It's Springing!

We're enjoying the longer days and occasional patches of sunshine! Things are starting to bloom around here, which is always a great thing to experience, and I'm really enjoying the bigger baby stage with Asher. He is a lot of fun and I love watching him develop into his own little person. Here are a few things he's been doing lately.

*I've been working on getting him to actually say "more", which he can do, but I think his signs work so well, he just doesn't think it's worth the effort. But yesterday I was making Ryan's birthday cake (today is his birthday!), and I gave Asher a taste of the icing. Suddenly he was by my side saying, "mo! mo! mo!" I thought it was pretty funny - at times all that is required is the proper motivation!

*Asher does a lot of talking on play phones - both real and imaginary. He has a plastic phone, but he also makes phones out of whatever he can find, and usually this means door stops. (There is a black, rubber door stop for each of our interior doors.) He does a good job of mimicking a conversations "Da, da. Yes. Ma." followed by a pause for listening and then more jabber. This comes in handy when it's time to talk to grandparents on the phone. I don't know what this says about what he thinks I do all day, but we think it's pretty cute to watch.

*Asher luuvs being outside. It's neat to see the full body effort he puts into running around and falling all over the place when we go to a park, etc. It's like he knows at any minute those pesky parents are going to come put him back in his stroller, so he better run while he can and keep as far away from them as possible until the inevitable end.

*He really likes music and I love watching him bop up and down when we hears a song he likes or to try to make the signs for some of the songs I sing with him. He'll get a big grin on his face when he recognizes something and rushes to make the signs he knows, and he sings along in perfect gibberish.

All this is to say, Asher is a typical 16-month-old, but we happen to think he is something special. :)

We are gearing up for the end of our stay in Ireland and anticipating visits from my sister, Ryan's brother & his family, and Ryan's parents; and we're going to make a trip to Spain and hopefully England over the next few months. I'm really excited about this time. I think this is the pay off for all of the stress that came with the initial move, etc., and the calm before the storm of the overseas, multi-state move ahead. (It looks like we'll be living in California for a year or so.) I know it's a gift to be able to do these things, and I'm really grateful.

Love and sticky peanut butter kisses to you!