Asher's Monster Bash.

We thought it was highly appropriate for Asher's b-day theme to involve monsters this year, since he is such a monster himself.

After lots of prep work and brainstorming (thank you, Pinterest!), party day was finally here! 

 The games are always the kids' favorite...we had a bean bag toss (daddy painted the monsters on the board!)...

 ...a ballon dart toss...

 ...and a Monster Attack! With silly string, of course!

All the kids lined up against the fence with their "ammo" ready...don't they look like a tough brigade?

Our "friendly monster" (a.k.a. Papa), suprised them through the back gate...

Poor Cru was less than impressed...

Even Asher was grabbing a batch of GONE.

The big kids on the other hand...

...they were relentless!

After all of that fun, we moved in to have some yummy cake! Check out the awesome monster cake Grandma Ernie whipped up! It was delicious!

That's his monster face again ;).

Carter snuck in for a cake pop!

And then it was time for presents! It was such a windy day, we moved the fun inside.

Yes, those are recorders from Uncle Ryan. Paybacks are a $#%&#, Uncle Ryan.

Asher with his special birthday monster, handmade by our awesome Grammy!

In fact, Grammy made a special monster for each of our friends to take home with them. Thanks Grammy!

Reese & Cru with their new friendly monsters.

The birthday boy with his cake topper.

Thank you so much to all of our friends and family who took time out of their Easter weekend to come party with our little monster. We appreciate you all and feel blessed to have you in our lives!

Asher turns 3.

Our littlest cutie turned 3 on April 3--his golden birthday! His birthday was on a Tuesday, but his party wasn't until the following Saturday. That's a TOUGH concept for little ones to grasp. Note to self--in the future, have the party the weekend before the birthday--much fewer questions and confusion.

Just as we did for Carter's 4th birthday, we snuck into Asher's room and filled it with balloons to surprise him when he woke up on his big day. Not surprising, he was awake before I was, so he came sleepily into our bedroom and asked "why there balloons in my room?" After he was reminded that it was his birthday, then there was lots of balloon fun to be had! (Please disregard the pants-less boys...that's how we roll sometimes).

That's his monster face ;).

Then we moved to the living room for presents!!

I took Carter shopping with me for presents and we looked at several movies, but Carter insisted that the UmiZoomi DVD was the best choice for Asher. He knows his brother well, the kid was thrilled!

Big hugs saying thank you for the Red Rover game and the frisbee. He also got a big boy Razor scooter from mom and dad!

And a birthday wouldn't be complete without a chocolate, sprinkled donut on the special birthday plate!

That little blondie up there may cause us headaches some days, but it's a guarantee that he'll put many smiles on our face EVERY day. He talks up a storm, and is in the phase where he questions EV.ERY.THING. "Mom, who dat on the phone? What he want? Where we goin'? How come? What you eating? Who you waving at? Why you wearing that? Where's daddy? When's he coming home? Why Carter doing that?..." The questions never end, and it's exhausting some days, but we try to feed him as much information as we deem appropriate for his little 3-year-old head.

*Nearly* every morning he wakes up with a smile on his face, and it is positively contagious. I can't think of a better way to wake up every day. Now he may have his whiny pants on within about 3 minutes, but the inital smile is awesome.

He loves to snuggle and is such a lover. At the most random times he'll bust out with, "I love you too, mom." Again, that makes a momma smile every time. He always takes time out to come hug my leg, ask for kisses, and show me how he gives the "bestest hugs in the whole world" (a.k.a. choke holds).

The kid is full of personality. Our nephew claims that he was "born funny." He's recently adopted a few ornery/naughty words (boobie, bootie, etc.) and repeats them over and over again until time-out is threatened.

He's a fantastic eater...he'll pretty much eat anything we put in front of him. He's a total mess when he's eating, but he doesn't like to have messy hands, so he's constantly asking for a napkin.

He likes to race his brother with nearly every daily activity (this is the only way we get some hustle around our house), namely getting undressed and ready for shower time. Carter wins 9 times out of 10, and every time Asher proclaims, "He cheated!" Sore loser already, I guess.

He loves babies and I'm anticipating that he'll be a fantastic (if not over-bearing) big brother. Often times he'll come up and rub or kiss my belly, and say "that's my baby in your tummy."

He weighs 33 lbs. (75%) and is 36" tall (25%). Still a little shrimp, but it appears he's getting a little taller. He's just moved into 3T clothes and he's fully potty trained (except for night time).

Ash man, you truly are a bright spot in our days. I know these trying times are brief, and we'll have lots to look back and laugh on, thanks to your sparkling personality. You bring spontaneity, patience, laughter and tons of love into our lives and we are so thankful for you (and your antics) every day. You're a big boy now, buddy! Happy 3rd birthday! We love you to the moon and back!

Love,

Mommy

Ode to Asher.

This is Asher's big birthday week. The year of 2's was quite a year for him (and us). There are so many little stories that never got blogged, so I've been trying to write them down over the last several weeks so I could at least get a few of them documented for blackmail’s history's sake. I have a feeling we may be referring back to this post many times over the years. ;) I threw in a few of my favorite Asher pics from throughout the year, because sometimes, pictures really are worth a thousand words.

Chris was home with Asher one day because he'd been coughing or something minor. Throughout the morning I got two different photos/texts from Chris...

#1 - "So I left Asher alone for about 1 minute and this is where I found him. His response...'Carter made me get up here.'" Please note--Carter had been at school all morning.#2 - "Well...I am getting ready to vacuum and I couldn't find the vacuum head...you guessed it...Asher put it in the washer...he said it was dirty after vacuuming his pretzel mess, so he wanted to clean it."While we're talking about the washing machine, we had been missing the TV remote control for several days. Sometimes if I don't have a full load of laundry, I'll just throw a few things in the washer and add to it over the next few days until it's full enough to run. Well, I finally ran the load about three days later and as I'm transferring towels to the dryer, I notice something firm...yep, there's the missing remote control. Needless to say, it did not survive the spin cycle. Asher was quick to admit that he threw it in there as well. Such a helper.

In the mornings, we get the kids their breakfast in the kitchen and we proceed to get ready in our bathroom. We hear the usual bickering on a daily basis, but one day Asher was having a particularly rough morning, so I stomped in the kitchen to find out what was up. Asher was bawling and I asked him what was the problem. In the most pathetic cry ever he told me, "Carter SEE me!" Wow. I didn't even know how to respond to that one. I asked Asher if he wanted me to turn his chair around to face the wall so he didn't have to "see" anyone, and he said yes. The rest of breakfast was peaceful as Asher stared at the wall.

One weekend Asher was begging for a snack by about 8:45am. I kept telling him over and over again that it was not snack time yet. After about the 20th time, I told him "Asher, I will let YOU know when it's snack time, but until then, do NOT ask me again." He turned around and headed out of the room, but looked back over his shoulder and said, "Call me."

So many of our entertaining stories have come at church this year. Needless to say, we haven't gotten much out of the sermons because we're dealing with our little angel. One Sunday morning we were attending church in Lindsborg. Theirs is a very small church and VERY acoustic--important point to remember. We were not early at all, so we had to march our little family up to the very front row of church after mass had already started. Our priest at the time preferred to sing some of the "spoken" parts of the mass. So about five minutes into the mass, Father sang, "Let us pray." Asher immediately mimicked him on perfect pitch, his little voice booming off the walls of this tiny church, "Let us pray!" As the entire congregation cracked up laughing (and Chris and I tried to crawl under the pew), Father stopped, looked right at Asher and said "Not too bad!" O.M.G...

Another day in church, I was holding Asher and it came time for prayer, so I bowed my head and closed my eyes. As the whole church was silent, Asher asks me very loudly, "Mommy, why you sleeping?"

Yet another day at mass we were really struggling with Asher. He was noisy, fidgety and whiney, and we were about at our wit's end. I finally just set him down and tried to pray for patience. Not 10 seconds later I turned around and he was nowhere to be found. I asked Chris if he saw where he went, but no such luck. I looked at the lady behind us (I'm sure I had panic written all over my face) and she pointed downward, signaling that Asher had crawled under the pew behind us. So I kneeled down and proceeded to wrestle him out from underneath the pew and he just kept wriggling away from me. After we'd made it about half-way down the pew (I'm really sure I was not thinking very Christian thoughts by this point), I whispered to him something about a spanking. He quickly resurfaced and yelled at me, "No spankins, mommy! Please no spank me!" Of course, this happened at another very quiet time...I just about lost it.

Carter had a wrestling tournament in Pratt one Saturday in January, so Asher got to spend the day at Grammy & Crappaw's. We were not going to make it back in time for church, so they just took Asher with them. After mass, I got a text from my mom saying "Your son was good as gold in church." Just as I'm feeling so proud of him, I get another text that says "Until..." Oh boy...the thoughts started flying through my head. I knew it was too good to be true! The next text..."He pulled the flipping fire alarm!"

Although I was totally mortified, I have to admit, my reply back to my mom was "I'm so glad it was you and not me!!" Ahhhhh! My mom called dispatch in time to let them know that the fire dept. did NOT need to respond, but we still get comments from random church people about the fire alarm. Asher was at daycare one day and Irene (our sitter) called me at work to relay the events of the morning. Apparently he was eating lunch and he was shoveling large amounts in his mouth, as he usually does, and he started to gag--causing him to spit up some on his plate. Irene asked him if he was ok, and Asher proceeded to tell her, "I'm sick. Now you need to take my temperature, and then call my mommy and she's gonna come pick me up early, and then my grandma's gonna come take care of me." The little turd is already scheming on how to play hooky! Of course he was fine, and luckily Irene picked up on it right away.

I'm sure there are so many more, and I may have to come back and add to this post, but for now, I hope his cute little ornery self made you smile today. :)