Asher is THREE!!!

(I actually wrote this 6 weeks ago, but better late than never....so here's a recap of Ash-man's big day)

Three years ago, I became a Mommy. I never imagined how my life could change so much by just that one significant event. Everyone knows that things change after having a child, of course, but no one really prepares you for how it turns your life upside down. Everything holds a new and precious meaning. As these three years have passed, I have been able to look at life through the eyes of my sweet little baby boy. I have watched him grow from tiny baby, so sweet, chubby and cuddly, into this boisterous toddler who loveslife. I am amazed at how he sees the world and sees others with such a pure heart and just plain old love. My prayer for my boy is that as he grows, he would love the LORD with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength and find JOY in serving and loving those around him; that he would chose to walk in obedience to God's will and treasure the truth of His word. I pray that the Lord would give him wisdom, strength, health, purity, and that Asher's life would be used to bring glory to our Father and make the name of Jesus famous!

Birth-day

First birthday (We have better pictures, but someone cleaned them off the computer...)

TWO!

We had a party to celebrate this blessed little boy's life. When I asked him what kind of party he wanted to have, he said he wanted an orange party. Since Asher loves trucks, construction, tools, etc--so we used the orange theme and did a big construction themed party. I always have so much fun planning these things and Zack asked me to make sure I tried to tone it down a bit this year, which would have definitely happened, but we happened to have a precious member of our church offer to let us borrow his forklift for the party. So yes, we had a huge piece of heavy machinery parked in our yard for the weekend. Other than that GIANT detail, it was much simpler than past parties as far as the planning and preparation that went in to it. Here are a few pictures of the day. Asher loves people more than any child I have ever met, so just having friends over to his house was super fun, but then you add dirt and a forklift and he was over the moon happy!

Party themed food

We turned our garden (since we are done for the season) into a big dirt pile for the boys to dig in. It was a BIG hit :)

Honor loved the dirt pile too!

About halfway through all the digging, Asher decided to get serious about it and went and found Daddy's big shovel

Riding bikes with our neighbors

It was a fun party. We are so blessed to have so many friends and family to celebrate with. Asher is one very loved little boy!

Family News!

I can't believe summer is almost over. Schools around here started back last week. It's not a big change for our family seeing as we don't have children in school. However my sweet sisters started back and I will definitely miss having them come spend the day with me or calling them to run errands with me. It sure makes a Wal Mart trip easier when you have "helping hands" :) (Sidenote: Zack did start back to seminary today though! He works so hard and we are so proud of him!!)

Our summer has been fun and busy! Looking back now it is hard to remember what all we have done. June flew by as it always does with Vacation Bible School squeezed in there somewhere. I volunteered as the "camp nurse" this year and have told myself I probably won't do that again. I felt pretty useless the entire week only bandaging up one scraped knee and tending one bloody nose. Thankful there weren't any other incidents, but I will definitely try to teach in a room next year. I love VBS and felt disconnected from it all sitting in a room waiting for injuries haha! Zack worked with 5th and 6th grades and enjoyed himself. He was wiped out after that week!

July was a little busier: We had an engagement!! My sister Kimberly got engaged and we threw them a fun party at Java Jolt. They are getting married next May and we are very excited for them. I am sure you will be hearing many updates seeing as she will have the most precious ring bearer and flower girl on the planet :) Pictures from the special day are here : ( https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.1958941245627.2101710.1005630080&type=1)

We had our annual Freedom Fest at Eaglepoint for July 4th. It was Honor's first time to see fireworks. She seemed to enjoy them. Asher loved them! He still talks about seeing fireworks at church! We took a trip to the beach for July 4th. It was the first trip we have taken by ourselves without family. We usually go to Panama City with my family once or twice a summer, but this time we went all alone. It was wonderful and fun. We stayed for 6 days and enjoyed doing nothing but playing at the pool and laying on the beach! The kids really enjoyed it. Asher loved swimming at the pool and Honor loved playing at the beach, so that was a challenge not having everyone happy at the same time. On a sad note I took 3 pictures on this trip--all on my phone! My mom's camera, which we usually have in our possession, broke! I feel like this summer has slipped by with almost no captured memories. We are saving money to buy a new one but for now we are thankful for our iphones! Now for another BIG Family announcement, we found out on our beach trip that......We are expecting another baby!! We were surprised and feel SO thrilled that the Lord would bless our family with another little one! When I found out I was pregnant with Honor when Asher wasn't even a year old yet, I felt a lot of anxiety about how this would affect our family, if I would be a good mom to two babies, guilt over not having enough time with just Asher, etc, all probably reasonable fears at that time as our family was expanding. However, I have felt NONE of that this time around. I feel only pure bliss at the thought of mothering another sweet angel. My children are my biggest blessings and we know that the Lord's ways are higher than our ways and for that we are so grateful!! We trust that the Lord will continue to meet all of our physical needs as well as provide everything we need to know and the wisdom required to raise children "up in the way they should go" as Proverbs 22:6 says. So July ended with a bang. We shared our news with our families a few weeks after we found out and with our friends a little while after that. I am thankful that I am out of the first trimester!! I have had a time with this one, probably feeling the worst morning sickness out of all my pregnancies. My sweet husband has been a saint! He has been such a blessing helping me out as I have neglected many of my domestic duties these past few weeks. But thankfully I feel like I have rounded the corner and can hopefully put sickness behind me and start gaining some of my energy back.

The rest of our summer was packed with playdates, school days, lazy Saturdays and just lots of fun :) The kids moved up in their classrooms at school this past week. Honor is officially in the one year old room and Asher is in the threes! Crazy that in November I will have a three year old!! Honor went for a check up at the doctor and she is the picture of health, weighing in at 20 pounds 9 ounces and 31 inches long. Healthy growing girl! She continues to delight us with her sweet personality. That is what I always tell people--she is just SWEET. While Asher is all boy and you have to basically hold him down to get any sort of affection from him, Honor will go out of her way to give you a hug or a kiss. She is our sweet little princess! She is a talker and already has so many words! My favorite word she says right now is "bear". It is too cute. If I can figure out how to load video from my phone I will put one on here of her naming animals out of her word book. Asher continues to be ALL BOY!! He is 100%, 100% of the time! I love it and can't imagine our life without this little tornado :)

Well that's about all our news for now. Hopefully I will be better about updating in the coming weeks! "But as for us, we will bless the LORD, from this time forth and forever. Praise the Lord!" (Ps. 115:18)

Soccer!

We signed Asher up for TOTS soccer this year. It was more like organized play, not actual games. The coaches walked them through drills and taught them soccer skills. I think Zack probably learned more than Asher did. It was great because they encouraged the parents to play with the children, but in hindsight, he was waaayyy too young to play. If you know Asher, you know he is wide open. He loves to run fast and has trouble following instruction for an extended period of time, which made soccer tough. He had fun kicking the ball, but wasn't able to really play in any of the "games". It was a fun experience, but I will probably wait a little while longer before we sign him up for anything else. I look forward to the days of ball games and watching my little guy play in the future. :)

Asher and one of his best buddies Walker.

Stopping the ball with his foot...

...stopping the ball with his bum...

....stopping the ball with his head.

Honor loves watching brother play!

Honor is 1!!!

My sweet Honor turned ONE!! I begin this post a little teary eyed that my sweet baby girl is already a year old. How time has flown!! She has been the most precious blessing to our family. She is a perfect fit for us in every way! I wanted to record some of her milestones on her first birthday:

She has developed THE sweetest disposition. She loves her Mommy, Daddy and Ah-Ah (Asher). Giving kisses is her favorite!

She has several words now; some real words and some words she says that only we know what they mean: Mommy, Daddy, Ah-ah for Asher, she says bik-bik for book, hey, bye, nana for banana (that was one of her first words), ball, baby and she has a word for juice(it sounds like gun-gun). She also signs several things: more, please, mommy, daddy, and eat. She is very verbal and will repeat almost anything you say to her, most recently she has begun night-night, Nonnie, Mimi, Papa, bath, but doesn't say those things on her own yet.

She has taken a few steps, but isn't full blown walking yet. She prefers to crawl because it's faster for now. *Update--I wrote this post a while ago and am just now publishing it, but as of now she is WALKING! She took her first steps on Memorial Day weekend and now prefers to walk everywhere. I will admit, it is a little sad for me, but I LOVE to watch her waddle around like she is big stuff.

She loves to eat! My girl is serious about her food!! Her favorite foods are: bananas, green beans, blueberries, eggs, chicken nuggets, cheese and her most recent interest: hot dogs.

She loves to read and play trains and sometimes baby dolls, but usually she just wants to do whatever big brother is doing.

She sleeps all night and has done so for a while now. She is a much better sleeper than Asher ever was and prefers to be laid in her bed and fall asleep on her own, which Asher still doesn't like to do. While I do love the bedtime rocking routine, it is nice to be able to cuddle for a moment and then allow her to go to sleep on her own.

We had a fun birthday party for sweet Hon-bon and had some friends and family over to celebrate our girl. We had fabulous cupcakes and some goodies. It was a beautiful day so we played inside, ate yummy food and just enjoyed spending time with some of our favorite people. Here are some pictures from her party.

Honor and her buddy Laynee. Layne was born 5 weeks after Honor. We love our playdates :)

Aunt Kiki!

Honor and Bella Grace

Birthday girl enjoying some cake

"Try this piece Honor"

Aunt Kiki being silly

Honor's flirty face :)

The Spread :)

Nonnie, Pops and the kiddos

On Honor's actual birthday, Mommy and Aunt Kiki took Honor out for a special day. We had lunch at Zaxby's.....

....did a little shopping....

....and opened presents. Honor got her first dollhouse!

Beautiful Birthday Girl!

A Day Out with Thomas

In March my mom and I took Asher and Honor to ride Thomas! He LOVES trains and we read all the Thomas books and occasionally watch the movies (they are a bit boring if you haven't seen them) Anyways, Asher had such a FUN day. He loved riding on the train. There were several things to do around the ride, like play with trains, live music, food, a moon bounce, and meeting Sir Topham Hatt. We didn't stand in line to meet him, but Asher waved from afar. I knew if we stood in line, we would get up there and Asher wouldn't have anything to do with him. But he enjoyed seeing him from a safe distance :) A fun day with some good memories!!

On the train!!

Honor's favorite thing to do--point! :)

Honor loved the animals at the "petting zoo"

Asher showing off his new ink

Waving to Sir Topham Hatt