Oh man!!

OK this is my second post saying that I'm sorry for not updating this thing. Turns out I'm not that great at blogging. For some reason, my days seem so short and cramped. I feel like I rush through everything, especially during Christmas time. I love Christmas but there is always so much to do. Time sneaks up on me and the next thing I know, my sister's getting married and Christmas is here. So this week has been extremely crazy. I have been at the mall almost everyday. I still have millions of presents to wrap and a lot of them have to be mailed out. URRGGH!!! I'm so far behind!!! BUT - I LOVE this time of year!!!! Asher is really enjoying it and he's so excited about Santa coming. He actually sat on his lap at the mall. It took some convincing but he was excited. When Santa asked what he wanted, Asher whispered, "Presents!" Simple enough!! I just can't wait for him to wake up and see his presents from Santa.

Speaking of presents, this year I have really realized just how blessed we are. I'm so thankful for God's faithfulness in our lives. We are in a place where we are able to give Asher presents for Christmas when a lot of parents can't do that for their children. My heart aches for those who are in hard situations this year. I want to share this story... Adam volunteers every Friday at a school in north Tulsa. It's definitely in a low income part of town. The kids in this school are really sweet but they have a hard life. During Christmas, the principal puts every class up for adoption. Some of our friends and family have joined together and we adopted a second grade class. We have 20 kids and are only allowed to spend $35 on each kid. I know this is only fair but it's so hard! It breaks my heart because I know that for some kids, the presents they recieve at school will be the only Christmas they have. I know that there is SOOO much more to Christmas than presents (especially remembering the TRUE meaning of Christmas) but I can't imagine a child not knowing the joy and excitement that Christmas brings. It reminds me of the kid on the Polar Express who sings the song about Christmas. He says that he knows Christmas is supposed to be all these wonderful things but he has never really seen it. Anways, I'm just so excited to be able to be a part of it. God is so good to me! I'm so proud of Adam for the time and energy he puts into making those kids feel special.

Christmas Time!!

I am so so so so excited that it is Christmas time!! (Yes I know that Thanksgiving isn't even here yet but in my mind it's already Christmas time.) This is the first year that Adam and I will really be able to enjoy Christmas in our own home. We have been college students for the last 5 years and we had a whole month of Christmas vacation. After finals were over, we usually left home and went to spent the holidays with our families. That was really nice and I liked the month vacation we got but we never got to enjoy Christmas in our home. I always decorated for Christmas but it seemed like such a huge effort to only enjoy until the second week in December. This year I'm also having major Christmas decorating withdrawals because I didn't get to do ANY last year. Adam graduated last December and we were in the middle of moving. Our whole house was in boxes and that included the Christmas stuff! I was very sad because that's just not me. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love decorating, baking cookies, wrapping presents, listening to the music. My list could go on and on. I'm also super excited for this year because Asher is at the age when Christmas is really going to be fun. He loves going to the stores with me to look at Christmas stuff. He loves all the huge lawn decorations. (Adam will be forced to Clark Griswold the outside I'm sure.) He also loves anything that has music to it, like all the dancing Santas. Any time he sees a Santa figurine he says, "Kissmas!" However, I am a little sad because I don't think that the whole "sit in Santa's lap for a picture" thing will be happening this year. We already tried and he ran as fast as he could and hid behind Adam's leg. Santa even tried to give him candy and he wasn't falling for it. He loves Santa Clause, just from a distance. I am also buying new decorations this year. I told Adam that I have never done this before. Most of my decorations are hand me downs. I do have some stuff that my Grandmas have bought me but I'm just in the mood for some new ones! I just bought new ornaments for the tree because my old ones are all red and silver and since we don't live in Lubbock anymore, I dont want a Texas Tech tree. (Don't worry Red Raiders, I still love you just don't want you overtaking my Christmas tree anymore!) I am planning on decking the halls this coming week. My husband doesn't know it yet so either he'll read this or he'll just come home to a big surprise. Needless to say, I'm so excited for this Christmas season. I wish it could last forever!!!

Halloween

Last year Asher was Nemo for Halloween. He was the cutest Nemo I have ever seen! (I'm not biased right?!) So I had my hands full this year trying to top Nemo. I love little kid costumes. They are all so cute. It's hard to decided what to get but Asher is obsessed with pirates right now. His favorite movie is "Pan" and he walks around all day singing, "Yo-ho Yo-ho a pirate's life for me!" So it seemed liked the only logical choice was for Asher to be a pirate. We bought the costume a month early and I absolutely refused to let Asher wear it before Halloween. There's just something about two year olds - food, dirt, juice, crayon, etc. - always finds a way to attack their clothes. I did not want to ruin the costume and have to buy another one! So it set in the closet and when I finally put it on him, he was so excited! It came with a sword so of course we all got stabbed in the leg at least once. Now he was all dressed and we had to decide where to go. Well, lucky us! The aquarium here had a huge pirate themed indoor trick-or-treat. Asher loved it! He was a little scared of all the pirates at first. Guess he was surprised at what a real life pirate might look like but by the end of the night he was taking pictures with them. My parents came with us and we all followed Asher back and forth through the aquarium. To top the night off, my parents took Asher back to Oklahoma City with them and Adam and I had a weekend to ourselves. So relaxing!!!! Thanks mom and dad!

Beautiful Fall!

I know that I have complained a lot about the weather here in Tulsa but I have absolutely no complaints about fall! The weather is beautiful! The trees are beautiful! I love it! I think the one thing I love most is all the excitement that comes with the fall. It means that holiday season has started. I have already decorated for Thanksgiving and I'm on edge waiting to break out the Christmas stuff!

Since the weather has been so beautiful, Asher and I have been spending a lot of time outside. His favorite thing to do is play football. We play a lot of football! We also decorated pumpkins. Asher was interested in painting about two pumpkins and then he was done. So much for that idea! Our small group at church went to a pumpkin patch the other week. It was so much fun. We all got pumpkins and they had a lot of animals there to pet. Asher loved feeding the camels. They slobbered all over him. It was so gross but he loved it! We also went for a hay ride with all the kids. It moved really slow but I think they liked it. This is just some of the fun fall stuff we have been doing!

Adam's surprise party!

Gosh I'm so far behind! It is going to take forever to update everything we have done but I'll start with this story first. Adam's birthday and my birthday are 8 days apart and Halloween is one day after my birthday. This has been like two long weeks of parties. Asher is still singing "Happy Birthday Momma" and "Happy Birthday Daddy!" He also thinks we must always have a "party cake" at our house so I've tried my best to make sure that happens with some cookies and cupcakes. But on to Adam's birthday... Adam didn't want to tell anyone at his work that it was his birthday. He said that he didn't want it to be a big deal. That was not a good thing to tell me. I started emailing his co-workers to tell them it was his birthday and that we needed to do something funny to embarrass him at work. But after a lot of thought, we just couldn't come up with anything. So around 3:30 my friend Amy emailed me and said "Hey let's throw a surprise party tonight at my house!" Yeah!!! Adam never wants to do anything fun for his birthday. I was really excited. Adam works with some awesome people and we have made some really good friends but it was so last minute I was afraid no one would show up. But they did! And I think Adam was really surprised. I kept having to delay him because people weren't supposed to show up until 7. We went to dinner and Adam was ready to go home at 6:30. I told him that we had to go over to Amy and David's house before we went home because I needed to pay her for some pictures. I had to buy time by begging to go to Starbucks. I had to hide inside Starbucks for 15 minutes so we didn't get there early and ruin the surprise. This really annoyed Adam. When I walked out of Starbucks he was pretty mad. But we finally made our way to their house and he noticed everyone's cars outside. His mood changed pretty fast after that! It was a fun birthday and I'm really thankful for all of our new friends!

I KNOW!!!!!

Ok so I am sooo far behind on my blogging. October is a very busy month for our family. We have had a lot of fun and I definitely will be making some new blogs soon. I have a lot of catching up to do. Check back!!

Barf Man!

Asher has really started talking now and I love it! He has stopped saying "shoo-wee" and "yucky" when something is gross. He now says "Barf Man!" It's great! I think it's sooo cute. So funny story... Here's a little background. As most of you know, Asher's eating habits kill me!! He is very picky and usually way too busy to even stop for food. Dinner time is major stress to me. Every bite is a negotiation. "One more bite of chicken and you can have a chip." "Three more bites of green beans and we can go outside and play." At breakfast, he knows that he has to finish all his pancakes before he can get out of his highchair. SO... he will shove the last three bites into his mouth at once which makes him throw up. Throw up is no longer a big deal at our house. The kid has the most delicate gag reflex ever! Everything makes him throw up! We yell at him constantly, "One at a time or you'll choke!" Now he know what choking is. Choking means throw up. So on to my story... The other day we were driving in the car and he was eating yogurt covered raisins. (I know they are gross but like I said he is a picky eater and so I try new things constantly.) He was eating them just fine but all of the sudden he decided he didnt like them anymore. He started coughing and I was watching him out of my rear view mirror and he spit out like five chewed up raisins. Holding the chewed up raisins out to me he said, "Oh I choke!!!! Barf Man!!! Mama hoed (hold) it!!!! So now "barf man" is used anytime something is yucky. Anytime he has a dirty diaper he comes up to me and says, "I poo-poo! Barf Man!!" The other day he stepped on a piece of pancake with his barefoot and dramatically fell to the floor and yelled, "Barf Man!!!!" and picked the pancake off his foot. (He also realized that he smushed it into the carpet and said, "Uh-oh Sorry Mom!" What a sweet boy!)

OU/Texas weekend

This weekend we went to Dallas for the OU/Texas game. It was crazy! Dallas suddenly flooded with fans from each school. People were wearing their OU or Texas shirts on Thursday. Two days before the game! We went to the mall and every store was putting their red clothes beside their orange clothes. Even the underwear, reds beside the orange. We went to a resturant Friday night and in the middle of dinner, a man stands up and starts yelling "Boomer!" and every Sooner fan in the resturant yelled back "Sooner!". Then the Longhorns started in yelling "Texas!" and I'm not sure what the Texas response is to that because all I can ever hear is "Sucks!" when someone yells out "Texas!" This was only the beginning. The game, of course, was even crazier. The atmosphere in the stadium was something I have never experienced before. It was so loud and crazy that Asher started crying as soon as we walked in. My ears were ringing from everyone yelling. Poor Asher was so excited to go watch "Boom play football" but I he was too overwhelmed to even pay attention to Landry. All he wanted us to do was put our hands over his ears. This lasted for the first half of the game but towards the ends he started cheering. He wore himself out and slept for the last quarter. Now as for Adam and I, as I have said before, we are not huge OU fans since we graduated from Tech but we support Landry. However, we have a new outlook on OU football after this game. We wore our Crimson and yelled right along with all the other Sooners. We were disappointed that OU lost but we are so excited to go back next year. The experience was amazing!

Pictures: Asher was happy as long as he could wear Adam's hat (which in turn caused Adam to get really sunburned!), This is how we ended the game, Asher on the bus to the game. He kept calling the bus a "mo-home" (motorhome), This is the smile he gives everytime you tell him to smile for the camera. He closes his eyes. It's very annoying!, This was the best picture I could get of Landry, This is a picture of the line that seperates Sooners from Longhorns, Asher looks annoyed but at least we arent having to cover his ears.

the rodeo

Well first of all, I'm really sad because I dont have any pictures. We got to the fair early and took Asher to the petting zoo. I got out my camera and of course, it's dead. SO no pictures but we had a lot of fun. Asher loved the petting zoo. He didn't pet all of the animals because it was really crowded in there but he did pet the goats and sheep. Before we got to the fair, he kept asking if he could see a "pid - oink-oink" so we made it a point to find a "pid" for him. Lucky for us there was a mommy pig with a bunch of little piglets running around. They were so cute and they made Asher very excited. After the petting zoo, we headed over to the rodeo with our friends Denver and Sarah. It was awesome! Asher is fasicinated with horses. He calls them "neigh-neighs" so he tought all the cowboys were really cool riding the horses. I think his favorite part though was the bull riding. He cheered for every rider. He would clap really fast and yell "Oh Yeah!" for everyone. Adam and I were really excited because Pat Green was playing after the rodeo. We havent seen him in forever so we really wanted to make the concert. BUT the rodeo ended around 9 and Asher was getting really sleepy. We started laughing because we realized that we were going to be those parents who would force their two year old to stay up so that they could see a Pat Green concert. We decided that we didnt want to do that. I guess our college days are over anyways! It was a fun night and Asher even slept till 8:30 the next morning.

Confusing!

This is a little bit of what football season feels like at our house. Adam and I both graduated from Texas Tech. While we may not be die hards, we definitely support our school. But here's the problem. My brother plays football for OU. We told Landry (my brother) that we would pull for OU as long as he stept foot on that field. So OU football is the only thing Asher knows. He knows how to do the "O00000....Uuuuu" with the hand signals and he also knows that when someone yells "Boomer" he yells back "Sooner". He only has OU shirts, pants, etc. It is very cute though. He call Landry "Uncle Boom". Any time football is on TV, it doesnt matter who it is, Asher always says "Yeah Boom!" and anytime he sees a football he says "Boom throw football." So needless to say so much for Texas Tech. But Adam and I are still working with him. We are teaching him to "get his guns up". But I think as far as football goes, Asher's heart will bleed crimson and white!

Asher's 2nd Birthday!

This weekend was Asher's 2nd birthday. Needless to say, I'm still tired! We had a lot of fun activities planned. First, we went to the zoo with all of our friends from church. Asher always loves going to the zoo. We have only been 3 times and every time we make a list of things not to do. We no longer bring the stroller (waste of time since he is way too busy running around) and I don't bring my purse (just one more thing to keep up with). This time Asher wore he monkey harness and he ran all over the place. He also insisted on wearing his sunglasses that squeeze his head off and he will not let you readjust them at all! We saw all the animals but I think Asher's favorite part was riding the "choo-choo train". He kept yelling "All Aboard! Choo-Choo!" He also had to ride the merry-go-round. He picks out what animal to ride on and it's usually between the shark or the chomp-chomp (alligator). Since it was his birthday, he got to ride them both. After the zoo, we ran home for a quick nap and then it was off to the park. We all had a great time at the park. A lot of friends came and some family that lives in town. Aunt Sis always came which made Asher very happy! I had a bakery make Asher a Lightning McQueen birthday cake since that was the theme. Asher loves that movie. Then though the party was a lot of fun, it was a little stressful for me. Two year olds have time limits to everything and guessing those time limits is impossible. I tried to move him from one thing to the next without causing a fit. I had to move fast to let the kids play, then pizza, then cake, then presents, then time to go home. I'm just impressed that I made it home with everything. Asher even brought home a gallon of sand that was either in his hair, diaper, or shoes. He had to be taken straight to the bathtub! He had a ring of dirt and sweat around the top part of his diaper. SO as I was trying to wash the dirt out of all the hidden areas, Asher leaned back against the back of the tub and put his hands behind his head and said, "Whew! I tired!" I laughed and said, "Me too buddy!"

(pictures from top: 1.)where all the dirt came from, 2.) why dirt and sweat dont mix, 3.) blowing out the candles, 4.) helping mommy open the presents as I said before the attention span was wearing down, 5.) the final product of the day notice the dirty face, 6.) the monkey harness, 7.) trying to capture all the kids in one picture, 8.) Asher, Bryson, and Gavin. I dont know why Asher thought he needed to hold on to Gavin but it was very cute! 9.) Asher and Kennedi at the park

Yeah for Cousins!!

Adam's sister Lindsey just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Dagny Louise. It means a "bright beautiful day" and she IS a bright beautiful day! We can't wait to meet her! For the last two years Asher has been the only grandchild on both sides of the family so he is super excited to finally have a cousin. (He may not realize it yet but he is!) We are also waiting on Asher's second counsin to get here. Adam's other sister, Amanda, is having a baby in January. They decided to keep the sex of the baby a surprise so Adam calls the baby his "neicephew"! The family is really growing now and we are so excited! Life with all my cousins was interesting and fun to say the least! I'm really glad that Asher can have that same experience. Adam is already starting to plan family vacations with all the cousins!

Lake Trip

Our friends, Becky and Kevin and their boys, Carter and Bryson, got a boat over the summer and they invited out to the lake with them a few Fridays ago. It was so much fun! Asher loved it! He was real still and quiet at first but by the end he was running all over the boat. I had to hold on to the back of his life jacket to make sure he would sit down while we were going. As soon as he noticed my hand, he would push it away and say, "No Mom! I do it!" Oh boys!!! Are they always so rebellious? He even innertube with Adam. It was kind of funny though because we went real slow and Adam was definitely weighing down the back part. We could never get them to flatten out. We needed to go faster but I'm not so sure what Asher would have thought of that so we just pulled them along with the front part of the tube in the air. Adam and I finally got to wakeboard which is something we havent done in years. It was fun but neither one of us could walk the next day. We both wore Icy-hot to bed that night! After boating, we all had dinner out on the lake. The boys loved it. I dont think any of them ate their food. They were too busy throwing it to the ducks. I'm pretty sure the ducks were good and full by the time we left!

(picture from top: Kevin and Carter- Carter was very smart and wore goggles so the water wouldnt splash in his eyes, Asher chillin on the boat, Bryson with his cruly blonde hair and bright blue eyes, Adam and Asher getting ready for a ride, The boys feeding their supper to the ducks - noticed the grip Adam has on Asher. This is all the temptation he needs to jump right in!)

Preschool Rules!

Asher started preschool 2 weeks ago. It is an awesome school and his teachers are amazing. They do a lot of fun activities and Asher always comes home with a craft he made. However, this change has been a little hard on him. I think he is starting to have a little bit of separation anxiety which makes his school days really hard on both of us. BUT we finally had a break through! He did not cry yesterday! He did cry when I left him but I told him if he didnt cry for the rest of the day, I would bring him a sucker when I picked him up. I guess the bribing worked! I know now that I will probably be bringing a sucker with me to school for the next year! His teacher told me that he is making friends. She told me about one conversation between Asher and a little girl. Asher said, "I drive to Wal-Mart or Target." The little girl said, "Wal-Mart!" which then Asher replied, "Target! OH YEAH!" (jumping up and down and waving his hands in the air) I guess maybe I go to those places way too much. It's sad when he can recognize the parking lots of each one!

The lessons of being a mom...

I feel like there is so much to talk about that I don't really know where to start. Asher is so funny now. Everyday he is doing new things that makes us laugh. But with each new day comes more worries. I don't feel like I was prepared for this part of being a mom. The worries seem endless and sometimes very overwhelming. Asher is very adventerous and I love that about him. I try not to be too overproctective with him because I feel that I would crush the spirit of who he is. This is not an easy thing to do! Especially for a first time mom. I want to protect him from everything and that is impossible. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big "What if..." person. I constantly tell Adam that something might be wrong with Asher. He might need to go to the doctor. "What if he has another ear infection?" "What if he has bad headaches and can't tell me?" "What if he is allergic to that type of food?" The questions go on and on. Adam tells me I worry to much but I just don't know how to stop.

So the lesson I learned today is that I can stop worrying because as much as I love Asher there is someone who loves him more than I can possibly imagine. Handing my little boy over to God is a struggle everyday. I know that in God's hands, Asher is protected in ways that I would never be able to. I believe this is the best thing I can ever do for Asher. I can place him in God's hands and watch the wonderful things that God will do in his life.

As for me, I daily stand on the promise that I can come to Jesus with my worries. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Here is where I find rest from the worries of being a mom!

To blog or not to blog?

I'm sure you are all farely aware of the fact that I am horrible about emailing people pictures. This is something that I feel horrible about. It's always a frustrating process to me. I never have anyone's correct email and trying to get email addresses from Adam is just as frustrating. So...to blog!! I decided that I would set up this blog. This will be a great way to post pictures of Asher and to also let you know what's going on in our ever-changing life.