Christmas Day 2009

Asher had a wonderful Christmas, he had no idea it was Christmas, but I still think he had some fun. He was a little more into opening the presents, he actually tried to tear off some of the wrapping paper. Actually he was only interested in trying to open the first present, the other two he never really noticed.

Asher got three gifts this year, but he has only gotten to play with one so far. The other two are staying in their packaging until we get to Bangkok (in 34 days). We got out his new truck for him to play with and he loved it.

He spent most of the day driving his truck around the house saying "car" and making lots of car noises.

His other two gifts were some wooden blocks and a bead roller coaster. Thank you IKEA, I did all of Asher's Christmas shopping in about 5 minutes.

Of course one of the best parts of Christmas was getting to see Mimi and Uncle Mel. They came to Vancouver for a week to see Asher before we move to Bangkok.

What Asher Did Yesterday

Here's a preview of how Asher spent yesterday.

Into Everything

These days Asher is into everything. On this particular day he was way into a box of corn flakes that someone had left sitting on the floor.

Asher is also into hiding things. Recently I have found a cup of milk in my shirt drawer, a wooden donkey in the kitchen cabinet and on this particular day Roger found a cell phone and a sheep inside the corn flake box.

Red Shoes

Once upon a time in a faraway land called Bangkok there was a young, handsome man exploring the shops in a rather large mall. This young handsome man came across a pair of red shoes and decided he must have them.

Soon after this young, handsome man became a father to a very handsome little boy and a year later when the little boy learned how to walk he got a pair of red shoes just like his daddy.

Asher, It's Cold Outside

After almost a month of rain we have had almost 2 weeks for sunny days. Vancouver is a beautiful city when it's not raining, there are snow-capped mountains all around us and even in December the grass is still green. Since it hasn't been raining I wanted to take Asher to the park to play. Although it's not raining it is still cold (after all it's December in Canada), so Asher has to bundle up before we go out.

He started out running around in his diaper while I chased him and tried to put clothes on him.

The first layer is his Christmas outfit from Aunt Beth.

Next comes his shirt and blue jeans.

Add on the coat, mittens and froggy hat.

Into the stroller and zip up the Asher bag, ready to walk to the park.

As always we had a great time at the park and we even had a project: collecting pine cones and branches to decorate the house with for Christmas. If you want to see the finished project check out our Journal (www.rogerandcourtney.blogspot.com).

Boys in Chairs

Asher has developed a love for sitting in chairs. I think it all started at school where he gets to sit in a chair to eat his snack and do crafts.

We have been wanting to get a little chair for Asher, but kept putting it off because we knew we would have to leave it behind when we left. But our neighbors saw how much Asher loved their daughter's chair and they went and bought him one. We were blown away by their thoughtfulness and Asher is blown away by having his very own chair.

Asher also loves the chairs at the library.

He prefers to sit at the kids table and read books, but when he gets bored there he likes to go sit in the bigger chairs by the big kids books. From there he has a better view of what all goes on in the library.

And for your enjoyment, a self portrait of me and Asher.

Playground Pictures

When it's sunny outside Asher gets to go to the playground while Roger and I are in class. Our friend Amanda took these pictures of him at the playground (wearing his new hat).

The Swing

The Monkey Bars

Riding the Car

The Slide

The Balance Beam

Asher says Hello and Gets a New Hat

Asher has recently picked up a new word and he sounds so cute when he says it. Here is a video of his sweet little voice saying, "Hello!"

I was downtown shopping recently and found a new hat for Asher. He had been refusing to wear hats since last spring, but I was determined to get him to wear one when it was really cold outside. The first few days he would only tolerate the hat for a few minutes at a time. Then one day morning he brought it over to me and let me put it on his head. We immediately took him outside to take pictures of him and his froggy hat.

Asher and his froggy hat.

Serious Asher.

Asher, cheesin' for the camera.

The curl is still there, poking out from under his hat.

Maplewood Farm

On one of the rare sunny days we have had Asher and I headed off to Maplewood Farm to see some animals. I didn't think Asher would really get it or have fun, but he proved me wrong. He quacked at the ducks, chased some birds and petted a few goats. Here are some pictures from the day.

The morning commuter nap. Asher was all warm and snuggly in his stroller, he stayed awake for the whole train ride, but fell asleep as soon as we got on the first bus.

Asher loves to quack like a duck and evidently he also likes to chase the ducks. He would get scared when they would start to chase him back.

After a while he got tired from all the running and petting and quacking, he took a quick rest in the sling and was ready to go again.

One of my favorite parts of the day was going into the goat pen. All of the goats were walking around and all of the toddlers were petting/hitting/harassing the animals. Luckily the animals were very good natured.

Asher was calm at first, but once he got excited the goats were in trouble.

Finally, we were back on the bus heading for home and he was out. He slept the whole way home.

Boys Day In - a rare posting by daddy

It's a closely guarded secret what us men do when we've got the castle to ourselves. But on this rare occasion, we've decided to draw the curtain back a bit and reveal what happens when Mommy leaves us home alone...but just a little bit, we're not about to let the world know all of the happenings of the Secret Society of Hampton Men's Club (that would be most atrocious).

I managed to rig the camera to take pictures at random times throughout the day to give you a glimpse of what happens when we're holding down the fort. Warning: you may want to stop reading this post, you may become extremely jealous that you are not a Hampton man and are not privy to this secret society.

The day started on a skytrain ride to downtown Vancouver. The whole family was together, and unbeknownst to Mommy -- Asher and Daddy jumped off the train, went back to the apartment, and had a fun filled day of being men!

Setting the camera up in a good spot

Sometimes men just gotta hug

All this playing around requires a drink of water

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

Boys like to wrastle

So that's what he does when no one is looking.

Nap Time!

It has been a long day, but a fun day. There are lots of other pictures that were taken to chronicle the day; far too many to post on here. Not that we'd even agree to post all the pictures (as stated before, Privacy is something that is highly valued in the Secret Society of Hampton Men's Club). We hope that Momma had a fun day downtown while us boys were at the club having a great time of our own.

Muffin Man

I made some wonderful pumpkin muffins last week, Asher loved them. He ate one for a snack and another for breakfast the next morning. Later in the week I made another batch of muffins to share with all of our training friends. I put the muffins up on the kitchen table to cool while I finished making the icing.

Asher had been playing in the living room and I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing. A few minutes passed and suddenly Asher strolled into the kitchen stuffing a pumpkin muffin into his mouth.

Evidently he had stood on his tip toes, pulled the muffins to the edge of the table and then taken one for himself.

Ha ha ha! After all of that effort I didn't feel like I could take the muffin for him so I just gave him a glass of milk, put him in his high chair and called it dinner.

Snapshots