears, he started to enjoy himself.

He said Dada for one whole day and never when Bear was in the room and then we haven't heard him say it since.

Have I ever mentioned how crazy ticklish Ash is?  I love to kiss his arm pits.  He squeals with laughter.



He will sit right next to River and play along just like a big kid.  They always want whatever toy the other one has.

He LOVES the ipad and it might be the only temptation that will one day get this boy to crawl.  If he ever does end up on his belly by his own means, it was because he accidentally reached to far for the ipad.

He went to San Diego this month and was a terrific flyer.  No tears on the plane, despite being yanked out of bed hours early, both ways.  He charmed the pants off of every lady at the bridal shower and incited baby hunger everywhere.






I say his eyes are globe colored and then sing, "Your face is a map of the world.  It's a map of the world."



He weighs about 21 lbs and eats through two jars of baby food at every meal.  That's on top of nursing.  He prefers the fruits, but unlike River, will actually tolerate some green vegetables.  Sadly, the only thing he gags on is avocado.  I so want him to like it.  It is such a great food and it comes in its own container and everything.



His thighs are too fat to handle.  I get nothing done right now, because I squish on them all day.

In short, Ash at eight months incites uncontrollable bouts of kissing, laughing, and loving.  Just what every home needs more of.  It is such a treasure to have a baby in the home again.  You don't realize with your first child that they aren't always going to love you in such an innocent, unabashed way.  There is no power struggles, or hurt feelings.  Only raw, unfiltered love.  It is a gift!

Here's my River at eight months...



Done and done!







Friday, July 12, 2013

3.5


All this focus on Ashy Boy and someone else has been getting older too.  No, not me and Bear... well we have, but we try not to think about it.  I'm talking about my main man River.  My heart breaker.  The boy who single-handedly turned my life upside down and changed my heart forever, turning me into a stronger, yet softer and a whole lot weepier version of my former self.  




 At 3 and a 1/2 years old, River loves his little brother more than anything.  When he gets sick, overly tired, sad or upset from getting in trouble, he begs for Baby Ash.  He wants to be right next to him and by that I pretty much mean, sitting on top of him.  Ash is his lovey, soothie, comforter.  More than anything, I want my kids to be the best of friends and be close to one another for life.  It melts my heart they are off to a good start.

He still sucks his thumb, or as my dad would say... "That boy has the cleanest thumb this side of the Mississippi!

Any word that has the letters BR in it, he pronounces with a BL instead.  Instead of correcting it, I find myself asking him where his blown (brown) blanket is and telling him I will be right black (back).

He also pronounces the word girl as golo and thinks it is really funny to tell me that I am a boy and daddy is a golo.  He loves opposite jokes and has been doing them since he could sign hot and cold.


River loves riding his trike, or as he calls it, his bike.  He only rides with bare feet and likes to stash his shoes in the back compartment.  He can make every walk last a ridiculously long time and on a super hot day, it really tests my patience, but children are what God gave us time for, so I suck it up and watch him pedal, stop, pedal, stop, pedal, stop, pick up rocks, store them in the back, pedal, stop, pedal stop, pick a dandelion, store it in the back,  pedal, stop.... you get the picture.

He has a sweet tooth that could rival anyone on the planets and right now we are doing our best to get some healthy food in his body too.  It has been a challenge, to say the least.  Sweets make him so happy and veggies so grumpy, but as much as we love being the one who makes him smile, we are learning to say no.  Well, I'm already good at it, but Bear is learning to say no, or at least getting better about sneaking him ice cream behind my back.



He has major attitude and finding that perfect parenting spot of teaching him, without breaking his spirit is going to be a quite the process.  He has a forgiving heart, so I'm sure he'll let go of the times we don't get it right.

He loves to act things out and watch the playback on the camera.  He is pretty shy in primary, unless they are role playing and then he is all in.  He loves to sing and he does it under his breath almost all the time.  Right now the songs I hear him sing the most are; Never, Never, Never Give Up (from Thomas the Train) The Books in the Book of Mormon and This Girl (Golo) is on Fire.  The last one he picked up from his friend Alyson and it cracks me up.

He loves his friends and ask me about them often.  "What is Hutch doing Mom?"  "Where is Rocky and Sofia right now?"  My answer is usually, "In bed River.  Uh, oh... better hurry up, so they don't beat you to sleep."  I think that tactic worked all of two times.

He will ask you the same question over and over again.  Be prepared if you come and visit.  He also loves to play repeat, where he repeats what you are saying.  No one ever taught him this game, he just figured out this jewel all on his own.  It probably stems from his love of playing follow the leader with the kids on the playground.  I've never seen some one so observant of others.  He will copy the slightest move.  It's kind of ironic, but I think his ability to observe and copy others, is going to help him lead others one day.  I don't know why, but it is just a bit of mother's intuition.



He literally makes me pull my hair out... Not joking... I've actually grabbed my hair in frustration, as I've tried to figure out an appropriate consequence, in a timely manner and come up with nothing and then, in the next instance, he's melting my heart again.  "Oh Mom, you look so handsome."  "I love you Mommy."  "Mom, what's wrong?  Are you fluster-ated at me?  I so sorry mom."  Ladies, I will do my best to make sure all this charm comes wrapped up tight in accountability, responsibility, sincerity and compassion.

He loves baring his testimony in church, which is pretty hushed and mumbled till he gets to the part where he says, "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

He has the worlds best laugh.  It chimes like the bells on Santa's sleigh.  I'm not lying.... it is magical.

He loves to go swimming and can hold his breath under water for a few seconds.  He is super brave on water slides and especially loves any outing that Daddy comes with.

On walks, he points to people and says, "Let's go get that human." and "Mom, a human!  She's not going to get away this time."  I think he gets it from Hotel Transylvania and that just goes to show that a love of Adam Sandler is genetic.



I love my boy!  I love how big and fast and brave he is getting with everything and I love how sweet and soft and tender he can still be with me. Oh... if only every child was loved the way I love River, the world would be a very different place.  Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.

*By the way, all these photos are by Marianne Wiest Photography.  She makes me love my kids even more, because she captures all the best things about them and then at the end of hard days, I look at their photos, while they are sleeping and all the bad melts away.





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