The Armstrong 5

- Lately, when he's playing with Mark he pulls at Mark's shirt and says "off" and laughs and giggles when Mark takes his shirt off... then of course, Asher wants his shirt off too!

- He does such a good job reading books on his own! We have a cardboard box with a lid where we keep all his books downstairs and he'll pull 2 or 3 out and just sit there and read them... plus, he'll actually put them away when you ask him... most of the time :-)

- We were having dinner after a garage sale at our friends Neil and Kelsey's with their little Elliott (3 months older) and it was so cute to see them interact! Elliott was a little scared of Asher's crazy laughing on the swing and Elliott loved pointing things out to Asher... so far, they seem to get along quite well!

- Asher had his 1st Happy Meal today - with chicken nuggets! You should have seen his little smile when I gave him his toy (a small stuffed bear) after lunch... no wonder they call it a Happy Meal!

- Lately, anytime you ask Asher to do something - even if it's "stop that, close that drawer" he'll (most often) do it and then start clapping for himself. He even throws away his own diapers!

- Asher loves to help with laundry! I'll say "Come on, let's do some laundry" and he walks over to the laundry room and will pick up clothes from the hamper and put them in the washer (we have front loaders so it's super easy for him to help). Then, he'll also take every last piece of clothing from the washer and hand it to me to put in the dryer. And finally, he'll even take clothes out of the dryer and put them back in the hamper... I love having a little helper!

- Asher will tell me when he's peed or pooped about 1/2 of the time now but we had a "first" the other night. Mark and I were sitting on the couch talking when we heard Asher rustling through the diaper bag... he comes over with the changing mat, grabs his diaper in the front and says "perr" and then pooped!!! I'm still praying he waits to like the small potty we got him until Christmas!

- Lastly, Asher is just like me in that he hates to get water in his face. Even to this day, I don't let the water run down my face in the shower... I just don't like it! Anyway, so in the bath I tilt his head back by holding under his chin and I sing him a song while I rinse the shampoo out. He always just watches my face, looking so calm. Lately, during the past few baths when I finish singing, he claps! It's so adorable... makes me tear up every time!

Alright, enough Asher stuff for now! A quick announcement (yes, still pregnant)... we're not moving after all! Sticking right here in McMinnville :-) We've been going back and forth a lot and realized that if we found a place we liked in Mac we would definitely stay so we thought it would be a waste to move now - especially out of town - and we'll just save up what we can and keep looking until the timing is right. It feels great actually! After my shower I was so sad to be leaving all the women who said I was a blessing to them and who blessed me so much at my shower! I was also very convicted of my recent complaints of being stranded at home with no friends to come and comfort me. I realized that just b/c I don't feel like I'm being "ministered to" doesn't mean I should stop my efforts in ministering... I know, talk about selfish huh? But I have renewed purpose being here in McMinnville and Mark and I are glad to not be moving at this stage in my pregnancy... now it's just time to settle in and wait for baby!!!

I had a Dr's appointment yesterday and things are looking good. Everyone is healthy and I've starting to dilate just a bit. I actually had the appointment with the CNM since my Dr was leaving town and needed to get some other stuff done and wasn't seeing patients that day... but she was really nice and convinced me to schedule the c-section for August 31st. She seems to think I'm likely to end up having the baby before that but we can all remember how that went last time around. If you don't, just look at the archives in our blog from last February and March :-) So, it's nice to get some of those details settled and arrange all the details for taking care of Asher while we're in the hospital... I'm feeling a lot less stressed about all of that now. And, the gals at the office told me that when I go and pre-register at the hospital, to talk with someone in the billing/business office and that if I set up a payment plan beforehand they will greatly reduce the bill for me. They said you can get a discount up to 90% off if you arrange all the details ahead of time! That would be a tremendous blessing... and a much needed financial help!! I'll be praying lots and lots for that to all work out!

And with this news you guys are going to think we are most definitely crazy :-) We're moving to Wilsonville... again! We'll still consider Creekside our home church and Mark will still be working in McMinnville so don't get too concerned. After looking at our bills more closely with Cole's pending arrival we realized that our rent here was just more than we can handle. We looked into some places in McMinnville but all the apartments are either too small, really run down or we just had this odd feeling about them. So, on craislist one day we just happened upon the apartments at Villebois in Wilsonville, went out and took a look, said some prayers and feel like it's the best choice for us. It's a bigger apartment (for a 2 bedroom) and we really feel like it'll be easier for us to stick with our plan moving somewhere with a bit more room that is a little nicer than what we found in Mac.

It will be a long time before we'll be out from under some of our financial strains and this will be saving us a lot of money every month. Yes, a 1000 square foot apartment will be quite a change from this 3500+ square foot home we live in now, but we're excited at the idea of finally being able to make some progress financially! Plus, with saving so much $$ every month, we'll be able to get our other car fixed sooner than originally planned (assuming no more random bills come out way) so I'll be able to actually leave the apartment every once in a while. And while we'll still only have one car working for a bit, there's lots of walking trails and a park just down the block so I will actually be able to do more outside the house than I do now. Plus, we're on the bottom floor - no more stairs!!! If you want to take a look at the place here's a link to their site... Villebois Apartments.

We'll be sad to be a bit further away from friends and family, but we're pretty good at making the trek out to McMinnville - at least we were when we lived in Tualatin, Sherwood and Wilsonville before :-) Anyway, we'll be finding out our official move in date today and I'll be doing lots of packing, selling, donating and giving away the few weeks before we meet Cole. We figured we really needed to do this before he was born, otherwise we'd just end up waiting too long and getting too far behind financially again. I may periodically list some things we're selling on craigslist on here for any of you to claim and we'll do our best to keep you updated on how things are going! Wish us luck!!!

Yikes, it's been a while again. I'll just stop apologizing, stop saying I'll post soon and you can all just wait for monthly updates :-) We got our family photos back - I'm sure many of you have seen them on facebook by now. They turned out great! I'll post a few here at the end. Asher has been pretty good lately. Although the last 2 days his naps have been so short!!! Last week he slept for 3 hours in the afternoon about 3 times, then yesterday and the day before it was only for an hour... I thought I was going to die!!!

I think I had posted earlier that I had done the Photo Day in July and it had gone really well. My photography business is really picking up and Mark and I are both really excited to see where it goes. I cannot wait to get to the point of opening a studio with my own lighting equipment and everything... once I have a studio available I'll be able to work on a lot of the different project ideas I've had floating around in my head! I still need to post some photos from that day... just another thing on the to-do list.

Asher has been doing all kinds of things that are super funny - he sure has turned into a little ham! The other day, he really wanted to go outside but I was editing some photos on my computer... then I hear him dragging something around and once he came around the corner I saw that he had found my camera and was trying to take it to the back door! Amazing that a 16 month old can understand the things he can! You see, often, we go outside and I bring the camera... it was like he was saying "Here mom, I've got your camera, I know you'll want to go outside now!" Well, we went outside but I didn't take the camera this time... we just wandered around and 15 minutes later he was ready to go back inside. He's so funny that way. But at G&G Armstrong's he'll play outside forever!! It's super funny how he'll ask to get down while you're holding him in the pool - I don't think he'd like what would happen if we let him go :-) But he'll play in the pea gravel and a bucket of water for hours out there without making 1 fuss!

Well, I could write on and on about all the funny things Asher does but I don't want to bore all of you... I'll write again tho, this time with just funny Asher stuff for all of you who are interested :-) Enjoy our family photos!