I Think It's a Blessing

Lily has started sucking her thumb
She sleeps 12 hours at night and she is always so content. I think this is why.


I love how she hooks her finger over her nose.

Asher Is...

Asher is happy!
Today the home teacher came. He asked Asher a series of questions while teaching the lesson. It was fun to hear his answers. He asked if there were ever times when he wasn't happy. Asher's response; "Nope, I am always happy." Mom and Dad's response; We believe it. That kid shines with happiness. Nothing phases him. He just goes about life all rainbows and sunshine.

Our home teacher also asked him if he knew where the Holy Ghost lives. To which Asher pointed to his heart and said, "He lives here." So sweet.

Asher is tough
The other day we went out for a bike ride. Asher was doing his thing, which is going really fast and not paying attention, and he rode his bike right off the trail and tumbled down into a ditch. When Mitch and I got to him we were worried about what we would see; tears, blood, Asher tangled up in the weeds. Instead he popped up out of the ditch and LAUGHED! He laughed so hard and finally said, "The leaves made me not get hurt." Most kids, would be upset and scared just from the fall, even if they weren't hurt. He called it his "radical crash."

Asher is an angel.
Tonight, at bedtime, he really seemed to have the magic. He told me about Jesus and the resurrection. His detail and understanding blew me away. He said the sweetest prayer. He sang songs perfectly and beautifully. And to add to the fun of bedtime tonight, he made shadow puppets! Good shadow puppets. How he know how to make them I don't know.

Asher is funny.
We have started reading a book (okay fine it's Harry Potter, sorry to all the haters out there, but it's a good book and we are loving it!) We have read the same little children's books over and over at bedtime and I though change would be good. Asher has been finding the most obscure lines in the book and thinking that they are funniest thing he has ever heard in his life. The other night the phrase "drumming their finger on the glass" struck him and he laughed! Like seriously laughed. He didn't stop, and the more he laughed the more the rest of us laughed. For the past few days he will just say, "drumming their fingers on the glass" along with a demonstration, and just bust out laughing again. Gotta love a kid that finds true humor where no one else would.

He also likes to do thumb wars with himself.

"Asher, who is winning?"

"Me!"

Of course!
I took the blow dryer to both of the boy's hair one day because they wanted crazy hair. And it truly turned out crazy! (but I think it is crazy cute!)

Flowers In Her Hair

I finally broke down and made Lily a headband for church today.

Lily in her easter dress.
I think the flower turned out pretty cute. But I think everything is cute on our beautiful little princess.
Daddy loves Lily!

Her flower matched mine ( I made them at the same time). I love how the lighting (and the pale baby) made me look really tan.

We took some quick shots after church, so here they are:

Eggs in the Park

Yesterday was an easter egg hunt at a local park. The kids had a blast and we walked away with plenty of candy, all in the Hershey variety.

Life with boys

Asher: Hey Jackson do you want to play Jump the Pee?

Me: What's Jump the P?

Asher: Shoulder shrug and big mischievous smile.

Later I walk outside and see a wet spot on the patio. I also see Asher pulling up his pants.

Do you need me to tell you what Jump the Pee is? Because I think you might already get the picture.

Sharing a Room

Back in the salad days, (when we were living in MT,) our boys had their own rooms. Bedtime was a breeze. Mitch and I would divide and conquer. Each of us would take a child, read a few stories, sing a few songs, turn on the night light and leave. It stayed quiet from the moment we left their room until the next morning, (usually).

Now life has taken a turn for the chaotic. The boys have been sharing a room since we moved and it has been CRAZY to say the least. We try oh so many things to make bedtime less crazy, from threats to bribes to all the stuff the books say your are supposed to do and it just doesn't seem to change things. Daylight savings has made things even worse! We hear them settling down at around 10:00 P.M. after putting them down at 7:00. Some days are better than others, some are worse. Much worse!

Like last night, for example. We shot for a 7:00 bedtime since the boys have been acting extremely tired. We had them clean their room as we always do before bed. Did the bedtime routine and put them to bed. When I went to check on them a few (noisy) hours later this is what I saw.

The room was a disaster. They were using the cushion from the papasan chair for a blanket and everything was in disarray.

Asher was wearing multipule layers of PJs (thats three bottoms+underwear, and two tops) . This morning Jackson informed me that he was wearing many layers as well.
And Jackson had a big old goose egg and cut on his forehead!

What were those boys doing?
One thing I can say for certain, they were having fun.

Boy clothes

I just said good-bye to all of our boy's old clothes .

I realized that keeping all of my boy's clothes as they out grow them is ridiculous. Not only do we not have room to store all the boxes, but the idea that someday my boys will ever wear them again...well, that's just not going to happen. So I started working my way through their clothes. I started with what Asher just out grew and worked backwards. This is hard for me. It always has been. I hate it when my kids grow out of a size. This was especially hard when they grew out of the newborn clothes. That stage is so fleeting and so precious. Boxing up the clothes is just more validation that it is over. I took some consolation storing the clothes thinking that someday I would see another little boy in the cute duds. And I got that with Asher.

But it comes to this. If there is another boy in our future it would be awhile before he wore our old clothes, and by then we could probably doe with some new clothes. I knew that we didn't need to hang onto boxes of clothes that no one in this house wears or will wear. Some things were harder that others to give away. I have such vivid memories of my boys in some of my favorite outfits. I even kept one box of my very favorites. I think I deserve that much.

As sad as it was to see them go, it also feels great. It is nice to purge, to open up space and feel like we are little closer to having a place for all of the stuff that we do use. And it feels good to know that they found a good home. Another mom gets to love her little boy in the same footed PJs that I loved my little boys. Part of the mom's circle of life.

"I'm Okay!"

These are the words we hear a lot. Asher falls, and trips and slips, and gets bumped or hit, but mostly he falls, A LOT! And he hits hard. We think it has something to do with his height. He is a very tall little boy. It must be hard for a four year old to control feet that are bigger than many six year old's feet.


He is so chill about all the spills he takes. We see his head disappear and then we hear "I'm okay!" I wish you could hear him say it because it is so cute and it is always the same intonation. "I'm okay!" I hope that that is always true of all the misshapes he may have in his life.

I asked him to say "I'm okay" so you could hear it, and he decided to take a fall to make it more realistic. I guess he is also a method actor.

5 magical months

Our Lily is now five months old.



She is such a wonderful little girl. She is (usually) so happy and content. She smiles all the time and has the best laugh, just like her brothers. I love her eyes. She smiles with them and they look so smart, like she is trying to tell me something through her amazing baby blues.
She loves her Johnny jump up. She doesn't really jump, but she is so happy just turning around and swinging.


and we tried rice creal. We did not have much sucess, so we try again every few days. But this is a picture of her first try at solids so I felt it deserved a place on the blog.

She also rolls from her tummy to her back. When she wants to. A baby girl is so different from my boys. My boys wouldn't hold still once they started to move. She is perfectly content to just be where she is. It's so different.

Theme music

My kids each came with their own theme song. It's funny how it happens but they each have a song that I associate with them and that they (at least the ones that are old enough) claim as their own.
Jackson's is Here, There and Everywhere. He calls it his Everywhere song. I have sung this song at a few weddings. Once, after I sang it, someone came up to me and told me that he knew the song because his dad used to sing it to him. That was when I realized it makes a beautiful lullaby. So I sang it to my baby, Jackson each night along with a few other great songs. He seemed to like Here, There and Everywhere the best. When he is sad, or scared or just plain old tired he will ask me to sing him, his Everywhere song. The line "changing my life with a wave of his hand" is my favorite because that is exactly what he did; He changed my life.



Asher is my little singer. He has been singing melodies before he could sing words and he sang words before he could say them. He has a lot of songs, but his favorite is (They Long to be) Close to You he calles it stars fall down sky. My mom was the first one to sing this to my babies. Asher loved it. This song has the magic for him. Anytime I start to sing this song to him he will snuggle up and listen. And it truly fits him. He really is a dream come true.

Speaking of a dream come true. Our little girl! For the past few weeks when I look at her I start singing "Your're just too good to be true." and it goes from there. The funny thing is, I didn't know that I knew this song. I haven't really been a listener of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Yet somehow, I know this song. We have a lot of fun when I get to the chorus. Some times the boys even join in; "I LOVE YOU BABY!" nice and loud.

I can't say if this will ber Her song. She is only 5 months old, and my boys seemed to choose theirs over time. But she does love when I sing it. She laughs! She laughs that full belly laugh that she shares with her brothers.

Images from Februrary

Just some pictures I wanted to post


I usually would have removed the scratch on her nose, but this one has kind of a funny story. I was holding her and she was laughing and smiling. When suddenly, one of her hands got away from her and she ended up jabbing her nose with her thumb. She went from mid laugh to full on wail. It was kind of funny.

This is how she holds her feet. I had to get a picture.

I love the love!