Been A While?

I'm not sure 'Been a While' is sufficient language when my last post was the first quarter of last year! I think of posts all the time, but always find something else to occupy my time. Because I was hoping this blog would serve as a family diary, marking the days that make up the journey God has us on,  this post could become a little on the ridiculously long side ; )


Asher, or Little Dooks as we call him,  has more than caught up since he was born premature. At his 15 month appointment he weighed in at 23 lbs so we signed him for lightweight boxing. He is B-U-S-Y all day long unless he is sleeping and has gotten really good at emptying every cabinet and every drawer within seconds of being put down. Seriously, our house looks like many small tornadoes came through on a daily basis. He loves Tennyson so much....They share a room and we typically put Asher to bed before Tennyson but Asher patiently waits for Tennyson to come to bed. He will stay up an hour to an hour and a half playing in his bed and then Tennyson will come to bed and Asher is out like a light within minutes. I love that they have each other. He's super close to walking and I think the fact that he hardly ever wears shoes may be one of the reasons he hasn't yet, but I can't find shoes to fit his fat little foot. He says Dada, ma (mama), tin tin, ut (light), no and although I know for sure he says more than this....we can't interpret it yet.  He loves music...especially the piano and his body starts moving almost every time any sort of beat occurs. I call him my little love bug because he loves to love on people (kissing, leaning his head on, squeezing tight, etc), however, his quick temper is certainly emerging and last but not least I've noticed he does most everything with gusto (crawling, loving, playing, coming down stairs, squealing, playing with the big kids, etc)

Tennyson, or Mr. Chlazy as we call him, just turned 5 and is in his 2nd semester of his first year of school. He has done super with school....Mrs. James is his teacher and he frequently talks about playing with Jason, Michael Robert Black and Isaiah. We have gotten 2 progress reports that have both talked about how well he listens, how he often offers to pray, how much he cares and looks out for his classmates and how well he's progressing academically. The things to work on have been: tattle telling often, questioning the teachers decisions and taking a really long time to accomplish certain things like bathroom and snacks. He does like to do things leisurely so I chuckled inside when the teacher told us this because I knew exactly what she was talking about. The boys and I always seems to be 'running' somewhere which has not proven conducive to his leisurely lifestyle ; ) He went through a Tom and Jerry phase and now he loves to watch superhero clips from the 1960's. He loves to play with his men (batman, spiderman, green lantern, the riddler, penguin, two face, captain america, joker, army men, transformers, etc) and the true initiation of a new toy is taking a bath with Tennyson and the others.  Speaking of baths, Tennyson loves a good bath and will often spend 2 hours in the bathtub playing. He also loves writing, playing with his batman house or samurai castle, reading or looking at scientific books (bugs and sharks in particular) and playing with legos. I've always said Tennyson was an old soul in a little body and it's proven to be true. He understands a lot about life, recognizes maybe too much, and knows how to articulate emotions. He often asks for the definition of a word and can accurately use bigger words in a sentence. He's also getting into politics often using the phrase, "Hi, I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."




Other highlights since my last post: We moved out of my in-laws home (the highlight was gaining a space of our own...not moving out of my in-laws : )), Tennyson took swimming lessons and participated in Soccer Shots, Oscar and I celebrated 10 years of marriage, Oscar started working at a new company (he's still leading worship at Columbia Crossroads Downtown and waiting tables at Ruth's Chris on Friday and Saturday nights), my brother moved out into a house of his own (again...him moving out was not the highlight but that he was able to get a place of his own ; )) and became engaged to Allison (such a great gain for our family), our nephew Gresham was born, I participated in my first precept course (Isaiah), we got some egg-laying hens, we purchased a couple of hermit crabs as the boys very first pets and then decided to release them back into the ocean a few months later, and the boys and I started volunteering at The Hope Project on Tuesdays. This list is definitely not inclusive but the ridiculousness that I referenced at the beginning of the post has begun so until next time,