Wheeeee

Last weekend we ventured up to South Dakota for the baptism of Lawrence's (new) goddaughter, Eliza (daughter of his best friend, Mark and his wife Katie). We lucked out with some beautiful weather, and Asher took full advantage of all of Eliza's outdoor play equipment (except the swing, he doesn't seem to be a big fan of the swing this season?).

Sandboxes. So simple, yet apparently oh so fun. 

He LOVED the little slide - I think we might have to make this purchase this summer for our backyard. 

Such a big boy!

All by himself! Where did my baby go?!?

Duck, duck, GOOSE!

Well, geese, actually. Lots of them. Hungry ones! Good thing Asher and I brought lots of old bread along.

Asher is fearless! He fed this greedy little guy straight from his hand and wanted to get down and play with them all (even with all their honking and wing flapping)!

I love the Glendale Cemetery - when I die, this is where I want to be buried, complete with a bench headstone so some other family can come along some day and enjoy this little piece of heaven in the middle of Des Moines. Maybe that's what Mr. & Mrs. Morris were thinking, too? I'd like to think so. 

Vocabulary Test, Round 1

I ran across this article today which lists the top 25 words every toddler should be using by the age 2, according to a study by the Child Study Institute (I'm sure they're the experts, they have an institute for goodness sake). These 25 words are considered to be the building blocks of a child's vocabulary. While the little man understands all of these words and can point/show you many of them, at this point we've only had audible confirmation of a handful, albeit some more forceful than others. #21 he can say with great zeal over and over again, and will even add in a hearty head shake for emphasis.

1. all gone
2. baby
3. ball
4. banana
5. bath
6. bye bye - YES
7. book
8. car
9. cat
10. cookie
11. daddy - YES
12. dog
13. eye
14. hat
15. hello/hi - YES
16. hot
17. juice
18. milk
19. mommy - YES
20. more
21. no - Oh, YES
22. nose
23. shoe
24. thank you - YES
25. yes - YES (but not nearly as widely used as 'no')

Seven months and a long way to go!

Blessed

As we continue our stroll down memory lane (aka land of the forgotten digital photos)...

On August 14, 2011 we celebrated Asher's baptism at St.Pius X Church in Des Moines. It was a beautiful day that we were so fortunate to spend with family and friends- and even more blessed that we were able to get all four sets of Asher's grandparents together to help us celebrate. Here's a few highlights...

Asher's adorable baptism outfit, complete with bowtie and suspenders! Thanks to grandma Kelly for hunting down some white shoes!

My favorite picture. ever. Do you see Asher's chubby little legs? And that handsome husband of mine? Blessed, so blessed.

All the grandparents (and great grandma Fran!) 

We ask Lawrence's good childhood friend Mark to be Asher's godfather, and my good friend from grad school Lindsay to be Asher's godmother. Unfortunately, Lindsay had a death in her family the week of the baptism and ended up not being able to come, but my friend Jamie (another good friend from grad school!) agreed to be a proxy- so lucky to have so many great friends that will be a part of Asher's life!

Here's a shot of some more of those amazing friends I was talking about... Elyse, Jenny & Jamie, thanks so much for everything! Elyse jumped right in to take photos, Jenny helped with food prep and Jamie was the stand in godmother- Love these girls!

At the baptismal font

With Decon Dave

Soak it in - that's about as tan as the little man and I get! Oh, how fortunate he is to have inherited my pasty white skin. LUCKY BOY!

Thanks to Donna and Bernardo's generosity we were able to get most of the food catered by one of our favorite local restaurants. What a treat not to have to prepare anything after the service!

What baptism would be complete without cake? And of course mini cheesecakes, too, because that's how we roll. Yum...

Happy Valentine's Day (x2)

Happy Valentine's Day from the Cunninghams!

 

Apparently my creativity is as sleep deprived as the rest of me because I propped my kid up for nearly the same exact pose as last year (albeit with a new couch as an updated backdrop). And of course he proceeded to chew on the paper just like last year. Good to know that even though he may look like he's all grown up, he's still my little boy at heart (and at mouth, it would seem).  The teachers at day care are starting to call Asher 'the ladies man' because all the little girls like to give him hugs and kisses and he likes to give them back. What can I say? My son's a lover, not a fighter.

Valentine's Day 2012

Valentine's Day 2011

His fine motor skills have definitely improved, as demonstrated by his creative rolled paper ... cigar ...um, yeah, we'll go with cigar...

And rolled paper telescope...

He also proceeded to tear the paper up into itty bitty pieces. Lucky me.

The Birthday Boy

Okay, okay. I realize my son's birthday is in September and it is now February. I'm a bit behind on blogging if you haven't noticed (but the two people who do read my blog have noticed, because they told me as much). My (live) Christmas tree is still up so I'm behind on life in general, not just blogging, if that makes you feel better.

At any rate, the little man did indeed turn one. And yes, the Cunninghams still know how to throw a party (even if it was over by dinnertime).

There's the little man in outfit #1. Yes, I did make him two birthday shirts. I'll probably have to do the same for his 21st birthday, for similar reasons. 

Thanks to a group effort to purchase extra large balloons, party guests were greeted by a walk of big balloons and mums! I miss green grass.

Our ribbon and bunting wreath. The circle in the middle was easier to read in real life, wish I would have gotten a closer picture. Of course, I could always dig it out of the craft closet where I threw it after the party and take another pic, but that would be too easy.

When it came time for the big birthday cake bash, Asher liked to put just one finger in the frosting at a time. 

He finally got into it a little more!

Note the 2nd outfit change for the cake - this time, a onesie with the one and car in opposite colors.

Here's the spread!

Here's a semi-blurred close up of the food - we had fruit kabobs with car shaped watermelon, car cookies and car PB&J sandwiches - basically anything you could stick a car on or cut out with a car-shaped cookie cutter, we did.  The biggest hit, though, was the raspberry jello dessert cups (on the left). We usually only have this family recipe on holidays, but LC's brilliant idea was to put it in individual serving cups. Yum!

 Such a happy birthday boy! We are indeed blessed, each and every day!

Grandpa Jimmy

A lot of people say that Asher looks like me. You know, mainly because of his pasty white skin tone that we are both blessed with. But I think he looks a lot like my dad. They even make the same expression sometimes...

 

Thanks for coming to visit, Grandpa Jimmy!

All I want for Christmas...

...Is my two front teeth! (Yes, I'll do anything to mention Christmas, even in April!)  A few weeks ago Asher welcomed two new buddies to his ever expanding world- two front TEETH! And he didn't even have to wait for Santa to come. He looks awfully cute with them. It almost makes me wish he would only ever have just two front teeth, but I suppose that would just be awkward after a while. In the meantime, we'll just continue to enjoy his (barely) toothy grin.

On a related note, we will soon be switching over to formula!

Just Keep Swimming

Monday night marked another first in Asher's ever-expanding world - Swim Babies class! Lawrence took him in the water while I stood on the side of the pool and took pictures during the 1/2 hour class. He's definitely no Michael Phelps and during the first 10 minutes or so he was really unsure of the whole deal, but once they introduced a few floating toys into the mix for him to "swim" to, he was much more excited. He looked like such a big boy in his swim trunks (thanks to our friend Lindsey for that tip, but that's a story for another post!). We have four more classes during this session so hopefully by the end he will be much more comfortable in the water!

Pre-swim class, just taking it all in!

 Still not so sure about the whole deal!

 Oh yes, once he could go after the floating fish, all was better!

Got it!

 And of course, once he got it, it went straight to his mouth. Just like everything else these days!

Drying off afterwards, still a little unsure about the whole situation!

So True

If only I had seen this onesie early (it only comes in sizes up to 6 months and he's just now starting to wear 6-9 month clothes), I would have totally bought it for Asher! Perhaps a good gift idea to keep in mind for any fall babies in your world (provided they live in Iowa, of course. Otherwise that's just awkward...)!

Found at Lincoln & Lexi.

Catch 22

Dear Asher-
when you stay up all night long and daddy is away so mommy has to take care of you all by herself then the next day mommy is super tired and must drink lots of coffee to stay awake, which in turn helps to keep you awake the next night. This is not a very fun ferris wheel of events we have going on, so I'm suggesting we have a truce. I'll stop drinking coffee if you sleep through the night (or even only get up 1 or 2 times!)... Deal? Great! You go first!

Love, Mommy

Sing Us a Song, Piano Man

Well, he's no Billy Joel quite yet, but here's hoping! I've been trying to introduce the piano to Asher, er, or rather introduce Asher to the piano for the past month or so. I think he likes to look at the music notes more than anything, but he does also like to touch the keys and will sit in my lap for a (little) while when I play. I guess it's okay that he isn't a piano prodigy just yet - we still haven't gotten the piano tuned since we moved it here and there's one key (low C- an important one!) that isn't working. In the meantime, at least he's getting the basic concept down.

Happy Valentine's Day

In anticipation of Valentine's day, I tried to capture Asher with a little valentine so I could share it with some of our loved ones. The end result was really cute, if I do say so myself (admittedly, I am a little biased)...

However, the outtakes for the photo session were just as "cute", albeit not as useful in sending happy valentine's wishes to our friends and family.  But good for a laugh or two, for sure.

 Mmmm... yummy.... almost like a conversation heart, I'm sure.

(note: the red lace circle the heart was mounted on did not last long! He's getting quite the grabby grip on him!)

 Peek A Boo!

AKA "I don't want you taking any more photos of me, mom!"

And finally "I'm not having fun with this anymore, mom! Really! Are we done yet?"

I'm just not sure child acting is in his future. He tires way too easily (in my humble, shutter-happy opinion) of the camera. Perhaps he will get better in month 5. It's good to have goals.

Yummy in my tummy

It's a big week in the Cunningham house this week- we started Asher on rice cereal! We're only on day three but so far he seems to be okay with it and hasn't experienced any bad reactions. I'm hopefully that this will help him sleep through the night (at least, that's what everyone tells me) but so far he's been getting up MORE often during the night the past few nights so maybe I shouldn't hold my breath.

We've been using the awesome highchair (a fabulous gift from my consultants!) since he was born to hang out in while we're doing stuff in the kitchen or eating in the dining room (the back adjusts to three different angles so in the beginning he could lay almost flat in it) but this is the first time he's actually used it for eating! Worked like a charm.

We took a video but it's on LC's phone and since we are already WAY behind on blog posts (along with everything else in our lives we're WAY behind on... thank yous, announcements, home projects, cleaning, etc) I figured I'd just post a few pics now to tide you over. Because I knew you've been on pins and needles waiting for this moment, of course. Enjoy!

 PS- Love the new bib from Grandma Kelly- we thought it was appropriate for his first foray into big kid food (well, as big kid as you can be with watered down rice cereal... it's all relative!).