I love to walk!!!!

Asher is definitely at the stage where he would rather walk to where he wants to go instead of crawling!! It is really fun to experience and watch him as he is doing this. Of course he falls on his knees and butt and makes us cringe a little because we know that he will have to have an infusion from time to time, but that is life with a child with hemophilia. Now, he is not walking all the time, but I would consider him walking. He is getting pretty good at walking. He will take a few steps and then stop, and take a few more steps . He has really good balance while he is walking.

One thing he absolutely loves to do now is walk towards Bailey's pillow and plop down on it. He thinks this is the best thing to do and laughs as he is doing it! He loves Bailey's pillow or anything soft to lay on. Anyway, he is having fun experiencing this stage of his live and so are we!

Splish Splash, I was taking a bath!

Asher sure does love bathtime! In fact, when we say, 'should we get a bath?' he says 'ba'! it is really cool to see and hear! After he says, ba he crawls for the gate on his wall and then after we open it, he crawls as fast as he can towards the stairs. And, of course, he is laughing and having at the same time.

Since he loves his bathtime so much, we decided to take some pics of him having fun. Julie spiked his hair and we got some pics of him with spiked hair. Also, I got some pics of him splashing and having fun! Enjoy!

No more milk bottle

Last night was the first night that we did not give Asher a bottle of milk before he goes down for bed. He could tell that something was different because it was out of his routine. We weren't sure how the night was going to go. When Julie put him down in his crib, he watched her leave his room and then started screaming, which he hardly ever does. But eventually he calmed himself down and put himself to sleep. He even slept through the night without having his milk before going to bed. We are so proud of him!! Way to go AsherMan!!!

Moooooooo

As you read earlier, Asher can do what a snake says. So a few days ago we were playing with Asher. He and I were playing with his guitar, which also makes animal noises. I made the guitar play the 'moo' sound. After I did this a few times in a row, Asher started to mimic the noise. So now we can say, what's a cow say? and he will say 'ooooo'. It is funny! We captured this video of him saying 'oooooo' and doing the snake. Enjoy!

What's a snake say?

We have been trying to teach Asher sounds by saying what does a snake say? It is absolutely hilarious what he does when we ask him that question. What Asher does is he sticks his tongue in and out fast! And he loves to do it when we ask him. It took us awhile to finally get it on video and here it is. It is not the greatest video, but you can see him doing it. Enjoy!

Droopy Drawers

Since Asher has been walking around the furniture for 6 months or so, sometimes he steps on his pants. Or in this case, a lot!! Julie snapped some pics of Asher and him having some problems keeping his pants up!

Enjoy and laugh!!

More

Asher is seriously eating us out of house!!! Every time we eat a meal together he can not get enough to eat! He just keeps eating and eating and eating! Is this normal? It sure must be. The cool thing about this is that he is learning how to sign "more". Tonight we were in Des Moines and when we were eating he would sign "more" and we would give him more french fries. It was really cool! He already knows the sign for milk, so next up might be "please".

Tortillas

The past few days we have had some extra tortillas around from various meals we have had. So we decided to give Asher some to see what he thought. Yeah, he really likes them! He eats them like they are going out of style! In fact, tonight he ate 1/2 of a large tortilla plus his fruits and vegetables. He is just like his mother!

Big boy sippy cup!

We switched Asher over to a big boy sippy cup on Monday because he was having a hard time getting the milk out of his other sippy cup. He was still on stage 1 for sippy cups and we moved him to stage 3 since he needed to and we also wanted to see if he could get more milk without choking on it.

Here are some pics of him with his big boy sippy cup.

More steps!

Asher took more steps this past weekend! Julie and I were playing with him on the floor this weekend and we kept getting farther apart so Asher would have to walk farther. I was able to capture this video of him walking to Julie. He is getting close, but we are not pushing him to walk! Someday soon enough, he will be walking/running all over the place.

Annual Clinic visit

Today, Asher had his annual hemophilia clinic visit at Iowa City. It went really well and he did really well despite not being able to take a morning nap. We traveled over there yesterday because our appointment was early this morning. Asher did not sleep well at all last night and he did not take an afternoon nap yesterday, either. So we really did not know how he was going to be today at his clinic visit. He did really well despite not being able to play on the floor and only being able to sit on the table or with us. We got some really good information, especially on prophylaxsis treatment (prophy). We think that someday Asher will be on prophy (regular treatment schedule), but not sure when.

The only hiccup for the day was when they did the blood draw. We had to wait awhile for the lab to be available and then after they did his blood draw the cap fell off the tube and went all over! So, Asher had to get another blood draw and the second time went better! The first time the blood took forever to come out and the second time it came out faster.

Julie and I really like the treatment center at Iowa City. Karla and Tammy are great! It was so nice to see them again and gain some more valuable info.

Some funny pics

Here are some funny pics of Asher in the past few weeks!

Enjoy!

New furniture

A little over a week ago, Julie and I went to Homakers in Des Moines to start to look at furniture. We decided that we wanted to get a sofa and rocker recliner to replace our furniture in the family room. Within about 10 minutes at Homakers, we found something we liked! The nice thing about our new furniture is that both pieces are La-Z-Boy furniture and they both recline.

Above, Julie and Asher in our new reclining sofa. We really like the sofa and so does Asher!



Here is our rocker, recliner. As you can see they are not in the same set, but we thought the contrast was neat and would work in our room.


And we got some end tables. We never had end tables before and thought it would be a good idea to get some along with our furniture.

Whole Milk!

Asher has been off of formula for about a week now! We officially switched him to whole milk last Tuesday. So, does he like whole milk? Lets just say that he is definitely my son!! Yes, he definitely loves his milk!!



Above is a picture of him drinking whole milk from his sippy cup. The thing with this picture is that we don't actually use this sippy cup anymore because the milk comes out to fast and gets all over him.


See what I mean?


Below is a picture of him with his sippy cup being a big boy!!

Taking Steps!!!!

Asher is starting to be more brave and more independent. And since he is becoming more brave and independent, he is wanting to take more steps. He has started doing this since Wednesday. He has gotten better every day. Today, I think he took about 5-6 steps on his own. He is getting very close to walking. At this rate, he should be walking around Easter. Although, we aren't going to push him. He will be walking when he wants to. I captured this video on Wednesday of him taking two steps. I will probably upload more videos of him walking as he continues to take more steps! Enjoy!

Asher's 1st Birthday - Family

We celebrated Asher's 1st Birthday with our families this past weekend. And we had a housefull of about 17 people! Asher had tons of fun even though he had to have factor that morning. Julie again baked the cakes and cupcakes. She is awesome! Here is a picture of the cakes/cupcakes.



Asher got tons of gifts! One of his favorite toys that he got was a musical guitar from his Uncle Brian. His new thing now is that he bobs his head up and down when he hears music! It is absolutely hillarious! He also got tons of books! Asher loves books! We are very excited that he loves books and we hope that he will continue to love books. We got him a set of 4 Sandra Boynton books! He loves her books and so do we.

Here are some more pictures of his birthday party.

Asher's 1st Birthday - Friends

We celebrated Asher's 1st Birthday on his birthday, Feb. 24, with our friends. Let's just say it was an interesting night! You know things aren't going to go well when you spray punch all over your kitchen/family room. Also, Asher was not feeling very well and was running a fever.

We only had half our friends show up as one family was sick, the other was at the hospital welcoming their new daughter! So there were only about 7 of us at the party and we had lots of food and cake! Speaking of the cake, Julie is an awesome cake baker! She baked all the cakes and she decorated the cakes! She had an awesome time doing it as well. Here are some pictures of the wonderful cakes she made.





As you can see the cakes looked awesome! Julie did such a wonderful job with the cakes. Who knows, maybe she will actually start a side business.

So we put a cupcake in front of Asher and sang him Happy Birthday! We then wanted to see what he would do with it. He didn't seem interested in eating it and eventually we found out why. After he looked at it for a few minutes, he threw up all over it and over himself. It was disgusting!

Walking Behind

Wow, it has been over a month since I have updated the blog. A lot has happened since the last time I updated anything. For example, Asher has been walking behind things for about a month. He has so much fun walking behind things, especially his truck. I have a video that Julie took of him walking behind his truck. He is having so much fun! Enjoy.

Hannah Montana, are you kidding?

Yes, you read that right. I am actually writing a blog about Asher and Hannah Montana. You are probably asking why. Or you are asking yourself, who is Hannah Montana? Well... it is Asher's favorite show. Yes, his favorite show! I can't believe I am going to write this, but we actually really like the show! Oh well.

Anyway, when Asher is playing and the Hannah Montana theme song comes on, Asher stops what he is doing, looks at the tv and starts clapping and gets excited! It is absolutely hillarious! I remember the first time he did it, Julie and I couldn't stop laughing! Well, we actually caught a video of him clapping. Enjoy and laugh!!

French Fries

Is Asher just like his mommy or what?! I came home late tonight because of a meeting after work and I really had no idea what time I would be home, so I stopped by Burger King and grabbed some food before I headed home. Of course we got a sandwich and fries! So what do you think we did? Yes, we gave a few fries to Asher! And.... He loves 'em!!! Wow does he love fries! He ate like 3 fries and wanted more! He is just like his mommy, loves french fries!!

Next week will be exiting as we will be giving him cake on his 1st Birthday!! Can't wait!!