WOW...

ok, first let me apologize.

I'm not much of a blogger, I guess. It's been nearly 10 months since I last blogged! A lot has happened in our lives since then - Asher has gotten a trillion teeth, taken his first steps, started running, spewing lots of words, knows several of his letters and numbers, and is starting Kindergarten! (ok, that last one is a lie) We've also welcomed another member of our family into the world - Joelle was born August 3, 2009 :) Asher loves her, the dog tolerates her, and we're smitten as well. She's had a pretty bad case of reflux these past 2 months, but we're hoping that with a little heartburn/reflux medication, she'll be able to sleep and eat much more comfortably. If I can figure out how to include pictures, I'll give you a peek at our princess!

(did that work? If it did, I'll try posting one of Asher, too!)

He's getting so big!

Our house is coming along, too. We've started tiling the kitchen floor, and just recently painted it a very bold brick red color. I was nervous that it might be too dark, but it's really homey! I'm loving it more and more each time I step into the room. It makes me want to paint all the other plain areas in our house. Next summer, the goal is to landscape the front, and work on putting in a patio out back. We're savers (as opposed to spenders), so it might be a challenge to get the dreams from our head into reality. We can go into Lowes and mentally spend thousands of dollars, and leave contentedly having spent nothing.

Time to take advantage of two sleeping kiddos - house cleaning time! Maybe I'll blog again before we have our third child ;)

Happy New Year!

It's been a while, blog world...

We've reached the 10 month mark! Ash is (mostly) sleeping through the night at this point, saying "dada" all over the place, pulling himself up all the time, climbing behind the couch, getting into our electronics, walking with help, standing without holding on (well... trying really hard... good thing his bum is padded!), and generally being a monkey and causing trouble. We love it! He has such a great personality. It's such a joy to wake up in the morning and see that little open-mouthed grin.

Asher's first Christmas was productive and fun. He got to visit with all his little baby cousins (all of whom were in bellies last Christmas), and meet some relatives he'd never had the opportunity to meet before. We still haven't been up to New York with him yet, but one of these weeks, we'll make the trek. I'd like for my NY friends to meet him, and it would give us the chance to see how long a 6 hour trip will *actually* take. Maybe we'll go when the weather shapes up. Right now, I think Syracuse has had over 100 inches of snow this winter. That's about 100 inches too many, in my opinion.

Which brings me to my next point. As much as I'd love to bundle him up and take him outside to get some "first winter/snow" pictures, I can't bring myself to do it. I don't like winter. Snow stinks. It's pretty the first time it falls every year, but after about a week, I'm over it. Hopefully my lack of interest in taking these pictures won't cause emotional scarring for years to come. I think he'll deal.

Anyhow, time to take those beloved monthly pictures! I can't wait to look back on these someday and see how much he grew from month to month. Hopefully he'll smile... maybe I'll give him a puff (or twenty) to distract him. :)