13 months!

Yesterday, we celebrated 13 months with Asher. I knew I wouldn't get our post up yesterday because we were on the plane to Rapid City for Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Dobbs' so I had intended to write our post on Friday.  Unfortunately Friday was INSANE!  :) 

First of all, Asher decided to wake up a toddler.  No he's not yet walking, but in every other sense of the word he wasn't my little baby anymore.  :)   He woke up and decided to get into EVERYTHING, pull out EVERYTHING, climb up on EVERYTHING, and generally just make it impossible for me to pack.  Perhaps it just seemed more extreme because I was trying to get packed and cleaned for our "tour of the grandparents", I don't know, but we got out of town  two hours after we'd intended to because I pretty much gave up trying until Eric got home.  I didn't really, but I might as well have done so, because that's about how productive I was. :) 

I'd put one thing in the suitcase and Asher would pull 5 things out.  I'd distract him while I worked on someting and turn around to find him having pulled every pair of pants I own out of my drawer and onto the floor.  He pretty much whipped around the room like a little tornado.   (Sorry the pics are so bad. I took them on my phone.)

At lunch, I left him unattended for 10 seconds in his high chair and came back to him having pulled a plate of cookies off the counter, onto his tray, and stuffed an entire gingerbread cookie in his mouth.

When I was changing his diaper, I took a second to refill the wipes container and as I expected, he crawled off, but what I didn't expect was for him to climb up his brand new slide from grandma and grandpa all by himself and hang out up there pantless. :)

Needless to say, I love this stage, he's an absolute blast, but there is NO getting anything done when he's awake. :)


Secondly, it's worth mentioning that the drive to my parents Friday night was ridiculous.  Wednesday night we got 13 inches of snow, and the normally three hour drive took us five, on top of the two hours later that we got away, most of the extra time was just trying to get through Des Moines.  The cleanup of snow was horrendous around the city.  All to say, I sure didn't get this post done Friday, so here we are a day late again. :) 

Asher did awesome on the plane though yesterday.

So let's talk about Asher, since this is his monthly update.  :)   Our little guy is pretty much awesome.  :)  About 10 days ago, Asher finally started consistantly sleeping all through the night.  woo woo!  He also simultaneously decided that one nap a day was good.  I'm still adjusting to that one.  He's been sleeping from about 11 to 1:30 so we're also still working on when's the best time to eat lunch, and the afternoon gets very long while we wait for Daddy to come home.

Umm, let's see,  he still adores music and loves to dance.  His dancing looks mostly like a mix between a fist pump and a bicep curl.  It's pretty much HILARIOUS.  We adore watching him dance.  He says Daddy, doggie, yes, and a WHOLE bunch of other words that are unintelligible.  It seems as though he calls me daggy, but we've never reinforced it.  I have no idea where that one came from.  He pretty much never stops jabbering.  He gives high fives, climbs with the best of them, and I often find him laughing at himself when he's off playing.  He's the sweetest little guy.   

Well, this post is getting long, so I guess we'll leave it at that.  We're unfortunately not at home today to take a pic in the yellow chair.  But we'll try and post again soon about our Christmas celebrations, and keep you updated.  Thankfully separation anxiety seems to be gone.  Everyone is a fun new person to play with, which I'm extremely grateful for as we enter the holiday season with all kinds of new people around.  He meets his cousins on the Dobbs' side for the first time tonight and we couldn't be more excited.  :) 

Merry Christmas everyone!  Enjoy your own celebrations with family and friends!

#Meagan

Christmas is coming...

...the goose is getting fat.  :) 

Maybe the goose is Asher, or Eric and I... I don't know about the goose.  But I what I do know, is that I've had that song stuck in my head all week. :) 

Anyway, this week has been so ridiculously crazy. We've been going, going, going since we got home.  Oh where'd we go, you ask?

Well, Eric spent 10 days at the beginning of this month on his fourth business trip to China in the last two years.  And I didn't really want to spend that long at home with just Asher and I by ourselves all day (and night) long, so we went down to my parents for a nice long visit!  Eric had a good, productive trip to their company branch in Wuqing, China. And Asher and I had a great time with family! 

Unfortunately, Eric had the camera with him in China, so we didn't get very many pictures of our visit. I caught this adorable one on my phone, though!  Yay for time with grandma and grandpa! :)

  

Off on a tangent - Our little guy is just about walking!  He takes several sturdy steps between Eric and I, and will walk all around the living room with his new push toy, but he's still just not quite brave enough to venture off on his own.  Anyday though now, we believe!

Anyway, since we got home last Saturday evening, I've made three desserts for three separate Christmas parties, made dinner for two friends who've just been blessed with new babies, attended three of five Christmas parties (with the last two on Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week), and dramatically struggled to keep up with the housework.  Laundry after being gone for two weeks (with a baby!) and grocery shopping five times in three days to keep up with all the treats and meals I've been making has left my poor husband fending for himself a good chunk of the time.  He stepped up as the awesome husband that he is, and spent his Saturday afternoon deep cleaning our bedroom/bathroom!  And he even cooked one of those 'dinners for friends' for me while I was at my exercise class. I ask you - how does this season get sooo busy when I don't hardly feel like I'm involved in anything? It's crazy!  

This has nothing to do with anything, but we did yoga that night at my exercise class, and I will never, ever make fun of it as a form of exercise again.  I was sooo sore the day after yogaing for an hour the night before! 

Okay, I'm getting really rambly. And what in the world does this post have to do with Christmas.  Well, let me show you our sad little tree.  Though Eric just took a decent pic of it. :)

 

We have both every year of our entire lives gone out to pick out real live trees... until this year.  We realized that we were only going to be home for two weeks and one weekend between our recent travels and our upcoming holiday visits, and so we made the difficult decision to put up our little three foot fake tree that Eric had from his days bachloring in his tiny yellow house.  Eric has said a time or two "Sorry, Asher, you won't remember it anyway."   We also just wrapped up things we already had for his presents.  Does that make us bad parents?  :)  

We figure we buy him everything we think he needs when he needs it... and it's not like he knows what's supposed to be inside presents anyway. :)   And besides the grandparents do a fine job of buying plenty of new things.  The fun for him these days is just in the being a part of the family and being able to rip open the paper.  I mean we did get him a few little things for his stocking and wrapped a couple new things like warm, snuggly flannel sheets and his new forward facing car seat!  We're looking forward to taking him out for a drive in it for the first time when we celebrate our Christmas this week. 

You might also have noticed all of the brown paper under the tree.  :)   We were good recyclers this year.   I went up to get my wrapping paper earlier this week all gung-ho to sit down and wrap all my gifts only to discover we had none.  :(  But what did I realize we had a bazillion of?  Brown paper grocery bags.  So we went thrifty this year, but I think I made them pretty, don't you think? 

Anyway,  wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.  We'll try and keep up with posts over the holidays, but no promises.  :)   Enjoy time relaxing with family! 

#Meagan

One year of Asher

Well, it seems as though Tuesday has become a bit more of a habit than I'd like to admit.... Cause here it is Tuesday again and the first day this week since last Tuesday that I'm blogging.  At least it'll help you keep up with your habits. :)   Here's a bit of reminiscing over Asher's weekly pictures that debuted at Asher's birthday party.  I don't think it needs much more explanation than that. 

Didn't Eric do an awesome job?!  This ones a keeper... that is my hubby, my baby... and this video. :) 

#Meagan

Thanksgiving and Birthday Parties!

As you know, Asher's first birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day this year.  I really wanted Asher to know it was a special day even if he couldn't yet comprehend that it was his birthday.  

Sooo... I blew up an entire bag of balloons and left them in the living room for him to find when we came down in the morning...

 

And he had fun with them ALL day!  :)  

Eric's parents were here for the weekend and we had a great time talking, playing, and making Thanksgiving dinner together at our house for the first time!  (My family had Thanksgiving at our house last year, but we were in the hospital! :)  )  After a number of minor snafus we had a very successful lunch...  

Snafu #1- I went shopping for a turkey on Tuesday afternoon... umm who knew ginormous frozen turkeys needed time to defrost???... this girl sure didn't think about it!  Praise the Lord that they sell unfrozen turkeys! 

Snafu #2 - Devilled eggs.  Apparently it doesn't matter that eggs hard boil for more than the suggested 15 minutes... not even an hour and a half will overcook your eggs!  Oh the distracted life of the mother of a one year old.  :)

Snafu #3 - Halfway through cooking the turkey we realized that the heating element in Eric's parents faithful old roaster had gone out.  Thankfully???, Walmart was open on Thanksgiving day (sorry employees), 'cause we sure didn't have any pan large enough to hold a turkey in our oven, let alone room in the oven with all the sides baking!  We now are the proud owners of a roaster of our very own. :)

Snafu #4 - Dinner rolls.  For the 100th time in my life, I turned off the oven, and left the food in the oven for two more minutes without resetting the timer only to come back to them 15 minutes later burnt.  Amazingly enough they weren't burnt this time!   Just a little darker than they should have been.  

All I know is I have a lot to be thankful for, and who cares how the meal turns out.  God was still in the little things though and our meal was fantastic!  Thanks for all your help, Joey and Rhonda!  :)

Also up there on the list of fantastic things from that day was that grandma and grandpa babysat for us after we put the birthday boy to bed so Eric and I could get away on a little date to the movies to celebrate our own success of surviving our first year of parenthood. :)   Thanks again to Eric's parents! :)

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On to the Birthday Party!  Sunday, my entire family - parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, and grandmas came to join Eric and I and his parents for a grand first birthday party!  :)  

Since his first birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day this year, we had a turkey themed birthday party... a "We're so thankful for Asher" party. 

We had "turkey" food.  (a veggie tray, a pumpkin bar cake - my first wheat free baking experience, little smokies, and turkey shaped sugar cookies.) 

We had a "turkey" game.  Well just pin the feather on the turkey.  Here's the birthday boy playing. :)

"Turkey" decorations...

 

  Here's all the boys wearing their turkey party hats. :)  Unfortunately Asher hates having things on his head!  



... and the three of us!   (Who knows what I was doing... scaring Asher I guess.)  :)

I made a photo banner of Asher's life from his first ultrasound through his first twelve months. 

 

  

It's so sentimental and reminiscent, I can't bear to take it down! :) 

Then we opened gifts. 

And Asher's favorite part --- the cake!!! :)

Oops got it too close! :) 

 What do I do with this whole piece of cake, mom???

  Uhh... smash it in my face  Yeah I think that'll get it in my mouth?  :)  

We had to break it up in pieces for him, and he DEVOURED it!!! :) 

 

And finally for those of you who live near and know our son, the most amazing part was that he wasn't terrified at all by having all his cousins in his face.  He played well with them the entire day.  Think he knows they're family?!  :)    (I love how the littlest two are starring at one another in this pic! oh and the fact that his two year old cousin is making his hair stand up on end.  Boys... his daddy was just doing this to him earlier that day. :) )

 
Anyway, we're so blessed to have Asher in our lives and look forward to all the days to come!   Keep a look out for a video Eric put together for the birthday party.  We'll be posting it soon! :) 

Thanks for all your prayers and support as we journeyed through our first year of parenthood! 

#Meagan

One year of blessings!

So in light of it being Thanksgiving this week, we thought it fitting that he wear his Thanksgiving shirt for this his last weekly picture.  Asher celebrates his first birthday on Thanksgiving day.  (Eric and I will be celebrating surviving our first year of parenthood.) 

We are overwhelmingly thankful for our little guy.  But since this is just our weekly post, I'll keep it to that, and we'll get sentimental when we do his birthday post later this week(though I can't promise it'll go up on Thursday!).

Asher's had quite the week.  He finally started sleeping through the night again, not regularly, but he's done so maybe three or four nights this week!  Woohoo for progress in the sleep department! 

We were reluctant about giving Asher a pacifier when he was born, but we caved and he quickly became dependent on it for falling asleep.  He only got it at nap time/bed time but he "needed" it.  Eric and I always said that as soon as he figured out how to put it in his mouth on his own it would be over.  But I think he must have heard and understood because he still puts it in his mouth backwards. We've been all worried that it was going to be a huge ordeal to do away with it. But, anyway, long story short a few days ago he just decided he didn't want it anymore, and for the last several days has been going down without a second thought for it.  We put them away for good.  A HUGE relief that it wasn't a major issue with him.  Just got lucky, I guess!  

Asher also took his first "steps" this week.   I don't know if you can really call them steps or not, but he took 2-3 between Eric and I sitting on the floor.  But I really think it was more of a controlled fall.  :)   He walks around furniture, and even along the wall sometimes, like a pro, but he doesn't have any balance on his two feet yet, because he still can't stand independent of something to hold on to.  But suffice it to say, we're getting closer to that day. 

We're down to only one nursing a day.  Asher's doing great, and while I was at first emotional and reluctant to begin the weaning process, I am now revelling in the regained freedom to wear whatever I want without regard to how easy it is to nurse in, as well as the fact that daddy can do a whole lot more of the care if I'm otherwise occupied, to name a few!  

Hmm... there was something else... oh, yeah,  Asher started saying "daddy"!!!  No, not dada.  He's been saying that for months.  He actually calls Eric 'Dadee!  Though sometimes it sounds like daggy or even gaggy, it's Eric he's talking about morning, noon, and night!  That boy LOVES his daddy! 

So his Thanksgiving shirt is quite appropriate. :)   We're very thankful for daddy 'round these parts!  

So that's it.  Don't go through too much withdrawl next Tuesday, please.  We'll keep posting, and we may even do as our friends do and post monthly pictures in the yellow chair from here on out.   But keep your eyes out for our pics from his first birthday later this week!

See ya all soon.  And have a very merry Thanksgiving!

#Meagan

Bookworm

Well, can you tell we're getting close to one year of weekly pictures?  We keep getting things posted later and later :P  Asher is continuously active, with his most recent affinity for climbing the stairs.  Whenever he gets a moment, he loves to make a b-line straight for the stairs, so we're always on watch.  We also purchased a gate for the top of the stairs, because he loves to make a b-line for the top of the stairs too.  However, he doesn't climb down the stairs, he just makes an attempt to fly down them.  His speed is still now match for ours, but I feel much better having that gate in place.

Here's his picture for the week, with him enjoying a book.  He loves to have us read to him, and he loves to "read" to himself, though he generally ends up with the book upside down :)

Enjoy!

Birthday next week!  We're looking forward to having family around and we'll be sure to post plenty of pictures.

#Eric

Progress! :)

Hello all!  Happy Tuesday!  Time for Asher's weekly picture.  We're down to the last few as he'll be 1 in just over two weeks.  No tears now.  We'll keep posting pictures.  Maybe just on a Monday or Thursday or whatever day suits. 

Anyway... here's an update for ya.  This week Asher started trying to crawl up the stairs. Unfortunately, he also has no fear of trying to crawl right off the bed, the couch, or the TOP stair.  It rather scares me to death that he doesn't even hesitate!  Since we had a later crawler, we kind of postponed the purchasing of a baby gate, and well, now we're rather desperate, 'cause, man, is he fast!!!  Time to go shopping ASAP.

In other news, Asher's finally making some positive gains towards getting over his separation anxiety!  He's made it through three weeks in a row to date in the church nursery without my having to go get him! Yay, Asher!

Sleep is also getting better. The night before last night he was only up once for 20 minutes.  And after going in and laying him back down from standing up, he put himself back to sleep.  Last night wasn't so great, but we're getting there!  It's just good to see some success in the "no more middle of night feeding/rocking back to sleep" department.  A few pats on the back are finally doing the trick! 

Praise God for his answers to prayers and that he cares even about our little concerns.
 
Here's our little reader/drool factory.  :)

#Meagan

Happy Halloween!!!

Two posts in one day!  Woohoo! :) 

So here's what you've all been waiting for... well, what I've been waiting for. :)

It's Wednesday, obviously, and well, Eric and I are youth leaders at our church's youth group, so we had that going on tonight.  And there was a theme - to dress as a household object. 

My brain kind of got stuck on that one, because I really didn't want my child's first halloween costume to be a chair or a spoon or something.  What I really wanted was for him to be some cute little animal or something of that nature.  However, I also thought it would be really fun if the three of us 'went together'.  We brainstormed for a LONG time.  For awhile I thought about being the three different utensils.  Eric thought maybe we could be 'small, medium, and large' of something, but we couldn't decide what. Then Eric had a brilliant idea to appease my desire for Asher to be some cute little animal, AND meet the parameters of our theme for youth group. It was a mad dash to create them in two weeks time, and so I've been sewing and stitching and gluing and braiding and twisting and tying at every naptime and bedtime and independent moment I could find. So I present to you our very first Halloween costumes as a family of three. 

The Groom... oh excuse me.... the BRoom. 

The Mom... err... the MoP....

\

 

And that cute little thing we're both chasing around all day long... Can you guess what he is???

 

 

 

 

A little Dust Bunny, of course!!! :)  (I may have gotten a little carried away on the fluff component...)

His little tail was wagging all over the place! :)

And his little bunny feet slippers. :)

Here's the best shot of the three of us.  (Sorry it's a bit blurry.  It was taken on a phone.)  Man is that baby cute! :)

 

 

Anyway, Happy Halloween!  I'm glad I can go back to doing things like dishes and laundry a naptime for a while... (my house is rather in disarray at the moment) but then I'm sure I'll be on to my next project soon enough...  I mean, seriously, it's only three weeks till his first birthday!  :)   But for now, I'm very very glad it's done and over with.  (BIG sigh of relief.) 

 

 

Happy times!

#Meagan



A day late...again

Sorry to everyone who checked our blog yesterday for the weekly pic to find... nothing.  I don't know what else to say, except that it just didn't get done.

For those of you who want to know, sleep seems to be getting a little better.  We've been doing a modified "cry it out" for the last three nights.  "Modified" because I stand in there next to him the whole time and constantly lay him back down every three seconds when he stands back up.  It seems to be working, though.  The first night he screamed for about 45 minutes but last night we were down to only about 20 minutes!  When he's finally worn out, the last thing he does before finally putting himself to sleep is talking to himself.  It's cute as can be.  But last night it got even cuter, because it also included laughing at something.   Made me feel like what we're doing is okay, if the last thing he does before falling asleep is a little chuckling. :)

In other news, Asher has graduated on to a few new things.  He's crawling up on his knees now instead of army crawling.  Also when we "walk" around the house holding his hands, he can now do it holding on to only one hand... when he's feeling brave.  It's a good sign that he's gaining some balance on his two feet.  He's also almost exclusively feeding himself.  Goodbye purees!

Our little guy is now 11 months and 1 week.  That birthday is just around the corner!  So hard to believe it's almost been a year already!

Here he is.  Oh and don't forget to check back tomorrow, because seriously, I am soooo so so so so excited about his Halloween costume.  One more so.

And just for giggles, here's one of our outtakes :)

#Meagan

Sleep, I miss you.

It's been a rough week in the sleep department.  About a month or two ago, I realized Asher was waking up on a very regular schedule in the middle of the night because he had gotten into the habit of being nursed at those times.  So I spent 4 horrible nights of being up a bazillion times trying to wean him off of nursing at night, and after those 4 nights, believe it or not, we had a glorious month of him sleeping through the night. 

Then a couple of weeks ago, Asher came down with a nasty cold, and was sooo congested and had such a rough sounding throat that the only thing that would soothe him and decongest him was nursing.  I didn't mind it, because he was obviously sick, but as the cold healed, I was starting to notice him getting back onto that regular waking up schedule, so I decided it was time to cut the nighttime nursing again. 

But this time it's been a WHOLE different ballgame, because Asher has in the past month or so (since doing this last time), learned how to pull up to standing in his crib, but does not yet know how to get back down.  So whereas before, I could lay him down and leave him to fuss for a bit in his crib and he'd put himself back to sleep within a few minutes, now, within seconds he's screaming at the top of his lungs, standing, clinging to the bars.  I can't just leave him to fuss anymore... and we've gotten some bonks and bumps already from accidental tumbles against the crib bars. Which of course, just make matters (crying) worse.  :( 

Sooo long story short, Saturday night I was up with him from 1:45 - 3:50.  Sunday night I was up with him from 11:30 - 1:00, and then last night, oh horror of all nights, I was up with him from 11:50 - 3:20, then he woke back up at 4:00 (when I finally caved and nursed him), and then he was up for the day at 6:20. Eric tries so hard to be helpful in the night but Asher who loves his daddy  so much during the day, screams anytime daddy takes him at night.  So sad. :(

My awesome husband, however, voluntarily took a 1/2 day of vacation this morning to play with our child so this sleep deprived mommy could sleep!  It was wonderful, and I am soo grateful.   I still have hope every night, though, that tonight will be the night that this craziness ends, and that he'll go back to sleeping through the night,  but then I also have this horrible fear that in breaking the nighttime nursing habit, we're also somehow creating a new "be awake forever" habit.  Not a fun exchange, and it really leaves us clueless about how to proceed.  Because sitting awake for 3 1/2 hours every night, simply isn't an option (obviously!).

Anyway, sorry for my rambled jumbled emotions spilling out all over the place.  We're tired over here.  But God spoke to me tonight reminding me that he is still in control of even this, and that making poor sleep habits, while draining for us, don't really count as bad parenting, because while we're exhausted, sleep habits are not exactly an eternity issue, if that makes any sense.  For what it's worth, it gave me a little bit of my endurance back to make it through this phase.  Everything is just a phase... at least, that's what I keep telling myself! 

So without boring you further, here's Asher's weekly pic.  We love him dearly, even when we're falling apart all over the place in the middle of the night.  

And just because I'm soooo grateful for Eric today, I'm breaking with weekly tradtion and giving you a couple of daddy pictures from the last few days that absolutely melt my heart. :) I think you'll agree.

Seriously, can these two look anymore alike?  I mean they're even sitting in the exact same way!  Check our their profiles... daddy and his mini-me.  Asher loves, loves, loves music!

And he loves his daddy!

Enjoy your sleep for us!  And keep us in your prayers if you would!  :)

#Meagan