Putting him to work

Usually when someone needs to vacuum the house, Asher goes outside or hides in his room because he doesn't like the noise the vacuum makes. Of course, we have long believed that Asher's issue with loud noises is not the noise itself but the fact that he's not in control of loudspeakers in the grocery store or other people flushing the toilets at Target or all those other noises he dislikes. Well, in the category of evidence for that theory, yesterday Rachel vacuumed the house. For most of the task, Ash went outside to jump on the trampoline and then came in and played in his room. Finally when he asked if she was done she said she just needed to do the living room unless he wanted to do it. And he jumped right on it. She said he was very intent and also had a great time! And when she called to tell me (actually he called to tell me but it was a little hard to understand him), she was excited to say that she even managed to take pictures.



Asher (with Rachel's help) also made some pumpkin scones yesterday. Aren't the beautiful?

Weekend

We had a good but busy weekend this weekend. The pictures in the two earlier posts were sent from my phone while we hiked at Walnut Creek on Sunday morning. I wore Chiara and Asher hiked almost the entire way, doing a really good job of moving to the side to get out of the way of the tons of bikes at the park. I don't have a lot of pictures from the weekend but here are some cute once of Chiara.

Chiara - Hands and Knees

Rachel, Chiara, and Asher snuggling on the couch. Asher is sleeping and Chiara is poking him to wake him up:


This is a teething face:


A flirty/charming face:


And a little girl demonstrating how quickly she is growing up by getting up on her hands and knees:

What's up?

Anyone who reads off the reader immediately is probably wondering why I posted pictures with no text. Sorry. I'm editing it now.

And here we go. We had a good weekend including a trip to the farmer's market, playing a lot, Rachel getting a good nap while I wore Chiara in the sling for her nap, a trip to target, and a good visit from LD & Joey. Unfortunately Rachel and Chiara are still having allergies and teething respectively. And Ash got sick last night but seems mostly better today.

Here are the kids playing music cube together:



And here's Rachel on her new Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS! She's been wanting it for months and finally got it.


Ash and Chiara playing with the old musical Elephant toy.

And here's a picture of Asher in his pink kitty-cat boots asleep. Of course the picture seemed cuter before it hit us that every single time he falls asleep in the middle of the day or in the middle of doing something, he's got a fever and is sick. Yep, 102. He slept some, woke up and had a Popsicle and jello, then talked to me about states until after midnight. Today he's a little fevery but mostly better.

Smiling and trying to clap.

You know, it gets hard to title these posts. How many posts can I reasonably title "cute pics" or "how cute" or whatever? I'm not saying I'm going to change anything, but I can feel the sympathy rolling in.

Nonetheless and in spite of teething quite miserably, Chiara has still been adorable all week. She's working on clapping and by working on, I mean watching and then waving her hands near each other as she does. She does high five so it's a little like clapping, right? Only clapping with someone else. Anyway, these pictures were from when I was trying to catch her trying to clap but the ones where her hands are near each other look rotten and the ones where she looks cute don't show her hands doing anything interesting.



I should also admit before we go much further that I'm starting to suspect that she has some Beaver blood. Anytime she sits in a high chair, she leans forward and starts to chew on the table. Our table at home has bite marks all up one side. I just hope this doesn't limit her college choices to Oregon State, California Institute of Technology, or Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not that those aren't all fine colleges but we'd like a few more choices.

And no, we have not contacted Fisher Price to determine if the farm cart from the Little People farm is safe for chewing.


Finally, here is a shot of Asher in his dragon towel. You know how sometimes you need your child to run and run and run without you actually needing to leave the house (as in cooking dinner)? We have some running and running and running in the house games we play like run Christie numbers to the front door (magnetic numbers, metal front door), running calendar pieces to the front door, running various magnets back from the front door. Well the other night before dinner, Rachel, Chiara, and Asher took a bath. He got out and put on his dragon towel and had a ton of energy. So I suggested that being a dragon, he might want to make sure no knights were attempting to enter our castle through the door. He happily did and we suggested possible points of entry for another 20 minutes while he ran, checked on knights, and returned with a report. Obviously this picture was taken later (while watching Backyardigans).

Ball

Well, Rachel says that Chiara crawled a step (or whatever you call crawling movement). I know she scootches very well and she's a champion roller. So the other day she was all with the crawling and Rachel decided to tape it. No crawling to be seen but 35 seconds into a 2 minute tape (this is only the relevant 18 seconds), she did say "ball." Take a listen.

Weekend pictures

Happy July 4th to everyone even though it's not the 4th anymore. I hope everyone had a safe and exciting day or weekend. We enjoyed our weekend very much. It included a visit from Deborah, Katie, and Zach. We also went over to LD & Joey's 10th Anniversary/July 4th party and had a great time.

Asher really enjoyed playing with or snuggling Zach:


He also stole my hat off my head and walked around with it on saying that it was his hat (causing some trash talk from Katie...)



Zach enjoyed snuggling with Lucy:


and jumping on the trampoline:


Chiara enjoyed looking cute and modeling some new clothes from Nana Ina:


Asher also declared for the first time that he wanted to eat his corn from the cob and did a great job of it:



And this one is from the other day. Asher was playing with his doll, "Doll" (yes, that's his name), and declared that Doll was upset and crying and needed to nurse so Asher nursed him. Well done, Ash!

Your Arm is a Map of the World is a Map of the World

We took Chiara to her six month doctor's visit today. We waited in the waiting room (appropriate, huh?) for longer than usual while I sat and paced and obsessed over how incredibly crookedly their bill of patient rights and posters about babies needing tummy time and other decorations were. Then the nurse came to the door and called "Sierra" and I sat there while Rachel looked around and said, "That's us!" Wow. I'm glad she got it because I'd still be sitting there in the waiting room. Guess that serves us right though for the whole unusual name choice.

Everything was perfectly fine of course. Chiara is doing everything they asked about except eating any food and she was happy and all that. Right up until the vaccines but that's pretty reasonable. Then we headed to get something to eat and ended up at Trudy's. So one of the servers went by with a tray on his arm and we spotted his tattoo. Knowing how much Ash would have wanted to see it, I flagged him down (with a very cool, "hey, Dude!") and asked to take a picture. He of course said sure and peeled back his shirt. He did point out that its missing Sri Lanka and Madagascar which Asher will certainly notice as well. So thanks to Bryan for letting us take a picture. His arm is a map of the world is a map of the world.