Inchworm

So, in the last couple of weeks, I've often been finding Asher where I did not put him. For example, I'll change his diaper in the middle of the living room floor, go outside to throw the diaper in the garbage and come back to find Asher had rolled under the side table or something. Thus far, I'm pretty certain that Asher's movements have had no motivation and he's just been squirming and rolling randomly around.

Last night, however, we were on Skype with my sister, Kristen. I had the computer on one side of the bed with the camera pointed at Asher. He kept inching forward so that he could pound the keys. This was the first time I noticed him purposefully move towards something in order to get to it.

So, while this is a proud moment for me, it also makes me kind of sad that he's growing so quickly. I've lamented before to my friends that the last five and a half months have been such a blur. It's been one thing after another: Asher is born. Akiko starts kindergarten. Moses starts preschool. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. On and on and on. Thank heavens for this blog, or I'd have no idea what we've been doing.

He's not quite six months old and already he's finding motivation to move towards his prize. That seems early to me and it's definitely earlier than the other kids.

Akiko only army crawled and rolled for about two months while she was simultaneously pulling herself up and cruising. She walked at 9 months 1 week.

Moses actually crawled for a bit, but he was well past 6 months before he started that. He walked at 9 months 3 weeks.

I keep trying to tell my kids to stop growing so quickly. Today, I noticed one of my favorite shirts of Akiko's is starting to get small. (Kristen, it's that darling one you bought in England.) They never listen.

Next thing I know, Asher will be cutting his first teeth. I remember crying when Akiko cut hers right after she turned six months. That's when it dawned on me that these kids aren't going to stay little forever.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that video of Asher. He's been inching forward a lot today. Now I really have to get on the ball and keep the floor cleared of anything he can get into trouble with. *Sigh!*

Yeah, this day, for real, will be coming up sooner than I hope, too.

Stolen Quotes

Sam posted these on his FB status moments ago. He heard these today from the kids. I was busy elsewhere, but they're too funny not to share:


Two good quotes for today:

Sam (in reference to a MadLibs page): Aki, do you like to eat "cute food"?
Aki: Sure! Like chicken and bbq sauce in the shape of babies!

---

Aki: Hey! Let's play Mariokart!
Moses: Hey! Let's not!

Last Half of November, First Half of December

Okay. Okay. I promised it was coming and I've put it off too long. Here's pre-, post- and, of course, Thanksgiving itself. Yeah, it's a consolidated post, so be warned. It may be lengthy, but I'll try to keep to the point.

The Week Before Thanksgiving

(Nov. 17-21)

Joseph had gotten news, sometime in mid-October, that his grandmother was dying. She had been told she had between three and six weeks left to live. All Joseph's aunts and uncles and most of the grandkids were making plans to go to Long Beach to say their goodbyes. Joseph's parents were going to make it out the weekend before Thanksgiving. So, the Wednesday morning before that, Joseph asked me to make last minute plans to go down there that weekend, too. Not too hard a feat since we're only a six hour drive from there.

Once Joseph's family heard our plans, there was a mad scramble for all his siblings, who didn't already have plans, to make plans to go there that weekend as well. So, three stressful planning days later, all 22 of the David Wecker clan arrived in Long Beach to say goodbye to grandma. Extremely rare photo op!

 

Akiko and Moses were elated to get to play with their cousins, Noah and Daniel, again.

We got to meet Odin! Such a cute baby. Seriously, Emma. Great job with this little guy.

Asher and Odin got along so well, they even took a nap together.

Joseph got to finally meet Carl's twin babies, just a week shy of their first birthday.

Cute little Sierra.

Darling little Seth.

Asher had some big smiles for his great-grandpa Jack.

He also had lots of love to give to his great-auntie Helen.

So, it was a short trip. Too short. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon. It was really nice to be able to say goodbye to Grandma, though. That was a great opportunity I don't think a lot of families get to do. We miss her. She's a wonderful lady. I'm so blessed to be part of her family.

Thanksgiving Week

(Nov. 24-28)

So, we came back from Long Beach late Sunday night. I had two utterly short days to shop and repack everything we needed for our trip up to Gresham, OR to spend Thanksgiving with my brother, Mike, his wife, Chelsie, and their sweet little toddler, Liam, my 14 month-old nephew whom we had never met.

Chelsie and I, being the young mothers that we are, have never taken on Thanksgiving dinner before. This year, it was all her and me. I must say, we did a fantabulous job, though credit for the turkey still goes to Chelsie's cousin/Bishop, who smoked the turkey for us and, therefore, freed up the oven for the pies and such.

I suppose it would be safe to assume that Chelsie and I are purists when it comes to the kitchen. Chelsie made the stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce from scratch. I was in charge of the rolls (Joseph helped on these since the baby needed me at the time) and the pumpkin and chocolate pies (which I neglected to photograph despite the fact that they were absolutely perfect.)

Here are Chelsie's beautiful place settings. Handmade, of course.

Mike, making his Thanksgiving speech.

(If you look really closely, you can see my perfect pies on the kitchen counter.)

So, the deal was, we had to pay for our dinner with the pinecone on our plate by saying something we were thankful for or else we had to eat the pinecone. Moses took it a little too seriously and started bawling, "But I don't want to eat mine pinecone!"

Akiko, on the other hand, was perfectly fine with that.

And Asher enjoyed his first Thanksgiving dinner!

We had a lot of fun visiting Mike and Chelsie for Thanksgiving. We're very grateful that we were able to be with family for the holiday. I'm not sure how it happened, but I hardly took any pictures. Seriously, I didn't even take any of Liam, but you can visit Mike and Chelsie's blog if you feel so inclined.

Before I wrap this visit up, there's one more thing. One of my dearest friends from high school lives in the Portland area as well. I decided it would be fun to surprise her at work. She is a server at a German restaurant called Gustav's in Clackamas. I also thought it would be fun for Sam (Joseph's brother who lives with us and recently served a mission in Germany) to have a good German meal again. Well, I didn't get many pictures of our surprise visit either, but I did get some awesome pictures of Moses eating cheese fondue.

Since Thanksgiving

So, I've had a couple people, since my last post, ask me what is keeping me so busy that I have no time to blog. So, busy, in fact, that I've barely even had enough time to read your blogs.

Well, to be honest with you, I spent almost the entire week after Thanksgiving recovering from said holiday. I mean, we did spend almost 36 hours driving in the car over the course of 8 days. That's with a 4 month-old, a 3 year-old, a 5 year-old and an 11 year-old (Hannah, Joseph's baby sister). Actually, Hannah was awesome. She kept Akiko and Moses entertained in the back.

Anyway, after I finally recovered from the traveling, I decided to get a jump start on Christmas. With the help of Joseph's mom and Hannah, I was able to get the tree up and decorated.

I also started my Christmas baking the first weekend of December. 

Growing up, we always did plates of cookies for our neighbors and it was not uncommon to receive a dozen or so plates in return. That's what the tradition was then and what the tradition is now. Besides, it gives me the perfect excuse to go crazy with the baking, which I love. 

I try to keep my list of receivers simple. They include our home and visiting teachers and the kids' nursery/Primary teachers. It usually adds up to about a dozen plates or so. This year, however, I had a whopping 28 plates to make! We teach CTR 6, so, of course, I had to include the families of our kids (7 kids in our class). I also felt I ought to do plates for the kids' school teachers. Moses alone, between his preschool and nursery teachers, had six plates for his list (3 each).

3 kinds of cookies x 5 cookies of each per plate = 15 cookies per plate

15 cookies per plate x 28 plates = 420 cookies

Which also translates to 140 per each type of cookie

Yep. I'm crazy, alright!

I like to think of this as my army of snowmen.

The finished plates. Cocoa ginger crisps, cream cheese snowmen and chocolate peppermint sandwiches.

Akiko and Moses were great helpers and I had a lot of fun baking with them this year. I'm excited for them to get older and help out even more!

We also had our ward Christmas party, where the kids got to meet Santa.

Amazingly, I also got good pictures of the event this year.

Asher was really into Santa's nose.

Another project I happened upon, which has kept me busy as well, has been painting Christmas village figurines for Joseph's mom. You see, while we were up in Oregon, I accompanied Chelsie on an errand to the thrift store. I wasn't planning on getting anything, but I found three unpainted village buildings for $2 a piece.

Knowing that my mother-in-law lost her entire village when she moved from Utah to Maui, I thought it would be a great opportunity to help kick start another one for her. So, I've been working on painting these, too.

The blacksmith shop I finished while she was still here and sent it home with her already. I wish I'd gotten pictures. It turned out beautifully. The beauty/donut shop is still a work in progress.

So, there you have it. And I still have lots of other things on my list to accomplish before Christmas. How's your Christmas prep?

Still Here, Just Busy

Yes, I'm two weeks behind on Thanksgiving. I promise it's coming. It's just been real busy. I'll post more detail later, but here's a heads up:

We took a last minute trip down to Long Beach to say goodbye to Joseph's grandmother, who passed away earlier this evening. Then we drove up to Portland to spend Thanksgiving with my brother. Then I got thrown right into Christmas prep. So, Thanksgiving's post might be up to a month late. Sorry. I'm sure you understand.

And Grandma, we're glad we got to say goodbye to you. We'll miss you! Very much.