27 Weeks

The strangest thing that happened to me yesterday:

I was at school and another student walked up to me and asked me a question. Given that my first language is English and her's is Korean our conversations tend to take place in Thai. Meaning that yes, we have talked before.

So, she asked me something that to me sounded like, "blah blah blah blah blah married blah blah kha?" I didn't quite follow what she was asking, so she asked again. I still didn't get it, so I did what any seasoned language learner would do. I said, "ok." She looked stunned. I figured that I must have done something wrong. Then she asked me one more time. This time I understood.

Her question...
"Are you planning on marrying the father of the baby before the baby is born?"

My answer...
"Ummm, I am married. To the father. For five years. I have a two year old. Thankyouverymuch."

(I told Roger this story later and he asked if she looked super embarrassed at this point. I said that she didn't look nearly as embarrassed as she should have.)

Anyway, back to the conversation. Several of our teachers are now watching this. They all know me and Roger and Asher. And they are all trying not to laugh. The lady continues with her comments on me and my pregnancy and lets me know that she was only asking because I looked too young to be married and she was concerned about the baby. So she just assumed I was an unwed teenage soon-to-be mother studying Thai full time at a language school for missionaries. Because, really that happens a lot around here.

And with that I give you the belly at 27 weeks.

Exploring with Asher

Last Saturday morning our friends Num and Apple showed up at our house and announced that we were going out for the day. They have a car and this, of course, made Asher very excited about the trip. We didn't really know where we were going or how long we would be gone, so we grabbed our stuff and jumped into their car.


After driving for a long time and realizing we were still in Bangkok we ended up at a giant Chinese temple. We all took off our shoes and went exploring.


Asher found Lion Statues everywhere. There are a few near our house and he gets so excited when we drive by them. He was beyond thrilled to get to see so many of them in person.


Asher smiling in front of a garden.


Asher had fun playing with Num and Apple all day.

After exploring the temple for a while we loaded back up and went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. We have now added Vietnamese food to the ever growing list of things that Asher loves to eat.

Roger and I sort of thought we were heading home at this point. After all it was nap time and we pretty much plan our entire lives around Asher being at home around 1 pm each day. We were far from done.

Our next stop was Ko Kret, an island full of pottery villages just outside of the city. We got to ride a boat, which Asher loved, and there was lots of food to eat, which Asher also loved. We didn't take many pictures, but just picture a 2 year old boy eating lots of strange things. Roger and I were just happy to watch Num and Apple tote Asher around and feed him strange Thai snacks.


Asher just kept on going, even without a nap, and never once got tired of exploring the island and talking about the boats.


After all that we headed back home and put a very sleepy Asher to bed early.

Celebrating Asher's Birthday

We had so much fun celebrating Asher's birthday this year. We decided to go ahead and just celebrate the day before since it was a Sunday, so we started off the day with a little party with his church friends.


We took some Dunkin' Donuts and let Asher share them with all of his friends. He had so much fun going around to everybody and giving them a doughnut hole. They all sang Happy Birthday to him (just a random fact: there is no Thai birthday song, they just sing in English) and he clapped really big when they finished.


Since we had a few doughnut holes left over we found one of our friends (who just happens to be named Friend) and shared some doughnuts with her family. Asher was pretty much over the whole birthday thing by this point, he just wanted to go home and take a nap.


Sunday night we invited several of Asher's Aunts and Uncles over for pizza and cupcakes. He had fun playing and running around with a house full of people.


Asher loved eating his pizza off of his Lightning McQueen plate.


We lit some candles (somebody, Roger, accidentally bought trick candles) and Asher tried for a long time to blow them out. He actually managed to blow them out 2 or 3 times. Finally we had to put them in a bowl of water.



Then it was time for the cupcakes.


Asher was really not into getting his hands dirty, so he just stuck his face right into the icing. I don't think he ever made it past the icing.


Asher got some pretty great presents from everyone, but his favorite was the little tricycle that Roger and I got him. I guess I should have not rolled that out first. He pretty much just sat on it and refused to move. I opened his presents and he just sat on the bike looking confused.


It was even more fun to celebrate Asher's birthday this year since he sort of had an idea that something big was going on. I still don't think he quite got it, but he still loved all of the singing, the cupcakes and the presents.

Happy Birthday Asher!

My two year old is worn out after celebrating his birthday twice yesterday. He played hard, ate a lot of junk and got some cool new toys.

Asher at The Little Gym

Every week Asher and I spend a morning at The Little Gym. It's a mommy and me gym class that we take with his friend Prim. Of course Prim (and most of the other kiddos) come with their nannies, but Asher gets to hang out with his mom.

Here's some highlights from this week's class.


Asher's favorite thing about The Little Gym...Bubble Time!


My self-absorbed almost two year old loves that there is a whole wall of mirrors so that he can watch himself.


Asher's second favorite thing about The Little Gym...Balls! Sometimes they want the kids to kick the balls instead of throw them. You know, like soccer. Although Asher hates cheese he is American enough to know that balls are for throwing. Leave the kicking to the other kids.


Check out Asher on the high bar, his current favorite piece of gym equipment. He has recently learned to climb onto a high mat and then sort of jump/fall and grab the bar. He swings until he can't hold it any longer and then loves falling onto the mat.


Asher rockin' the balance beam.

And now for the grandmother's...another Asher video.

My Baby Wish List - Update

Yesterday morning I woke up to a wonderful email from the VERY generous folks at Cotton Babies:

Dear Roger & Courtney,
Your family has been approved to receive a Diaper Grant from Cotton Babies.
Your package will include:

* 15 bumGenius One-Size diapers (3 white, 4 butternut, 4 twilight, 4 grasshopper)
* 2 packages of Cotton Babies flannel wipes
* 2 extra one-size inserts
* 1 XL Bummis Tote (purple)
* 1 S Bummis Tote (red)
* 1 bottle bum Genius! Bottom Cleaner

Praise the Lord! I was blown away by this company's generosity. When I applied for the grant I was thinking I would just get a few diapers, but instead they are setting us up so that we can easily cloth diaper this new baby boy.

I also got an awesome deal on a travel swing on Ebay. It is currently sitting at Mimi's house waiting to be packed up and brought to us when she comes to visit this new little guy.

And to top it all off Mimi went by one of our favorite consignment shops to find that all of the summer clothes were $1 each. She loaded up on newborn and 3-6 month clothes. Asher and I spent a long time on skype last week checking out her purchases. The newborn clothes are actually already here in Bangkok (they came in a box with Asher's birthday presents) and the rest of the clothes will come with Mimi in January.

I am getting so excited about this new little guy joining our family and watching the Lord provide for our family.

And of course I am always excited about spending my days with this big guy!


He will be two next week. I can't believe it!

What a Poser and Updates

I've been trying to interest Asher is something other than playing cars, watching Cars (the movie), going outside to wash our car, going to the mall to ride in the cars or going for a ride in a car. My latest venture is the world of coloring. Of course in order to interest him I did get a Cars coloring book. Oh well, he's a boy and his life revolves around transportation.

I grabbed the camera while he was coloring the other day and tried to capture a few candid shots of the young artist at work.


I only got one shot before he started posing for me. Where did he learn to do that?!?!?


Asher's favorite part of coloring is dumping all of the crayons on the floor....


...so he can pick them up again. What a funny kid!



In other Asher news....

He has now started saying little two word sentences although they are pretty funny and mostly involve discussing his cars. Current favorites are:
Pool Quack - The ducks are in a pool.
Light Car, Light Truck, Light Taxi - Referring to headlights. I love that he's evidently picked up a bit of Thai grammar and puts the adjective before the noun.

We spent most of the morning at the hospital today because Asher has been sick for the past few days. Turns out he has RSV. He had a blast playing at the indoor playground while we waited to see the doctor and he had all of the nurses singing to him during his nebulizer treatment. I was letting him watching the Chaang (elephant) song on my phone and when they realized he was watching a Thai video they all started singing the song to him. I really like our doctor here in Bangkok, in fact he may be one of my favorite pediatricians that Asher has had (I think we've had 4 so far, one in each country).

In non-Asher news:
Roger and I recently did our first language evaluation and both received excellent scores. Our supervisor thinks that Roger can be done with full-time language study in the next two months. This might not sound like a big deal, but this means Roger will complete this part of his studying in only 9 or 10 months. They expect most people to reach this level in 18 months. Way to go! I'm just a little ways behind Roger and have a glimmer of hope that I may finish before the baby arrives.