Busy Busy May

This month has started out amazingly busy.  May is very eventful at our house!  David and my anniversary is on the 3rd, my birthday is the 5th, and Mother's Day was the 8th!  Also, David's mom came to visit and we were able to spend a weekend with her.  Here are lots of pictures!

David can fall asleep anywhere, and Asher still wanted to sit in his spot on the couch!

4 generations!  David's grandma had an accident and so we went to visit her in the rehab facility.

We like to spend a lot of time outside.

David and Asher putting candles on my cake.

David plays in the West Jordan Symphony.  This lady has the coolest scroll!  It's carved in the shape of a dragon's head.

The day after my birthday my parents and sisters made a surprise trip down here!  They showed us my Dad's new truck and brought us a kitchen table and dresser!  On Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity in Lehi.  It was mostly for Asher, but I think we all had fun.  I loved having them here!

Asher playing cars with Grandpa.

We all made it across the rope bridge!  Even with my Dad being terrifying and trying to run everyone over.

Asher was so brave on the bridge and had a lot of fun in the airplane!

The crew.

In the wind vortex!  Also, Joni is 7 months pregnant.  Can't you tell?

I think the music room was Asher's favorite!  He loves playing the piano.

Making sand patterns on the wheel.

Puppet theater!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Starting last fall, my sweet grandmother started getting sick.  Over the coming months she continued to get worse and worse and none of the doctors she was seeing could figure out what was wrong.  Early this month, she passed away.  Her whole family was very sad about it, but we all knew she had lived a good life and was ready to see her husband and little boy that were waiting in heaven for her! 

She taught me many great things.  She was the greatest yarner I've ever seen.  She could knit and crochet, even when her eyesight started going and she had to do it all by feel!  She had the most beautiful jewelry and loved anything gold.  I once had a pair of gold shoes that she always commented on how much she loved them.  She was so kind and lovely and lived her life for her family.  My uncle gave an amazing life sketch that he put on his blog if you would like to read it. We love you and will miss you!

As sad as it was for the reason for our visit, I always love it when we get to visit Idaho.  I think Idaho will always be home for me.  David drove Asher, Millie, and I halfway to Idaho where my dad met us and drove us to Rexburg.  David came up a couple days later in time for the funeral.  Almost our entire extended family was together for the funeral. There was such a sweet spirit with us that whole week.  I only have a few pictures from that week so here they are!

When we first got Millie, Oscar wasn't a big fan.  But this trip they got along really well! (most of the time)

Twinner crazy boys eating candy.  These two are such great buds!

More buds!

Asher and Ledger.  Even after we left they kept asking about each other.

At the cemetery.  David was kind enough to chase the boys around so Joni and I could spend time with the family.

My mother handled everything so well.  It was a tough week and I'm glad we live close enough to be there to support her when she needs us!

Asher has been doing so much better with his speech and even sings songs with me!  It makes me a little emotional to think about where he was 6 months ago versus where he is now.  He has made so much progress.  I love that now that he's able to vocalize his quirky, funny personality is shining through so much better.  He likes to say the "5 Little Monkeys" rhyme, loves songs that have actions like Popcorn Popping, loves to help cook, and wants to be involved in anything David and I are doing!  When I am sewing, he likes to stick his little nose right up to what I'm doing and is supremely fascinated by my sewing machine.  Here are a few more pictures of our April.

David insists Millie is a lap-dog.

Grandma Mitchell was nice enough to lend Asher a puzzle that he has put together about 100 times since we got home.

 Asher has never tried to get out of his crib by himself, but he's basically outgrown it so we decided it was time to move him up to a big boy bed.  David didn't like the options to buy bed frames so he wanted to build it instead.  And he volunteered me as his helper.  I really don't like woodworking, but do my best to be supportive of what David's doing.  So I try not to complain too much and David tries not to be annoyed when I have no idea what I'm doing and mess things up.

Asher and I "helping" David get stuff at Home Depot.  Asher did his best to climb all over everything and move stuff around and I was unhelpful and couldn't help David lift stuff off the shelves.

Asher and Millie love it when we work outside.  Millie loves chilling and Asher likes exploring.  I can't wait until we can get our own backyard!

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!