Okay, here it is

As many have you have noticed (and mentioned), I have become quite the blog slacker.  You might count back to the origin of the slacking and notice that it coincides almost to the day to the start of this pregnancy.  All-day-long nausea hit hard and fast at 5 weeks, 3 days this time.  I seriously spent most of the first trimester on the sofa, trying not to die.  Though I am still sick from 3:00 pm on, it is getting better day by day.  So maybe the blog posts will pick back up.

I plan to start posting pictures from Asher's birthday (Nov 14th) this week and will work my way up to the present.  He's changed so much in three short months!  We find out the sex of this baby on next Monday, so pray that everything is going well developmentally.  

Hirsh's need your prayers

There is a family that I know that is in desperate need of prayers for their little boy, Cayden.  He was born early and is having some pretty serious difficulties.  Please click here for more information and lift this family up to the Lord.  

Click on the editorial to read, it's worth it!

One of our acquaintances from college's dad (did you follow that?) has a great blog and I stole this from it. I agree wholeheartedly.

What a blessing

This morning while dropping Asher off at the toddler room (aka the nursery), I realized what a 180 degree turn we had made.  In Danville, Asher started to cry hysterically when we dropped him off.  One time it was so bad they had to call in an extra worker just for Asher to get him to calm down.  I was dreading taking him to church at Westover and the first couple Sundays he didn't disappoint.  I grumbled and complained to Logan about having men in the nursery and how if they would just have ladies in there, I was sure it wouldn't be like this.  

Fast forward to this morning, Asher ran to the door lifted his arms up to the MAN and happily went to play with the other kids.  He barely even said goodbye to me.  It makes my Sunday morning so much easier and less stressful when I know that he is not freaking out downstairs.  I'm just so thankful that the Lord has given him courage to go without in there without me, and me the peace of knowing that he's content.

Missy

Last week at the Children's Museum, Asher discovered that there are things in this world that represent human babies but are meant to be held by toddlers (unlike human babies), ie, dolls.  He loved and fed and rocked and cradled the museum's dolls for about thirty minutes last week.  I didn't think too much of it until we purchased a doll for our Operation Christmas Child box and he requested to hold it in the car.  About halfway home I hear from the backseat, "Ut's 'ong, baby, ut's 'ong baby?  'Ant me wock you?  'Ant me put you in you bed?"  He asked this doll these same questions over and over for the next ten minutes.  It gave me a rare glimpse of my parenting through his eyes as I realized those were my words of comfort coming from his little mouth.    He loved that doll so much over the next 12 hours that I had to sew her head back on before putting her in the box (she was from the dollar store).  

So began the doll hunt.  

I searched in stores and online only to find that the market for a caucasian boy dolls is a very narrow one.  I found many caucasian girl dolls, even more "ethnic" girl dolls, and a few boy dolls, even one that was anatomically correct, yikes!  The ones I found most appropriate ranged in price from $50-$130, not a pricepoint I was really looking for.  So I was in a quandry, I wanted a doll but was not willing to fork over the cash, so my mission stalled.

Today at the museum my eyes were opened to the fact that Asher didn't care if the doll was a Waldorf-style or stuffed with organic wool, caucasian or ethnic, in fact, he didn't even care if it was a boy or girl.  So I found a $10 doll at Walmart and he LOVES her.  She is the size of a newborn, so I went to the attic and got one of his newborn hats and gowns to make "her" into a boy (easily accomplished because $10 doesn't get you anatomical correctness).   About an hour after the new clothes were donned and he was christened "Jackson", I hear Asher saying, "'Ut's 'ong, Missy?  'Y you cyin'?"  So Missy it is.  

Asher is now sleeping contentedly next to Missy with her bottle and her taggie.  And I am glad I didn't spend a small fortune needlessly.  Pictures to follow soon.  

Comparison

A couple at the fall festival told us Asher looked just like the baby on the etrade commercial.  I checked it out and they do look kind of similar.  Too bad it's not really us making the money from the commerical!

Halloween

Our Halloween this year included a planned trip to our church's pumpkin bash, an improtu visit to another church's fall festival and trick or treating in our neighborhood with about half the city of Greensboro.  Asher kept telling everyone that he was going to be a pirate for Halloween, um, not true.  Instead he got to be this adorable elephant!  The only problem with this costume was everyone thought he was a girl.  Is an elephant a girly thing to be?  

Here we are getting ready in the parking lot.  Because it was 70 degrees that day, we had to wait until we were there to dress him in his fleece costume.

Purusing the games/activities.

Free bounce house, love it!

He kept falling down on purpose like it was the most fun ever.

Starting to get overstimulated.  

The object of the game was to throw a bean bag through the tire while standing behind a piece of tape on the floor.  First, the tape rule went out the window.  Then he kept doing it over and over.

Then he decided it was way more fun to climb the scaffolding than to play the planned activities.  The poor youth they had running the games really didn't try to enforce any rules on him (and obviously, neither did his parents.)

Too many people, off to another church.

Where they had more bounce houses, free pony rides, a mechanized swing, and best of all, the Cat in the Hat which Asher spotted immediately and stalked all over the parking lot.  

Waiting for the swings to start.  We strapped him in with a flimsy strap and had to walk away!  It was kind of scary because he's not known for sitting still.  

He loved it!

Down the big slide.

He spotted the Chick-fil-A cow

I made him give her kisses, you can tell he was not impressed.  

Running up to the door saying, "tick or teat, give you piece of canny"

In awe of the blow-up Tigger.