March Fun

March has been a busy month.  David's groups at school have been having festival this month, and since he teaches 3 different subjects, he has 3 different festival's to prepare for.  He's also had 2 other concerts just for fun!  So he's been very tired and exhausted lately.  His groups are all doing really well, though, so he's doing a good job!  In the midst of all this craziness, he had a birthday!  I was pretty small and quiet, but I think that's what he preferred.  He requested sushi for dinner and a cookies and cream ice cream cake!  Happy birthday David!

Asher got Wendy's because I knew he wouldn't like the sushi.  He was pretty excited about it.

A few days after David's birthday, Asher and I headed to Idaho for my nephew's kemem.  Isaac was adopted a year ago after his birth.  He is Marshallese (Pacific Islands) and the kemem is traditionally a celebration that the baby made it through their first year.  My sister tries to include parts of their culture because both of her babies are from the Marshall Islands.  So we went to Idaho to have fun at this big party!  There was a lot of food and leis and she even got some dancers from the Polynesian Society on campus to do a few dances!  We didn't stay long, but had a lot of fun.  And Asher loved seeing all his cousins!  I wish we lived closer!

I let Asher take a car to bed with him at night.  This was his pick at Grandma's house!

Chickens!

Ledger and Asher thought the nursery room was more fun than the  kemem.

My cute little baby!

Polynesian dancers, they were really good!

Doing the Haka

Happy birthday Isaac!

My mom with her mother and most of her siblings.

Asher loves Millie.  Sometimes very aggressively.

After haircut!  He is really good during haircuts and doesn't mind it as long as I let him watch his show.

About once a week the fire department takes their trucks out and does inspections.  There's a guy clear at the top of the ladder!  It's really interesting to watch!

I just love this little boy!

February

I did a lot better at taking pictures in February than in January!  We didn't have too much going on, so this post will be mostly pictures.  Valentine's weekend we drove up to Rexburg so we could meet with the guy who does our taxes.  I am very glad we have someone else do it!  I hate taxes and think it is so worth it to have someone else deal with all that paperwork, and he always gets us more money than we would get it we did it ourselves!  I was especially glad we had him do it this year because we had 3 moves that were tax deductible, and me just trying to get all the receipts together gave me a headache.  And he did get us lots of money back that will all basically go to paying off debt from all the moving we did!  But we should be pretty stable now and hopefully no moves this year! Now here are some pictures!

 

Asher didn't want to get out of his crib after a nap one day.  So I gave him a buddy.  I was a little worried the crib wouldn't be able to hold the extra 50 pounds. But Asher thought it was hilarious!

There's a little playground across the street from us that we spend a lot of time at.  One day this little girl was out there and thought Asher was lots of fun and spent the whole time following him around!

Watching tv.  He likes to be all snuggly warm.

Cousins!  We had a lot of fun in Rexburg!

Everybody loves the marble works!  Except Andy who was trying to sleep in the next room.

David giving Asher a cello lesson.

I had to leave right after David got home from work.  I came back to David asleep, but Asher looked nice and cozy!

Asher loves David's headphones.

David complained that he wasn't in my last few blog posts, so I told him if he wanted to be in the blog, he had to let me take pictures of him!

The family.

Speech

Last week Asher had his first speech therapy appointment.  I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure what to expect, but the girl that comes over is very nice and I knew she'd be good for Asher.  As soon as she walked in, Asher immediately sat on the rug and kept telling us to sit.  I guess he was excited!  It was interesting to see how she handled getting Asher to speak.  There was a lot of repeating words and trying to get Asher to at least attempt to say it.  Asher was surprisingly cooperative and did his best to say the words.  It's hard to watch him struggle, but he's doing so well!  He did really good at matching colors and picked up on the few signs she was trying to teach him.  I have been curious about learning a little sign language, so it's been kind of fun for me to help Asher learn signs!  So far I know help, please, again, all done, more, mother, and father.  Asher doesn't do the sign unless I make him, but I do see how much it encourages him to talk.  His next appointment isn't for 2 more weeks because it's really up to the parents to work with the kids.  It is tedious, but I know it will be worth it in the end.

After speech therapy we went up to Rexburg!  We were going to pick something up, but that didn't really pan out...so instead we just had a 2 day long party!  We had cousin time, played lots of games, let grandpa babysit, went sledding, and much more!  It was a great weekend!

Waiting for Grandma to get home...

My dad babysat Asher while I went to visit my Grandma.  We came back (at 9:30...) and Asher looked very taken care of!

Winchester Mansion

Update from last post: Asher's service coordinator and speech therapist came by today to fill out his IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan).  This is different from an IEP (Individualized Education Program).  An IFSP is for children less than 3 years old and it's called a family service plan because families are usually the most stable thing in a child's life.  Once the kids get old enough for school, the focus is on the child's individual education.  Asher's first session will be next friday and will continue twice a month until he turns 3.

So that's the newest and most exciting thing going on for us these days!  Something else I've been getting into lately is listening to podcasts.  I was listening to one today about the Winchester Mansion.  This really caught my attention because awhile ago my mom told me about a trip her aunt took her on to the San Fransisco area.  As part of that trip they went to visit that same mansion and my mom told me how amazing it was!  I love hearing stories of my mom's life.  I don't know if she's just seen so much more than me or if she's just lived longer so she's had more time to have experiences, but she just has so many awesome stories!  After hearing her talk about this place, it makes me really want to visit!  It's definitely on my bucket list.

The Winchester Mansion was built by Sarah Winchester.  She married William Winchester, of the Winchester rifle company.  She had a very tragic life that left her somewhat paranoid.  She had one daughter who died a few weeks after she was born from a disease that causes severe malnutrition.  In 1880, her father-in-law died and the following year her husband died from tuberculosis.  After their deaths she inherited $20.5 million and received 50% stock in the Winchester company which made her income about $1,000 a day (equivalent to about $23,000 today).  To say she was rich is a bit of an understatement.  

After her husband's death, she supposedly went to a medium who told her that her husband wanted her to move from Connecticut and go out west where she was to start building a house.  She thought she was cursed and the souls of those who were killed by Winchester rifles were coming after her.  She bought land in the Santa Clara Valley and started building.  And building.  And building.  She started by working with an architect, but eventually got rid of him.  She regularly used Mediums to get direction from the "spirits" about how she should continue building.  She would build all sorts of oddities into the house to try to trick the spirits so they couldn't find her, things like stairs and doors leading nowhere, rooms with windows looking into other rooms, cabinets that are only a few inches deep, sliding wall panels, etc.  She also slept in a different room every night to confuse the spirits.  The house contains roughly 160 rooms, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms (one completed and one unfinished), 47 fireplaces, 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys, 2 basements, and 3 elevators. The house was originally 7 stories high, but an earthquake in the early 1900's caused the top 3 layers to collapse.  

There is so much more to read about and get information on, so I think you should all look it up!  Most of it was conjecture because Sarah never kept any diaries and didn't do any interviews so most of what we know comes from her mediums and construction crews.  Here are a few shots of the house, hopefully one day I'll be able to see it for myself!

We Must Be Family

First thing, I wanted to give a quick update about Asher's evaluation.  The nurse came by and said Asher is a perfectly healthy little boy!  His hearing and vision are great and wouldn't cause any problems with his speech.  She also said he was so cooperative and made the evaluation really easy.  I know these people usually deal with kids with a lot worse problems than Asher's slight speech issues, so I know in comparison he is a lot easier to handle, but it's so nice to have people tell me what a delightful and cute little boy I have!  The girl that will be doing his speech therapy also came by that same day and we went over Asher's daily schedule.  I was surprised at how exhausting it can be to account for every second of our day.  And I know they need to have this information to help, but it's a hard to tell a stranger a lot of personal information.  That same girl will be coming back along with the coordinator (the lady that did his evaluation) on Thursday to fill out his IFSP.  I'll give another update after that!

Next I would like to share something that proved to me that introversion is a family trait!  I found an article that I shared with my mom and sisters on facebook.  The article was How an Introvert Makes a Phone Call.  It tells all about how introverts will do anything to avoid making phone calls and have all sorts of anxiety about it.  It is essentially how I handle making phone calls.

The article was hilarious, but what was even better was the comments my family gave!

Lisa - "Oh man, this is SO me. I actually have to put things like "return voicemail" on my to do list so that I will eventually do it. I get genuinely upset at Tyler when he asks me to call someone."

Joni - "I have to remind myself that i will probably not die if i have to make a.phone call."

Mom - "I pretend I didn't get a voicemail asking me to call them back."

I guess we are family after all!  

Christmas Break

The last few weeks have been very busy!  I know the holiday season is busy for most families, and we are no exception, especially because we had to travel.  Here's a little run-down of the end of December!

Dec 17 - I've been concerned about Asher's speech for awhile so I finally got him evaluated.  The program in Utah is called Kids on the Move, although every state has a similar program.  He qualified for therapy so that will start this month.  They will have a nurse come by this Wednesday to check his hearing and his other physical development.  I have to say, I'm not super excited about this.  But since we're so poor, it isn't going to cost us anything!

Dec 19 - My Mom came to visit!  She got some tickets for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert and she also wanted to see our new place, so she made the drive down here and we had a girls night out.  I miss living by my family so it was so great to have her come to us and be the first person to stay with us!  I had so much fun talking and laughing with her, getting stuck in traffic, and enjoying the concert.  She stayed with us Saturday night and was able to see...

Dec 20 - Our ward Christmas program!  I accompanied the choir on my violin for one song, David played a solo and he also got roped into singing with the choir.  He had only been through the songs once with them, but he really is such a great musician that he picked up on them really fast.  Asher loves loves loves his grandma and had a lot of fun sitting with her during church while we were performing.

Dec 23 - We were a little worried about the weather, but decided to make a break for it and packed all 4 of us (David, Abby, Asher, and Millie) into our car and drove to Idaho.  The drive wasn't too bad for the most part.  Asher was soooo excited when we got to Grandma's house and soon after we got there some cousins showed up and it got very crazy.

Dec 23-26 - There wasn't any big things going on, just lots of hanging out and letting the kids wear each other out!  Asher loves seeing all his cousins, but he doesn't love sleeping in a bed that isn't his own.  Needless to say, he and I didn't get very much sleep while we were there.  But we had fun all the same!  On Christmas my parents paid for all of us adults to go to the new Star Wars movie and they would babysit.  I love going to Idaho because my parents always insist on babysitting so we can go out and do stuff.  I loved the movie!  I'm a sci-fi nerd so that was right up my alley. 

Dec 27 - My parents have 1:00 church, which I really hate taking a toddler to.  So when we to go Rexburg I usually go to my sisters ward, which meets at 8:30.  My sister-in-law thought that sounded like a better idea as well (she has a toddler too) and my mom just wanted to come watch the craziness, so we all went to Joni's ward!  It was quite the party, especially during Relief Society when they ended up bringing all 3 toddlers back to us at one point or another.  Later that night we had dinner and played a lot of games.  It's very chill at my parents house and we all enjoy being able to just hang out with each other.

Dec 28 - I finally got to order my new phone!  David was trying to convince me to get a $100 phone, but I didn't want to spend that much.  When we got there, we found out it was half off!  So my mom and I ended up both getting that phone.  And I was able to pass my old phone on to Joni, whose toddler had sent her phone through the wash.  A couple hours later, in the brisk 10 degree heat, we attempted to do family pictures.  My mom likes to have recent family photos so she hired a photographer to take pictures of all 5 families.  Asher hated it and all the kids were freezing and had red noses the whole time, but I think it went as well as it could have.  At the end my mom wanted a picture with her and my dad and all the grandkids.  All the children were done by that point so it ended up being a picture of lots of crying toddlers and babies and my mom laughing really hard.  I'm excited to see how it turned out! 

Dec 29 - We packed ourselves up and made it home in one piece!  Asher and I slept almost the entire 4 hours, we were both so exhausted.  It was nice to be able to sleep in our own beds again.  But I do miss being able to go to lunch or have Sunday dinner with everyone!

Today David went back to school (which he was not excited about having to wake up at 6am again) and Asher, Millie, and I are getting back into our routine.  Asher is much happier now that he is getting more sleep.  I want everyone in Rexburg to know that Asher really isn't as grumpy as he seems when we're on vacation!  Most of the time he's in a really good mood!  He just loves being able to sleep in his own bed and have a "home base".  I don't know when we'll be back in Rexburg or visiting any other family again, but I always love it when we get a chance.  Maybe I'll have to start doing dessert nights and have Brian and Brittany over once in awhile.  They do live right down the street so it wouldn't be too difficult...but I love having that strong family connection!  Maybe I'll make that one of my resolutions.  Right after my first resolution, which is to not move at all this year!  Here's to another year! 

David is Asher's favorite person in the world right now!  He likes to climb up on David and get this close to his face and tell him fantastic stories.  It makes me laugh really hard.

Asher's Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell!  He loves it.  I'm shocked we were able to fit it in our car.

He's a cutie.

Grandma left a toy for Asher after she left.  He thinks it hilarious when I clip it in his hair.

Millie loves the snow.  And chasing David around in the snow.  And eating the snow.

We all got microwavable heat packs from my parents for Christmas.  I'm teaching Asher how awesome they are.

Asher's buddies!  He loves chasing Ledger around and tries really hard to say London's name whenever we see her.  Now they just need to come visit us!

David's First Concert

David finally made it to his first concert since he got his teaching degree!  The kids in Kayenta weren't quite ready to perform a concert, but the kids at this middle school are doing very well.  David was very stressed out before the concert, trying to get it all the kids ready, the stage set up, and making sure all the kids show up on the right day and wearing the right clothes!

I was a little worried about how I was going to get to the concert.  We don't have a second car and David's school is about a half hour drive away.  Luckily, Brittany was nice enough to babysit and let me borrow her car so I could make it to the concert myself.  I got there right before the concert started.  Everything went really smooth and I was impressed by how well David handled everything.  There was a lot of stage changes and 6 different groups that performed.  I had one of the assistant principals come up to me and tell me how much they enjoy having David at their school.  It's been a tough year for us so I was glad that this night was such a success!

One of David's orchestra's.  He has 2 orchestras, 2 bands, and 2 choirs that he is in charge of.

 

Here is David's older choir.  I was so impressed that someone who has never sang in choir has done so well.  Good job David!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is here and gone!  David's sister was hosting dinner in Missouri, but since we are a little short on funds, we couldn't afford to make the drive.  We really wanted to because it's been so long since we've seen his family!  But it just wasn't in the stars.  So we decided to drive up to Idaho and celebrate with my family.  It was a lot of fun, but I only took one picture the whole trip!  So I'll just briefly write how the trip went.  

We drove up on Tuesday night because we heard there was going to be a big storm that would make driving a little dangerous.  Once we pulled in, Asher and Millie both got very excited!  Asher loves going to Grandma's house and playing with her cool toys and getting to eat whatever he wants and Millie loves how much land they have that she can run around.  On Wednesday, Lisa and Joni brought their munchkins over and we had a very crazy play date with 5 kids 3 and under.  Asher had a blast!  He was really tired from all the traveling, but he loves having someone besides Mom to play with.  I tried putting him down for a nap 3 different times, but he was so excited about the people that were there that he never slept.  We were going to have a movie at Joni's house for the kids, but Asher fell asleep on the couch right as I was about to put his coat on to leave.  I felt too bad to wake him up, so I was just going to stay at my mom's.  But my mom and sisters felt so bad that they brought the party to us!  So we watched Inside Out (it was the first time I'd seen it and I loved it!) and Asher got lots and lots of cousin time! 

Thanksgiving started out a little weird.  Lisa and her husband got very sick so my mom drove over to their house to pick up their 2 kids and bring them home so they could get some rest (one reason I miss having my mom close by).  Asher and I went to Wal-Mart to get some Oreo's for my mom's place settings.  And the boys in the house slept a lot.  Eventually, Joni and her clan made it over and things got very loud and crazy!  Lisa was able to make it out just in time for dinner, and we all enjoyed a great meal and good company!  After dinner, my mom taught my sisters and I how to make origami stars.  It was really fun learning something new and doing crafts!  That's another thing I miss about living in Idaho, we used to do crafts a lot together and my mom was always teaching us stuff like how to knit and crochet and not ruin whatever we were sewing.  I still have my stars and am hoping to figure out how to turn them into ornaments!

David and I were planning on leaving Friday at some point, but at 5am, Asher started throwing up.  And every half hour after that until about 11am.  He was in a really good mood, but I always had to be ready with my bucket to catch.  And then about 6, I got sick.  And I was sick all day.  And my brother Andy could hardly get out of bed and had my mom bring him a bucket.  We were pretty pathetic.  David started feeling a little nauseous later that night, but never threw up.  So, needless to say we did not make it home that day.  David was a really good sport about watching Asher while I was laying on the bathroom floor and my mom was very nice to help us all with our various ailments!  She even rented a movie that we could watch that night!

On Saturday, we all felt well enough to make the drive.  We were all very tired and sore, but we managed to make it without any accidents!  Of course, since my immune system was down because of the flu, the cold that I had been fighting off managed to slip through and now all three of us have an awesome chest cold.  Being sick is not fun.  But we're all hopefully getting over it and will be better in time to get whatever else is going around!

My sister got mad at me that I didn't include any pictures in my last post, so I have a few pictures I've taken the last few months.  I haven't taken many pictures, so I guess I need to get on that!  Enjoy!

I'm so proud of the hat I made Asher!  He always tries to take it off, but I think it's super cute.

Asher's favorite thing to do when David gets home is to crawl up on his lap when he's on the computer and have David turn on a video.  David then promptly falls asleep.

And again.

Asher pulls these blocks out all the time.  He loves playing with them and putting them in his dump truck!

He managed to put every block down his shirt.  I was impressed.

Asher gets VERY upset when we put Millie in the kennel.

Asher loves putting his feet on people.  And sitting on people.  It makes laying down to watch TV....uncomfortable.

This is my one picture from Thanksgiving.  I brought the giraffe for Isaac, he loved it!

2 Year Checkup

Asher was finally able to get his 2 year checkup yesterday.  It's been a long wait since he turned 2 in August!  We couldn't do it in August because 1) we were just about to move (again...) and 2) because we had no insurance.  And after David started his job here we had a 2 month waiting period before we could use the insurance.  David and I were discussing that it is abnormal for all three of us to have insurance at the same time, let alone on the same network!  It's a sad thought, but hopefully we're past that phase of life now!

Everything checked out great.  Asher is doing great.  And my favorite part is finding out how big he is.  For weight we managed to make it all the way up to 55th percentile!  Usually he's sitting at about 20th.  For height he is......99th percentile!  He's always been way tall.  Everyone always adds on about a year when they guess how old he is. 

One thing I brought up with the doctor was Asher's speech.  For those people that have a lot of interaction with Asher, you know that he loves to jabber!  But he hasn't learned a lot of actual words.  The doctor had me guess how many words he knew.  I guessed he has said about 50 words, but only uses about 25 regularly.  Apparently that's the minimum requirement for 2 year olds (to know 25 words and can say 2 word phrases), but he said if in 3 months Asher hasn't made any progress to look into a program where they will come evaluate your child for free in your home and see if he needs speech therapy.  My sister had her son go through a similar program in Idaho, and I've heard of other parents that have had children in it, but it's very hard to think of your own child going through it.  You don't want your child to go through hard things!  I know it will all work out, but it keeps me up at night worrying about if other kids will start to make fun of him or that other problems will come up.  I know it will be fine.  But if can keep Asher in your prayers, it would help things even more! 

Asher is such a goofy, energetic little boy!  He always seems to know just where my breaking point is because he'll be crazy and destroy everything, and then come and give me a hug or come pet my head.  It makes me laugh every time, no matter how upset I am!  He's a great little buddy and I'm very glad he chose to come to us!

Halloween

As some of you know, David isn't a huge fan of Halloween.  I didn't used to be, but I feel like I have to put more of an effort into holidays for Asher's sake!  I talked about this with the girl that cut my hair.  We both never would dress up or make a big deal out of holidays, but once kids come along it makes it more exciting and you feel like it's your duty to make holidays great!  Since I didn't just want to sit in our apartment doing nothing that weekend, I decided to head up to Idaho so Asher could enjoy some time with his Mitchell cousins and grandparents.  We had such a good time!  I was very proud of Asher's outfit and was glad to show it off.  Both of my sisters did very well with their costumes as well and we were quite the spectacle wherever we went!  It is a lot colder there than it is in Utah, so we froze a little (especially on that first day!) but it was all worth it.  Here are some pictures of our weekend!

The first day we were there it was VERY windy and cold!  No one could see our costumes because of the coats and we couldn't wear our ears because the wind kept blowing them off!

Asher was very confused all during Halloween.  He couldn't understand why he (and everyone else) was dressed so weird!

Asher's favorite part of the festival!  He was so sad when we had to get off!

With the Rexburg cousins and a very grumpy Tinkerbell!

One of the Ewoks was melting a little...

London is normally so happy and smiley, so it was very comical to see her have a little tantrum!

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

With the new Star Wars movie coming out there was a lot of Star Wars themed stuff around.  It fit in nicely with Lisa's family!  Han Solo, Leia, and the Ewoks!

Mickey and Minnie!  We had so much fun!

That night we all went to Lisa's house to watch a movie, eat pizza, and see all the cute trick-or-treaters.  Lisa was very busy answering the door, and Asher decided he needed to help her.  Every time someone would come to the door, he would help her answer, look at the people on the porch, and when they took a candy he would take one too!  Then he would take it downstairs to Grandma so she could unwrap it for him because he knew Mama would limit the number of candies he could have.  I guess that's the great thing about Grandmas!  On Sunday we went to church with Joni (where I'm sure anyone sitting around us got nothing out of Sacrament Meeting with Asher, London, and Ledger being the squirmy toddlers they are!) and headed back home.  I think it all worked out well.  David got a quiet, relaxing weeked and Asher and I got to dress up, attend a fun festival, and eat lots of candy!