my sweet asher man

lately asher has been whippin' out all kinds of personality. i just can't get over how testosterone just oozes out of him on a daily basis. he's growly and aggressive and just plain manly. he laughs hysterically when he falls and even more if karyssa falls. yesterday we took an hour and a half bike ride on the kids new strider bikes and we got on a street that still had some slick snow and at every driveway karyssa would wipe out which made asher laugh so hard from behind he could hardly hold his bike up. karyssa did not find it as funny, for the record. he's sooooo different from her so it still surprises me on a regular basis.

then there's days like today and the testosterone is the least of his surprises. we went to tiny town this morning and i witnessed him steal at least 2 cars/tricycles from other kids before i could bolt across the gym to correct him. other parents were polite and said things like "it's ok, we're learning to share." i said "so are we."

then this afternoon we went to the store, mainly because neither one of them took a nap so we HAD to get out of the house. after paying for our groceries and pulling the cart away the cashier looked down in the little car where asher was sitting and said "oh! he's got a rolo!" and i said "then there's an open package over there because i didn't give him one...." and she said "no, he's got the whole role." i looked down and he's double fisting them into his mouth. there were 5 left on the bottom of the car floor. for pete's sake. i don't know how many come in a package, but it's WAY more than 5. thank god it wasn't the reese's because i had left the epi-pens at home. i also noticed he had a can of chicken noodle soup, which means he'd been doing his own shopping down in that little car all the way through the store. 95 cents for those dang rolos!

tonight when we were home he came up to me with the little toy tea pot and a tea cup and pretended to pour me a cup and handed it over, pinkies up. oh that boy is so dang cute! i took it and he was more than pleased to pour me cup after cup after cup. it was the first time he pretended play on his own. he'll play cars and make the "vroom" noise...but he's never USED his imagination before. it was kind of exciting to be there for the first time. and that is why i give up every paycheck to stay home with them. i looooooove being able to stay home and there's not a day that i take it for granted. i am pretty sure i love him more every day. and every day i think i can't possibly love him more and then the next day i do. ugh! makes me want to go up there and kiss those chubby cheeks one more time while he sleeps.

more for me than you

asher has been babbling in paragraphs for a while now but not a single word. sure, he could say momma and daddy...well technically he could say "monny" and "daddy" but then on thanksgiving he started saying "hot!" it was more like "hoh", not really the "t" on the end. well today he said full sentences numerous times. he said "i wanna see" and "see christmas lights". don't get me wrong - i fully do not expect any of you to make out these sentences but when you question him if he really said what he said he says "mmmhm." i'm a little bit floored tonight.

two weeks ago today i caught him up on the end of his crib, riding it like a horse, leaning forward and giving his window raspberries. needless to say we moved him to the big boy bed that weekend. last thing i need is for him to fall from 5 feet in the air onto hard floors. he did not like the move. he had a few nights of straight sleep and then went back to crying during the night. for 2 1/2 hour blocks of time. exhausted we set up the toddler bed in the nook in his bedroom and that seems to be helping. i hate the feng shui in that room now. but i'll figure that out after a few more nights of uninterrupted sleep.

he's been flirting lately. OH it is so cute. he squints both of his eyes and then tries to look at you through all the eye lashes. then he blinks a little bit. adorable. and then he morphed into this shoulder thing where he shrugs just the left side 3 times...he does it when he's teasing or being mischievous. oh my it's adorable.

he loves airplanes the way karyssa loves trains but then the other night in the middle of one of his sleep boycots a train went by (we live in a town where no matter where you live you are within earshot of a train) and at 4:00am, with daddy taking that shift, clear as a bell, i hear from my bedroom *thuck* "choo-choo!" *suck*suck*suck*. he had pulled his passie out to say choo-choo and then stuck it back in maggie simpson style. so it was surprising to me that he had noticed a train when normally he's an airplane man.

i can not kiss his cheeks enough.

he is ALL boy. tonight i set up the train set and made a figure 8 for each of them to play with. on karyssa's side there's silent playing except for the occasional command to not touch her set or to give her yet another coveted train car. and from asher's side i hear a low grumble of "mmmmmmmm-mmmmmmmm-mmmmmm" like a car noise would make. only in his head it was completely appropriate for a train. is that a natural boy thing to make such a noise when playing with something wheeled?

he wants so bad to potty train but he loses interest after half a day. the other day he sat up on the potty and pushed and pushed and when we looked in again there were 3 little turds. karyssa got excited and squealed "he pooped on the potty!!!" only to squeal her gum, freshly earned from her own poop on the potty, right between the 3 turds. bless her little heart. thank god i had more gum.

he FINALLY likes playing in the snow. which is a good thing considering we live in the great state of colorado and there is currently plenty of snow to play in. i think they go outside twice each morning and twice each afternoon, even if it's dusk he'd rather bundle up and play outside than stay inside with me making dinner or tidying the house.

*whew* all this to say i LOOOOOOVE my little boy. he is the most handsome thing i've ever laid eyes on and looking at him makes my eyes dance. i tell him so all the time. i love the way he sits still if i whisper how much i love him in his ear.

smiling bumper to bumper traffic

today we had our little buddy aidan over. karyssa and aidan have had a connection since they were about 18 months old. probably before that even. they are just over 2 months apart and he is her favorite person, just after our speech therapist emily, to come over. this morning i said "guess who's coming over today? 2 people..." and she goes "aidan!?!" and i was like "wow, ya...how'd you guess?...and emily" which ensued about a minute of yay's and woohoo's romped through the living room. what can i say, i've turned her into a cheerleader.
later when he was over he was having a hard time with chairs. i had rearranged the chairs and he wanted to sit in the chair i was in so he was on the floor mulling it over and karyssa climbed down from speech therapy and put her hand on his shoulder to console him and gave him a sticker. seriously...the sweetest thing i think she's done in months. it brought both me and emily to tears. the big crocodile kind that just stay in your eyes but don't really fall out. that kind of tears.
then tonight we had a meeting at children's hospital and on the way home we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. except i kept noticing cars would slow down right next to me for a while and then speed up smiling. stumped i looked in my rearview mirror to catch her tiny little hand waving to all the people in the next lane. so if you were driving on I-270 this evening around 5:00 wondering why everyone in the right hand lane was smiling...it was karyssa passing out love. *sigh* dang i love that little thing!!!!

a date with daddy

karyssa LOVES to have dates with paul. this morning he took her out for hot chocolate and a park date. she gets all dressed and i did her hair. she was so excited she was standing by the door jumping up and down. i LOVE to see her so excited and love to know it's because she gets to spend alone time with her daddy.
asher and i are staying home to clean and cook. he is wearing his dinosaur pajamas and they are so cute i might just keep him in them all day long.
can these babies GET any cuter? no. i think not. they are pretty darn impossibly cute.

resident cheerleader

i never noticed how much of a cheerleader i was until i had a parrot in the house. now every time anything exciting or not-exciting happens we hear a "WOO!" come from below. i love when she does it in the car because i see her tiny little fists go up from her carseat.
the other day we pulled into our complex to hear "home! woo!" and at thanksgiving when it was time to open presents "woo!" and when we're getting in the car "park! woo!" or "church! woo!" i love that she loves church that much. i hope she's not disappointed when she grows up to find out that we don't have a huge play structure in the sermon.
ok-gotta run and clean the house. woo!

affection

lately sweet pea has been initiating affection. it's amazing. i tell her that her hugs and kisses are like breath to my lungs. it feels like i've never breathed before when she hugs me and all of a sudden i can breathe. she's always accepted affection, but she's never initiated it until this last month. it seems the more final everything becomes the more safe she feels and the more confident she is in her place in our family. i love it. every night we lay down together and read, all 4 of us in her bed. and then she kisses brother man and we kiss her and then we take peanut to his crib and we turn out the lights and leave. sometimes he goes to bed before story time. last night he was sick so he didn't make it to story time. so it was just me, sweet pea, and paul. after story time we both kissed her cheeks at the same time. she LOVES that. she lays there grinning when we do that. and we kiss her approximately 500 times on each cheek. then she pulls her face back so that we kiss each other. and then we kiss her again. and then she kisses us. and then she kisses just paul, then just me. then we kiss her all over again. she loves it. she loves to feel the affection, she loves to see the affection, she loves that paul loves her and she loves paul and paul loves me and i love her and she loves me and on and on it goes and she just soaks it in. i love the way she loves. i tell her how amazing she is and how she's perfect and then i go through and touch her and tell her how her hands are perfect, her cheeks are perfect, her lips are perfect, her eyes are perfect, her legs are perfect and on and on i go. and she just lays there grinning as if not to grin loving to hear how perfect she is. i love that baby girl.

love this little outfit

lately sweet pea has been learning her letters. she cracks me up. she babbles on the phone, sometimes for entire conversations with real people, unbeknown to me...sorry suzanne! and they usually go somewhat like this "mmmmmm i. k. j. elmo. hahahhahaha. f. g. k. E!!! hahahhaha." soooo funny because it sounds like a babble version of me on a phone call.

so the other day i gave her this huge sheet of paper and came back and said "oh! what are you writing?" "i. k. elmo. pete." in that order. pete is a foster friend that we mentored which means he had to listen to me tell him about the foster world for 20 hours. boy do they make our foster couples earn their certificate. anyway sweet pea LOVES pete. isn't it so cute that she's not just scribbling anymore but writing little tiny letter scribbles? she's so smart.

hickey thumb

here's a picture of the hickey thumb i told you about two posts ago.

love me some good hickey thumb.

sneakasauresrex

tatum has become quite sneaky in her old age. every day i put the kids down for a nap and she waits. and waits. and waits for the phone to ring. and as soon as my back is turned and i'm busy on the phone sneak quick as a bunny she's up the stairs. then she lays against the kids' doors until one of them opens where she spends the rest of her afternoon sleeping under peanut's crib (her first choice) or sweet pea's bed (her second, but not sloppy second, choice.) little booger.

sweet pea wanted to type so...here you go:

cvujremjotgcnhdskf,vvuuuuuuuuuuuuhjkmi,mn ggggffxxvxxv b

usually when she touches my computer my fonts are huge and my windows are overlapping in ways i never knew possible. she can pull up the hardware settings in a matter of 2 button pushes. this time...she put her fingers on the keyboard and tried to "type" like do by wiggling her fingers and brushing them over the keyboard. (i type almost 100 words a minute w/out errors.) i had to push her fingers down and show her how to get the letters on the screen. doesn't it figure...when i give her permission she can't get a single letter to pop up. if i walk away to get myself another cup of coffee, she'll be corresponding with south korea on a chat i didn't know my computer even had.

movies and graduating from the elmo phase

sweet pea is beginning to grow out of the elmo phase. she doesn't sit down on the couch every day and say "elmo" now. instead she brings me the iron giant video. and whenver harry conic jr's character comes on the screen she points and screams "da-ee!" which means "daddy". and then she smiles and looks at me and screams and points again. it's so funny! i have no idea how we even came about to watch that video. but she watches it DAILY lately. if it's not "gine" it's "cats" (aristocats). and lately instead of turning on sesame street when she asks for elmo i tell her "no tv, we're gonna use our imagination today." and with that she goes and gets her shopping cart and says "mom-mom! mom-mom! mom-mom!" (i'm not mom or mommy, i'm mom-mom) and when i look at her she puts her hand in the air and squeezes a fist in and out and says "bye!" and walks away from me with her cart. UGH she kills me!

sweet pea's new tricks

lately sweet pea has been playing more independently. it's really cute. except for when she should be sleeping. last night i was about to go run errands but before i went i decided to go tell her one last time to pipe down. i could hear kicking and singing and all kinds of business. one of her new tricks is to kick the sides of her bedrails. i opened the door REALLY quick and she turned super fast, saw me, and laid flat on the teddy bear that had been at eye level when i first whipped open the door. i told her that she was supposed to be going night-night. and left the room before i burst into laughter.
today we went down to denver to see a friend and she fell asleep on the way home. it was my fault. i stayed probably 30 minutes longer than i should have. so when we got home she was getting her 2nd wind. i was ready for my momma time. i put her in her bed and came downstairs to feed peanut one more time. then i heard singing and kicking and went up there one more time. put her back in the right position, instead of cross-ways across the foot of the bed, and headed out. pretty soon i had to go back up there but this time she was poopy-so i changed her and put her back down. i checked on peanut and he too needed changing and was "napping" about as well as sweet pea. after changing them both i came downstairs again for a little momma time. i emphasize on the little. a little later, same thing...kicking, singing, etc...but this time she was whapping that springy thing behind the door. it's on the wall that adjoins the room that peanut was napping in. i went up there and opened the door only to find her with all of her stuffed dogs behind the door and her elmo book cover torn to shreds, not the book, just the cover. i put her back in her bed with her dogs and told her, finally, that she needed to stay in bed, she didn't have to sleep but she had to stay in bed. went back in and found her diaperless, which sent me into a tizzy of giggles because the diaper she was wearing was wet, wadded up and sitting on top of the diaper geenie. she tucked her chin and smiled a big fat chubby cheeked smile and giggled too. at this point i realize she's just so darn cute why make her stay in bed any longer and we came down stairs and painted toenails. well, hers anyway. mine didn't quite make the cut before peanut decided he too needed to be downstairs. so that was naptime today.

**Edited to add that Friday morning she slept 2 hours later than normal. :)

we have chub!

finally ONE of the kids has a roll!

and i love these little feet.

so logical and literal

tonight i said "mommy's pooped" and sweet pea pushed on my back to lean me forward and then the next thing i knew i felt her tiny finger pull the back of my pants out to look down my pants and check for poop. i started laughing instantly realizing what she was doing and clarified that i simply meant i was tired. ugh. that baby girl makes me LAUGH every day.

things i love about him....

1. his eyes. i can't explain them but they are really cute. very alert and dark dark brown like his big sissy.
2. his coos. omg. is there anything better than a baby's coos?
3. his smiles. just sitting around smiling ALL. THE. TIME. such a happy baby. and again he fits the name asher. (unless it's gas but he doesn't seem to fart that much.)
4. the way he smiles at me. 'nuf said.
5. his little butt like two nectarines. bigger than the plums he came with.
6. his wiggles. wiggles wiggles wiggles.
7. when he moves his tongue in and out of his mouth real fast after he eats.
8. his soft baby head with all of his silky hair.
9. the wrinkles on the back of that soft baby head.
10. the fuzz on the backs of his ears. he's still not outgrown it.
11. ugh! his hairy old man back. SO CUTE! i just know what he's gonna look like on the beach when he's 50.
12. that he's already on a schedule and i can predict what and when he will do things next.
13. that he is so much like his big sister i feel like i have 2 sweet peas. and remember when i prayed that i would feel like peanut was as perfect as sweet pea? well, the prayers worked. he IS as perfect as his wonderful big sister.
14. that he takes his morning naps strapped to me in his snuggli carrier while we're at parks or libraries or museums to help sweet pea keep from getting bored. a bored toddler is a hitting toddler.
15. that he knows my buttons and up to a few days ago insisted that all his naps be accompanied by me.
16. i love watching the chemistry between the two kids. it's werid, strange, and amazing all at once.
17. i did mention his coos right? can i count that as 2 because i really love them.
18. that he loves to cuddle.
19. the way he curls his forehead up before he sticks his bottom lip out and CRIES like a baby. ugh! love it!
20. sometimes when he's really mad and cries he gets all dramatic and has a special cry for when he REALLY wants you to know he's mad.
that's it for now. i have thousands more but this is just whats on the top of my head.

mushmouth

love this picture.

clickity clack

when sweet pea wears these shoes she refuses to let you carry her. she loves to walk....make that stomp...in them because of the way they go clickity clack all the way across the parking lot. and bonus points if you take her somewhere with a tiled floor. *ugh* i just love these little chubby legs in tights and mary janes.

snow!

it snowed this week. these pictures crack me up.
tatum the abominable snow dog.
paul came home early one day to go play in the snow with sweet pea. she LOVES "fmow"!

we have this little tree out front of our place. it's about the size of a cherry tree and it's just so cute in every season. here it is covered in snow. love this little tree.

Paul's Birthday

yesterday paul got his birthday present. it's the P90X workout video set. he loves it. i'm so excited. today he went out and got the tools he needs to do it. i couldn't really buy them because i didn't know exactly what he'd need. we sat down and watched a little bit of it to see how hard it's gonna kick his butt. sweet pea LOVED watching it and tried some of the moves. ugh. this baby kills me! i LOVE the way she puts her hands behind her back like this and i LOVE this little outfit. i know-it's too short now-but i just am not ready to pack it away just yet. i know once i do, she'll never wear it again. and i don't know that i'll ever have another little girl to wear it.

SNOOKI!

today i went to pick up sweet pea from daycare and she was covered in orange from the chest up. it looked like she'd been dipped in cheeto batter. her teacher told me griffin, the little boy sweets LOVES to play with, colored all over himself with an orange marker so sweet pea followed suit. i said "oh my! should we bump up your hair and put you on mtv with snooki?" if you haven't seen jersey shore it's a must see train wreck. she just looked at me. i didn't even get her signature "ya!" i said "with all that orange you look like you've been fake bakin'." still nothing. so we came home and took a nap. i let her play in her crib (yes, she's still in the stupid crib) after her nap and when i went in there i startled her because she was taking the sheets off her crib and when she jumped up and looked at me i couldn't help but laugh all over again. it's gonna take days to get all that marker off!