Pirate Party

My sister-in-law was so sweet to offer to help throw Asher a pirate birthday party this year. He really, really wanted one but I didn't think I could pull it off with a newborn. So I really have Britt to thanks for this one. She did an awesome job.

Also, I'm really glad that she and my brother came to help with it because we totally needed four adults there. There is NO way that I could have handled seven pirate crazed 4-year-olds by myself.

Asher was so excited about having all his friends dressed up like pirates, but it also overwhelmed him a bit. He'd never had to entertain (ore share with) so many friends before and he didn't really know how to handle it. All the kids started out really hesitant at first but by the end of the party they had ingested enough sugar to really get into the pirate spirit and were running around the house like wild barbarians.

It was grand.

Playing pin the map on the "x"



Eating pirate booty



Asher pulling gold coins out of his pirate chest ( a present from Jon's uncle). Also, notice the keg of root beer sitting on the table, Jon's uncle also brought that over. It is the best root beer I've ever had and was just perfect for a pirate party. Though I'm not really sure that we should be encouraging kegs... or piracy for that matter.

Playing "dig for treasure". I wrapped some chocolate gold coins in layers of newspaper and tape. The kids had to roll the dice and whenever they got a 4 they had to put on gloves and "dig" in the newspaper with forks. They got really into it and boy, I tell you those little boys are deadly with forks! It was really cute to see them get so excited about it.

I had grand intentions of making a beautiful pirate cake but Asher insisted that he have a "captain" on his cake and that it be drawn a certain way. As a result my cake didn't turn out like I had imagined. In fact, I might venture to say that it was the worst pirate cake in the history of pirate cakes.

When Asher saw it the first thing he did was ask me why the captain had an octopus on his hat... and why it was pink. I tried to explain that it was suppose to be a skull and cross bones and that it was suppose to be red ( food coloring and me don't get a long) but I don't think he believed me. At least he was still happy with it.

And it tasted really good... which is all that really matters right?

All in all the party was a lot of fun. But I think that we will have to make birthday parties a special, every couple of years, thing because it was a lot of work! And I didn't even do most of it.

This wonderful lady did.

Thanks Britt!

Two Months of Halloween

Can I be honest and say that part of me is really glad that Halloween is over? My kids started getting excited about Halloween way back at the end of August and after two months of reading Halloween books, talking about Halloween costumes, and squealing with delight every time we pass a "Halloween House" (a house with Halloween decorations) I am sort of glad to have a break until next year! Even though it has been really fun to see them BOTH get so excited about a holiday. Maybe all their energy will now be directed towards Christmas... I guess I will just have to wait and see.

We started out our festivities a few days early with a Halloween party at their Grandma's house. It was the first time they got to wear their costumes and they were thrilled. Not to mention they got to spend time with River, which always makes them happy.

This is a cute video of the kids at the Halloween party and you can see Rose's bat costume really well. Asher is grumpy because he hasn't had a nap.

We had TONS of pumpkins this year because last year I threw a pumpkin out in our garden and all the seeds sprouted. I transplanted about 20 of them to Jon's uncle's garden and they did really well. We harvested 74 pumpkins! Most of which we shared with friends and family. Rose was especially attached to her "baby pumpkin" and carried it around like it was a real baby. She almost didn't let me carve it because she didn't want me to poke it with a knife. Yet when she saw that Asher was doing it she changed her mind.

She "helped" by coloring all over it!

Asher named his pumpkin something goofy like "googagerma". He comes up with the craziest names whenever you ask him to name something. Most of the time no one can remember them... not even him!

And here is my bat pumpkin... I'm sort of proud of it.

I sewed both of the kid's Halloween costumes this year and I am really happy with how they turned out. Asher's hat is a bit big and so it kept slipping down over his face, but other than that they turned out better than I thought they would. And Asher was pretty thrilled about having a complete pirate outfit. He has been wearing it non-stop since Halloween and insists on being called "Captain Hook" or "Asher the Nice Pirate" ( I told him mean pirates aren't allowed in our house.) He has also been carrying around his hook non-stop (I didn't make it, his Grandma gave him) for the last month or so. It goes EVERYWHERE with him, except for the bathtub. It is actually getting to be sort of gross and I need to figure out away to get it off his hand long enough to wash it!

Rose really wanted to be a bat this year. I don't know where she got the idea but she was pretty enthusiastic about it. It was really cute to see her flap her arms and pretend to be a bat. Actually her favorite thing is to put her costume on and jump off the couch while flapping her arms. She really got into her part!

Jon and I didn't dress up this year. Asher told us that he wanted me to be a princess and Jon to be a donkey (I have no idea why!). I just didn't have the energy to try to figure out costumes for us this year, and I didn't fit into any of my old costumes because my belly is too big!

For trick-or-treating we just went to our Ward's trunk-or-treat. Which, in my opinion, is ideal for little kids because the walking is very minimal and it wasn't too cold! Someone in our neighborhood rigged up a trailer with a strobe light and scary music that kids could walk through. Rose was too scared to go inside but she sure had fun rocking to the music outside. I caught a bit of it on video, but wish I'd gotten her a bit earlier when she was REALLY going at. Oh, and the skunk is just too cute too!

Gratefully the kids have now blazed through all their Halloween candy (I still have a little stash hidden away) and so now life is getting back to normal. Though I don't know if Asher will let me take down the Halloween decorations yet... he is still going through denial that Halloween is over!

On Trains, Fish and Pirates

Wow, I really have to play catch up on this summer. We have had a really busy few months and I have been really bad about getting pictures up here! I think that this picture explains pretty well how we've all been feeling lately. :)

It has been a really fun couple of weeks. First Jon's uncle Jim invited us to go with him to a little town called Ely, Nevada which is right in the middle of nowhere... honestly look at the map. He wanted to take us because Ely is one of the only places in the US where they still have a working Steam Engine railroad. They have several turn of the Century steam and diesel trains that they run up and down the mountain and Jim knew that Asher would love it. It was a long drive... and crossing the Salt Flats with a three-year-old and a freshly potty trained two-year-old was quite the interesting experience. I think we saw one gas station the whole time. But we made it!

The trains were really fantastic. We forgot that there was an hour time difference once we crossed into Nevada and so we got there really early. We got to take a look around the Engine shop and were able to watch them fire up the steam engine and get it ready to go. It was SO COOL to see how those big old engines work. Asher wore his engineer outfit-- complete with hat and coveralls-- and was so excited to see that the real engineer was wearing the same thing! He was pretty ecstatic the whole time.

Jim thought it was pretty funny how knowledgeable I was about trains. I was able to identify every type of engine they had, explain what was special about it and what it was used for. I guess I hadn't realized that after reading EVERY train book our library owns (at least twice) to Asher that I've picked up quite the extensive train vocabulary. So I had a really good time too.

Oh, they are cute. They had a great time on the train ride (which was about 2 hours long) and made friends with this cute little boy whose Grandpa worked on the train. Rose is wearing her "engineer clothes" too. Every time Asher wears his she has to wear her overalls to match him.

The weekend after we went to Ely we went camping with Jon's cousin and their family. It was the first time we'd really been camping this summer and it was a shame that we left it till the very end of summer. I got Asher a little fishing pole and he is a natural fisherman. He didn't really care about catching anything, he just liked to cast it into the river and reel it back in. We did put a hook and bait on his line but it kept getting caught in the weeds so we just put the floater and the bait on it and he used that. The cutest moment was when, after one if his casts, the line came back without the bait on it. The bait had gotten caught in the bushes, but he didn't know that, and when he saw that it was gone he got the most astonished look on his face. Then he broke out into a big grin and he said "Mom, the fish ate my worm!" He was so proud.

We also went to Hoogle Zoo a few weekends ago and Rose was super excited about the elephants. I wish that I could have captured her face the first time she saw the elephant. She'd never seen one in real life and I think it was pure magic for her to realize that the pictures in her books were really REAL. She was especially excited about the baby elephant (which you can barley see in the background).

She is really into anything "baby". She will pick up rocks and tell me "baby rocks", she wants a "baby pancake" for breakfast, and every animal we see is a "baby so and so". Basically, she is pretty excited about babies. Which is a good thing because we are going to have one in a few months! But I am a bit nervous about how she is going to handle not being the "baby" of our family. A few days ago I was re-organizing our basement and I pulled out the bassinet and the baby swing and Rose got really excited. But when I explained they weren't for her but were going to be the baby's she LOST it... big time. It was the most heart wrenching tantrum she's ever thrown and it made me realize that even though she is excited to be a big sister, it might be a hard transition for her. Hopefully things go easier then I expect.

Oh, and here is Asher on the carousel. He really did like it... I promise.

And last but not least the last few weeks of my life have been filled up with pirates! I think Asher has a very one-track mind. He gets his little heart interested in something and then obsesses over it for a really long time. It started with basketballs... then moved to trains... and now it is pirates. He has worn his snow boots EVERY DAY this summer because he says they are his pirate boots. He has also been asking me to make him "eye witches" (eye patches) which he wears at every waking moment... even though it impairs his vision considerably and has walked into several doors as a result. He is pretty excited about getting a REAL eye patch to wear for Halloween (he wants to be a pirate... surprise, surprise... and Rose wants to be a bat).

Oh, yeah and they pulled out the snow pants too one day and wore them around, even though it was 80 degrees outside!

What a crazy bunch I have!

Swimming Lessons

Asher has been taking swimming lessons the last several weeks and it has been so much fun. He did a really good job and now he can float on his back by himself! He is pretty proud of himself.

The first day of swimming lessons was a bit hard for me. Asher was super excited and adapted to his class and his teacher really well, but it tugged at my heart strings a bit to see him so independent. I was proud and excited for him, but it just made me realize that he really isn't my little baby any more. He is growing up so fast and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. I also had a hard time because I taught swimming lessons for 6 years during high school and college and so the first day I almost drove myself crazy by mentally correcting everything the teacher did, "Oh, she should hold him under the head not the arms", "Why is she giving so much attention to the crying girl, give her time and she'll be fine", "The kids are sitting on the step too much, if I was teaching I'd be having them do this"... and on and on. Finally by the second day I realized that I just needed to let the poor teacher do her job and to stop planning my own lessons. I was paying her to teach my son for a reason and she really is a good teacher.

In fact, after the first day of lessons Asher told me "Mom, my teacher is a princess" and he whenever he talks about her he calls her "the princess." It is really cute.

Much to my surprise, because he never liked to do it with me, Asher's favorite part of swimming lessons was to do a "monkey" (hang on to the side and work your way down the wall) and jumping off the side. He was quite enthusiastic about the jumping! Watching him brought back many happy memories of summers full of three-year-old jumping off the diving board onto my head!

The best part about where we took the lessons was that they had the lessons inside and then the kids (and moms) could swim in the outdoor pool afterwards for as long as they wanted. This was really good because Rose would have thought life unbearably unfair if she hadn't gotten to go swimming too. She did a really good job being patient and watching Asher and then would go right out into the little pool and copy all the things she saw him do. She is now really good at blowing bubbles, kicking her legs and putting her eyes in the water!

Asher's lessons were at 9 AM and then we'd usually stay and swim until 11:30. We have had such a fun two weeks spending every morning at the pool. I am really going to miss it but I guess that summer is coming to an end really soon so I'll just have to accept it! I don't know how I am going to convince Rose that she doesn't need to wear a swimming suit every day now though... I don't know what it is with that girl and swimming suits, but she loves them!

Here is a cute video of Asher and Rose swimming. Rose surprised me and put her whole face in the water, I'm glad I got it on video!

You Can't Get Any Nerdier Than....

Being SO EXCITED about getting 11 volumes of World History for your Birthday!

But oh, I was so excited. I've wanted this collection of books "The History of Civilization" by Will Durant since I was in High School. They are really wonderful history books but they are expensive and hard to find. So it was so wonderful when my family banded together to buy them for me for my birthday! I'm sure they will keep me busy for a long, long time.

We spent the 4th of July up in Idaho and had such a good time. There is NO WHERE that beats Idaho Falls for 4th of July celebrations.

Asher tried out the slip and slide but he didn't quiet get the idea of going on your tummy. He bear crawled it instead.

Rose didn't want to have anything to do with a something that sprayed water at her. She prefers to just look cute in her swimming suit (sim soot as she calls it).

And eat yummy food at Grandpa's house

We also had a good time at the parade. Rosie LOVES airplanes and was so excited by the airplanes that kept flying by. If you want to hear something really cute ask her about airplanes. She will give you an ear full about "airplane, sky, airplane, broooom, sky." She might even sing you her airplane song, which is pretty darn cute and pretty much consists of the same words as above but with her own made up tune. She is always singing!

Again in her swim suit. If it was up to her she'd wear a swim suit every day! If she finds one in her drawer she will carry it around all day begging me to put it one her. She doesn't like to get wet, just look cute I guess.

Oh, and I had a sparkler on my cake this year! I haven't had one since I was a little girl and it was a lot fun. But not nearly as scary or as long as I remembered them being when I was little :)

Besides birthday happenings and the 4th of July we have been having a really good summer. We are getting excited about the new baby coming in the Fall and Asher has decided that we are going to name the baby "Dumpin the Dirt". I think he might be disappointed ;)

Mostly these two kids have just been keeping me on my feet. They can get into more mischief quicker than anything! It is a good thing they are so cute.

Rose peeking in the bathroom at Asher. We are trying to work on the concept of privacy!

Rose did her own hair. I told her I'd cry too if my hair looked like that!

And this one is from a long time ago but I just found it and thought it was too cute. We just got Asher a big boy bike (with training wheels) and it was about time because he was WAY too big for this little push bike. Oh, and Asher and Rose call the bike Rose is on the "peanut" which I think is actually a good name for it!

Hope your summer is going well too!