Asher's Birthday - The big 3!

We started our Saturday very bright and early, working on the sandbox outside. I dug while Richard went to pick up the sand and supplies. Then Richard dug, then we both dug, then I had to go to a baby shower for a couple of hours. And when I came back...

This is what it looked like! A finished sandbox! What a super hero Richard is! He also took care of the kids while he did this, fed them lunch and put them to bed. Wow!

As soon as the kids woke up from naptime, it was on to the party! We broke down and bought Asher's cake this time since we were busy building the sandbox.

And Asher got to keep the real Lightning McQueen toy! Oh, joy!

It was hard to keep Asher out of the sandbox long enough to do the usual birthday festivities. He kept running back over there at every nano-second of a lull.

But he did eventually open presents. He loved all of them (Toy Story figures, a book, Rocket from Little Einsteins, water-coloring pages, and the digger for the sandbox)

The digger was a definite hit. ...Asher liked it too... (Uncle Kevin may be ordering one of these for himself, he had so much fun.)

Naomi enjoyed the cake and other goodies. She was super tired from helping Daddy with the sandbox. She really did work hard with him!

Isaiah discovered that he could reach the Cheetos all by himself. He loved it! He kept going back for more, and each time he would look around like he had to be sneaky about it.

Did I mention he really enjoyed the Cheetos?

Here's Aunt Kelly reading the book that Grandma and Grandpa Worth gave to Asher.

The Toy Story figures quickly went inside so they wouldn't get lost. Asher went in to visit them several times. (Note the sand that came inside with him.)

Yeah. The sand. *sigh* What have I done?

After things calmed down a little, we came in for a deluxe dinner of Kraft Mac N Cheese. At Asher's request of course. We were still in a pretty silly mood!

It was the perfect day for Asher. 1. We spent most of the time outside. 2. He got Toy Story, Cars and Little Einsteins stuff all in one day! 3. He was good and dirty by the end of the day. There was pure joy on Asher's face pretty much all day. He was just so happy that, despite the fact that both Richard and I were completely exhausted from the hard work of the day, we were happy along with him. It was contagious.
Man, we love that kid!

Ode to Asher at age 3

My "big boy baby" turned 3 this past week. Since I'll be super busy with the party tomorrow and all the other weekend happenings, I thought I'd get ahead of the game and do my ode to him today. These pictures are all from this morning.

Things Asher loves:

• Dinosaurs
• "Lightning McQueen Cars" (whether referring to the movie, Lightning himself, or some other character in the movie, it is always all three words together)
• Cars (the toy)
• Woody and Buzz
• Bugs (in theory, not so much in reality)
• Animal Charades
• Hide and Seek
• Playing outside
• Digging
• Marshmallows
• Candy
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Tormenting his siblings
• Jumping
• Friends - anyone who is in the vicinity while he plays
• The playplace at the mall
• His class at church

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

Livin' Life

I'm finding blogging more difficult now that my daily schedule has changed a bit (what with no more morning nap time). Isaiah is not a fan of me sitting at my computer desk and ignoring him. He comes and leaches on to my arm (which makes typing somewhat difficult) or insists on sitting on my lap.

I've been busily rearranging things in the house lately. Just puttering, really. Moving a shelf here, or hanging this there. But it's fun to have some "new" things.

We're in full prep-mode for Asher's birthday party this weekend. His birthday was actually earlier this week, but we aren't celebrating until Saturday. Richard and I need to get to work on the sandbox in the backyard since we bought him a ride-on-digger to go into said currently-non-existent sandbox. I also need to plan how I'm going to make a "Lightning McQueen" birthday cake. ...I'm thinking of creating a racetrack on the cake and then just putting a toy car on it. But who knows, maybe I'll get ambitious and really do it up good.

Here's some fun random pics of us livin' life:

This is Asher, donning Naomi's Easter hat, and holding his Lil' Baby Dinosaur (imaginary friend). Lil' Baby Dinosaur sometimes turns into Lil' Baby (insert some other thing). But he usually comes back around to dinosaur pretty soon. He's been a worm, a bird, and a cat this week. But no matter what animal he is, you always hold him with your hands carefully out in front of you like Asher is doing in this pic (and you have your face in the "gentle and loving" face that Asher is showing here).

Here's Naomi watching TV. I just thought it was amazing the position that she was in.

And here's Isaiah's favorite way to get around these days. He's quite a good little monkey.

So that's it. Just livin' life. And lovin' it.

Full Confession/Announcement

I guess I'd better fully confess since most of you already figured out my not-so-subtle innuendo. I'm pregnant.

We are thrilled! The internet says that my due date will be December 21, but we'll see if the Dr. adjusts that at all. I'm already anxious to start feeling "symptoms" and blaming my cookie cravings on pregnancy.

I'm sharing this news with you all much, much earlier than most people do, I know. Here's my theory on that: Most people don't share in case something happens and the pregnancy doesn't work out and they don't want to have to have that awkward "Actually, I'm not pregnant anymore" conversation. And I totally get that. I've miscarried before and had to do that. But, here's the thing. If I miscarried, I'd blog about that too. This is a family journal for us as well as sort of a "letter" to you. So, I'd share. Plus, I can't keep a secret for beans. One side effect of me sharing this with you so soon is that this pregnancy will probably seem very long to you. When it isn't actually your body, I think you're not really used to waiting the full 9 months. Ya know? You usually only hear about other people's pregnancy's for the last 5 months or so. I suppose if you don't want to start hearing about this now, you can just not read my blog for a couple of months!

One thing I'm super excited about with this pregnancy that I have never experienced before is having "fat clothes". I've never lost weight before, so I just had my normal wardrobe, and my pregnancy wardrobe. But that poses a bit of a problem for those awkward months where you're not really showing yet but you don't really fit your normal clothes either. This time around, I've got a closet full of clothes that are too baggy at this point since I've recently lost weight. So, I'm excited to have more options as I grow this time around.

I'm also excited to be able to exercise through this pregnancy - something else I've never done before. "They" say that you can do whatever kind of physical activities you were doing before when you're pregnant. Well, I wasn't doing anything - so I did nothing during my pregnancies. But this time I'm active(r) and can keep up my workout routine. I know I won't be at the gym every day or anything as my energy wains, but it'll be better than before!

I could babble on about things I'm excited about for several more paragraphs, but I'll save some more for another day.

Wa-hoo!

His Father's Son

Take a look at this picture of Isaiah (from January I think).

Then take a look at this picture of Richard as a child. We spied this on the wall at Richard's parent's house yesterday and just couldn't get over the resemblance. It could be the same kid!

Easter Pictures

I'm a little disappointed in these pictures. None of them are great. Getting all three kids to stand still for half a minute... Just doesn't work. But, here's way too many pics anyway. These, once again, really should have been in several different posts. Oh well.

First, an adorable bunny drawn by Naomi.
These pics are the Easter Carnival that we took the kids to on Saturday morning. It was at the church where Naomi goes to Preschool. It was cutely done - especially since it was supposed to be outside, but it happened to be pouring rain so I'm sure they did some improvising.

These pics are later in the day on Saturday. We went to Richard's parent's house for Easter dinner a little early. Naomi's favorite little cousins, Ashby and Avery, were there too. We did another little egg hunt there.

And here we are on Sunday morning. We didn't do another formal hunt, but we gave the kids their baskets. We put more toys than usual in their baskets since tummy's were still in a handle-with-care state.

This is my favorite pic from the last couple days. A nude Easter bunny!

Thanks for the great dress, Grandma Ashurst. These pics didn't turn out very well, but she looked very sweet. (And, yes, I know it should have been ironed. I just... didn't get to it.)

Like I said, getting all three to stand still... Plus, it should be noted that Isaiah did not really go to church looking like that. He was staying home with sick-Richard. So he was kinda half dressed and half not.

I have to say, it was a pretty odd Easter weekend. I didn't really enjoy much of it since I didn't feel well. Church was a disaster (I took a black eye courtesy of Asher away from Sacrament meeting). We had cold ham, crackers and cheese on paper plates for Sunday's "Easter dinner". Odd. But whatever. I'm mostly just glad it's in the past. On to better things. Next weekend is Asher's birthday party and I'll make up for the yuckiness of this past weekend by making that one smashing!

Emerging from the fog

This flu has just totally wiped me out. I got it on Tuesday night and I really didn't feel at all human again until yesterday afternoon. Sheesh. All three kids cycled through their entire flu one by one in the time it took me to get over it. I'm still completely exhausted - probably from living on Saltine's and Gatorade for 4 straight days. I tried so hard to rally and feel better on Friday so that I could host Easter dinner at my house on Saturday as originally planned. And I suppose I could have pulled off the hosting part of it. It was the just the getting out from under 4 days of mess with no energy that was the problem. So Easter dinner was at Grant and Margaret's house (my in-laws) - which was fine. It was a great meal and we were glad to get some time visiting with Roger (Richard's bro) and Chelsea and fam. And I was even feeling well enough to eat some normal food.

The happy thought in all of this muck is that I realized why it probably took me so long to get over this flu... Can you guess?

We went to several different Easter events that I'll share pictures and details of with you tomorrow. I just don't have the energy to get the camera, hook it up, blah blah blah. But tomorow I declare that I will no longer use this as an excuse. This house IS going to get back into shape.

Sick Days with a perk

We're all (well, most of us) sick, sick, sick around here. Isaiah started it and it has moved to me and Naomi so far. The laundry has been going full blast, but I'm not getting ahead (Isaiah went through 6 outfits in 2 days, all of Naomi's bedding, etc.). I spent nearly all of two nights ago awake and sick, then I spent nearly all of yesterday in bed and it's a good thing since I spent nearly all of last night up with Naomi. I'm a bit of a disaster. But, I think I'm on the mend at this point. I'm just waiting for Asher and Richard to get sick now. Anyway, I'm getting into the realm of TMI here so I'll stop.

You're probably asking yourself, "What's the perk to this?" Well, here it is.

Richard finally replaced his bike! (Long story of how he lost his old one. Summary: It was lost in a flood.) He has been seriously giddy. He went on his first ride this morning and very much enjoyed himself despite the 32 degree temp. Have fun, Babe!

A break for lazy

I hate it when I have a back-up of photos on my camera. And my post-NaBloPoMo laziness has caused just that. So I'm gonna play catch-up today. Anyone using a Reader will have already noticed that I just back-dated a post for April Fool's Day. Here's a few more things that I mentioned in previous posts but never put pictures of up:

First we have Naomi's field trip to a farm. Below is Naomi with her two best buddies at school.

Naomi knew just how she wanted her hair this day. Apparently "farm girls" always have two french braids.

On our tractor/hay ride.

Below are the pics of the plastic egg garland that I mentioned we were making. The kids decorated the eggs with stick-on sparkly things. Then Richard and I strung them onto ribbon. The eggs come with a hole in each end - but this batch of eggs that I bought actually had two holes in the tops so I was able to string them hanging down instead of just length-wise (ya follow?). But, just in case anyone is thinking of trying this themselves, use smaller ribbon than we did. It was really hard to get that fat ribbon through the holes. We actually had to make the holes bigger in some cases.

Later we added a bunny face that Naomi made at school to the very middle of the garland.

Now, a brief word about this past weekend:

I bought a new couch! The couch we have in our family room is old. It was old when we got it 7 years ago. The cushions started shredding about 5 years ago, so we slip covered it. Then about 2 years ago one of the legs broke in half - it's been leaning against the wall to keep it upright ever since. And last week I looked at it and realized that even the slipcover is starting to look old and worn. It was time. So we did some research and found some options that we like at JCPenney and then realized we had a 15% off coupon for JCP too. So off we went. And we found a great one. It's mostly blue with a bit of a plaid design to it. I think it will really brighten up our little family room. I'm super excited. But it won't be here until mid-May. Boo hoo! (I have tried to find a picture of it online, but I can't. You'll just have to wait until it arrives to see it.)

General Conference was great! We covered the kitchen table with brown paper and set up a crafty area there for the kids. That kept them pretty busy and Richard and I were actually able to listen to 4 hours of Conference on Sunday. We didn't quite get through all 8 hours yet - but we love TiVo! The highlight of the day was when Elder José A. Teixeira was talking about "the freedom to choose". Except with his Portuguese accent it sounded to Naomi like he said "the freedom to shoes" and she got very excited. I guess she didn't know the gospel was all about shopping!

PS - I dreamed about chocolate dipped Peeps last night. Really. They're that good. I am not a fan of Peeps in general - but choc dipped.... Mmmmm. If you're looking for a fun Easter treat, I highly recommend them. The lady who did them for my bookclub last week dipped all of them except their heads. Did I mention MMmmmmmm!

PPS - This is possibly the most random, all-over-the-place post I've ever done. Sorry. It should really be like 4 different posts.

"Transcending" OR Girl Power!

I just finished reading a book called "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan, which I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend. It was a little heavy (being about dealing with cancer) but she managed to keep it pretty lighthearted. At the end of the book is an essay that the author also wrote, entitled "Transcending". I wish I could just put the text here, but all I can find online is this video of Kelly Corrigan herself reading her essay. It's worth the 5 minutes. Go watch it and be empowered!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q

...Must sleep...

I'm tired. So tired. I stayed up too late last night. Then this morning, the electricity went out at about 8 AM. I was mid-complicated-hair-do with Naomi when it went out. So after scrapping the complicated and going for a simple pony-tail, I went downstairs to find both boys irate over not being able to finish Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It took a while and several games of hide and seek in the dark to chill them out. Then it began to sink it. I had heard a loud bang when the power went out. Probably a generator thingy for our block. So the power wasn't coming back on any time soon.

...

Blah, blah, blah. I just realized that this is a long whiny story. The moral of the story is, I spent the whole day out with the boys trying to keep them busy only to come home at noon and see that the power had come back on shortly after we left. Then Naomi had a playdate and her friend's Mom hung out with me for all of my normal downtime during naptime. And now I'm so tired I can barely move.

So, while I had planned to break my no-post streak today with some pictures, instead you get this whiny tirade.

Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

April Fool's!

April Fool's! I know it's supposed to be a joke or something. But the best we can muster today is silly faces.

(Isaiah didn't really get the concept of making a funny face. He only does cute.)

(Did I really just put that picture of myself on the World Wide Web? What do you think - should I make it my new profile pic?)

Mission...Completion!

With this post, I wrap up my NaBloPoMo. 31 posts in 31 days (well, actually, 33 posts!). "They" say that one of the purposes of doing NaBloPoMo is to set yourself in a habit of blogging. Well, I was already in a pretty good habit of blogging. What NaBloPoMo did for me is burn me out. And I really do think it burned YOU out too, my dear readers. The quality of my content went way down. I was boring. So, while I'm glad I did NaBloPoMo, I don't think I'll ever do it again. But don't worry. I'll still blog plenty. Possibly too much. I'll just only do it when I want to and have something that I want to share.

*************

This morning started a little rocky for me. Just one of those yucky, hard to find the motivation to do what you've got to do kind of days. Richard was very sweet to me, and despite the fact that he was already late for work, stayed home a little longer so that I could take a shower and get dressed. I admit that I took my time a little in order to find my "inner peace" and be ready to face the day of sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning, etc that I had planned. Well, much to my surprise, I came downstairs to find that Richard and the kids had cleaned, vacuumed, done the dishes, etc! Basically, they accomplished in 45 minutes, what I had planned for my whole morning. (It made me seriously wonder if Richard should be the one at home and I should be the one working...) It was so sweet of Richard. He really did work hard to get all that done in that small amount of time. What a wonderful gift to me. And since he had done all the basics of cleaning, that meant that I could really dig in and do the little, oft-forgotten parts of cleaning the house. I washed all the windows inside and out, bleached the countertops, removed, washed, then re-hung all the curtains, did more laundry. Naomi wiped baseboards and cupboard fronts for me and dusted everything she could reach. My house is shiny and sparkly now! The sun is streaming in through clean windows! And the weather is nice enough outside that the kids can play in the backyard this afternoon - which means I can get even more done! Ahhhhhhh. Next step: decorating for Easter. Which will be so much more fun in an already-clean house!

What a lucky woman I am, to have such a wonderful husband. And kids. There are definitely going to be warm chocolate chip cookies waiting for my hubby upon his arrival home this evening.

...running out of clever post titles...

I was thinking I'd probably not blog today since I'm sure you all got plenty of me and my family over the weekend. But then I remembered that I have to - for NaBloPoMo. Two more days to go. Then I can take a break.

Today was a fun day. Naomi's class had a field trip to a nearby farm. The boys headed off to Grandma Worth's so that I could go with Naomi on her trip. Naomi and I had a very chilly but fun time. The wind was blowing pretty hard and had a serious Arctic chill to it. After the field trip, she and I drove out to Grandma's. The boy's came home with me and Naomi stayed with Grandma for the rest of the day (she'll come home with Richard, later). The boy's slept in the car on the way home so I didn't get much of a naptime out of them at home. But that's OK I guess. They're probably more well rested today than they have been for weeks since we've been using the word "naptime" pretty loosely around here lately.

I'd show you some pictures of the farm - but seriously... You've had plenty of pictures lately. Maybe I'll add some later. (Those posts with so many pictures take so long!) I'm feeling very tired today. Just one of those days I guess.

Next up today: dishes, laundry, and prepping for carpet cleaning this evening. Man, my life is thrilling.