Good Day Sunshine State

We took our summer vacation a little early this year: in May, to coincide with a family wedding in Florida. As always, Asher and Riley were as excited for the airplane ride as they were for the trip itself.

This is Asher's pirate face. "Argh! I piwut!"

Our first couple of days there we had a great time doing normal vacation things. Scot golfed and played tennis. The kids and I went to the beach and the pool. And we all had a great time hanging out in the condo we were able to rent for a steal. Thanks VRBO!

Scot was wiped out after two days in a row of 18 holes.

Having fun at the condo

The kids were fascinated with all the little lizards. They made me miss Austin.

Poor Riley was eaten alive by mosquitoes one night. 

Stay tuned. Wedding, family, and Disney pics to come!

Eighteen Months

Asher is 31 inches tall and weighs 21 pounds, 10 ounces. That puts him in the 15th percentile for height, and down to 5th for weight. Head circumference is holding steady at 75th.

He is such a fun kid and is always finding new ways to make us laugh. Asher and Riley play together well, for the most part, and he is usually interested in whatever it is she's paying attention to. He enjoys balls (especially kicking them), feeding himself, babies and dogs, going places in the car, stacking things, looking at books or having them read to him, and anything that he can pretend is a phone. He is definitely a mama's boy, but gets excited and runs to the door every time he hears Scot come in the house after work.

At 18 months, Asher can say quite a few words:

tickle (teeko), hot (his go-to word for describing a lot of things: hot, cold, wet, dark, etc.), hat, bear, doggy (goggy), puppy, go, ewwie (his word for a poopie diaper or anything dirty), ball, car (caw), book, hot dog (goh gog), cookie, thank you (keekoo), two, play (pay), piano (pee), kick, get it, boo, hello (a-wo), kay (as in okay), whoa, that (dat), me, eye, ear, pear, apricot (cot), flower (wow-a), arm, blow (bo), bird (buh), shoe (dee), la la la (referring to our favorite Sandra Boynton book), no, tree, shhhh (with his finger to his mouth), hi, eat, Riley (eye-ee or eye-wee), Mommy, Daddy, Bernie (nee), hmmm (his common response when I ask him a question), balloon (boon)

Sounds effects: beep, boom, pop, eek eek (He always does the squeeky shoe noise when we read “Mr. Brown Can Moo.”)

Animal noises: cow, dog (mmm mmm mmm), cat (mao), rooster (caw caw)

Crazy Cousins

My nephew Brady has a gift for making babies laugh. He really had Asher going the other night.

Fifteen Months

I had a hard time getting Asher to sit still for photos. That is, until I started tossing him a ball. He was on board as soon as I turned it into a game of catch.

He has seven teeth, four on top and three on the bottom, with another one looking pretty close. Books are probably Asher's favorite thing right now. He loves being read to, but he is just as happy looking at them on his own.

Since his first birthday Asher has started using a lot of words. He can say Mommy, Daddy, Riley, ball, baby, book, pop, beep, banana, cheese, hot dog, doggie, go, more, uh-oh, no no, that, and car. He can tell you the noises that a cow, monkey, rooster and a dog make. And he makes the cutest kissing noise.

He is the sweetest little boy and will give kisses and snuggles whenever we ask. He adores his big sister. Because he is still taking two naps a day, he usually wakes up from his afternoon nap before Riley does. He often calls for her, and if I'm not looking he will crawl up the stairs to her bedroom door, sit or stand next to it, and repeat her name until I intervene.

And obviously he is as handsome as ever!

Day by Day

We have had an uneventful few weeks (thankfully). I've had to remind myself to get out the camera and take photos of the kids every once in a while, because our days seem so ordinary.

I peeked in during Riley's naptime one Sunday afternoon to find this:

Now, I know the girl doesn't identify books by author, yet. So the fact that every one of these(except "Go Dog, Go!") are by Dr. Seuss wasn't intentional, I'm sure. She's just loves rhyming (particularly couplets) these days.

While I was up there I snapped one of Asher sleeping:

I just can't get enough of that fat bottom lip and his little squishy face! He woke up while I was in the room, and was none too pleased that I was still taking pictures instead of getting him out of his crib.

Riley wanted to play in the backyard one afternoon. This is how she dressed for the occasion:

Snow boots, a skirt, her swim cover, and a swimsuit underneath it all. Of course.

Riley had a friend over to play last week. I took advantage of her distraction by taking some photos of Asher.

If I knew anything about PhotoShop I'd fix the dry skin and crusty nose. But hey, that's our reality during a Colorado winter.

Our Late Show

Dear Conan,

Sorry to hear about your bad luck with NBC. But I felt I should let you know that we don't really need you anyway. We've got our own late night entertainment. And by the way, ours is lower budget, and definitely more family-friendly.

I couldn't help but laugh at the similarities to this video of Riley.

Squirt

Scot was teaching Riley how to use the little squirt gun a friend gave her. Asher made an irresistable target, especially after he had such a delightful reaction.

Cheap Entertainment

Now that Asher is becoming more interactive, Riley has a lot of fun playing with him and getting him to laugh. And he just eats up any attention he gets from her.

Denial

Happy Noise

Asher is generally a happy baby, but he seems to be a little camera-shy like his Mom. He will make all kinds of cooing noises...until I pull out the camera. After days of trying to record his noises, I finally got a few clips.

Grins & Giggles

I have had a fun time the last several days trying to get photo documentation of Asher's smile. He smiles quite frequently lately, but they are fleeting and hard to catch on camera.

I would get close,

but then he would get bored.

And often Riley would distract me.

And then finally today, the money shot!

Our Simple Life

Riley is handling this big change in our family better than we could have hoped for. The biggest problem it has created for her so far is a bit of confusion about the lyrics to Ring Around the Rosies: now she chants, “Asher, Asher, all fall down!” Riley likes her new brother and is always concerned when he cries, or even when he has hiccups. But she hasn’t been as smothering as I was guessing she might. She helps by taking his wet diapers to the trash, and she likes to join in the back patting when I burp him. But she hasn’t yet tried to pick him up or stick random things in his mouth. Thank goodness! I was getting annoyed one day when she kept wondering off with his burp cloths. But she stopped as soon as I told her that Asher had spit on them. “Pit? Eewww!” Now if I could just get her to quit touching his pacifiers.

She was watching a Sesame Street DVD yesterday (Thanks Alicia, it’s been a life saver on so many occasions, including in the waiting room at the hospital!) and I laid Asher on the bed near her to change his diaper. After I finished Riley suggested, “Asher watch Elmo?” So they laid there together long enough for a picture and she was satisfied. Just don’t tell her that he wasn’t really watching the TV.

Riley loves to play peek-a-boo, and Asher tried to get in on the action this afternoon when I was taking photos of him.

And finally, the last photo taken of Asher and his Daddy before Scot flew home on Sunday.

So Far We Know...

Asher has been a very good baby. He's been sleeping for 3 to 4 hour stretches as night as long as I feed him every 3 hours during the day. He's been having a hard time going back to sleep after eating at night (hence, this early-morning post), but I'm hopeful that won't last long.

Here's what we've learned about Asher so far:

• He likes a pacifier. This an adjustment for us, since Riley never did.
• He is all business when it's time to eat. He usually wakes right up and gets to work as soon as I touch the bottle to his lips.
• He likes to be around people. He'll lay awake quietly for long stretches of time as long as there are people around him talking. But leave the room for a minute and he will start crying almost immediately.
• He's got a little jaundice. We had to take him to the hospital for a blood test on Friday. His levels weren't high enough to require a therapy light, but we've been keeping an eye on him and laying him down in front of a window for all his daytime naps.
• Swaddling works like charm with this one too. I can't say enough good things about a REALLY tight swaddle. Jess lent me a great stretchy swaddling blanket that I adore. I'd link to it, but the tag is tucked somewhere under Asher's bum, and I'm not about to undo the blanket enough to find the brand. If you're interested, email me.
• He loves the baby swing. My cousin Terin was kind enough to lend us hers while we're here in Texas, and it's been great! He's been sleeping in it most nights and we've both been happy.

We are eager to learn more about Asher, and for he and Riley to become best friends. She was already working on creating some goodwill yesterday by sharing every ball she could find with him…and her dolly too!

One of Many

One thing I love about Riley these days is that EVERY TIME I take of her shirt at night and her pajama top in the morning, she immediately looks down to her belly button, as though to make sure it is still where it was the night/morning before. And as soon as she finds it she announces, "Beddy," and sticks her finger in it. Every time.

Riley's Education

Lest you think the life of a toddler is all fun and games, here's a little video to prove otherwise.

New Pastime

This morning Riley was playing with a noisy toy in the front room while I cleaned the kitchen. I knew something was up when it was quiet in there for a couple of minutes. I quietly peeked in the room, then hurried to get the camera when I found this:

She knew she'd been found when she heard that first camera flash and she peeked out at me.

You can tell by that grin in the second photo that she was pretty pleased with herself. I don't think she was intending to hide, she was just watching out the window. Maybe she was waiting for Daddy to come home. Bernie does the same thing a lot at this very window, so I wonder if she learned it from him.

I was able to get a shot of her from the other angle too.

First Easter Egg Hunt

This morning I took Riley to an Easter Egg Hunt at the Eastley's. I knew Riley would have no idea what to do on a lawn full of plastic eggs, but Sherri swayed me with the promise of cute photo ops. Riley isn't a fan of crawling on grass, so I appreciated being able to take her picture again while she was holding still. That just doesn't happen anymore.

Riley would have been perfectly content to sit there and watch the other kids. I had to sit her down right next to an egg for her to pick it up. So she ended the hunt with three eggs, one in each hand, and a third that a little boy gave to her.

By the way, check out Jessica's blog for a cute video/slideshow of Brady and Riley together.

Ladies Who Lunch

Riley and I ate lunch together this afternoon. This isn't the first time that we've eaten at the same time. I frequently try to eat in conjunction with feeding her, so I only have to clean up once. But today was different because Riley and I ate the exact same lunch: cottage cheese and peaches. And I think we enjoyed it equally. Cottage cheese and canned fruit has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. But then the fruit was canned by my Mom, and the peaches I ate today were canned by Del Monte. Sometimes I freak out at the idea of my baby growing up. But it's moments like this that I look forward to all the fun we're going to have together.
The weather has been ususually warm for this time of year. It has been in the mid-seventies here since the end of last week. Here we are today, at the beginning of February, wearing t-shirts and shorts. I'm enjoying it now, but I hope this doesn't mean we're in for a crazy-hot summer.

Yummy

Riley is pretty good at getting into things. I don't really need to say more. Ok, maybe I do. For all that have asked, it was a marker. The funny thing is, she had black ink on/in her mouth, but the marker was green. What?

Giggly Girl