First Medicine

Asher has been a pretty healthy little boy. He has yet to have any medicines and he is a year and half old. I thankful for being able to nurse for so long because I think it has contributed to both of our boys being healthy most of the time. You would think that he would have an ear infection or some other pretty average ailment. Nope.. of course not.

He had hand foot and mouth several months ago. Not really that big of a deal, he seemed to handle it ok, and it cleared up and we went on with our lives. Then I noticed his toenails were coming loose from the bed. Weird... So I asked the doctor and he made sure it wasn't anything weird and told me that it is very common to lose your big toenail after having HFM. Strange....

So then his nail fell all the way off and was growing back in when I noticed it was all red and weird looking. Went into the doctor and his toe was infected. They got it all fixed with a little bandaid and some antibiotics to get rid of any infection. I feel like Asher is just so crazy with ailments that are out of the ordinary.

We May Smell

Just kidding of course.... well kind of....

About two weeks ago Dave was fixing the caulking around the edge of the tub that had come loose. He decided he wanted to check behind the tub wall to make sure everything was ok. It wasn't. Some parts of the walls had started to have mold. So that same evening, on a Tuesday night, Dave had taken the shower walls out, cut out all the drywall and the insulation. I was happy to see it go but realized that now we didn't have a shower. Not fun....

Dave has since worked on it when he can, between work and planned trips to Kansas City, and all the other stuff we have going on. The end is in sight now since he began to tile the final wall. But after that it has to be grouted, sealed, and the shower door still has to be installed as well. But we are alot closer than having nothing except the bare exterior wall.

We have gotten creative for keeping ourselves clean. We have borrowed family showers several times, showered at my work after the work day has ended, and sponge bathed in the sink too. Dave crammed himself very carefully into the tub to make sure NO water got on the bare walls that were just finished being framed. Lets just say a 6'1 man doesn't fit that well in a regular sized tub. But he couldn't get away when I came in with my camera. I guess that is what he gets marrying me..... :/

We have found that Asher fits perfectly in the sink. And when I say perfectly, I mean almost too big but so adorable for photos.

And Jaxson has gotten pretty skilled at a sponge bath and washing his hair in the sink. The positives, I can get Asher washed in dressed in less time that it used to take to get the tub filled up. I have found that I really like showering in the evening and letting my hair dry before bed. My hair lays so much nicer and in the winter I won't have to use the car heater as my blow dryer. :) And for Dave, well I don't think he has gotten anything positive out of this ordeal except maybe that he is learning how to waterproof and tile a shower like the experts.

I think when I do get to get in the shower I might never come out..... but then our water heater would probably break or something...... 

On The Water

 Many, MANY years ago when Dave and I recently moved into the house we are in now we were driving by Grays lake and saw the people on the paddle boats and canoes on the lake and he told me that he would take me to do that. So... six, maybe seven years, a wedding, and two kids later, we did it!!

I had a photo shoot Saturday but when I came home all the boys had surprised me with a lunch ready to go and all packed to go rent the peddle boat. For only $5 a half hour it seemed like a perfect, inexpensive activity to do on such a great day. It was actually a pretty good work out too! After we sat down and all found our spots, we pushed off and started to peddle. And I thought we were doing something wrong because we were going soooooo slow! I mean, really slow. I kind of expected my hair to be blowing in the wind as we peddled laps around the lake. Uuumm.... no, not at all. So once we realized it wasn't going to work that way we just stopped trying that hard and peddled slow and steady. Luckily we had reserved an hour because once we made it out a ways, it was going to take at least another half hour to make it back. Ha!

 Asher's life jacket didn't really last that long on. Not that it was our intention of taking it off but......

 after a few minutes of him pretty much not able to move or breathe, we didn't really have a choice. I didn't really get it either because it was a youth size and looked like it fit him perfect when we tried it on him. He was going to have to sit close to me anyway so it was ok.

Change Of Plans

We had planned on going to the Jasper Winery Thursday night for the summer concert series again since it was perfect weather again. We got dinner packed and in the car to head up the road. When we turned we could tell either it was incredibly not busy or not happening. When we came closer we could tell the event wasn't happening. We turned around, Jaxson was in tears since he was pretty excited, and we went across the street to Gray's Lake for our picnic. Not exactly what we had planned but actually turned out to be perfect.

We ate in the shade next to the water. Afterwards Jaxson wanted to play dodgeball! He got Mario Sports for the Wii for his birthday and has become quite the pro at dodgeball. I think he enjoyed it even more in real life than he did in the game. We played for quite awhile and as we were packing up it was just getting dark and we could see across the way the lights were just coming on across the bridge. So instead of going right home we took a walk across the bridge all lit up with bright colors.

The boys loved it. Halfway across we said ok, lets turn back and Jaxson refused and wanted to walk all the way to the end. So to the end and back we went. It was probably a good thing he talked us into walking a little further since on our way across the bridge we all enjoyed a very large cookie.

On our way across Jaxson had to stop at each light to look at the large spiderwebs. Several of them we found the huge spiders walking around on their web. It was kind of neat since they weren't in the house! He is even more into the bugs after his zoo camp.

Raccoon Day

July was beyond hot and now August has come with highs in the low 80's, low humidity, and soft breeze. It has been really awesome so we have been taking advantage and spending time outside. Last weekend we went to Jaxson's favorite park where his birthday party was. It was nice to have two parents at the park instead of taking them by myself during the weekday mornings when Dave is at work. I have to always stay close to Asher so this time we were be able to split up and watch Jaxson go down the big slide and push them on the swings together. Asher's hair was keeping all the other parents entertained since his favorite slide (he loves ALL slides!) happened to be a tube and his hair would stand up straight as an arrow from static every single time. It was crazy and no other kid had the same problem. He is just full of electricity apparently.

We brought along lunch and the boys enjoyed eating in the shade after running around hard on the playground. After lunch we walked to the beach. The boys held hands and raced there and back. It was a pretty perfect day all the way around.

This last picture is one I originally deleted from my phone as I was going through. I just did it quickly without thinking since it was blurry. Something made me hit the undo button though and I kept coming back to it and trying to figure out what I liked so much about this completely blurry photo. 

I decided that the only thing you can focus on is them being together. Holding hands. Being brothers. All the other things around you can't even make out so you can't focus on them. I think this photo just reminds me that being together is important. More important than all the other details we can focus on and end up with no time to just be together.

Asher's First Haircut

After several outings with people commenting on how adorable our little girl was, and also his hair getting messy with his all but clean face during meals, we finally gave in and got his haircut. We are fans of longer, shaggy hair and talked about letting him have longer hair but didn't want to put in the effort to keep it out of his face. I took both boys to the salon and they got set up in chairs next to each other. Jaxson, having his hair cut too many times to count was an old pro and looked where he was supposed to and didn't flinch once. Jaxson has actually never cried during a haircut, always just a stone face. I was hoping for the same with Asher.

When he got up in the chair and covered with the cape thing he decided it wasn't for him and started to scream. It was loud and obnoxious but luckily everyone thought he was cute. :)

I had to think of something to turn this wayward train around. And it dawned on me... SUGAR!! I popped a sucker, which he has never had in his mouth and he never made another peep. And it actually worked well to have him looked down too since he was holding on to it with his teeth so tight all I had to do was take the sucker and pull down and then he was looking down too!

 

 

 He is still as cute as can be and even a little older. We still had it done a little long just out of his eyes. In my book he is still the cutest one year old I know.... 

Snug as a Bug

Jaxson went to zoo camp the last week of July. When I registered him I didn't realize the frenzy in May during signup and there weren't many spots left open. So we took what was available which was a camp about bugs. Snug as a Bug – Bugs, bugs, bugs!  Bugs have a lot of important jobs and they are everywhere.  Come learn about all the different types of bugs, where they are found and why they are important to people and animals. I didn't think he would be as interested as some of the other ones but I figured no matter what it would be fun.  Then over the last few months every time he saw a bug he wanted to stop and watch it, talk about it, name it. It ended up perfect that was what his zoo camp was about. 

We talked about the camp leading up to it alot so he knew it was coming. He was very excited when he talked about it but I knew it may be a different story when it came to the first drop off. We talked about how it is ok to be nervous but to try not to cry. He told me several times before the first day that he was a "little bit nervous but I will try to be brave." How cute is he? We got ready and off we went early. To my surprise he went in, very shy and timid, but went in none the less. He looked up at me with big, nervous eyes as I checked him in but he didn't let the tears come. I could tell he was on the brink of tears and so I booked it out of there before he could come hug me with tears and not want to let go. I knew he would feel embarrassed and I wanted him to feel like he was brave since he didn't cry. I was so proud of him! And he did better and better each day. :)

He brought home a craft everyday and made a new friend by the end of the week named Oscar. He always jumped out of bed to go every morning and was sad when it ended. Since he had such a good time, at the end of August he is taking a zoo tots cooking class there!!

This was Jaxson synopsis of his week. "We got to pet animals, eat a snack everyday. We had to use hand sanitizer when we went inside. We went outside and didn't pet animals and rode the train. We read books about bugs. My favorite was the spiders and I got to bring home a caterpillar." 

Note: the caterpillar was a craft made out of a sock, not a real one! He still sleeps with it every night actually. 

Jaxson after his first day of zoo camp complete with buggy antennas!