Happy Halloween!

Last night we carved our pumpkin. But first we took some cute pictures of Asher in the pumpkin. I’ve actually been dreaming of taking a picture of Asher in a pumpkin since before he was even born!! (I saw someone else do this and just thought it was the cutest idea.) I’m so glad he still fit. :)

For Halloween Asher was a little bee. He had a hand-me-down duck costume, but I found this cute costume for $1.40 at Old Navy and couldn’t pass it up!

First, we took our little bee out for dinner and ran a few errands and then hurried home to catch the second half of trick-or-treaters…

Asher took turns posing with his adoring fans…

(I love the look of surprise on his face in the second one!)

That’s my sweet, snuggly boy! (I can’t believe how big he looks in these pictures…)

All the fun events (and the lack of an afternoon nap) made for one sleepy little bee boy…

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!! Now, bring on November… We can’t wait to travel to California in a few weeks for Luke and Rebekah’s wedding and to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with our sweet little boy!

Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!

The leaves around here are at peak (or just past) and are gorgeous! The forecast for tonight and tomorrow is RAIN RAIN RAIN so I knew today would be our last chance to get some pictures with the leaves…

I drove around trying to find the prettiest ones and I think we just might have found them! Poor Asher had just fallen asleep in the car when we arrived at the Monon trail to take pictures. He perked right up and seemed to enjoy being outside though!

*On a side note, even though I was the photographer my wonderful husband is the one to thank for these shots because they somehow all got deleted!! (I got home and pulled out the memory card to see them and they were gone!) Somehow Chris worked his magic and was able to recover all of them. Thanks, Babe! Being married to a technical genius has it’s advantages!!!

happy & blessed!

Bed Head

To the untrained eye this might look like Asher waking up in the morning… but NO! This is Asher waking up after his 2 hour morning nap… in his crib!

Typically naps occur in his swing. After he wakes up in the morning (typically around 6 am) he goes back down in his crib for a few more hours. He never fights this, even if he lays there and “talks” for a while. So I thought I’d try to get him to take his morning nap (around 10:30 am) in his crib too. Yesterday was a total success! Hooray!

Today… well, he slept in his crib for 45 minutes?! So not as great as yesterday, but still progress. *Not that I’m complaining, because in general Asher is THE BEST sleeper (for now)!

(Check out his hair after the nap… that’s some major bed head!) For now, we’re still keeping Asher in his swing for afternoon naps… we’ll tackle those later, THANKFULLY we have a few more pounds until he outgrows the swing. :)

Have I mentioned how much we love this little boy?!

peek-a-BOO!

We’ve taken LOTS of pictures of Asher this fall. Probably a ridiculous amount… :) It’s just so much fun to be outside in the cool, crisp weather with our sweet little guy! And from the look on his face I think Asher enjoys being outside just as much as we do! Nana bought Asher these cute little pumpkins when she was here last weekend. Eventually they’ll go in my window box, but today they were for our little pumpkin photo shoot.

We’re still working on getting Asher to sit up by himself. Strategically placed pumpkins held him up for most of the pictures. But he toppled over quite a few times during our photo shoot. :)

Posing for pictures is such hard work!

I took these outside under our tree, I think he liked laying looking up at the branches.

Asher says, “Happy Fall Y’all!”

Family Fun!

This past weekend we were SO excited to have Brittany, Linnea, Karin, and Mom come visit! It was Minnesota’s Fall Break so Britta decided to bring the girls for a visit. (Mom is staying in Minnesota for a few weeks while Dad goes hunting so she was able to come along for the visit!) We had a great time! Asher loved all the extra attention and the energy and excitement of his cousins. We sure wish Auntie Erica and Jasper and Benjamin could have been here too! We can hardly wait until Christmas!!! :)

Friday the girls played around the house in the morning -- they had a blast playing school with the large white board from our garage. In the afternoon we went to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, which was lots of fun (I hadn’t been since college)! Asher loved all the things to look at and was a trooper, skipping his afternoon nap. Friday night we had a game night.

Saturday was CHILLY, but we braved the elements anyway to go pick apples and pumpkins.

We ended the day with a “movie night” (requested by Linnea and Karin). We watched Beethoven (talk about a blast from the past!) The most fun was actually watching Karin watch the movie. She was a WRECK during the sad part of the movie. She was sure the family would never get their dog back. There were LOTS of tears… we were all relieved when the movie came together and Beethoven was happily home with his family. :) For those of you who don’t remember the movie very well there is a bad guy “vet” who tricks the family and says that Beethoven bit him and so they need to put Beethoven down. He then takes the dog and is going to hurt him. Well the family catches on to his schemes (but not before Karin was yelling “liar liar!” at the TV). I felt badly laughing while Karin was crying, but it was hilarious! Thankfully I cry when I laugh hard enough so I tried to pass my hysterics off for sadness.

Sunday was the prettiest day and wouldn’t you know it, we spent it indoors! We went to church and Uncle Chris’s classroom so the girls could see it and play school for a bit. After that we played at home and made some applesauce with our apples from Saturday.

Thanks for coming such a long distance for a quick weekend visit! We had such a great time! Love you all!!

5 months old!

Happy 5 months old, Asher!!

Five months ago today we welcomed little Asher Joseph into this world! It’s hard to believe!

Asher is such a big boy these days! I don’t have exact stats because he won’t go back to the doctor until 6 mos. He’s feeling heavier every day though! I think he’s somewhere between 15-1 7 pounds. Despite all the drooling and chewing he’s been doing there are still no teeth, but we’ll see if they don’t pop through one of these days!

Asher is doing a great job of sleeping all night (most nights). He goes to bed between 7:00 and 8:00 and wakes up at about 5:00 each morning. He then goes back to sleep until about 8:30 am so there are NO complaints here!! :) He takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap (almost) every day. We try very hard to preserve those naps because he is not a happy camper without them.

Asher has started attending MOPS with me two Thursdays a month. He’s a great boy and a hit at our table as he’s the only baby in my group right now. At 6 mos. I have to put him (gulp) in the nursery (gulp). I’m a little worried about this because in the past five months he and I haven’t been separated at all. I’m sure he’ll be fine and I’ll be a wreck. Kindergarten should be interesting… :)

Asher is more and more interested in his exercauser and less content with his just his play mat. He still enjoys it, but for shorter periods of time. He wants to be up and looking around. But he also wants an audience (sigh). Even if I’m close by he wants me right next to him while he plays… he’s not a big fan of me cleaning up the kitchen or cooking. So when I’m working on dinner I often put him in his bumbo so he can be close by and see what I’m doing. He loves watching!

I’ve started trying to teach him how to sit up with the support of his boppy. I think he likes being up and seeing all his toys, but he is still having a hard time balancing and holding himself up. When he leans in to suck on his toes or pick up a toy he can’t figure out how to get back up.

We’re also starting to work on baby sign language. I’ve been signing “eat” for weeks now, but we’ve added the signs for: daddy, mommy, and dog. We’ll see how it goes! I’d sure love for a chance to communicate with him even before he begins talking!

Asher is becoming increasingly interested in Daisy. He likes to pet her (which means grab onto her fur). Daisy is SO patient and sweet with him. She’s such a good dog and we’re thankful that she is so loving!

The highlight of this past month has been the introduction to solids! (Well if you can call drippy, runny cereal “solid”) It took about a week before he really got interested, but now he is eating like a champ. We’ll be starting some veggies soon!

Asher has little interest in rolling over, but he’s a scooter! No matter where we put him in his crib we find him somewhere else the next morning. :)

Asher continues to bless us both with his sweetness. He smiles SO BIG whenever he sees his daddy. It’s fun to see the two of them together. When Chris comes home from work he is greeted by huge grins, squeals of delight, and then Asher will duck his head away like he’s being shy. He’s crazy about his dad!

I love that my little boy is still snuggly. Some of my favorite moments are when he falls asleep while I’m still holding him and I can just snuggle with him for a little bit before putting him down to sleep. I know I’ve said this before, but I’m just so thankful to get to spend every day with him! I definitely don’t take a moment with him for granted.

We thank Jesus for this sweet little five month old boy!