This has been pretty hard to do lately.  When I walk past his nursery, it’s hard to breathe.  When I look at the pictures we have of him, it’s hard to breathe.  When I think about life without him, it’s hard to breathe.  When we said another goodbye to him at the cemetery, it was hard to breathe…I just want so desperately to hold him again…

I wish we could have helped him more.  And yet, I’m so thankful he doesn’t have to fight anymore.  He had been through a lifetime of needles, and tubes, and IV lines, and we were only just beginning.  I’m thankful he didn’t have to go through the heart surgery.  I’m thankful he’s resting.  But, I still wish I could hold him again…

I miss the sleepless nights with him in the hospital, all of the beeping monitors, and the long talks with the doctors about our boy…because all these things meant Pax was with us, and the fight was on.  I miss fighting for him…

But our sweet Paxon Ray is not struggling to breathe anymore.  He is in the presence of the Lord, His Father, His Maker.  Perfect.  Whole.  Happy.  And, this brings me joy.

We had a memorial service for our Paxon Ray this week.  It was a beautiful service.  Our friend and Pastor, Tyler, conducted the service and did a wonderful job at honoring Paxon’s life, and explaining why God is trustworthy in these hard times when life seems so unfair.  Our friend and Pastor, Justin, read a letter that Jeremy wrote sharing our hearts with everyone.  And, our friend and extremely talented songwriter/musician, Kristie, sang a song she wrote about our sweet Paxon Ray.  It was a short and sweet service.  Our prayer was that Paxon’s life would be honored, and we hope that the people who came were blessed.

Jeremy’s letter…

This has been the most difficult six months of our lives.  Hopefully, the most difficult Rachel and I ever have to experience.  But this time was not lost.

Our son, Paxon, the boy that we loved before we knew his name, was taken from us quickly.  We were not ready to let him go and we will never be ready to stop loving him.  But what have seen from his short life is a legacy that has changed us forever.

We have seen strength in his weakness.
We have looked to our eternal Father for comfort.
We have learned to truly value life and learned that it is worth defending.
We have seen the Christian community around us rise up and be the hands and feet of Jesus.
We have declared to the world that the Lord is trustworthy and good.
We have been brought low and looked to Him for comfort and wisdom.

We have learned the truth of James 5:11, that says,
“Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

We felt His compassion and we saw His mercy.
And we got to love our boy.

Paxon was a gift that we cherished for 11 days.  We loved him with everything we could muster.  And we continue to do so.  The gift that he gave us was more than just his life.  He gave us a greater understanding of our God and Father.  His life led us deeper into our faith and allowed us to radically experience the character of the God that we love.

We love you, Paxon.  We will miss you so much.

Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Kristie Braselton’s song for Paxon…

Paxon Ray (click to open in Windows Media Player)

Paxon Ray

We gazed at you in black and white
We prayed for you night after night
Paxon Ray

Those tiny hands and tiny heart
We fought for you right from the start
Paxon Ray

Only Jesus knew how long we’d have with you
So we treasured every moment you were here

Sweet Paxon Ray, with us just eleven days
How we wish you could have stayed
Sweet Paxon Ray, we will hold you once again
One wonderful Day, sweet Paxon Ray

Oh the joy the day you came
You were so small and yet so brave
Our Paxon Ray

Your fragile fingers gripped us tight
You wouldn’t go without a fight
Paxon Ray

We know that now our Father has healed your heart for you
And one day he’ll make our broken hearts whole too

We weren’t finished loving you
Our little boy, you will always be
No, we weren’t finished loving you
So we’ll love you into eternity

We weren’t finished loving our boy, but the Lord was ready to have him home.  We will forever love you, Paxon Ray.

The last few days have once again been a very tearful roller coaster ride.  Paxon was not able to handle the doses of milk he was receiving, so they had to stop feeding him and back to relying completely on IV nutrients, and again his CO2 numbers were increasing.  We once again found ourselves in the middle of a heart surgery discussion with the doctors.  The conversation with the Neonatologist was heartbreaking from every angle.  It was presented that either they wouldn’t be able to find a surgeon who would be willing to work on Paxon, and we would be sent home with him and Hospice, or we may want to consider not putting him through this surgery, or they find a surgeon and we hope he’s strong enough to make it through the surgery and recovery.  Needless to say, it was an emotional day and night, and all Jeremy and I could do was pray for wisdom for both ourselves and the doctors.

All of the cardiologists met this morning to talk about Paxon.  We have a surgeon now, and a pretty great one we hear, and Paxon will have heart surgery this week.  Probably Thursday.  They will do another echocardiogram on Wednesday to see if his levels are adequate enough to proceed with surgery, and if that’s the case then he’ll be having surgery on Thursday.  Everyone seems a little anxious about this surgery.  They are not sugar-coating this surgery and recovery at all, which I guess is good so that we have a realistic picture of how things will look, but we’re pretty anxious too.  This is a major surgery.  They will be cracking his chest open, which makes me cry just thinking about.  They will not be doing surgery IN his heart this time (he has two holes in his heart that will require surgery at another time) but instead the surgery will be closing his Ducterous Artery (this Artery usually closes at birth, but Paxon’s didn’t) and putting a little clamp on his Aorta to restrict blood from flooding his lungs and increasing pressure on that side of his heart which should help mitigate some of the effects of the holes in his heart.  Our nurse and the Neonatologist talked with us a bit about how recovery will look for Paxon…and it sounds awful.  They said he will be worse off than he is now at first, and we’re looking at him being in the hospital until the end of February at the earliest.  Jeremy and I point blank asked him if he thought Paxon would survive the surgery.  He said he believes he will, but there are so many different factors that need to come together for him to recover, and that’s going to be the hard part.  He also said that this is our only option.  If Paxon doesn’t get this surgery, he will die.  We’re not ready to give up on our boy, we don’t feel he’s had a fair chance to prove himself, but we pray this surgery is the answer.

Please pray for STRENGTH for our boy.  We watch him now and see so much fiestiness in him.  The other day he grabbed a hold of his breathing tube and Jeremy and another nurse had to pry his hand off.  It was making me chuckle.  Not totally surprising because his brother is the same way.

We’re home for a night to shower Asher with some love and kisses.  Our nurse and Neonatologist told us that we need to go home now, because once Paxon has the surgery we’re not going to want to leave his side.  Please, please, please pray!

Guess what I got to do tonight?!  Hold my baby.

It required a lot of work and a couple of nurses to stabilize his breathing tube and his millions of other wires to move him to my arms, but it was so incredibly worth it.  Pax snuggled right into me, and for an hour he did nothing but sleep soundly, and I did nothing but embraced him and prayed for his healing.  His monitors didn’t beep one time in that hour, and my heart was so full.  We both felt right at home.

We were also able to start feeding Paxon some milk today.  I cannot even describe to you the joy this brought me!  He’s been here for 7 days and the only thing he’s been getting are nutrients, no food.  As a mom, all you want to do is feed your child, and it was killing me to not be able to do that.  He was getting what his body needs, but his little belly was still empty.  So now we’re feeding him about a tablespoon of milk, and if everything looks good we’ll keep increasing it.  Of course this will introduce the struggles with cystic fibrosis and the fact that he’ll need enzymes to process the food as well…but one step at a time.

Well, tomorrow Paxon will get his first, and hopefully last, ride in an ambulance.  They are transferring us to a different hospital because they are more equipped for pediatric procedures and surgeries over there.  Right now things are still pretty up in the air as far as the surgery (if any) Paxon will need.  You would get a way more detailed and descriptive explanation if Jeremy were here to write, but the short of it is that Paxon has been suffocating.  Two nights ago (before the breathing tube) will go down in the books as one of my worst memories, especially knowing now that the reason he was incredibly uncomfortable was because he was fighting so hard to breathe.  We’re thankful for the breathing tube because for the most part he’s peaceful now…but it just kills me to see him with it.  It’s really hard to cope with when we see the nurses and doctors running tests on him, or poking him with needles (it took them 7 tries to get an IV in!), or just adjusting him, and he starts crying.  We don’t hear his cries because of the tube, we just see him upset with tears flooding his eyes.  I can’t wait to hear his little cry again.

We are faced with a few different routes, and depending on the results from tomorrows procedure (they will put a scope down Paxon’s throat to look at his airways) we will go from there.  If his airways look good, we’ll be moving on to cardiac solutions involving surgeries; if his airways look floppy then we’ll probably be faced with a tracheotomy.  Of course there is that possibility that his airways look good, and he starts responding to medication and can expel the carbon dioxide easily when he exhales, but the doctor doesn’t think this is a realistic expectation.  I’m going to pray for this anyways.

Right now we can’t hold our little Pax, and this is pretty torturous.  This is the time when he most needs some loving arms wrapped around him consoling him, and all we can do is rub his little body through the port holes of his bed.  I’m really hoping this won’t last long, because I just ache to hold my baby!!!

So, we’ll all have a new home tomorrow.  We’re very, very thankful because we got the last room at the Ronald McDonald House, which is on the campus of the hospital.  Right now either Jeremy or I have been able to stay in Paxon’s room, but the new NICU is setup in a pod system and so there is no sleeping next to your baby…don’t get me started on why I hate this.  But, we are getting the best case scenario with having a room on-site because this also means that Asher and Grandma and Grandpa will be able to come and visit us too.  Last night I called to talk with Asher and he said, “love you, Mommy” in a weepy voice and handed the phone to Grandma.  My mom said he was crying and that he just missed me…rip my heart out!!!  So, Jeremy in his endless wisdom brought me home for a night so that Asher could see both Mommy and Daddy in the morning.  It was nice to have a morning together, especially in preparation for some hard things we’ll be dealing with this week.

We can pretty confidently say we’re sad to leave this NICU.  We’ve come to love so many of the nurses and doctors here, and even Jeremy and the doctor he gave the flying elbow drop to have become buds.  One of the nurses tonight told me that everyone loves our family, Paxon is one of their favorites, and the doctor (who Jeremy and I are sad to leave) said she was up all night thinking about Paxon and researching his chromosome deletion.  It’s going to be hard to leave when we feel so loved here.  I’m certain many people have been praying for what’s happening to us with the staff, because it seems really rare, especially after we’ve traveled this really long road of dealing with so many inconsiderate medical people.  I just hope we  have another great team at the new NICU.

This road is dark, hard and old.
Our feet are tired, sore and cold.
Today uncertain. Tomorrow unknown.
But He is our light, our shelter, our gold.

Three days into this and we are starting to see ahead into the dim future. Paxon came out of the gate fighting and showing great promise. We had a lot of hope that first day and evening. Hope that he would be an exception to the expectations. Hope that he would go home with us in a few short days or a week or two at most. Those hopes are fading and reality is setting in.

Over the last day and night, Paxon has had a lot of issues with his breathing. He has been unable to keep his oxygen levels up without a mask and that task became more and more difficult to regulate as time passed. At the same time, his CO2 levels continued to climb. His respiratory rates continued to climb. He was getting tired. He was unable to sleep. This culminated in the decision of him being intubated and placed on a ventilator early this morning.

This moment has been quite the blow to us. The sudden realization that many of the fears about what he was going to possibly be dealing with in life are true. That there is a good chance that he will not be avoiding many of the fates that were predicted for him. We went from being able to go home “once we get him feeding properly” to being here for “months”. We are facing a tracheotomy and the possibility of a different heart surgery is now being discussed.

There is much we don’t know but what we do know outweighs it all. Our boy is strong and ready to fight. Our love for each other continues to grow through these difficult times. And our God is good, faithful and merciful.

Please continue to pray for him, his doctors, and us.

– Jeremy (Paxon’s Daddy)

That may sound a little far-fetched, but not in our eyes. Paxon Ray Olimb is here, and he’s our miracle baby. He’s a miracle because all of the experts and smart medical people didn’t believe he would be here and they surely didn’t believe he would be doing so well.

Just to give a quick fly by of the turn of events…Friday morning I wasn’t feeling well and having a lot of contractions and weird pregnancy pains. Friday afternoon we were all able to go to Christmas services together which was so very special (until Asher freaked and Jeremy brought him to Sunday School class) and Jeremy and I enjoyed the rest of service together…resume specialness. We left church to pick up my parents from the airport, went back home and gave them a crash course on all of Asher’s treatments and medications, and my water broke as soon as we finished going through his routine with them…yep, God’s timing is pretty perfect!

It was really hard leaving Asher knowing we wouldn’t see him for awhile, and wouldn’t get to be there to spend Christmas with him, but Grandma and Grandpa did a great job of making the day very special for him. Jeremy told Asher that we needed to go to the hospital to get baby Paxon and Asher said, “I’m going to be a big brother!”

So off to the hospital we went around 8:30p Friday night. Things progressed fairly well, and Paxon was doing ok. They were having some troubles keeping his heart rate up, so that meant for more equipment and monitors (I had about 10 different lines coming from me) but besides that he handled everything quite well until we started pushing about 9:00a the next morning.

About 8:30a the new rotational doctor came in to introduce herself (right after we decided it was time to start pushing) and sat down and felt it necessary to start the conversation by saying, “time to get our trouble baby” in a joking manner (I don’t know how she did it, doesn’t seem possible, but she was chuckling about it) and then told us that she wasn’t sure they would be able to find a doctor who would perform heart surgery on a baby with chromosomal issues as well as cystic fibrosis…and here is where I lost control of my emotions, and where Jeremy went to all out war with the doctor. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jeremy like that before. It was a scene of a daddy fighting for his boy, and I look forward to one day telling Pax all about it. So basically what he relayed to our new delivery doctor is that we were pretty sure after meeting with the cardiologists (who, by the way, are from her same practice!) for 4 months that whole conversation would have come up if they were concerned, and I’m also pretty sure this isn’t something you say to parents who are well aware of what they’re dealing with, and trying to mentally prepare for delivery and seeing their baby for the first time.

The whole delivery experience was so emotional and trying. We were just coming off the high of trying to convince our doctor that our son has value and worth, there was a whole team of people in there ready to care for every worst case scenario, and we didn’t know what we were going to be faced with in just a few minutes. But, after 30 mins of pushing we finally got to see our boy! And, do you want to know what that big team of people did when he came…they just stood there in awe of him and what a strong, little fighter he was! He didn’t need ANY help with anything! It was such an incredible praise!! We had been prepared for the worst, and we got the best! Our boy was here, and he was breathing just fine!

Another absolutely HUGE praise is that they are about 90% sure he’s not even going to need heart surgery right away! Jeremy and I just cried. Our cardiologist hugged us and looked like he had won a million dollars when we saw him for the first time. It was such a joyous moment. He just kept talking about how great Paxon looks and how hopeful he is for him.

So, here’s what we know right now about our boy. He is missing the middle joints on his pinkie fingers, so they do not bend. His pinkies stick straight out, but that doesn’t seem to bother his grip, he really holds on tight to our fingers…and I’m pretty sure my heart melts every time he does this. He has an extra vertebrae, which the doctor said will just make his torso taller and be something cool for him to tell his buddies. His cleft…well, it’s pretty bad looking. We’re getting more used to it now, but honestly it’s pretty startling. He has a unilateral cleft lip, and a partial bilateral palette, which means almost the whole roof of his mouth is missing. And, although he may not need surgery on his heart, he has about 5 other things going on (for example, one of his holes is larger than they initially thought) that they are watching. He will have another echo tomorrow to get a final determination on the surgery and next course of action with his heart. If we can avoid this heart surgery (which we’re pretty hopeful for!) this is going to be so huge for him and his growth and reducing his changes of infection and complications. It. Would. Be. Huge.

Paxon is in the NICU, and we may be here for awhile with trying to figure out his oxygen levels, and feeding. He’s only receiving nutrients through an IV right now because we’re waiting until tomorrow about the heart surgery. We’ve had a few scares with him struggling with either mucus or saliva in his mouth. He has completely stopped breathing. Which makes Jeremy and I unable to breathe. It’s pretty awful to witness. It could just be because he’s so little, or because of his cleft l/p.

So, we have some things to figure out, but he’s here, he’s taking this life thing by the horns, we love him, and he’s Paxon Ray, our little Christmas miracle! We just wanted to share our miracle with you, and show you how God is answering all of your prayers! Keep praying for him please, he needs it, and it’s absolutely obvious that God is listening and moving! We love you all! Jeremy and Rachel

Yesterday we had an appointment with Paxon’s cardiologist.  After another 2 hour ultrasound, it’s looking quite probable that Paxon is going to need to have a heart surgery shortly after he’s born.  Nothing is set in stone yet, but the doctor is already planning for Paxon to receive a certain medication when he’s delivered, and to only feed him a solution with nutrients instead of milk so his heart doesn’t work too hard.  He will get an echo about 90 minutes after he’s born and then the decision will be made at that point.  They are thinking he has a coarctation of the aorta (narrowing of part of the aorta).  They haven’t specifically seen this on the ultrasound, but they are seeing other problems his heart is having (enlarged ventricles, enlarged valves, blood leaking back into the ventricles, and a few other things) that they feel pretty confident the coarctation is causing all of this.  Jeremy asked the doctor if they knew what else it could be if not the coarctation, and the doctor said it would probably mean that Paxon’s heart was abnormally formed from the chromosome deletion.  So, even though this heart surgery is scary, we would rather be dealing with something we can fix than a weak heart.  They are planning to perform the surgery about 3 days after he’s born.

Since so many doctors need to be involved in Paxon’s arrival and care, we are scheduled for induction for next Thursday the 30th.  Jeremy and I are swimming in emotions right now.  We’re terrified, yet we’ve been talking through every single problem and scenario we’re going to be dealing with that we’re at the point now where we’re anxious to see our baby and help him however we can.  It’s been a long four months of pouring over the what if’s and maybe’s, touring hospitals and nicus, being frustrated with doctors, and feeling helpless in taking care of Paxon.  We may still have these same struggles to deal with when he comes, but at least we’ll be able to touch and feel him instead of peering at some cloudy ultrasound tv screen and cheering for him to stay still.

So, here we go.  We definitely feel covered in prayer.  So many of you have been incredibly faithful to pray for our family, and we are forever grateful for you taking the time to pray for God to move in us, and give us the strength to walk this path…whatever that may look like.  If you think of it, would you mind continuing to pray…

….for an easy delivery, and for Paxon to stay strong through the whole process.  I would love to avoid a c-section so that I can be with him in the nicu, but that’s not all that important for his health…just my mental state.

….for Jeremy and me to be able to handle seeing Paxon for the first time.  Honestly, this is going to be difficult.  We just have to remember his cleft lip/palette is not hurting him.  Thankfully we have a wonderful, compassionate cleft lip/palette surgeon (if you’re local, his name is Dr. Stephen Beals!!!) who told us that he himself will come up to the hospital and fit him for a metal plate and tape his lip closed.  We’re hoping this will help him with learning to suck from a bottle.  We’re assuming he’ll be on a nasal feeding tube for awhile, but we would love to avoid a G-tube (a tube inserted through the abdomen to the stomach).

….for his bowel blockage to be easily extracted with medication rather than another surgery.

….we’re pretty certain Paxon will be mentally retarded, we just pray like crazy that it’s as minor as can be.  Where he is neurologically will really effect how he handles life outside of the womb.  I recently had a doctor say to me, “we just don’t know if he’ll be a little delayed, or if he won’t know that you’re his mommy.”  Sigh…when is that ever ok to say to someone!  I seriously could write a book entitled, “Here are the stupidest things doctors have ever said to a patient.  Don’t repeat.  Ever.”  But that’s a whole different conversation.  Please pray for his overall strength.

….that Asher would be ok with not seeing Mommy and Daddy as much, and enjoy his time with Grandma and Grandpa.  Asher also has a lot of daily medical needs, and most everything is pretty routine for Jeremy and me, but not so routine for Grandma and Grandpa.  Please pray for my parents as they take on the responsibility in caring for Asher, and that they would have an extra dose of energy to keep up with him…because the boy likes to be on the go all the time!

….that Asher would avoid RSV and getting sick during these winter months.  Oh, that would be soooo glorious!

….that God would shower Jeremy with the strength to keep up with a demanding schedule.  I’m planning on staying with Paxon in the hospital, so Jeremy will be trying to make sure Asher has a little routine in his day, traveling back and forth to the hospital to see us, and keeping up with work and household stuff.  That’s a lot for him to handle.  Please pray for his safety with all the freeway driving too, just thinking about the crazies on the I10 and the 51 give me heart palpitations.

….that God would use me in the hospital to share His love with others.  When I was touring one of the nicus I overheard a mom telling one of the nurses that she didn’t want a pastor to come and pray with her and her baby because it would make her feel uncomfortable.  I just wanted to hug this mom who was going through such a difficult time.  Pray God would use me somehow.

….that the four of us would be together under one roof as quickly as possible.

His room is ready…

….and I think we’re as ready as we can be.  We just need our little man to come and join our family so we can start loving him.

Our wonderful gift givers have been leaving verses for us each day with their gift.  Here are just a few of the verses that God keeps recalling to mind.  By the way, all of them are going in my suitcase and with us to the hospital so we can be renewed, challenged, comforted, refreshed, and keep our eyes on Him and His plan for our lives.

“I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.”  Jeremiah 33:6

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.”  Isaiah 12:2

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”  Proverbs 3:5-6

“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.”  Deuteronomy 7:9

“I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you.”  2 Kings 20:5

“Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

“…your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.”  Colossians 3:3-4

“God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but…will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  1 Corinthians 10:13

“Remember, the Lord is coming soon.  Don’t worry about anything, instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:5-7

Thanks for all your love everyone.  We’re so grateful you’re in our lives.  Merry Christmas to all of you!!!

Asher and I took a little road trip up to the Biltmore to look at the Gingerbread house display they have going on now.  The houses are being auctioned off with all proceeds going to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, which I thought was pretty cool.  They had about 10 different scenes from Disney/Pixar movies, and Asher and I liked the Up and Lady and the Tramp houses the best.

It was a sweet time hanging with my boy walking around the beautiful Biltmore grounds in the rain with our umbrellas.  And, of course it was another chance for him to run, which makes him happy.  He also drew a bug to send to Santa :).

Poor Asher.  I just uploaded my photos to my laptop and there were a whopping 23 photos on there, usually I have over 500.  Just another example of how tired I am, how we haven’t been doing much, and how the little man has really taken a backseat to all the appointments and things that need to get done before Paxon comes.  Through it all though he has been amazing.  He continues to be such a joy in our lives.  He’s always crackin’ us up with the things he says and does.  This morning he was shaking his booty at me and said, “You wanna rub my booty!”  And, all morning long we’ve been building towers, just so he can knock them down with his light saber, which is hilarious to watch.  He’s definitely all boy, and constantly on the go.  He really Carpe Diems all day, every day.

I wanted to record something that happened the other day at Joe’s Farm Grill (thanks to a dinner out from our wonderful gift givers!  Don’t even get me started on this topic!), it was a dinner I will never forget.  We were eating outside in the picnic table area and about 6 other boys (all older) started running around playing tag and hide-n-seek.  Of course Asher could barely contain himself.  Running is his love language.  If we’re in a store or outside waiting on something I’m constantly “timing” him to see how fast he can run from one wall to the next.  He is at peace when he’s running…which can also cause a little tension between him and mommy and daddy, but all in all we’re thrilled he likes to run because it’s like he’s getting another vest treatment in for the day.

So for the next 45 minutes Jeremy and I just sat there and watched Asher run and play with the boys.  He was extremely giddy, and it was so adorable to watch him running with his big, round CF belly out front and his little legs and arms swishin’ back and forth trying to keep up with the big dogs.  He was playing so nicely, saying “excuse me” and “oops, I’m sorry” if he ran into someone, and cheering for his new friends.  I found myself saying out loud, “My God I love him!”  I feel like we’re constantly having to remind Asher of his manners, how to play nice, and how to be gentle.  It was a sweet, proud moment for Jeremy and me to watch him display all of these characteristics.

I did realize something about myself though.  I think I have a hard time letting him go, even in the simplest of things like playing tag with a group of boys right in front of me.  I was sort of a nervous wreck watching him run around because it was dark, and the ground was uneven, and there were trees and picnic tables and a sidewalk that was just calling for a head injury.  I kept yelling out to Asher, “be careful honey, look up while you’re running, you’re “it” and now you need to catch someone else, watch out for that hole…”  Every time Jeremy just looked at me shaking his head and saying, “Rach, stop.”

It was almost like Asher knew I was having a hard time because he was so gracious to me.  Whenever I would shout out a reminder he would say, “Ok, Mommy!” and keep running.  At one point Asher and two other boys ran over to hide behind a tree, which just so happened to be right next to a side street.  I couldn’t control myself, I walked over there and said, “honey you shouldn’t be playing over here by the street.”  Of course I tipped off the seeker and all the boys there were found.  Asher’s response, “Ok, Mommy!  Let’s play again!”  This was probably a good lesson for me, because I’m sure when he gets older he won’t be ok with me busting in on his games, and instead I’ll be the mom who embarrasses him…ugh…I don’t want to be THAT mom…but sheesh, it’s going to be hard to let him go.

Well, it’s confirmed.  Asher really does not like the idea of sitting on Santa’s lap.  He’s all crazy about the idea beforehand, and then when the time comes, he loses his mind!  So here’s Santa with Jeremy and Asher :).

For some reason, Asher thinks the horse and buggy belong on the bridge, even though it’s obvious they don’t fit.  Every day he’s putting them back in their spot, ha!

Asher hiked a mountain!!!  On their “Asher Daddy Day” Jeremy took him on a hike, and he made it all the way to the top of the mountain.  Jeremy said there were parts of it that were really steep, but this didn’t stop our boy.  Take that CF!!!!

We love you, Asher, and are so thankful for the little person you are becoming!