Birthday Celebrations

We had two birthday celebrations for Mr. Asher. The first was a joint birthday party for Justin (14) and Asher (1) at The Rainforest Cafe. The kids had never been there and they loved it. The second was at our house with homemade burgers, cupcakes (don't tell but I made them from spinach and avacado), and chocolate ice-cream (or really coconut milk cream...yum)! We had us some happy days!

1

Happy birthday Asher!

Asher,

Mommy loves you so much! Just like Leah in Genesis 30:13, I can say "happy am I! ...So she called his name Asher."

You are such a happy little guy. You have a great smile and a contagious laugh. You have to do everything your big brothers do. You walk you, you climb, and you play with so much happiness it is a joy to watch you. You love to make others laugh.

God said to Abram in Genesis 12:2, "I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." Asher I pray that as you bring joy to others you will know that you are greatly blessed by God. 

Daddy and I chose the name Asher which means happy or blessed in hopes that God would use you to bless others and that you yourself would be blessed. I pray that Psalm 1 will give you a picture of what it looks like to be blessed or happy: 

"Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

 He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
 The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish."

We chose to give you the name David as your middle name. David in honor of your Pops, David. And David after the David in the Bible about whom God says in Acts 13:22, "I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will." It is my prayer for you that you would become a man after God's own heart and do his will. 

I love you so much baby, happy birthday!

Garden Boxes

Gardening is turning out to be quite a good bit of work. Yesterday we built some raised beds. It sounds simple and I suppose it was but it was a lot of work. 

Plants need a couple of things to grow: soil, sun and water. In our yard the most sunny place is the side of the house, evidence for this is the best grass in our yard. But to place the beds the grass had to go. We didn't want to waste the grass though so I dug it up and transplanted it to sections in the yard that were lacking grass. I am so sore :) added to digging and carrying grass I also helped carry the 40lb bags of soil from the truck to the back yard. Did I mention I'm sore?

Chad built the beds and we placed them in the area I dug up grass and we filled them with soil. We have 3 4'x4' boxes but intended to build one more. I figure if we are going to garden might as well go full out :)

Soon I will be planting my seedlings in their new home!!!

Chocolate on the side

We eat clean around our house and so avoid added sugar. One thing we switched to was plain ful fat Greek yogurt instead of your normal full of sugar variety. Though it's not quite as yummy to kids so I entice them to eat by sprinkling the yogurt with a couple of chocolate chips. Funny things said as a result of our choice:

One day I bought some flavored Greek yogurt that was on clearance -
Jude: "can I have some more of that good yogurt, the one with sugar that's not good for me?"

This morning:
Shiloh: "is there chocolate?"
Me: "yes."
Shiloh: "is there yogurt?"
Me: "yes."
Shiloh: "can I have my chocolate in the side?"

Bwhahhahaha! No he can not have chocolate on the side the whole point of the chocolate is to entice him to eat the yogurt.

Ninja Green

Last night Jude tested for his Ninja Green belt, and if I must say he did Awesome!!! Way to go Jude!

Ready for his test. Notice that sharp uniform - it's even been ironed!

Push up position. Jude got a 10 out of 10 on his fitness portion!

Little guy was working hard, sit ups are not so easy when you are 4.

Horse stance.

Chambering for a block.

High block and a nice loud yell.

Side kick.

Punch (though he looked like he was doing palm strikes...we gotta toughen up those knuckles). 

Aunt Charity awarding Jude his new green belt (Charity and Instructor Abraham fought over who got to give him his belt).

Asher wanted to test too.

Poor Jude, not the happiest face as he wouldn't stand still and I threatened him and Aunt Charity saying they could not watch Big Hero 6 together on Saturday if they didn't behave and take a good picture.

Kitchen DIY Makeover

Sometime in February our dishwasher broke. When this happened we discovered a leak and more damage to the cabinets than we realized was there. We thought heck lets make an insure claim and see if we get anything. We got way more than we anticipated and thus began Chad's envisioning of a kitchen makeover. We can do it ourselves. The more I contemplated the work ahead the more misgivings I had. Lets just fix the cabinet and leave everything else, I said. But alas Chad had grand plans so we began. And as most DIY projects go we hit obstacle after obstacle and we barely finished (ok we aren't finished but close enough) before Chad's spring break ended. Some tears may have been shed (probably due to not sleeping and sheer exhaustion) and it is imperfect but I love it!

 Before.

Another angle of before.

Sink cabinet repair.

All three boys watching the sink cabinet repair.

It may not be the most pretty thing in the world but it is functional and much cheaper than a new cabinet.

The boys loved the demo.

Demo of the counters and back splash. Bye bye white laminate.

No counters. And a very tore up sheet rock where the back splash was. Our idea of paint was not going to happen.

So we bought panel board for the backsplash. Chad was at the store and asked what I thought of wood back splash. I freaked out for a few minutes envisioning the 70's but I said ok I trust you. And then he brought home beautiful panelling! Well done Chad.

Jude and Shiloh built monster trucks. With real hammers...

Decorating their monster trucks.

Job mostly completed. With our new appliances we got for an excellent price! 

Another view of our kitchen!

If you ever want to redo your kitchen - don't call us - pay someone :)