Choo, Choo, Asher is 2

During our Thanksgiving visit in Utah we celebrated Asher 2nd birthday with the fam.  I made him a choo choo train birthday cake since trains are currently his favorite thing.  We all met up at Cowboy Grub for dinner followed by cake and presents.  Yay for 2!

Things Asher likes at age 2:

Trains, trains, trains, oh and trains
Buses, cars, planes, helicopters (basically any moving vehicle)
Jumping/wrestling with mom and dad on their bed
Hiding under blankets and making mom or dad "find" him
Building forts with dad
Chasing mom and dad around the house
Reading books
coloring
hats and shoes

Train with tracks

Thomas the Train book and miniature trains

Giving his new puppy a hug

I think the train from his cake was his favorite toy



Thanksgiving 2011

   We had a great time visiting family in Utah again this past year for Thanksgiving.  Asher's favorite things were the ride on train at Grandma Mar's house and playing with Kiley.  He had a great time visiting the new Natural History Museum with the Cutler side of the family and seeing all of the dinosaur bones too.  My favorite part of the visit was when we tried to get him to walk across the glass floor that had dinosaur bones beneath it.  I wish I had a video of it but basically, we were holding hands and as we started to step onto the glass floor, he just lifted his feet up and refused to put them back down!  He didn't understand that there was still a floor beneath him and assumed that if he took another step he'd fall into the pit.  Hilarious moment.  Thanksgiving day was spent with the Cutler's, enjoying turkey and all of the trimmings.  It was a great visit!

Asher loved the train

Asher and Kiley having fun

 Grandpa Paul teaching Asher to dribble the ball.

Natural History Museum with the Cutler's

Looking thru the telescope at "friend" Sarah (aka Aunt Sarah)

Feeding Grandpa Cutler

Rockin' his cool shades



Pumpkin Patch 2011

Halloween Weekend 2011

It seems like we had a bunch of Halloween activities this year.  First up was the Halloween party at Novozymes (where I work).  There was pizza for everyone and a haunted house.  One of my co-workers also brought bunnies and a rooster from her farm for the kids to pet which Asher loved.  Although, I frequently had to remind him to pet them gently and not whack them to death! 

Next was a weekend trip to Berkeley where we went with friends to a Halloween parade on Piedmont Ave.  It wasn't the typical parade with floats and performers, this was a kids parade where all of the kids got to parade down the street in their costumes.  It was pretty fun!  After the parade we trick or treated from shop to shop up and down the street.  At the end of the street they had a huge pumpkin patch where we got a free pumpkin and hotdogs for lunch.  We had a great time!

The final activity was acutally Halloween night.  Riley and I took turns walking Asher around the neighborhood to trick or treat.  He seemed to enjoy getting candy handed to him at every house but was a little bit shy about saying trick or treat.  Riley took him to a nearby house that sets up a huge haunted house and he said that Asher didn't seem scared at all.  The lady of the house was surprised that Asher was so brave :)  It was a fun-filled weekend!

Inside the haunted house, wide-eyed!

Parading down Piedmont Ave

Deciding on which pumpkin to take home

Playin in the fountain after the parade.  This was his favorite part of the day!

Poor Bo.  SQUIRREL!

Cute Pix from September 2011

Asher loves to wear hats lately.  This hat in particular he likes to wear either backwards or off to the side as seen below.  He's got his own style :)

Camping at Stumpy Meadows

Back in early September we took a family camping trip to a beautiful lake up in Gold Country called Stumpy Meadows Reservoir.  Our timing couldn't have been better because we went up for just 1 night on Thursday before the Labor Day weekend officially started and the campground was virtually empty!!!  We had a great camping spot that was a 5 minute walk from the lake.  Our campground was covered in these tiny white balls (which we later discovered were for pellet guns) and Asher loved collecting them all over the campground.  He had a great time getting dirty and splashing in the water at the lake.  We made tin foil dinners, which I unfortunately burnt a little :( and then made smores later that night. 

Since it was our first camping trip with Asher, we decided to only go for one night as we weren't sure what to expect as far as sleeping goes.  Well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been but we were all definitely tired the next day and glad to go home and sleep in our own beds the next night. 

My birthday just happened to fall on the Friday that we came home so we celebrated that evening with some delicious birthday cake (made by Riley :) and ice cream.  It was a great weekend!

Evening out the ground for our tent

Swimming with dad

Collecting pellet balls

Dirty boy

The Smore aftermath 

Good morning!

Notice Riley passed out in the background.  It was a long night!

Taking a walk with bear

Camping just isn't as fun without some naked camping time.  Asher was being crazy, due partly to lack of sleep and partly to having marshmellows for breakfast :)