Tis the Season

"Look! Christmas Socks!"

8 months old

We picked the perfect tree.

(okay, it was actually a little big once we got it inside.)

I thought I'd post a few pictures from the last month, just to reassure you we haven't dropped off the face of the earth. December has been as busy for us as we expected, but a lot of it is self-selected and pretty fun. A few of the things we've done in the last month include: cutting down our tree at the tree farm and decorating it, putting up lights and decorations all around the house, going to the Huntington Christmas parade, arranging and rearranging the nativity sets countless times, and shopping on a busy Saturday with two cranky kids and one cranky mommy (ok, this last one wasn't much fun). And just last week we went to Nashville for 3 days with our good friends Wes and Martha, and their baby, Audrey, to go to the most amazing Christmas concert ever, put on by Andrew Peterson. It was a fun trip and good practice for our big trip in 4 days, when we go to Phoenix and San Antonio for 2 weeks to visit both our families. Which reminds me that I have LOTS to get done in the next 3 days so I better stop blogging.

We hope you've been enjoying the season as much as we have - have a wonderful Christmas!

Climbing on the house

When I walked into Serena's room the other morning, I found her already awake, staring out the window.

Serena: Mommy! It's swowing!
Me: Yes, isn't it pretty (maybe a slight exaggeration, given the small accumulation)
S: I will wear my boots... (she has been wanting to wear these rain boots all summer and I've put her off by saying we need to save them for when it snows)... and go outside and climb on the house! (She evidently observe that the snow had only accumulated with any significance on the porch roof)
Me: Well, I don't think...
S: Maybe that will be a bad choice.
Me: Yeah, maybe we better not climb on the hosue. It's a little dangerous.

So fun to watch the wheels turn in her head.

Pumpkins

I could be biased. Okay, I am biased, but these kids are seriously cute. I guess pretty much any kid would be cute in a pumpkin patch. But this is my blog, so I get to talk about these particular cute kids in a pumpkin patch.

Another milestone

Asher fell off our bed today. Which means he hit that milestone a couple months later than Serena. Maybe our parenting skills are improving.
Lukcily, he seemed to forget it pretty quickly and was back to smiling in no time. He's doing a lot of creative scooting and inching these days. I'm pretty sure we're not ready to keep the floor that clean.

Asher turns point 5

At six months, Asher's hitting all kinds of milestones:
Sitting Up!

Eating Cereal!

TWO Teeth! (look really close)

And he continues to be such a joy. Cuddly and cheerful, alert, easy-going, friendly. It's so much fun watching him grow and change. The distraction of another child in addition to a baby means that I keep being surprised that he's already doing certain things. As Serena says, "Asher growing more and more. He going to learn to walk."

Cute Cousins

Amy's sister, Elisa, along with her husband Stephen and daughter Ava, came to visit from Utah. It was so much fun to have them. We camped and swam and picnicked and played... and refereed, and watched some tantrums and plenty of Nemo, and hoped for simultaneous naps. Serena is jsut 5 months older than Ava, which made it lots of fun to see them together, but also a little challenging at times. They were kind of getting the hang of sharing by the end of the 10 days, though. And both learned a little from the other - Serena's a better jumper now and Ava picked up a few words. We were glad that the adult-child ratio was still in our favor, but that will change in about 5 months when Elisa and Stephen have their baby (a boy we think!). Before we know it, we'll be watching 4 kids born within 33 months play together.

5 and 26 months, respectively

A few family pics

Amy's parents came out to visit a couple weeks ago and we took a trip together to Pennsylvania. Sort of our last hurrah of summer, since the fall's been coming on fast ever since. It was great to get away with them, though, and fun for Asher and Serena to get to spend time with them.

The Great Haircutting Party

After extended premeditation, Joshua cut his hair. Well, he didn't actually cut it - he invited his good friends over to do that. Mostly, I think they were disappointed. As someone put it, "I was hoping you'd look really strange or awkward, but you just look like Joshua with short hair"
For those of you who live too far away to make it to the party, here are some photos...

4th of July

How cute is he??? Asher is such a cheerful guy - full of smiles these days and laughing all the time. He's a little over 3 months and weighs in at 2/3 of Serena's 2 year old weight. We figure he'll catch up to her soon. Just for some perspective - this outfit he's wearing at 3 months was worn by Serena at 11 months!

We had a pretty low-key 4th of July. I did get the kids to to sit for some pictures, though, which is a pretty signficant accomplishment given that one won't sit still and one can't sit up.

Serena's 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Serena's 2nd birthday last week - had a few good friends over for a dinner of Serena's favorite foods, opened some gifts, and ate birthday cake. It was fun, and I've now coached her enough that she'll answer "two" if you ask her how old she is. You wouldn't have to ask, though, if you saw her in the nursery at church where almost anything another kid touches is "mine." In all fairness, she spends enough time there to make a common law claim.

Turning 2 meant a move into a "big girl bed." Since we plan to move Asher into the same room in a bit, this meant some creative furniture moving on our part to fit the crib, twin bed, changing table, 2 dressers, book shelf, and rocking chair all in one room. We're happy with the result, though, and think they'll do well in there together. Serena only fell out of bed a couple times and seems to have the hang of it now.

Serena is wonderful at 2 years old and we are so proud of all she can do and say and how much more she learns every day. We feel so blessed to have the privilege of being her parents.

Asher at 12 weeks old

Sorry for the delay in posting new pictures of Asher. He's still happy and healthy. Sleeping great, laughing and gurgling all the time. He loves having your undivided attention, but if he can't have that, he'll settle for staring at his fist. Starting to really get some personality now, which is lots of fun. Here's a picture we took in Florida last week -

Vacation to Florida

We spent last week in Florida with Joshua's family, doing the Disneyworld and Beach thing. It was wonderful - fun and tiring, just like vacation should be. Joshua's working on getting some kind of cool slideshow posted on here, but in the meantime... here are a few pictures for all you fans out there.

You ain't ever gonna keep me down

I can't promise that the kids won't fall down a few times with Daddy on watch but I will promise to be there to hold them as they cry the pain away. As a matter of fact, I have done both just today. A freak accident caused Asher's basinet to dump him into the bottom of the playpen, and while that was only 2 feet to the bottom, it scared the little boy into not sleeping again for a while. He is now sound asleep in the other playpen, hopefully for the night.

While Mommy was bouncing Asher this evening at a friend's house, Daddy was on Serena duty. So, there were various Daddy-like things going on, flipping, running, tickling, and such. She was climbing around in a lazy-boy chair standing, most likely when she shouldn't have been, when she must have reached for something and flipped out of the chair and onto the floor narrowly missing an end table. Thus for the second time, I was consoling a child for invisible wounds born more from fear than physical injury. Though Mommy got to kiss her knee, and the other one. She too, is soundly asleep in her crib and we hopefully won't hear from her until morning.

There is much to tell ya'll about, these two children are growing and learning and teaching us how to be parents, but since the children are in both in bed, I shouldn't be up anymore either. So maybe tomorrow. But for now, I am reminded of a song that I sing to Serena when she sleeps, and one day I will long for days when I can hold my children as I did today. "I know that moons rise, and time flies and sweet little girls get older, and then when your tooth aches, or your heart breaks,will you still cry on my shoulder?" Check out Slugs, Bugs, and Lullabies for more.

A New Look

No matter how long I wait to get dressed, Asher will wait longer to spit up. So the spot on my shoulder is a given. Today, though, I developed a new look. When I glanced down on my drive to work, I discovered half-digested eggs Serena had puked up this morning, clinging to the cuff of my pants.
Motherhood is great.

And 5 weeks...

If Asher is 5 weeks old already, then I've only got a week of maternity leave left! Have already been back to work some, of course. It's hard to stay away entirely. Luckily, I'll have a couple weeks of partial maternity leave to get used the schedule again - or for Asher to get used to the schedule. He's seems much more agreeable to taking the bottle than Serena was, though, so that should make things a little easier for all of us.

In any case, I haven't gotten much checked off my maternity leave to-do list. Guess I should have put "make happy, healthy baby heavier" on there, just for the satisfaction of checking it off. At 4 weeks, Asher was about 11 1/2 pounds, so he's probably somewhere around 12 pounds at this point. Sleeping pretty well, too.

Made it to One Month

Here's Asher at 4 weeks old - so peaceful.

We don't want you to think we've forgotten Serena. She's been enjoying many springtime activities - flying a kite with Dad, playing in the yard with her pants falling off, and reading books on the deck. At 21 months, she's a lot of fun - working on ABCs, counting, speaking in sentences, reading/memorizing Dr. Seuss, picking flowers, blowing bubbles, drawing with chalk, singing, putting on her own clothes, expresing opinions, hugging Bishop, thinking about using the potty, fishing leaves out of the pond, squealing, laughing, and generally delighting folks.



**By the way, as I'm writing this, Asher is screaming because he'd like to be eating right now. Guess he's learning to share the parental attention, too.

Three Weeks Old

We're just a bit past the three-week mark already. Things are going pretty smoothly, but we're spoiled by the presence of Joshua's parents right now. Four adults for two kids is a good ratio, it turns out.

Two Weeks Old

Asher enjoys some time outside on a spring day. Serena's very interested in Asher... some of the time.

One Week Old

We've been a little delinquent in updating the blog, in spite of promises to supply new pictures. It's amazing how quickly babies change at this age. Asher's doing great - eating, sleeping, and going through diapers at an amazing rate. He does all three really well.

Sutherlun Siblings

Asher sneezes alot. Which means Serena says, "Bless you, Asher" alot. I think that's a good thing. Probably better than some of the things she'll say to him alot later on.
Here are a couple of more recent pictures.

Asher at 3 days old

Serena, 21 months and Asher, 4 days old

Happy and Blessed

here has been much joy entering into our life recently. At 8:57 AM this morning, Asher Charles entered into this world with 8 and 9 apgar scores. At 8 lbs 11 oz, he is a little chunk, weighing 3 pounds more than Serena did at birth. We knew that Amy was measuring larger this time around but we were still surprised at the weight. He is 20 1/2 inches long which means for 1 extra inch, he has 3 extra pounds.

One of our biggest concerns was how Serena would react to having a new sibling taking up our attention. Thus far she has taken to Asher quite well. For instance, she loves peeking at his small body parts, particularly those tiny toes. She keeps calling him Ava however, so we are not quite sure she understands what is going on. But we are sure that she will be helpful over the next couple of months because she has already shown him much affection.

We are hanging out in the hospital now doing the obligatory 48 hour stay with cafeteria food. The surprise this time around is that if you pay an extra $100, a guest gets "free" meals for the entire stay as well. It is amazing what you can get for free when you pay for it. Amy is really doing well and had had an even easier time than she did the first time thus far. We are hoping that this trend continues. All of this has indeed made us feel happy and blessed, and just in case you didn't know it, those are the two meanings for the name Asher. God has truly blessed this family.

Hoping for a Sis-ther

Amy looks like she going to Pop! Or so says everyone she meets these days. It might still be better than Joshua's fat comments, but not nearly as funny. There has recently been some unsolicited belly patting from a local caterer as well as an "Oh my gosh!" Besides the urge to punch someone, no negative repercussions of these actions have occurred. If this baby doesn't find its way out soon however someone may find a very surprising response to the next socially inappropriate gesture. My advice, stand clear!

Since the weather has begun to turn, Joshua is playing disc golf as much as he can. This is a little bit harder than one might think when he has to carry Serena through the course with him. Luckily she is cute, or the friends mightnot help with the process. The stroller has been a blessing, though Serena has fallen out of it once (I strap her in now!). While his tan is improving, slightly, his scores are not. At least it doesn't cost us anything.

Enough about us, you showed up to find out about our toddler we're sure. She is still pretty tiny, but that just makes her cuter of course. Her language skills just keep getting more amusing and she is able to recall more words than we remember teaching her. She still loves to "read" and will spend amazing lengths of time either reading with us or reading aloud to herself. She's also started bossing Bishop around (although he seldom responds). Whatever she's doing, she brings an incredible amount of joy and laughter to our lives. Here are a couple examples - a video of Serena getting in touch with her Texas roots and another that shows her swinging from glee to despair as only a toddler can (Is it mean that we can't stop laughing when we watch this one?).

Monthly Milestone Markers

It has been a while since we have posted an update on our lives, so without further ado. We recently had Serena's 18 month check-up with our doctor (for those of you who are already doing the math in your head, yes, it came a month late!). But everytime we go in for a well check-up, our doctor has a list of milestone markers that Serena should be able to do. Now most of them were forgettable, since I have already forgotten them, but one in particular got us thinking. It seems that at 18 months a child should know and be able to use between 7-20 words. Now we realized quickly that Serena certainly uses more than 7 so we were safe, yet this got us thinking about just how many words she does know. Now of course we are not boasting perfect pronunciation here, but we know she is over 50. How do we know you ask? Because we, and by we I mean Amy, made a list. Wanna see it? Here it goes!

eat, Mommy, Daddy, Bishop, fork, eggs, apple, banana, seat, salad, hotdog, orange, cheese, bread, juice, milk, water, hi, bye, yea, no, bless you, amen, book, read, ready, baby, belly, nose, ears, hand, toes, duck, quack, doggy, music, dance, Wes, Martha, bunny, rabbit, bed, bounce, teeth, brush, bath, bubbles, picture, me, more, please, running, walk, two, box, three, balloon, snow, down, sit, socks, shoes, pants, cute, hair, head, cold, hot, stretch, jump, cup, jacket, bear, cooking, blocks, sucker, pretty, guitar, chair, seat, monster, cookie, Elmo, Ernie . . .

We are sure there are more, we just can't understand them yet :).

In other news, we are officially 43 days from the dute date of baby #2. We have had our boy name picked out for 2 years, and we are scrambling to find a girl name we can both agree on. Soon, one of us will either concede to the other or we will just walk out of the hospital with baby girl Sutherlun on the birth certificate. Only time will tell. We do think that Serena has figured out there is something different about Mommy's belly. Which brings us to perhaps the most exciting part of this posting. I have figured out how to post videos, and more important than figuring it out, I have taken the time to get it done. So, without further back patting for my own edification here is proof that our daughter is smarter than yours :).

Oh yeah, and so you can see the joy that Serena brings to our life and that she might pass a little of that joy onto you, I have added some other videos on the right side of this page. Just click play and off you go.

Poetry Break

Because I was just reminded again of one of my favorite poems as I was preparing for a class I'm teaching, I thought I'd post the poem here, just for fun. It's by a Persian mystic named Hafiz.

The God Who Only Knows Four Words
Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of dont's
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,

But
The God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:

"Come dance with me.
Come
Dance."