Asher's Birthday

My little boy turned two on September the 3rd. This was one of our smoothest birthdays. Nothing went wrong, and the cake even worked out the way I planned. This is a first for me. We just had a quiet family party, which I like best, but after attending another little boy's party in the ward I felt a little guilty about not throwing a birthday party. But, Asher didn't complain.

Asher is obsessed with Buzz Lightyear, and would have been perfectly happy just with the wrapping paper. He didn't want to open his presents, because that would mean ripping Buzz. However, that didn't last too long once he figured out there were toys inside.

A few things about Asher at Two:

* Some of his favorite things are his taggy and thumb (much to my dismay), nursery, story time at the library, Buzz Lightyear, dogs, and trains.

*He can identified most of his body parts, and is obsessed with colors. He is always telling me the color of items around him.

*He is 36" tall, and the pediatrician predicts he will be six foot full grown. I am predicting taller.

*He loves his big sister and copies everything that she does. Everything!!!! Sometimes this is really cute, but most of the time it just gets him into trouble.

*I will catch him just looking at books for long periods at a time. He loves to be read to, and will sit through a thirty minute story time at the library.

Happy Birthday Asher!!!

I saw a similar idea for this on a craft blog that I follow. They epoxied a candle stand to a plate, which I didn't really like, but I was intrigued with the idea of a making my own cake stand. This is what I came up. Tell me what you think. I really like it, and it only cost me $3.00.

Before:

After:

(I tried to find a better place to take a picture of it since it kind of blends into the background, but I was unable to. Sorry!)

Unpacking

(I meant to post these pictures last April, but better late than never!)

Unpacked at last!!! But maybe I should have waited a little longer on these particular boxes.

Pirates

Our local library does an amazing story time that I try to take the kids to every week. This week's theme was pirates. They made pirate hats, and were running around the house wearing them. I thought I would share with everyone just how cute they looked.

I recently tried to reupholster a chair for our house. My little sister had just finished a couch, and told me it wouldn't be that hard. Well, I have learned my lesson. Anything that is easy for Korinne will be very hard for me. It took me about five weeks to finish it because I had to overcome the feeling of wanting to watch it burn in my backyard several times, and because I could only spend a couple of hours here and there when the kids were sleeping. I learned a few things from this experience; one, I hate reupholstering, two, you can't change the basic structure of chair with foam and padding, and three, don't listen to Korinne. I promised to post pictures so here they are:

BEFORE

AFTER

Tillie

Yesterday was a hard day for our family. We lost our amazing border collie Tillie. I owned Tillie for eleven years, and I know I will never have another dog like her. She had such an amazing personality that she won my husband, who is not the biggest pet fan, over. Such a special dog that my four year old cried all morning for her Tillie. It was hard watching her get older and struggle with life, and so I am comforted by the thought that she is in heaven right now herding something, anything, she wouldn't care as long as it moved. Doing something she hasn't been able to in years. It is amazing how an animal can become such a part of your family. We will miss you Tillie!

Califonia or Bust

I know! I know! Our blog has been sadly neglected, but in the last four months my family's life has been turned upside down. We went from thinking that we had a job when Dave graduated, to the deal falling apart about two weeks before graduation, to moving in with my parents (Thank you again Mom and Dad), to looking for anything in Colorado and not finding anything, to finding a job in Merced California, and moving 1500 miles further west than we thought we were going to be. However, we feel so blessed to have been able to find the job we did in this economy.

We have been here about two months, and I am finally feeling that life is getting back to normal. I am liking Merced. I love the weather. I am not missing St. Louis's winters at all, though we are missing all our friends. Our new ward has been very welcoming, so welcoming in fact that we were speaking in sacrament our third Sunday. I wanted to move right out of this ward, but Dave talked me out of it, and I managed not to pass out while giving my talk even though I was so light headed I had to stop a couple of times just to breathe, so all and all a successful talk in my mind.

Dave found us a great house to rent with two parks within walking distance. Here is a picture of our new house. It used to have a statue of a cherub in front, but it was scaring the children, so we had to store it.

Here is Zoe and Asher. Haven't they grown? That was my thought when I was looking back on past blog entries. (The computer is home all day now, so I no longer have an excuse not to blog more often.)

Now that I have figured out the new camera, and have the computer all day I will be updating more often. My mom has put in a request for pictures of California, so I am going to try to do just that. Though I missed an opportunity last week. We goggled an address from craig's list to buy a mower, and ended up on a one lane dirt road through somebodies cattle ranch. (Yes, this road had a street sign, and somehow made it on google.) I wish I had a picture for everyone to see. Though it was rough driving for a while we did make it to the address, and in the process saw some the prettiest country scenery I have ever seen.