Moving On Up

There are changes going on around here! We decided that rather than move all of the baby furniture out of Asher's current bedroom and into the office, that we would instead keep that room as the nursery and make the office into Asher's new room. The past few weeks have been busy as we moved the office out of its current location and then bought and put together a new bed, dresser, and bookshelf for Asher. We've also really been talking up his new "big boy room" and getting him excited about it.

His room is looking pretty good. The bed is beautiful, and we found a dresser that I think matches really well. Today, we finally got a few things up on the walls. There's still a few more things to do, but it's done for the most part. Asher really loves his new room, and one of his favorite things to do is for all of us to hang out on his bed (it gets a little crowded, needless to say!).

Here's Asher on the first night the bed was set up. He was in heaven!

Here's the rest of the room:

I've also gotten all of his clothes and closet belongings transferred over to the new room. The only thing left for him to do is actually sleep in there! It feels so good to get things more organized. It really satisfies those nesting cravings!

Photo Session Sneak Peek!

This past weekend, we did a 15-minute mini-session with Sweet Feet Photography.  The photographer posted two of our pictures as a sneak peek, and here they are:

I can't wait to see how the rest of them turned out, especially the family photos!

Big Bro in Training

Asher loves babies. He really loves them. Even when we walk down the baby aisle at Target, Asher goes nuts at all the pictures of the babies everywhere! He notices them on TV, in books, and in stores.

When one of my friends had a baby this past March, it was love at first sight for Asher. Ever since then, the love has not waned. Whenever we see baby Nevie and her big brother, Asher is always more excited to see the baby than his playmate (sorry, Corben!).

So when another friend just had a baby recently, I was curious to see how he would react and if he would be as interested. And yes, he is definitely very thrilled about baby April! Recently, he finally got the chance to hold her. He could have held that baby all day!

And when her big sister wanted a turn, Asher was none too happy to let her go and had to keep a hand on her anyway.I just know that Asher will be such a great big brother, and I can't wait to see him in action!

Snacktime

Asher is very aware of everything we eat. In fact, the only time he doesn't really pay attention is when he's in his high chair and has his own delicious meal to enjoy.

Any other time, he wants to know exactly what you're eating and if he can have some of it. He will then proceed to whine, whine, whine (and maybe scream and cry) until you either share it with him, finish it, or give up and put it away. I feel that not only is it mean to eat in front of him on a regular basis when he can't have it himself, but I really don't want to deal with or hear the whining if at all possible. Plus, I cannot enjoy food with something crying in my ear.

With that in mind, I like to employ one of three methods when it comes to indulging in something that Asher either can't eat or shouldn't eat:

A) The stuff your mouth in the kitchen approach. This entails, for example, grabbing a cookie and shoving it in your mouth when Asher is in the other room and then chewing it quickly before he sees you. I really prefer to not do this because I rather enjoy savoring my food and would rather not shove it down my throat, but it is highly effective I must admit.

B) Give Asher his own treat. If Asher has something good to eat at the same time, he will usually leave you alone and munch on his own thing. Of course, he will still probably peer at what you are having from time to time and wonder if yours is better, but ultimately, if he's happy with it, you're good to go. I prefer to find a kind of healthy dessert, such as homemade muffins or soy yogurt, but sometimes he'll even get a popsicle or chips as a special snack.

C) Wait until he's sleeping. This is easily achievable for me when Asher takes a nap (happens a lot of the time but not every single day), but Eric doesn't have access to that option very often. And usually, especially if he does take a nap, Asher doesn't go to bed until close to or at the same time we do, so this is not always a viable choice.

So that's how I do things myself. Eric on the other hand? He has his own method:

D) Eat whatever I want wherever and whenever I want.

Eric seems to think that perhaps this two-year-old has fallen from the sky just this morning and that he should not have to adapt his life to accommodate him. You can see that I am a big fan of this method. A few nights ago, after an especially whiny evening, it was close to bedtime. Eric decided to all of a sudden have some chocolate and then some chips! On the couch no less! Asher was very upset and of course wanted some. He had already had a snack earlier, and as I said, he was about to go to bed, so having another snack just wasn't going to happen. I truly enjoyed the endless protest that Asher put up until Eric finished eating, let me tell you.

If Asher is going to have something to eat after dinner, I will purposely time any snacking I want to do around that time or skip it altogether. Eric prefers to wait until we're all done to then have dessert because he just didn't feel like it earlier.

Sometimes, we can't always be in the mood when it comes to small children. Ahem.

Boy or Girl?

If you haven't already, don't forget to vote on what you think I'm having! So far, the girls are ahead by two votes! Very interesting! The big reveal is coming up...can't believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I've been busy with trying to organize everything. We are moving Asher's bedroom into our current office so that we can keep all of the baby furniture in his current room (he doesn't sleep in his crib anyway). His new room is in disarray right now, and I am anxious to get it all put together. His bed arrived a couple of days ago, and we're planning on putting it together this weekend. Asher's dresser also arrived and is sitting in a box. Once everything is put together, then I start moving his clothes and closet stuff over. Lots to do!

A Chair Named Regret

We've lived in our house for a little over two years, and we are the first people to live in it. We have beautiful hardwood floors throughout much of the main level of the house. Over the past couple of years, we've naturally obtained a few scratches here and there and had just natural wear and tear, so it was time to have a little sanding done and a maintenance coat put on.

So, this past August, we did just that. Asher and I had to hang around outside for the 3-4 hours while the guy got it all done, and then we had to be out of the house for 24 hours while it dried. When we returned, the smell was still really strong, so we had to keep the windows open constantly and turn a ton of fans on. It took several days for it to really dissipate.

Basically, it was a lot of work, and it wasn't cheap (although it wasn't crazy expensive either). But, the floors looked gorgeous and brand-new, so it was totally worth it.

HOWEVER, Asher has this fold-up chair that he rarely uses. It used to sit in the carpeted living room until I realized he was hardly using it, so I put it in his closet. He saw it the other day and decided to bring it out. A little while later, I was busy in the kitchen making dinner, and he was occupied with his chair. I thought great! This will keep him busy for a while! He brought it into the kitchen, sat on it for a bit, and then took it around the house, sitting in various spots. I never heard any loud scratching sound or anything that alerted me that something was about to go terribly wrong.

Until Eric came home and practically went into shock. That's when I realized that in the process of taking his chair all around the house, Asher was actually dragging it, and it ended up leaving one (and in some places two) very long and deep scratches that go for about 20 feet or so. I just about had a heart attack. The bottom of the chair legs are plastic and flat, so it didn't seem like it would do any damage, but upon further inspection, one of the legs had a jagged piece of plastic that must have been the culprit.

At first, it looked really, really awful. It was fresh and white, and it was the very first thing you noticed when you walked into the room. We did have some scratch repair stuff that we put on it, and while it did nothing to actually take away the scratch, it did help to at least cover it up some so that they aren't quite as glaringly obvious (basically they just blend in better). Although they definitely still very present.

I tried to take a picture of it, but it's really hard to capture it accurately on camera in certain light. You can still see one of them, though. It's on the left side of the picture. The other one is more toward the right, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.So now we have these lovely scratches that we have to live with for quite a while since we just had the floors redone. I could just cry.

The only good news was that Eric never attempted to point the blame at me (although I'm sure I would have yelled at him if the roles were reversed, truth be told), and Asher had no idea what he was doing, so it wasn't like he was being malicious. Believe me, we know when he does things on purpose, such as spitting water on the floor until he makes a huge puddle, or looking at me directly in the eye before blatantly pouring a cup of bright pink Emergen-c on the carpet (he then put himself in timeout because he knew that was coming!).

That chair is now really hidden away and will probably not make an appearance anytime in the near future.

I hope we sell this house sooner than later because it might not be standing for very much longer!

Hop To It

Hoppy Halloween!

Asher went trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. He was dressed up as a frog and didn't even mind wearing the hat part of it. I suspect that this was because there was the promise of candy, something that Asher has recently discovered and loves (naturally!). I was hoping that he would get some candy that he could eat and wasn't allergic to, but just in case, I had bought a few treats for him to enjoy.Fortunately, there was just the right amount of candy for him to indulge in, and just the right amount for Mommy and Daddy to "help out" with (not to mention the candy I had already been sneaking throughout the week!). Asher had a lot of fun going door to door and filling up his pumpkin bowl, although I think he wasn't quite sure why we weren't actually going inside of anybody's house!
Afterward, we came home and passed out candy. Asher really got into it, and his big thrill was actually putting the candy into the kids' bags. He would even race to the door everytime the doorbell rang to make sure he didn't miss out! He also really enjoyed "playing" with the candy in the bowl (I think he was secretly hoping to eat a little bit more after he had already had more than enough and been cut off!).

I'd definitely say that this Halloween was a success for our little frog!