It's 2

Asher is finally 2. I say finally because it feels like he's been two since he turned one. His birthday was completely typical, for Asher. Illustrative of the fact that this kid is going to give us a run for our money. All my presuppositions about parenting, all my schemes and carefully thought out ways of dealing with kids are thrown right out the window with this little chap.

And so we begin...




Asher loves cars. So I made him this little car playmat. Holds 6 cars, has a car wash, park, construction site, and gas station. Took me a lot of hours... he liked it for about 10 minutes. So we showed him the next gift. A sure fire winner we supposed. Aidan and Sophie both have Razor scooters that they ride to and from the school and on walks; Asher loves them and begs (read screams) to ride them, so we bought him this lovely little Radio Flyer scooter with a wide base and three wheels. Here's what he looked like as Bren put it together.



Still not sure what about it made him so very angry. This is how it ended.



The only thing we did right that day was pizza for dinner. Asher was truly very pleased with the pizza and cinnamon rolls.
The day of his party we had watermelon for lunch, that was also acceptable.



Asher had 6 pieces...

Enjoyed every bite. "The way to a man's heart..." I suppose.

Daphne made spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for his cake, because Asher will not eat cake if it's in cake form, but cupcakes are okay. (I have no idea)
The candles also interested him.

However, when the singing started he got up and walked away.

When we got him back to the table, he caught on to the blowing out of the candles fairly quickly.

And with a little help we got the candles blown out.

This enraged the little imp.
We relit the candles 4 times.

After the candle trauma subsided, Asher managed to scarf down three cupcakes. So the little booger is two and the only thing we got right was the food, and we'll never know why. Sigh.

Happy Birthday to our little Man of Mystery.

A cow by any other name...

After living in Texas for 6 1/2 years, we finally made a trip over to the Fort Worth Stockyards.



It was pretty cold that morning (by Texas standards) so the kids were all bundled up and a little grumpy at first, even after being greeted by a friendly amigo.



Asher was the first to warm up to the idea and he promptly took off down the cobblestone street to see the sites.



Ash found himself a fine steed and had a great ride.



He managed to get Aidan excited about the day and the two brothers had a ball on the plastic horses as well as checking out the real ones.



After Aidan got a good look at the real cowboys riding around the town on their horses, he was completely sold and managed to talk his way into this new cowboy hat. (How could you say no to that little cowpoke?)



After a trip to the sweet shop and some indulging from her grandpa, Sophie was ready to ride as well. (That kid will do anything for a Starburst)



While we waited for the cattle drive to begin, Bren was kind enough to rustle us up some grub in the form of super delicious deep fried pickles. Boy are those good!



The cattle drive was slow, but still pretty impressive. Amazing how long their horns can get. They almost look too heavy for their heads.



Just after the cattle drive, Aidan discovered the mechanical bull and insisted that he could take it on. He stayed on for a good while, but decided to end it on his terms rather than being thrown.



Daphne wasn't inclined to ride the bull, but seemed to enjoy herself once we got out in the warm sunshine.



She even spent some time in the pokey.



A petting area for some friendly goats was set up on the main street and Asher got quite a kick out of the furry fellas. He even let one goat taste his fingers... and then Bren poured hand sanitizer up his arm.



Sophie on the other hand nearly jumped into her brother's arms when a friendly goat tried to taste her.



Bren found a comfortable spot to wait for a shoeshine, but alas, he was wearing Chucks.



All in all a fun day, finished up with some good Mexican food.



Via la Texas!