Good Sunday

Today was a great Sunday. We've had struggles lately with a cranky pants 2-year old Spencer, so it hasn't been terribly restful the last few days, but today was just a delightful day. He still struggled at times, but we did enjoyable. Things. I love those kinds of sundays.

Genevieve managed to get her entire foot, all five toes, in her mouth during sunday school today.

We took the kids on a long walk this afternoon/evening.  Spencer conked out immediately. Genevieve held out for a while, but eventually fell asleep...leaning against Spencer's head. It was adorable. Spencer was not pleased about it when he woke up though. Haha!

It was raining the entire walk. I'm so glad we went. It was refreshing and lovely with all the spring blossoms come out. Everything is that fresh new green of spring and it is just exploding with color. I haven't seen many of the colors of blossoms I've seen here anywhere else--purple, coral, all shades of pink. It's lovely.

Genevieve spent a bunch of the walk playing with Spencer's hand. So cute.

A Week in Pictures

My guys cooking pancakes together.

Why use the chair when the counter is so much better?

Pancake tower!  These were so good.

Ready to go walking or running. These two love this thing, especially Spencer. He calls it his "skroller." 

Happy Easter

Bill had an amazing idea the other day and we finally executed it this evening.  Well, he put the hooks in a week or two ago, but tonight he actually got out one of our hammocks and hung it on our back porch.  He spent a good while enjoying it, then I took a turn and Spencer decided it looked fun and hopped in too. So.much.fun. This is going to happen more often. Our back porch is kind of a postage stamp in size, but it's absolutely perfect for hammocking. 

And Happy Easter to everyone! We had a lovely day filled with speaking in church, giving lessons, having Easter dinner with some lovely friends, and just generally enjoying life.  The weather is beautiful here. Spring is finally really hitting us, not just peeking out here and there, and I'm so very, very excited to see this place bloom. There are tracts and tracts of forest that I can't wait to see full of leaves. Yay for Spring and new life and celebrating the joys of the gospel and our Savior and Easter and all the good things in this world.

She's 7 months

Time in the rest of my life doesn't seem to be going that fast, but it just blows me away that Genevieve is already 7 months old.  How is it possible that she's closer to a year than her birth?! Slow down baby girl! I'm not ready for you to leave babyhood yet.

And now for the picture overload. :)

This lady is the cutest not so little baby girl on the block. She's still got red hair. It's starting to fill out a bit, but it's still pretty short.

 She loves her daddy, her mommy, her brother, and that's pretty much it.  Sorry family, friends. This little lady is particular. She doesn't mind being held by other people, but she does not share smiles. She's loving as can be at home though.

 She still has Spencer wrapped around her finger, minus the sharing toys part. He doesn't do that so well. But kisses? Hugs? Yeah, he can't help but give her them all day long. When she's asleep he's always asking where's Genevieve? He can't wait for her to get up and play with him. I have no idea what he did before she was born.

 She tilts her head to the side in the cutest way these days, like she needs to see a different angle on the world.

 She LOVES to stand. Stand her against something and laughter will just bubble about of her. She's just tickled pink with her new ability.

Neither of them have any personal space.  Spencer's newest fun thing to do is "body slam" her, or be body slammed by her.

 She loves anything soft and squishy, blankets and stuff animals especially. She curls them up in her chubby little fingers and is so happy.

 She sits!  And she does it really well.

 I'm pretty sure she's thinking of something diabolical to do here.

 She loves to laugh.

She's chunky, chunky, chunky. We haven't been to a well baby visit for a while, but I'm sure she's still up in the top percentiles for everything. She is just huge for her age.  Those thighs are to die for. She's got cuts in her shoulders, and a squishy belly and rolls on her back and she is squishable beyond all reason.  

She's wearing 12-month clothes these days and some of them aren't even big on her.  She loves to eat. I haven't fed her anything she doesn't like. If she can pick it up, she's willing to try it. We feed her a mix of baby food and then whatever we're eating, and she's in heaven. She still hasn't cut any teeth, but they're coming. We can see them filling in beneath her gums. 

She's totally chill. As long as she's full, not sleepy, and has something to interest her, she's set.  She still takes three to four naps a day and sleeps 11 hours a night. She does wake up at 6:30AM, much to my chagrin, as that is when I try to work, but at least she's happy when she wakes up. 

She is pro at moving backwards and spinning in circles on her stomach. She gets so frustrated when she pushes away from her toys, but she hasn't started moving forward at all yet. I'm sure she'll figure it out soon enough.

So there we have it, Genevieve at 7 months. 

Spring Break

I've never had a Spring Break in college, save for the first year I was at BYU when the 2002 Olympics were in Salt Lake and we had a week off during that.  I went on a road trip to California with my roommates to one of their houses. It was awesome. We couldn't afford tickets to any Olympic events, so we partied elsewhere. :)

So what are we doing in this inaugural year of spring breaking? Nothing yet! Bill doesn't really have it off. He doesn't have any classes, but still has tons of work to do.  Oh the woes of a grad program. Just kidding. I tease. This should be a great week, if for no other reason than Bill's more relaxed because he has time to work on things.  We'll come up with something fun to do to celebrate.

So in other news, guess who decided they can sit unassisted now? Spencer!  Oh wait, I mean Genevieve. :) She's a rock star sitter now. She still falls sometimes, but she's doing really well. And isn't this one of the cutest dresses you've ever seen?!  We had a little cream sweater over it at church, but it's warm, so she's going without for the rest of the day.

Bill's mom sent Spencer and Genevieve some adorable new clothes.  By complete coincidence a dress for Genevieve and a shirt for Spencer are almost the exact same material as shirts Bill owns.  So here's our first installment of twinner clothing Daddy and Spencer style. 

Spencer loves being read to more than pretty much anything else in the world. He has eight books that are random nursery rhymes in these tiny editions and he stacks them all up and runs around with them.  He has them memorized and will tell us bits and pieces of them when prompted.  Reading together makes for such a sweet picture.

 If you're happy and you know it poke your nose! And then he did it and I got it on camera.  Awesome!

All four of us wore green today to church in a totally unplanned move on my part.  Brilliant!  We also made some impromptu green cloverleaf pancakes this afternoon to celebrate the day and get Spencer interested in eating them. It was a success on both counts.

Spencer loves to sit on the counter when we're cooking. And who needs pants on a Sunday afternoon? I submit they are totally optional when you're 2.

 And last but not least, these pictures are uncannily similar. If you scroll back and forth fast between them, you realize their noses are in the exact same spot in the pictures. And you can see how both similar and different my kids look.  They have the exact same nose.  Spencer has my ears, eyebrows, eye color, and skin color, but Bill's eye shape. Genevieve has her own special ears, Bill's lips, my eye shape, but Bill's eye color, and Ashman no eyelids.  Like what's the point of wearing eye shadow? You certainly won't be able to see it. :) She has way squishier cheeks than Spencer, but that might just be the age difference. Oh, and they of course both have Bill's chin. Genevieve is super pink. She's going to fry in the sun if she doesn't have sunscreen. It goes with the red hair, which is starting to come in a tad thicker, though you'd never know it in a picture. It's far too light. Both Bill and my side have skin color like that, though neither of us do. But even with all the differences, they still look so much alike. Genevieve looks more like an Ashman baby and Spencer more like a Jones baby, but yet they still manage to look uncannily similar. But really, who cares whose features they have, because I happen to think they're the cutest babies in the world!

Happy Spring Break!  Do something fun on our behalf, okay? :)

This and That

We went on our first hike in ages and ages this weekend, to Yellow Branch Falls. It was absolutely beautiful and totally worth the 1.7 miles out and then back.  Bill and I are not in fantastic shape for hiking with heavy babies to carry yet, but we'll get there.  We all had a great time.

The falls. They were huge. 

Genevieve enjoyed the ride for the most part. She alternated between checking out the sights and sleeping.

Spencer had a grand old time. At one point he jumped into the water up past his ankles without seeming to realize he was going to.  He was quite surprised when he was suddenly all wet. :) We hiked back with him barefoot in the hiking backpack. I guess I'll bring an extra pair of socks the next time we head to a waterfall with him. Hahaha!

A nice lady took a family picture of us. Someday we'll teach our kids to look at the camera and smile, but we certainly haven't succeeded yet. Pay no attention to their lack of expression. They loved it.

Genevieve trying out the hiking backpack. She loved it.  Of course, Spencer still uses it, so she may not get that much time in it for a while yet. We have a similar picture of a similarly happy Spencer when he was about four months old. We're behind with Genevieve apparently. She's already six months.

These are Genevieve's besties.  The Gund and the lion. She adores them, particularly the Gund. They started out Spencer's, but he doesn't care about stuffed animals except his sock monkey from his GiGi. She loves them though. And yes, she is finally sitting, or starting to. She topples sideways and backwards still, but she can sit for a while as long as she's not distracted. 

"Guys, do you realize how awesome this toy is?! So soft! So cuddly! I can suck on it all day long!"

She's already getting all the little boys with this look. 

Spencer LOVES to color. And yes, he lines up his crayons or colored pencils  like this all the time. Sorry, son, for the perfectionist tendencies. 

And then sometimes he misses the paper. That's why he doesn't use markers except under close supervision.

Dinosaur socks!  He loves these things.

Genevieve at 6 Months

Genevieve loves to chew on things.  Anything she can hold easily in her hands goes straight to her mouth and she's as happy as can be.

She is super easy going about being poked, prodded, having a hat put on her, etc. She adores Spencer, so whenever he pays attention to her, she's in heaven. Tonight he straight up laid on top of her, and she just grinned and waved her hands at his face.

It's a tad scary how much attention she has for movies.  She'll be a techy kid, just like Spencer, I'm sure.

She loves to take baths, particularly if we give her a foam letter to chew on. Sometimes we even put the two kids in together. 

She's serious about her food.  Apple slice and finger in the mouth. It can't get better than that.  She was so mad when she dropped it. Now that she's 6 months old, she'll probably get to try lots of new things to suck on.

Genevieve is totally uninterested in going places fast.  She just decided to start rolling a few weeks ago and she's most content hanging out on her stomach with a toy in hand.  She's getting better at sitting, though she can't sit on her own without toppling over after a few seconds, most often when she sees something she wants.  She is just barely getting the idea maybe she could move toward things, and is starting to push off with her toe occasionally. 

She loves to talk. Since she doesn't look like me even in the slightest, maybe she'll just pick up that trait of mine instead. :) 

She's still got red hair, albeit not bright red.  It's starting to fill in, but it's so light it's still hard to see in pictures. She's as fair as they come and has skin that is going to burn like crazy. She's a chunker too.  She weighs close to 17 pounds and is wearing 12 month clothes for the most part. 

As always, we love her to pieces.  She's just a doll.

Running Update

For the last few years I've been running in Five Fingers.  And by the last few years I mean I've run a handful of times for a few months here and there and have in no way worn them out. :) I really like them; however, it takes a totally different running style to run in them, so every time I start I'm half crippled after each run while my calves get back in shape for using them.  Each time I start running again that time of crippledness is shorter.  This time around I'm running a couple times a week and this is my third week. So last Saturday was my fourth run.   And guess what? No calf pain!  I'm not running fast yet, but my calves don't hurt and my big toes have redeveloped some calluses so they don't rub either for the amount I'm running.

I wouldn't say the shoes are the panacea for good running like many claim, but I do like them.  I like that these don't have a 600-mile limit, when normal running shoes are technically worn out but still look essentially brand new. That always drove me a little crazy.  These shoes will go until the soles wear off or the top rips out.  They're mostly just shelter for my feet from any glass or rocks that could cut them up, plus a thin layer of the lovely Vibram rubber on the soles that feels so good in my Chacos. Because running on them necessitates running on my toes instead of my heels, it makes different muscles and tendons work in my legs, so I get different running aches and pains then before, but they don't make those go away.  But that's okay. It's par for the course.

Bill and I went running together Saturday morning with the kids at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens, which are maybe a couple miles from us right next to Clemson.  They are beautiful!  We haven't run together since Spencer was maybe a year old. Our schedules just haven't permitted it.  We all loved it.  Spencer started laughing out of sheer delight when we first started our run.  It was awesome.  We're going to make it a weekly occurrence to go run the loop and then walk through the gorgeous garden at the end.  I can't wait!

So running seems to be going well.  Hopefully I'll regain some of my former speed as well as distance in the coming months, and the warmer weather will only make it better.

Primary

I got a new calling on Sunday. I'm switching off with another lady teaching the 5-year olds in Primary.  I'm sure, depending on who you are, you'll have varied reactions to this, but probably not super positive.  I, however, am ridiculously excited about this new calling. :)

A, I simply adored being in young womens in my last ward in Utah, but when I was released it totally blew me away the weight that lifted off my shoulders. I didn't feel it at the time and I wasn't anxious to get released, but it was a huge difference. I'm ready for a lower stress calling where I don't feel like what I do or do not do will have a serious impact on whether someone stays active/has a testimony/gains a testimony.

B, I love teaching. And kids are just so fun to teach, especially at this age when the world is just opening up to them. For heaven's sake, I spent two semesters in Moscow, Russia teaching this same age English.  After doing it once I couldn't wait to get back and have a go again. :) With these kids we actually speak the same language.  Hello, that will make anything easier!

C, I like being involved in things.  We've been here a month and a half and I've been itching for more ways to get involved in things now that we're all settled and healthy.  Here's at least one way to do that.

So there it is.  Get ready for play dough and construction paper and bean bags and pretty much any other fun thing I can come up with to entertain six or seven 5 year-olds for 40 minutes every other Sunday.

To health

Good health has been elusive at our house the last few weeks, but I think we're almost back to it.  Fingers crossed.  Between tending a sick toddler with an ear infection, Bill and I catching the cold too, then a wave of stomach flu, it's been a rough couple weeks.  It looks like we're past it though. I did find a minute to make some cute crib rail covers this week. 

Spencer thoroughly enjoyed using all four sides of the crib rail as a teething toy when he was younger. I never even thought to cover it until after the fact, so let's just say our crib is rather unattractive if you take too close a look. But these pretty much fixed that! I love how they spruce up the crib too since it doesn't have any bumpers. They were super easy to make, but it must have been the cold muddling my head, I had such a hard time thinking through how to actually sew them. I sewed one up only to realize the batting was on the outside when I went to turn it. Oops!  A lot of picking out seems later I put it together right and they turned out adorable. I love a good craft project.

Genevieve just wants to be wherever we are these days. I can't believe she'll be six months old in a couple weeks and supposedly ready to start eating real food and stuff like that.  I swear she can't be that old already. She also loves this caterpillar more than should be allowed.  Give it to her and she's set for quite a while. 

Spencer loves to wear Bill's watches and ring. Daddy black watch? Daddy ring? Daddy white watch? Those are almost always the questions he asks Bill when he gets home at night. Bill told him that he has to give him a hug first before he starts demanding all his accouterments. :)

Running!

"Running!" That's what Spencer joyfully yells when he tears up and down our hallway and our our house.  I'd like to think I can claim a part of his joy in the feeling.  I've taken him running with me and there was a point where I truly found joy in running too, though it's been a few years since it really felt good. Unfortunately, there aren't any sidewalks near where we live, or shoulders for that matter, and so there is nowhere easily reached on foot to use the small car that is our double jogging stroller/bike trailer. So my running has been planned for the last month to fit into my early mornings before Spencer wakes up.

By planned I mean until today it hasn't happened.  First we had to move in and recuperate from the trip out.  Then I needed to get as much sleep as possible to recover from the months leading up to this move.  Then we all got sick. I'm sure I could come up with other reasons, but the end result is that I have not been running since before Thanksgiving if memory serves, and then only a few times since I had Genevieve. I stopped running at 30 weeks pregnant when I got the cold of all colds that knocked me out for at least two weeks. So this running thing has been a bit sketchy for the last year or so. Let's be honest, the last few years.  Having kids hasn't done good things to the running part of my life. I've kept running just enough to still say I'm a runner and no more.

But never fear! It's time to take it up again. Some of my friends here go running a couple days a week at the ripe old time of 5:40AM.  Cough, cough, what?!?! Yeah, that's really early and I've really enjoyed sleeping in with the kids the last five months since Genevieve was born. Don't hate me because my kids sleep in until 8 or 9 most days and lately 10 for Spencer. We have other problems. I count that little thing a blessing. However, I've been getting up at 6:30 or 7 for the last few weeks in order to get my work in before they wake up. It makes the rest of my day infinitely better to be done before they enter the scene for the day.  I've had this idea that if I get my workout done before they wake up, that will make my day much better too, but in practice it hasn't happened much yet.  But it did today!

So I ran the incredible distance of 1.4 miles today.  It felt good. It was freezing. 36 degrees feels a lot colder here than in Utah or Colorado.  I felt like I was drinking the air, which was quite pleasant actually. I don't think I'm going to have a problem with dry mouth running on this side of the country.  I can get used to that. I left at 6AM. So if I want to run with my friends, which I do, I have to be able to get down to Clemson by 5:30 and actually be able to run their "easy" 4-6 miles.  There was a time in my life where that really was easy.  What? Run a quick 25 minutes? Sure! That's nothing. An hour? That's a standard, decent workout. I'm pretty sure when I had thoughts like that I was also training for said race in the picture, and getting awesome tan lines like this while running it.

But for now I'll be happy with my 1.4 miles that wasn't that easy, but felt good. I'll work towards those 4 miles that feel like a lot now.  I'll build up to actually running 4 miles in 30 minutes like I used to be able to do, so I can run with my friends. And I'll try to get up a bit earlier. And hopefully I'll get back to that point of feeling joyful and wanting to run down the hall yelling, "running!"

Another look at food

Bill and I have created a beast, and his name is Spencer.  He is delightful in most every way, as long as we're not talking about eating. I readily admit that we probably could have done a better job introducing him to new foods and things from the get go, but hey, he's our first child and we have no idea what we're doing.

That being said, I'm not stressed about this so much as just ready to try a new tactic to try to get Spencer eating like a normal child.  His current diet consists of french toast and pancakes.  He was sick all last week, which has some impact, but that's all he is eating for now, three meals a day.  It seems like a good time to try new ways of doing things around here.

So I'm looking for advice from all my mom friends and anyone who might have a good idea out there.  And this isn't advice like try to feed him new items 10 times and after trying it 10 times he might like it. See, he never tries anything, and if you've ever tried to feed a toddler you will understand when I say that he cannot be forced to eat anything he doesn't want to.  So I need new ideas.  How do I get him to try new things and expand his palate? I gave him probably 10 different interesting tidbits of things from our fridge tonight and not a single one went into this mouth, so exposure alone isn't the answer. He had a great time making table art with it all. :)

How do you tempt your toddlers to eat? He will not try something just because he's hungry either. He will just get steadily more and more unhappy and cry and cry and still not eat anything unless it appeals to him, which generally involves it having chocolate in it.  So help a friend out and let me know what you have tried and what might work. Oh, one other thing.  He's not really old enough quite yet to understand try a bite of this and you'll get a bite of something else you like.  He just doesn't like anything well enough to use that tactic yet, and he's still just a tad young to understand the logic, or so it seems. He just turned two a few weeks ago.

Thanks!