Asher Turns 4!

This handsome young man turned 4!  I can't believe that I have a four year old.  David and I have been talking a lot about when Asher was a baby, comparing it to our experience now.  David said that he felt like we spent the first 6 months of Asher's life trying to put him to sleep.  It's not much of an exaggeration.  That first year with him was pretty rough.  He was super colicky the first 3 months of his life, I was working 30 hours a week, David was trying to finish off school, and we were about as poor as you could be.  We decided that first year felt like it last about ten years. But we made it and now we're enjoying our crazy toddler!  We had such a fun day.  It's been hard to celebrate Asher's birthday the last few years.  His first birthday we were about to move to Utah and live with David's grandpa on zero income, second birthday we had just moved to Nevada and were away from any family and had no money from all our moves, and last year we were recovering financially from the past 2 years and didn't know a lot of things to do in the area.  This was the first year that I felt like we really did justice to celebrating this little boy's life!  

He's been looking forward to his birthday since about February, so I knew I needed to put a lot of effort into making it special.  He woke up this morning and climbed in bed with me (like always) and we cuddled for a little while.  We did our normal routine until about 10 when I had him help me make his cake.  He loves to help cook and had a lot of fun with this!  When the cake was ready to decorate, I let him do all the sprinkles and cake toppers (I bought some gummy Paw Patrol treats for him to put on top) and he just loved it!  I forgot to hide his presents and he was begging me all morning for me to let him open them, so we let him open one.  It was a small Play-Doh kit with cookie-cutters, scissors, plastic knife and pizza cutter, and a scoop.  He had a lot of fun playing with that until Joy and Kahea came to babysit for us!  

After they came, David and I took him to go swimming with just the three of us.  I think he loved having some alone time with us.  He's so good with the girls, but I think he misses it being just us sometimes.  After swimming, we went to Wal-Mart and bought him a bike!  He's been riding around on this little tricycle that he's way too big for, so I figured it was time to get him something his size.  He loves it!  And it didn't take him long to figure out the pedals, turning, and stopping.  Afterwards, we opened the rest of his present and had cake and ice cream with Joy, Kahea, Brian, and Brittany!  I loved having them all here to help us celebrate.  I honestly think having family gatherings is the most fun of all. And to finish off the day just right, Asher's friend Monty (who lives in our building) came to our door with a card and a new train for his birthday! He had such a good day and went to bed thoroughly exhausted, clutching two of his new toys.  Thank you to everyone who helped make his day amazing!  I feel like I can never thank enough the people who help support and love my children.

Some things about Asher:

• VERY into Transformers.  He loves to watch the show, play with his toys, and take just about anything in our house (laundry basket, board game boxes, etc) and pretend to turn into one. He likes to educate me on the various robots.
• Loves his sisters.  A lot.  And loves to play with them.  They don't love that so much.  Whenever we meet someone new, he usually introduces the girls first and tells the person which one is Ava and which is Mia.  If he ever hurts them (usually by accident) he gets very upset. He likes to get right up in their face and talk very loudly at them.  That makes them cry and then he goes and hides under a blanket.  He knows they're not hurt so he doesn't get upset about that.  He is such a good little daddy to them!  If they spit up, he'll tell me to get a burp cloth so he can clean it up.  He gets so excited when they smile at him.  And he loves to pet their heads.
• As much as he makes the girls cry from being a little too intense, they love him!  If he is in the room, they'll usually watch him instead of David or me.  They especially love watching him play with his train tracks!
• Loves listening to music with David.  David listens to music for his school groups to play and Asher likes to listen along and give his opinion.  He also loves going to David's classroom and playing all the instruments there (and drawing on the white board).  
• Starts Preschool this year!  I'll admit, I'm a little excited to have it quieter a few hours a week and for someone else to entertain/educate him, but I'm sad that my little baby is that old!  He's not excited.  He has a hard time with new things, so anytime I bring it up he says he doesn't want to go.  I think he'll like it after awhile, but the first few times are going to be pretty rough.
• He's actually a pretty good helper when it comes to cleaning.  I have him help clean up his toys at night and he usually doesn't complain.  And he LOVES cleaning the bathrooms with David! David hates doing laundry and dishes, so I have him do the bathrooms.  David is amazing at making things fun for Asher so there is a lot of giggling and running around and laughing when they clean!

I could go on all day about what a fun little person I have, but I'll stop there and just end with lots of pictures!  I sure do love Asher and am so glad I have him around to make me laugh!

I told him to smile because I wanted a good picture.  These are what I got.

This is the best one!  Four years old!

Just a little comparison - 3 years old

2 years old

1 year old (I love this picture! I miss baby Asher!)

Newborn Asher!  I showed Asher a picture of him as a newborn and asked him who it was.  He said Mia!  They do look a lot alike!  I'll try to put a comparison in my next post!

Spiderman bike! He had so much fun!

Whenever I try to take a picture of the girls, Asher likes to jump in!  I have many picture like this.

He can be very silly sometimes.  This particular day he wanted to wear mismatched shoes.

He made me dish out lunch for his (imaginary) friend Sideswipe (a Transformer). 

Another picture where Asher thought he needed to join in! I don't mind too much, I hope he is always this cooperative when I try to take his picture!

At the Wal-Mart near us they had a live Transformer!  Asher thought it was so cool to see!  He was a little (lot) intimidated by him, though, and I almost couldn't get him to take a picture.  He did make us stay there and watch him for about 15 minutes afterward though!