School is out!

Well, David is out of school and summer is here!  I'll give a short recap of the last few weeks.  For me, the biggest trial in my life right now is church.  It's been interesting going from wards in Idaho and Utah to the ward (really it's more of a branch) here.  About 5 minutes after we got to church that first time, I was given my first calling as Sacrament Meeting Pianist.  The girl who was playing for them at the time was doing her best, but I think she was completely self taught and could only play out of the really simplified hymn book.  And she was a senior in high school and just barely graduated, so I think they were worried about what they were going to do after she went to college.  It didn't take long for me to get my other calling, Primary Music Leader.  I'm still not very good at it, but I think I'm doing ok since we basically get a new group of kids every month or so and there's only about 7 kids that show up.  Most people around here only come to church about once every couple of months.  

But this month my church service shifted into high gear.  Our primary president was due to have her baby about 2 weeks ago.  Since we don't have a hospital within 2 hours of us (they're building one, but it isn't finished yet), they left at the beginning of May to live with his parents so they could be close to a hospital.  She was not only the primary president, she was also the pianist for music time.  After she left, I had to figure out how to have music time with no pianist.  The other ward that meets in our building doesn't use the piano at all and just sings everything a cappella.  But it's really hard for the kids to sing that way, especially if they don't know the tune because they only come to church once a month.  So I had that dilemma, and also I was worried about Asher.  What we had been doing is have David take him home after Sacrament meeting because our ward had no nursery.  The primary president didn't really think it was worth it to have someone called to nursery for just one kid.  But I really wanted Asher to stay at church all 3 hours so he could get in the schedule and so he could get used to going to nursery.  So I've been doing nursery along with my other callings the last month, and it has been so difficult and exhausting that I think I want David to get another job more than he does so we can move away and I don't have to do this anymore.  

I really want to help build the church up here, but I feel so guilty because I'm really starting to begrudge my callings.  One of the worst things is the primary president is now 42 weeks along and still no baby!  She texted me tonight to see how things were going and told me they were going to try to induce her tonight.  I guess if she hasn't had the baby by thursday she's considered medically urgent.  So I would guess she won't be back here until the end of June at the earliest, maybe not even then.  She said they might stay with her in-laws for awhile after the baby is born.  Pray for me on Sundays that I'll be able to make it through!

Nursery is my favorite part of church.  It's a time when Asher and I just get to play for an hour!

So that's my big worry, but David is a lot happier now that school's out!  School was originally supposed to be out May 22 (I think), but since they got out of school so often for rain and mud, they had to add on a few extra days.  A weird thing that the school did was they had all the grades and everything due from the teachers on May 20, even though school didn't get out till May 28.  I asked David what they were going to do for that extra week and he had no idea.  I asked David what they would do if a kid just stopped coming that last week, and he said he had no idea since it wouldn't affect their grades at all.  And David had a student suspended 2 days before school got out and I just thought "So he gets punished by having an early summer vacation?"  I don't know what the thinking was.  But I know a lot of teachers were watching movies and taking their kids outside to play.  David had his kids help him clean up his room and inventory everything.  But the last full day he had a movie party.  And I got charged with making lots of treats for his students with no oven! (it had broken the week before)  I ended up making 6 batches of no-bake cookies and 4 batches of fudge.  And I did a lot of driving back and forth!  Asher was a really good sport about it all even though I had to wake him up from his nap and kept getting him in and out of the car.

Goodies!

We had to buy a bunch more pop even after all that.

But we survived school getting out, and now David has to do his curriculum for next year, even though he might not be here.  I guess he gets a little extra money for doing it, which means we might be able to buy a dryer to replace the one that broke!  But it will be a ton of work for David.  Other teachers have state standards that basically give them their curriculum.  Music kind of has state standards, but they don't help at all with him setting up his. 

Sorry this post was so long, but here are some pictures of Asher!

Our neighbor gave Asher this little tricycle.  He loves it!  He doesn't use the pedals, but he loves to push it around or sit on it and scoot with his feet.

Asher is the most annoying nap-taker.  He's never been very good at sleeping (even when he was a newborn) and that trend continues!  He always talks a lot when he refuses to take a nap.  I usually listen to this for about half an hour before I give up and get him out.

After Asher goes to bed, Millie knows I take her on a walk.  She will follow me around and pester me until I take her.

Playground time!  He loves playgrounds, especially if there's other kids there!

I get bored a lot here.  I've made a lot of things I intend to sell, but I decided to get a jump start on our winter hats!
(that's hoping we move somewhere winter hats will be needed...)

Sunday walk with Mom, Asher, and Millie.  It was almost 90 degrees and I think it melted Millie, but Asher liked it!  He loves walks and just sitting in the stroller watching everything.

My Kids Quirks

Asher is a one of a kind child, as most kids are.  But I've come to realize that with this child, I may have gotten my fair share of things that every parent dreads.  Just to name a few:

• Colic.  I think everyone can agree this is one of the hardest to endure.  Asher cried straight through the first 3 months of his life.  I loved him so much, but I also wanted to bury my face in a pillow and scream a lot.  Nothing helped.  I tried Gripe Water, Essential Oils, holding him in all sorts of positions, acid-reflux medicine, etc.  I now know about every single remedy for colic known to man.
• I have many blow-out stories.  He had a lot of gas (the reason for the colic, I think) so when he had to go, he put all his might into getting it out!  For awhile we had about one blow-out per day.
• He was up every 2 hours at night till he was 4 months old.  I cannot tell you how exhausting that was, especially with me working and David going to school.  We were surviving on about 5 hours of sleep at night.
• We did a bad thing and got him used to being rocked to sleep.  And he wouldn't sleep unless he was held.  We both spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch with him on top of us.  This was our fault and something I have learned not to do for the next one!
• This kid is a professional tantrum thrower.  I'm talking screaming, kicking, running away, throwing himself on the floor, you wouldn't believe it!  He calms down pretty quickly, but he is usually so ridiculous in his tantrums that it makes me laugh instead of makes me annoyed.  I might have to try and get a video of it someday.
• A recent development is that he likes to take his pants off.  I'm really trying to stop this one because I have heard many stories of toddlers taking off their pants and running through the store/church/etc.  I know this is going to happen to us with Asher, but I'd like to try and keep it to a minimum!  And this development has led to....
• Taking his diaper off!  Twice now I have had to clean up poop from Asher digging around in his diaper after he wakes up from a nap.  He gets it all over himself, in his hair, on the blankets, on the crib.  It's quite the detox process to clean all that up.  David had to help me once and I thought he was going to throw up from the smell, it was pretty awful.  I've tried safety pinning his clothes together, but he's figured out how to get those off.  So when I put him down to sleep I just put on tighter pants he can't really get off.  I really hope this does not continue.

So all those things have made me really feel like a veteran parent!  I know different challenges come with having multiple kids, but I feel like I've been through a lot.  I told my sister that I'm not even scared to have another kid because I have been through so much that I feel like I can handle any challenge that comes my way!  And Asher really is a good little boy.  He's been so great through all the moves and us turning his whole world upside down every few months.  And since we have to take an hour and a half trip to Page every other week to do our shopping, he's gotten so good in the car on those long trips and hardly fusses at all.  Now I'd like to name all the fun things he's started doing!  And believe me, these totally outweigh the bad!

• He is getting so much more vocal.  He loves to walk up to you and start chattering away like he's telling you something so very important.  I can't wait till he learns to talk for real so I can really start participating in these conversations!  The best is when he's talking on the phone.  He loves to talk on the phone and has figured out how to dial on my cell.  He usually calls David or my mom (my mom loves these calls, even though she can't understand a word!), but sometimes he'll call the Primary President in our ward.  That's more awkward...Every time he starts talking it makes me so happy!  It's very adorable!
• A few times a day, he'll stop whatever he's doing and point at my hand.  Sometimes he'll be across from the room and run over to me pointing at my hand.  He'll keep doing it till I hold my hand out and he'll give me a very enthusiastic high-five and continue on playing with his toys.  It makes me laugh every time!
• He's figuring out this whole life thing pretty well.  Today when I asked him if he wanted lunch, he immediately stopped playing and went over to the counter where I had a bowl, picked it up and went and sat at the table.  At night when I ask him if he wants to have a bath, he runs upstairs (no other prompting needed), runs straight into the bathtub and starts climbing in, clothes and all!  He loves bath time.  When I ask him if he wants to take a nap or go to bed, he'll start grabbing for his sippy-cup and head towards his room.  He knows how things go!
• One thing that started pretty recently is if we're both on the couch, he'll try to get his face up towards mine, mouth wide open, and give me a very wet kiss on the lips!  It's very cute!  And I've gotten him to where I can ask for a kiss and he'll do it on demand.  Very wet and makes me very happy.
• The word he's probably best at using is "bye".  He'll get his chubby little hand up and wave goodbye to anyone that's leaving, or he'll do it if we're leaving.  And he does it to everyone!  He does it to our neighbors dog when we leave, to the lady at the post office after we've picked up our packages, the checker at the grocery store, and to David when he leaves for work.  Even if that person isn't especially happy when they're helping me, Asher can always get a smile out of them by doing that!
• He loves to read!  A few times a day he'll pick up a book and find a chair and sit down and start "reading" out loud.  I hope this continues for the rest of his life!  I love to read and read a book with him at least once a day.  His favorite reading spot is the rocker that's in his room. 

Asher makes me laugh all the time and he's such a fun person to be around.  I'm pretty lucky to have such an awesome side-kick!

This boy loves to brush his teeth.

For my birthday we went to the fanciest place in town - McDonald's!  Not even joking, it really is.  They have a bunch of touch screen monitors with kids games on them.

Reading in Mom and Dad's bed.

I look gross, but I love his smile!  His Mother's Day present to me was he took a nap with me after church!

Guitars Unplugged

David's students really like to watch him play his cello and have even requested that I come in and play a duet with him (I don't know if that's going to happen....)  So I was thinking that his students would really like to see a video of him doing Guitars Unplugged when he was in college, and I found the video someone took on our computer!  So I thought it would be fun to share!  Enjoy a little Apocalyptica!