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! :)

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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....

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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