Serena starts school!

Serena started pre-school today! She was a little nervous.

And a little excited.

Her teachers were wonderful and welcoming and, as far as we can tell, Serena had a great first day. She painted and played on the playground and pottied. When we arrived to pick her up, she was reading books to the stuffed animals (no surprise!). And by the time we got home for lunch she was singing the new song she learned. We are so proud of her and so glad she enjoyed herself!

Perhaps the funniest thing about the day was that after we dropped Serena off at school, Asher, to begin his alone time with Dad, immediately climbed up in Serena's chair. He'd never even attempted such a take-over before. I guess he figured he'd take full advantage of his sister's absence.

16 months old

Asher's pretty darn cute at 16 months. Into everything, running and climbing, jabbering, signing, coloring, using utensils (selectively), hugging, looking at books, pointing to his body parts when asked, and throwing balls. He loves to swim, be chased by his sister, take her things, pet Bishop, eat (just about anything), and play in the sandbox. Hates being thwarted, hearing "no," going to bed, getting out of the bath, his parents leaving.

It's pretty hard to get him to sit still for a picture - harder than I remember it being with Serena, which is my excuse for less pictures. Got some good ones the other day though...

Peru-nion

Asher and Serena (and Grandma, we think) had a great time in Huntington last week.

Joshua and I, 9 other church members, and 40 Peruvian children had a great time in the village of Gallito on the banks of the Amazon last week.

But smiles were huge and hugs were long on Saturday afternoon.

We'll likely travel without them other times in the future, but kind of feel like we'd rather not. It felt weird - we missed them, wished they could expereince all the new things, could imagine their reactions, would've loved to see their faces. Maybe next time.

In the meantime, it's good to be home.

Predicament de Parmesan

Today, I was sitting talking to my insurance agent about all things auto and home, when my pocket buzzed. I of course ignored it, I was in a meeting after all. But the second time it rang in 20 seconds I knew something was up. The conversation went something like this . . .


Hey, what's up?

How soon are you going to be home?


I don't know I am just sitting here talking. We are just wrapping it up?

Okay, well Serena got her finger stuck in the parmesan lid and we will be waiting until you get here.


Oh, okay, I am on my way.

After saying my goodbyes, I hopped in the van and headed home, mostly laughing at the predicament. I arrived home to see Serena sitting on the counter eating cookie dough with a red finger through the center hole of the lid. Amy was video taping her and I was laughing out loud as I went downstairs for some tools.

It turns out the answer to the predicament was a pair of wire clippers and two well placed snips. Her little finger was swelled up (my wife made me change this) and a bit red by the time all was said and done, but all fingers are still attached and we avoided the trip to the hospital for such weirdness and embarassment. Not bad for our first marble up the nose-like experience.

Where's Jesus now?

We told Serena that Jesus is always with her. (This was partly in response to some monster concerns and the need to offer her some reassurance so we could go downstairs to finish watchng the next episode of 24) So she asked, of course, looking around, “Where is he?” and we told her he lives in her heart. She accepted this for the most part but we can tell she's trying to make sense of it. Some conversations along those lines:
Staring intently across the dinner table – “Look, there’s Jesus! Right there. Do you see him? He has a green shirt!” I agreed with her– whom am I to argue?
Another dinner time, “Jesus is in my belly.”
And once after dinner, standing on her chair, Serena had her shirt pulled up and chest bared. I asked her why she had her shirt up. “Jesus is coming out!” Apparently he could get through flesh and bone, no problem, but the shirt fabric would have been tricky – good thinking.

Asher Charles, Child of God

Asher was baptized last Sunday. Both sets of Grandparents came to town for the occasion and Amy's Dad performed the baptism. It was a great worship service and celebration with our families and our church family. The gown he wore was made from Amy's grandmother's wedding dress. Asher looked just like a little boy in a dress :).

Easter Fun

We had a great Easter. Church egg hunt on Saturday, a great sunrise service, more worship later, egg hunt and feast at our good friends' house, then home for Sunday naps! Serena had a great time hunting eggs (and eating the candy) and Asher mostly just looked cute, although he did shake a few eggs. We're looking forward to grandparents coming to visit for the next 2 weeks! Amy's parents will be here tomorrow, then Joshua's parents will arrive on Saturday and stay through the next week. That allows everybody to be here over the weekend, when we'll celebrate Asher's baptism!

A Happy 1st Birthday!

As hard as it is to believe, Asher turned 1 this week! We had a lot of fun celebrating - cake and homemade ice cream, as well as good friends. Thanks to all those who came over, and to thsoe who sent their well wishes from far away. We feel so blessed as parents to have Asher in our lives and thank God that he's so happy and healthy.

A Little Bit Like Her Mother

Serena, among other things, has her father's fine blonde hair, slowness to wake up, and general friendliness. In other ways she's a little like me, too, though:

she loves to read

enjoys a good milkshake

and dances "bal-yay" (After discovering the calluses I carry from a couple decades of ballet, she informed me that the tiny blister on her foot was there because she "dances a lot").

With Spring trying to arrive and a little lightening of the schedule coming soon, we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of a cold and busy winter. We've been going pretty much non-stop the past couple months. Joshua's working a couple of jobs besides being a full-time stay-at home dad and Amy's work doesn't always make the juggling real easy.
The kids are doing great. Serena seems so grown up some days and continues to entertain us with her vebalized stream of consciousness. Asher's closing in on walking, will eat anything (except asparagus it turns out), and doesn't really care to talk but makes plenty of noise - most of it happy. They're at an age where they're really beginning to enjoy each other, which is fun to watch. Here are a few pictures...

Hiccups

When I was reading Serena a bedtime story, she had some pretty insistent hiccups so, midsentence, I turned to her and said,
"Aagghh!"
She jumped, and cried.
Immediately sorry, I hugged her, comforted her, and tried to explain that I didn't mean to upset her, I was just trying to scare her hiccups away. She didn't look very grateful. More... distrustful. But she stopped crying.
And, for the record, she also stopped hiccupping. So I continued reading the story.
A few pages later, Serena interrupted. "Where are my hiccups?"
"I scared them away. Sometimes we can get rid of hiccups by scaring them away," I said, rather pleased with myself.
Serena was not so pleased, "No, you can't scare my hiccups. My grandma will get me some new ones and they will be mine. And you can't scare them. I will have them. Okay, Mommy?"
"Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you didn't want to have hiccups. I won't scare them away again."
We finished reading the book in peace. No more hiccups and no more reprimands from my 2 1/2 year-old.

That's my boy

Here's Asher at 9 months old. See any resemblance? My hair was lighter at his age, but our hair's almost exactly the same color now, and our eyes. I don't have the cute gap between my front teeth, though :).

Back to Reality

Asher, Grandma (Joshua's mom), Alison, Isaac, Serena, and Tomas

Tomorrow we'll travel from 80 degrees and sunny to 30 degrees and snowy/slushy. It'll be a hard transition for many reasons. There's plenty of work awaiting both Joshua and I so we'll have to hit the ground running.

Still, it's been a great vacation, so relaxing and fun at boht of our parents' houses. Time with family is rare enough to be recognized as such a blessing, especially as our kids grow and change so fast. They've vacationed pretty well. Serena's been a little more disagreeable from time to time than she usually is, but she may just be a little stressed by continually dealing with cousins, which she's not used to. Or maybe she's just 2 1/2. Asher's been cheerful as always, even through illness. It seems like he's gotten tons older in the past two weeks - but maybe I've just had more time to focus on him. At a 9 1/2 months, he's chewing up all kinds of new foods, pulling to a stand all the time, crawling for real, playing peek-a-boo (pretty agressively), throwing things, chasing things, and doing the pre-talk social grunting thing. I'm gonna miss spending all day with them. But, back to reality...

Happy New Year!

The first half of our Christmas vacation is winding down. We've been at Amy's parents' house in Arizona for the past week. 11 of us all together under one roof is a rare occurrence, so it's been fun (and a little crazy). Unfortunately, Asher and Serena have both had a pretty yucky cold the whole time, but I'm hopeful they're getting over it as we head to Texas for a week.

Among other things, we had a surprisingly painless family photo shoot:

Joshua, Amy, Asher and Serena Sutherlun; John and Jackie Poling (Amy's parents); Paul and Veronica Jordan Poling (Amy's brother); Elisa (+Corbin), Stephen and Ava Hood (Amy's sister)

Serena's staring at her grandpa becasue he was saying "epiphany" instead of "cheese." Kids recognize weird early on.