What next . . .

Sometimes with the daily routine of life it's hard to take a minute just to breath and reflect. I am so lucky to be able to fill my days with a job I enjoy and a family to have fun with and take care of, but it also leaves me pretty exhausted. It's nice to take a minute to think about how I got to where I am and think about where I want to go now.

Eight years ago, Heath and I were putting the finishing touches on our wedding plans. I was enjoying my job traveling around the state for Purdue and he was anxiously preparing to graduate from PA school and looking diligently for a job. We decided we needed an adventure and landed out in VA. What we told our families, and what we truly believed, was that we were on a five-year plan. What we didn't know was how connected we would get to the life we built with our Lynchburg family. The first few years in VA Heath and I grew as a married couple. I can't say we truly took advantage of life without kids (who knew how different it would be!) but we enjoyed spending time together and going on little adventures. Then we adopted a cat, then a dog and took the plunge with starting our own family. Seven years flew by.

A year and a half ago, we decided we really were ready to move back to Indiana.While I'm a little greedy and think God took my grandparents a little too early I know how blessed I was to have them in my day-to-day life growing up. I'll always remember my grandma bringing brownies to soccer games and watching us play although I realize now just how little she probably understood about the game - it didn't matter though because she was there just to support me. And playing Euchre with my grandpas after family dinners on the weekend. Asher deserves this too.

Who knew what a process moving would be. Despite awesome support from family and friends it nearly broke us. When we put our house on the market I had no idea I'd be given 20 minutes to scramble around the house cleaning spaghetti of the floors, table and ceiling to get Asher and Peyton out of the house for an impromptu showing. I didn't know that despite all the news reports to the contrary we really had "bought high" and were going to have to "sell low" if we wanted to get our house sold. I didn't know that all those people I had called co-workers had really become good friends and the emotional toll it would take to say good bye to them - we weren't just moving across town we were moving across the country and who knew when we'd seem them again. I didn't know that saying good bye to the only daycare Asher had ever known would feel like I was uprooting him from the comfort of the only routine he'd ever known. I certainly didn't know that when a moving company tells you their truck will be plenty big enough for your three-bedroom house that they could be wrong! I also didn't expect as we looked for jobs Heath would find a great opportunity that would end up being just a little too good to be true and we'd have to scramble for a Plan B (even thought it turned out to be a great Plan B). Nor was I aware that we'd have to land in five different stops before we could call ourselves settled again.

But that's where we are now, almost settled. We've decided to build a house in Zionsville that will be ready at the beginning of August. It's our dream house really and we hope to watch Asher grow up there. Everything that we've worked so hard for over the last year and a half is finally falling in to place. Heath and I both have jobs we like (with relatively short commutes) and more free time to be together on evenings and weekends. Asher is starting to get settled in to his new routine at school. We get to have those dinners and celebrations with family that were few and far between in VA. I suppose sometimes it really is true that you've got to have the valleys to truly appreciate the mountains.

Who knows where we'll be another eight years down the road. I'm sure there will continue to be lots of highs and lows. I just pray that my family will be right there with me taking the journey together.

Some Favorites

Happy Birthday, Adelyn! It's really fun to watch your child play with your friends' children, especially to recognize some of the awesome characteristics your friends have reflected in their kiddos.

This has to be one of my all-time favorite pictures :)

Happy Birthday, Papaw!

Happy Birthday, Papaw!! One of the best things about being back in Indiana is celebrating special occasions with our family. No longer do we have to call to say "Happy Birthday" over the phone we can do it in person! Asher's favorite part of birthday parties is definitely the cupcakes!

Just a little behind

Between moving, starting a new job, staring a new daycare, Spring birthdays, Easter and just trying to put one foot in front of the other I've gotten a little behind on our blog. In mid-February our little family moved out of our temporary residence with NeeNee and Papaw in to our own apartment in Zionsville. Heath was very thankful to cut his commute time down drastically! A few short, stressful weeks later I began a new job working in the HR department for Zionsville Community Schools. It was definitely an adjustment to go back to work full-time but with my schedule I'm off by 3:00 and still get to enjoy some of the afternoon with Asher.
Asher has been thriving in his new environment and at his new daycare. At 2 1/2 I'm sure he doesn't understand all of the transitions that have happened over the last few months but I think he's happy to finally be a little more settled. He still cries when he gets dropped off at daycare (luckily that's Heath's job now!) but he always comes home with fun stories about all he did, his friends, and his teacher's Ms. Jen and Ms. Cara. We feel very lucky to have found the Goddard School.
Every day Asher does at LEAST two or three adorable things that I think I HAVE to write down or I'll be so sad I forgot about later when he gets older. Apparently, I've forgotten them even sooner as I try to think about them right now! He definitely isn't our little baby anymore and is extremely talkative an very independent.

1. Dora and Diego are definitely Asher's favorite cartoons. Tonight he even surprised us by saying dinner was "deliciouso" and counting to six in Spanish. Although quatro doesn't come out quite right.
2. Turns out he might have a flair for the languages. When he was playing on the IPAD the narrator had an English accent - so Asher started asking for a banana in an English accent too.
3. Since being in daycare Asher has really started singing more. He loves Twinkle Twinkle and his ABC song. He'll even sing "Bingo," "Alice the Camel," and "Red, red's the color I see if you don't see than SIT BACK DOWN!"
4. He still says, "You Welcome" instead of "You're Welcome" and a new favorite is "Gimme Some Sugar!" when he wants a kiss
5. I'd say yogurt covered raisins and applesauce are his favorite snacks and he has no problem walking himself over to the pantry and picking out a snack for himself, and at a restaurant if you order "spaghetti" it's pretty much a guarantee he'll eat the entire plate!
6. His favorite color is STILL yellow and he STILL has to sleep with his me and Sleepy!
7. He loves going to the Zionsville library and running on the letters, putting the books in the return box, watching the fish, and "checking out book."
8. Some of his favorite books are "I love you StinkyFace" and "Goodnight Train"
9. Asher is just starting to get the hang out Hide and Seek and loves to play although he usually tell you where he is!
10. Asher loves being outside to play and is pretty much happy anywhere as long as he can run and throw, but he also really likes Snappers and the "Museum" and Gymboree

While there have been some drawbacks to our new apartment life a benefit has been not being quite so concerned with everything in the house. Asher and Heath decided the kitchen floor would look a little better with some side walk chalk on it :)

Easter 2013

This is the first year I think Asher really started to get the hang of what Easter is all about. Admittedly the church part wasn't exactly his favorite - I'll give him credit though he did a great job sitting through the 1 1/2 hour service.

But he was very excited about the Easter egg hunts, coloring Easter eggs and his Easter basket. This year we got to go to the Zionsville Easter egg hunt. He didn't exactly rush to put a bunch of eggs in his basket but once he realized there was candy in them he was very happy. Asher loved coloring Easter eggs so much we did it twice. He especially loved coloring the eggs in one color then moving them to another color - I think he could have done this all day. Needless to say we ended up with a lot of brown eggs :)

Asher even told us when he woke up on Easter that he wanted to see what the Easter Bunny brought him. He hoped there were "M&Ms" in his Easter eggs - of course there were! Although he had an Easter bowl instead of Easter basket because his adorable, monogrammed basket apparently is still in storage!

We even enjoyed a great brunch at Stone Creek with all his family.

Asher just got the hang of

singing "Happy Birthday" in time for all his family's spring birthdays! He decided his favorite part of birthdays is the cake!

Elmo Live

For Christmas, Heath decided Asher needed tickets to go see Elmo Live. This was really Asher's first live show. I think he was mostly overwhelmed but he never took his eyes off the characters in the show!

Chuck E. Cheese

Asher had his first experience with Chuck E. Cheese! He loved it all. His favorite might have been all the games with the balls - basketball, baseball, football, and skee ball. He LOVES to throw things. He also was pretty fascinated with air hockey. It had been years since Heath and I had been there and it was a fun blast from the past for us as well. Although they no longer have ball pits to jump in (probably a good thing) instead they have tubes you can crawl through. I also think the pizza is significantly better now. Asher learned a little lesson about "monies" and was disappointed when it all ran out. But he was so tired he didn't put up too much of a fight to go plus he got to "pay" with all of his tickets and get a green triangle!!

Our little Man at 2 1/2

It's hard to believe Asher is 2 1/2! It's so true that sometimes the days seem so long but the years go by SO fast. I look back at pictures of Asher just a year ago and can hardly recognize that little guy. There are so many fun things about Asher it's hard to recap them all! 1.) Asher loves anything with wheels especially his trains and cars. 2.) He really likes to narriate his life and talks all the time. 3.) He's got some pretty funny sayings, "demolititious derberby," "how get up there," "don't know," "not yet," "I was worried about you," "Uncle Broccoli" 4.) He's got lots of favorites. His favorite dinosaur is Anklyosaurus, his favorite color is yellow, his favorite vegtable is broccoli, his favorite books are "Llama Jama" and "Splat the Cat," he loves waffles or eggs for breakfast and applesauce might just be his overall favorite food. His favorite thing to do is jump and he's even got a signature jump and split move. 5.) He's far from potty-trained but he will let you know when he's got a "giant poopy" and that it smells "p-sheew" 6.) As big as he is he still couldn't possibly take a nap or go to sleep with our sleepy and his "me."

Reconnecting

I never really make New Year's resolutions because I never really keep them. However, this year I'm hoping I can make a resolution that won't be too hard to keep! I hope to "reconnect" with a whole lot of people I've missed since being out in VA - the hard part will be making sure to STAY connected with those we moved away from. With technology it's pretty easy to stay up-to-date on growing kids, changing jobs and general day-to-day happenings but nothing beats actually getting to interact in person. And now, it's not just reconnecting with old friends it's allowing our kids to connect for the first time too. Thanks, Kiley for opening up your home to five crazy kids all under the age of four and to your special powers to get them all to sit in one place long enough to take this picture (even if they all aren't looking at the camera!). (Quinn, Walker, & Merrell Smith, Adelyn & Amelia Tallman, Landon Clarkson, Henry McCullough, & Asher).

Happy New Year, 2013

Henry and Asher enjoyed New Year's Eve together at Henry's house in Michigan. While they may not have made it to midnight that didn't stop them from enjoying some of the holdiay's decor. Asher really enjoyed his trip up to see Henry especially all of his toys including the garage with the green van and purple "alligator" (elevator) and the jumping hippo!

Faces :)

Asher has a lot of different faces :) At two, it's pretty hard to catch most of them but here are a few. Just to cute for words :) Now, he not only likes to use his mama's phone to take pictures he's happy to say "cheese" for them.

Family!

It was neat to Asher start to get the idea that Christmas is a pretty special time of year to get to do some fun, different things. Asher checked out Christmas at the Zoo with his NeeNee. The reindeer weren't exactly his favorite but he LOVED going on the train and seeing the sea lions. We also went to a tree farm to cut down a live tree. Unfortunately we weren't able to actually cut our own tree down but we did get a pretty nice display tree that had already been cut down. Asher's favorite part was the straw maze and the free peanuts they had sitting out! It was also pretty impressed that we put the tree on top of NeeNee and PaPaw's car to get it home!

Over the holidays we celebrated many other traditions as well. Of course many of them revolved around food! All the boys were in Tipton for Thanksgiving and participated in sugar cookie decorated. They loved doing the "shakey shakey" of sprinkles on the cookies. And of course they all preferred eating over decorating. Asher got a second chance at decorating when he went to visit Santa as well. All previous attempts to sit on Santa's lap were not very successful. However, when cookies were involved Asher seemed to warm up a little! He never did make it on Santa's lap but he did get close enough to tell Santa he wanted a Big Red Monster Truck for Christmas (which of course he got!)