We had a great time in March! Here's the highlights of the month.
We started off the month with going to the Houston Zoo day with friends. We had a giant group, which was fun! Everyone corralled the kids along.
The local library had a Dr. Seuss party one Saturday. I took Ashton and she had a blast.
That same day, I hosted a baby shower for a sister from church. I love planning events/parties and this was no different.
Tanner got a terrible 24 hour stomach bug the same day. He spent most of the day/night throwing up and sleeping. He even fell asleep on the floor once. Poor little boy. I became a little nervous about dehydration as he had gone about 18 hours with no wet diapers and wouldn't keep any fluids down. But right when I was about to take him in, he finally had a wet diaper. Hooray! Always like to avoid an ER visit, especially since we'd have to go to Houston for it.
One week was the school district's spring break, which means Ashton had
no preschool that week. Joseph accompanied the scouts on a long campout
that week as well. While he was gone, we went to the beach and the zoo again.
We finished up some house projects. One date night, we had the sitter take the kids to the park so we could finish painting the back of our house. Such a fancy date! We also built garden boxes with chicken wire around our garden beds to keep the kids out of them.
We found bluebonnets on a bike ride so I had to take the traditional Texan picture with the kids. They were less than enthused.
We've been doing some training with River and Ashton loves doing it with her. We're teaching her to spin, bow, and shake paws.
My semester at BYU-Idaho is wrapping up. Just one more week of classes and then a week of grading final exams. I received a spring semester teaching contract, which means I have been teaching non-stop since Sept. 2015. I hope to get the summer term off but we'll see what happens. I enjoy the class and teaching helps me find a balance between my desire to work and my desire to be home with my kids.
Ashton continues to grow and change so much. Here's a summary of our little girl at 3.5 years old.
She LOVES preschool. This doesn't surprise me with how social she is. Placing Ashton in preschool has also helped me enjoy my time with her more. She loves going and learning all about science, music, and whatever else they teach her. She soaks it all in and retains it pretty well. I love that she'll tell me pandas come from Asia or what makes the clouds move.
Ashton's drawing and writing has really taken off recently as well as learning her letters. She points out letters in a sign or book as long as it is a capital letter. Lowercase letters are tricky. She has started asking what sounds each letter makes. One thing we've discovered with Ashton is that if I sit down and try to teach her something, she is pretty stubborn and resists learning. She has to be ready to learn it first. Now that she asks about letter sounds, she's willing to work with me more on it.
A person.
A spider
Thankfully, she still naps. Every day! Although we are transitioning to her big girl bed soon and that may be the end of nap time as we know it.
She's growing like a weed. I had to pull out 4T shorts recently because her old ones are getting too short on her. She likes to measure herself almost every day and talk about how she can't wait to be taller than me. Well, good thing that won't take her too long to accomplish.
Our biggest struggle at this age is listening. Ashton hates to listen and if we give her a direction, she instantly asks, "Why?" It drives me nuts! I say, "Because I said so" all the time now. We created a sticker/reward chart recently. At the end of each day we discuss how well she listened and if she listened the first time. If she did well, she gets a few stickers. Once she gets 25 stickers, she can have a treat. Once she gets lots of stickers (really when we see a drastic change in her listening skills), she gets a new bike (we already planned to buy her a new bike so this works). She wants a pedal bike so we're hoping she can skip training wheels and go straight from balance bike to pedal.
Ashton continues to love Tanner and be a good big sister. She will normally help me if I ask her to find diapers, give him a toy, help him up the slide, etc. When I asked her if she wanted another brother or sister, she said, "Only a baby sister." I guess Tanner hasn't had the biggest impact on her.
She has grown immensely since attending primary in January. Her prayers have improved drastically and we love hearing them. Ashton loves reading the scriptures and enjoys having the missionaries over. Anytime I have a church meeting (which is a lot), she begs to join me. I hope her love for learning stays with her.
She's an outdoorsy, active girl. She enjoys playing in the backyard,
helping with house projects, riding her bike, visiting the park, playing
with neighborhood friends, etc. But the second I say, "would you like
to watch a show?" she is sitting on the couch. Her favorite show right
now is Magic School Bus.
Loves the beach
Almost always a smiley, happy girl.
Her best friend. She told me the other day that someone else wants to be her best friend but that's not possible. "I can only have one best friend" was her response.
This is the time of year that I'm really thankful to live somewhere warm. I can't imagine being stuck inside for the winter months. I love that we can play outside. Ashton says, "It's freezy" when it gets below about 65 degrees. Sad little Texan girl.
February was full of fun! Here's the recap.
We had a Love Day party. All hearts and love shared with some friends.
Tanner got his first haircut. Here's a before and after.
Ashton and I headed up to Houston for a girl's day. We went shopping at the outlets and then painted some pottery. We also hit up ice cream. It was a great day!
Joe's mom came for a quick visit. We took her to the children's museum one day.
We bought a van! Yikes! We wanted Joseph's car to last us another year but it started having reliability issues. We tried a few things to fix it and it didn't help. Since the car isn't worth that much, it didn't make sense to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to fix it just to get by one more year.
I caught Tanner starting to build block towers.
I organized a tour of the local fire station. The kids loved it! While we were there, the life flight helicopter had to land, which meant they closed the parking lot exit. We got the watch the helicopter come in and leave, which was cool to see. Although, I hope we never need to ride that helicopter!
Ashton had no fear about this.
Watching the helicopter leave.
Ashton also had her first official campout. Our ward did an activity and the night before, you could campout on the property. Since Joseph had to be there for scouts, Ashton tagged along. She had a blast but was exhausted the next few days.
Joseph:
- Working. He's increasing production at his plant through various projects. One project is installing video cameras to monitor a truck unloading each day so an employee doesn't have to stand outside watching it. I told him to just install a video baby monitor and he nixed my idea. It was a lot cheaper than his plan.
- Fantasy football is over until the fall. He's pretty bummed about that.
- Planning house projects like painting the back of our house in all the free time he has.
-Taking the kids on bike rides.
Casie:
- Desperately trying to fulfill my calling as Young Women's president. Last June, I was called as the Relief Society president. Then our ward split in December and I was asked to be the Young Women's president in the new ward. It's been quite the juggling act in our family as Joseph serves as Young Men's president in the Spanish branch. But we see blessings through our service.
Ashton often accompanies me to youth activities. At one activity, the Bishop made duck tongue and I told Ashton it was chicken. She loved it and took a baggie home.
- Teaching for BYU-Idaho again. It's my sixth semester. I only have one class this semester so I enjoy a little more free time.
- Attempting to cut back on processed foods in our home. We'll see how that goes! So far, I miss the convenient kid snacks the most. I am realizing that we don't consume as much processed foods as I thought we did. But there's still room for improvement.
- Ran a half marathon. I haven't run that much distance since my full marathon over 8 years ago as a freshman at Utah State. It was fun to have a race to train for again. The half marathon is on the beach, which is definitely a different terrain than I'm used to.
Ashton:
- Finished up speech therapy for now. Ashton was going twice a week for speech since last September to help the habit of stuttering. The therapist and I felt Ashton had progressed as far as she could at this age. Each time they evaluated her, she was at about 70 percent fluency over most of January. This is a drastic improvement from where she started around 30 percent. We had a surprise party for her therapist on her last day.
- Completed her first on-her-own swim lesson class. She did alright. Now, she can swim around with just a noodle instead of her puddle jumper. The final day she was brave enough to put her head under water. I bribed her with ice cream and it worked.
- Enlarging her imagination! I love her reasons for things. The other day she saw a semi truck full of cars and I asked her how they got the cars on the truck. She said they use bridges to drive the cars up there.
- Has a few more ballet classes left. Before Christmas, one dance studio had a promotion for two months free with no requirement to continue past that. I thought that was a perfect way to see how Ashton did with dance. She now asks for gymnastics. We'll try that maybe in another year.
- Sad that River doesn't always want to play with her. If Ashton had her way, River would play catch and chase 24/7. I'm hoping the newness of the dog fades off soon as I am tired to telling Ashton to relax.
- Making sock puppets like crazy.
Tanner:
- Finding the joy in playing with toilet paper.
- Perpetually making messes. I don't why I even bother cleaning up one mess because as I do, he makes at least five more.
- I love this video of him laughing. He is typically a very happy kid!
- Learning the art of selfies.
- Climbing every possible surface. If there's a will, there's a way for this kid.
Weight: 25 pounds. He's been the same weight for three months
now. For the first 9 months, he was 95 percentile in weight. This time,
he is in the 80 percentile. Now that he's up and walking all the time, I
suspected as much.
Height: 31.25 inches (I guess I mismeasured the last few months of 32 inches.) 95 percentile for height still.
Comparatively, Ashton was 21 pounds and 31 inches long at 12 months.
Clothing Size: Pretty much 18-24 months in everything. Some 12 month pants still work. Daily Schedule: Same as last few months for the most part. I wake him
up when Ashton wakes up around 7:30/8. Then he naps from 10-11:15ish
most days as he has to get up then to pick Ashton up from preschool and then again from 2:30-4/4:30. Then bedtime is around
8:30. One day, I tried to skip the morning nap due to some errands we had. He was not okay with that. Oh well... not too much longer and he'll transition to one nap.
Personality: His personality is the best! He is always a happy boy, smiling and laughing away. It doesn't take much to make him happy. We see a little more impatience coming this month and he wants to be heard at times. One happy kid!
Firsts: First Christmas and first time away from Mom for more than a few hours.
Favorites:
Meal: Still pizza. He also loves macaroni and cheese, anything peanut butter, and bananas.
Time of day: Waking up Ashton from her nap. On days that Ashton has speech therapy, we need to wake her up and Tanner loves that. Or playing chase/hide and seek. He likes that too.
Toy: Balls. He is typically walking around with a ball or two. He really enjoys trying to bounce them.
The day I tried to skip a morning nap. He fell asleep on the way home and refused to wake up in the house.
Yikes! My boy is one already! It's been a good year. After having Ashton, I was pretty determined to be done having children. It was a rough first year. What is sad is that it wasn't Ashton at all. It was all me and my adjustment to motherhood. Then I had a change of heart and "made a deal" with God that I would have one more but if it was anything like my experience with Ashton (PPD, anxiety, etc) then that was it. Well, Tanner came along and this past year has been a night and day difference from Ashton's first year. No postpartum depression this time, which has been a huge help! I've enjoyed the baby phase this time around, partly because I know each phase only lasts for so long. I'm grateful to have Tanner and I know he will continue to be a blessing to our family.
We celebrated his birthday over two days due to some evening activities on his actual birthday. On the 16th, I took the kids to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Tanner loves climbing around their playplace and he loves the food. We didn't get Tanner a birthday present so going to lunch helped me feel like I did something for him.
That night, we got pizza (his favorite food) and ate dinner at a park. He was more excited to play than eat. After Ashton's swim lesson, he opened presents (more like Ashton opened them) and we skyped with family.
Loved the boxes!
More balls for our ball pit.
He enjoys skyping with family. His main objective during a skype call is to knock down the webcam.
Then, on Tuesday, we had cake and ice cream. I made him a football cake because he loves balls. Joseph is convinced he will be our little linebacker one day.
Used my new cricut machine to make a 1st birthday banner.
