no!

little man turned 17 months this past monday, but he swears he's going on 17 yrs old. it's amazing to see all these changes in his pint sized body. such a blessing to be a part of his development. i am always amazed at God's perfect timing and awesome hand. asher is such a delight, even when he's not so charming (which has been his constant state). there are glimmers of joy =). like this little video of him pretending to eat his animal soup. then he moves over to the chair next to him, leans into the camera and says emphatically NO! with a point of his little finger. =), now where did he get that???

boo

the force is strong with this one...

and this one...to infinity and beyond!

sorry folks, it's been a rough two weeks, but we made it and had a wonderful halloween. asher was yoda, thanks to his manong mateo who was buzz lightyear. we weren't going to take asher trick or treating because we didn't think it would be warm enough, plus, we just weren't prepared. but thanks to his manong mateo, he borrowed his yoda costume and there was no doubt about going. initially, we tried looking for a costume, but we couldn't find one cool enough or cute enough that we liked or agreed on =). we decided we'd make him a costume. we thought a doggie, then felix thought of dressing him up in his suit and tie which we got for auntie danica's wedding and going as a lawyer (that was a stretch) i didn't like the idea, so we settled on a doggie costume. it was bad, uncle jon said, heck no! will my nephew go out lookin' like that. that's how he ended up with the yoda costume. he was a hit and asher actually didn't mind wearing the head piece to it. he was too cute, especially walking around, he just looked the part.
we had a great time walking the four blocks around mom's house. everyone was so generous and kind to our little guys! and to all the little ones running around filling up.
we'll have to be more proactive next year and come up with another clever costume. wait and see... enjoy the pics here.

pickin' apples

apple holler...where da' apples????
it was late in the season, no apples to be found on the trees, so we enjoyed our first apple picking with asher, through bins of apples. that's ok, the kids had fun, wandering the kiddie park, riding a train, wading through a corn kernelbox (their version of a sandbox), walking through the apple orchards looking for apples, and walking through the pumpkin patch. next year we'll have to go earlier. it still was fun being with uncle jon, aunt helen, and manong mateo.

our lost episode

omg! we've had many close calls with pooh. asher's beloved and bestest buddy. there have been so many times we've misplaced him, forgotten him, lost him, and now lost him again. if you understand pacies and lovies, then you'll understand why we dare not lose pooh EVER!!!! pooh's story... when asher was but a wee 5 or 6 months old, he had an affinity to pooh his unstuffed animal. we unsuccessfully tried getting him attached to a pacifier, but just didn't work out because he kept spitting it out and was too lazy to put it back in his mouth. we read and heard some where that a lovey would help in place of a pacifier, plus a lovey wouldn't mess up their teeth and the lovey can be like linus's blanket, kept forever. so we forced pooh on him and he took to pooh quite easily. in the last 2 months alone, we've managed to lose his beloved several times. this recent lost episode involved taking a late night stroll through our neighborhood to give our other child (kona our dog) a walk. it was dark and we had walked half a mile through old irving, our usual short nightly route. as we came up to our backdoor ready to get into our warm and toasty house, the ring clip pooh was attached to on the Bob, was BARE! say it ain't so! holy !?@$!!!! it's dark out here, where could number one son have thrown pooh overboard???? felix and i had a look of terror. asher would be looking for his best friend... what do we do? there's no question, felix had to backtrack in the DARK and dare not come home empty handed. miracles never cease, after 20 minutes he came home, pooh a bit disheveled, but safe in our home and now getting a good clean wash. lesson learned, we will not take pooh along for our walks and if we happen to come upon another pooh, we will buy many to replace in the event we can NEVER find him again.

what did you say

oh little man is charming the pants off us now. asher has become quite the "talker". since he was born, we've been doing baby sign with him. just a few simple things like milk, please, more, and thank you. all last week he was spitting fire, throwing some nuclear tantrums which had us running for the hills, so to speak. i'll blog about that later. in retrospect, it seemed like he was on the verge of finally understanding language and putting that into "words". he was frustrated beyond belief at not being able to express what he wanted, which then resulted in massive tantrums. but this past monday, he INITIATED "talking" to me. this is how it went:
me while holding asher..."momma"...signs "eat"...then signs "please". what the!?!...i ask and sign back..."eat" asher? and he says yeah!
was i thrilled, was i excited, were tears collecting in my eyes! you BETCHA! i couldn't believe it, i got him some crackers, we sat down at the table and we had such a pleasant snack time till poppa came home. we went back and forth with "more please" and giving him food till his tummy was full. who cares that it spoiled his dinner, which in fact it didn't. our boy can put it away. but it was glorious! don't get me wrong he still has his tantrums, but they aren't as nuclear as last week's.

so now we come to today, the third day of his "talking" and boy has he mastered it. felix and i realized that he can give us a smile and ask very sweetly for something with his "peas" baby sign, that we had started giving him what he wanted. he was charming us like nobody's business...gotta hand it to the kid, he learns quick. we'll see how much he can get away with. hopefully not much.

august highlights

wow, can't believe how the summer has come and gone. we have had a full end of summer. wedding, vacation, out of town guests. all seems like a blur now.

here are a few highlights:

enjoying his ice cream

reading stories with manong mateo

being silly

momma & poppa love

kona love

playing with cousin logan

more to follow, stay tuned...

sorry

for not blogging
for not keeping you up to date on our happenings
just plain lazy.

promise to do better. =)

olympics fever

i don't exactly remember when i started getting hooked, but i just can't get enough olympics. if i could i would be awake all night so i could watch the events. we don't have cable...pooh! i know, no cable, but yes, we don't have cable and if we did, then i for sure would not be asleep...red eyes furreals.

yes, the chinese rocked the opening ceremonies. good luck to london for the next olympics. just hope chicago can host in 2016. can you imagine all the people. it would be soo great! we'll see...

enjoy the olympics!

july highlights

wow! i can't believe how much time has passed since my last post. sorry for the long absence. busy, tired, lazy, what can i say. here are some highlights of our july. the summer has been unseasonably cool. with some really hot days, but for the most part, it's been a mild summer in the chi.

on the fourth, asher didn't get a nap in. so by the time the fireworks came on, he was an unhappy baby, tired, cold, and a bit freaked out by the fireworks. but there were some moments of curiosity like this shot with poppa.

also, did some shopping that day. it was nice going to the mall and not being jostled by so many people, felix said, next year, we'll go shopping on the 4th again =). afterwards, headed to hooters for lunch...not impressed.

went to the park for the first time and enjoyed the swings the most. too little for the big slides, bounced on one of those seesaws, but wasn't excited with them. ran around some, overall, liked the swings the best.

and playing with manong mateo

crosstown classic...mattie is a friend in daycare who's family is a huge white sox fan, so his dad always dresses him up in sox gear, we just had to show him there are some really cute cubbies out there as well. mattie is 9 mos old, look how big he is compared to asher at 13 mos.

finally, a great day today for a pool party with momma, poppa, & kona. thanks to tita lizel for the pool.

1

asher turned one today! we enjoyed his day by taking the day off and taking him around town. we let him have an easy morning, versus trying to get him to go out. so he took a long nap, afterwards we headed to the shedd aquarium. it was a free week, not to mention school was out, so it was packed with lots of people. it wasn't too bad, but next time we'll remember free day means lots of people.

then we headed to our favorite gelato place on division (can't remember the name) and gave asher his first gelato experience. he certainly liked the chocolate gelato.

our baby has grown up sooo much. the days flew by so fast. i can't believe we're here a year later and enjoying him. i didn't think we'd/i would make it. we started out rough, colicky, then it just kept getting better. we are so thankful for him, he is truly a gift.
we love you baby boy!

it's a luau

aloha!

today was asher's birthday luau. i've always wanted to host a luau and we actually got to do it for asher's birthday. it was a beautiful day, thank you Lord. we had been watching the weather, praying for beautiful weather for our luau, and the Lord provided. we had wonderful family and friends over to celebrate asher. it was fun seeing kids run around and enjoy themselves in our backyard. prepping this whole shindig was a feat in itself. no matter how much time and planning you put into something, it doesn't always come out the way you want it to, but in the end people enjoy themselves, you're happy you did it, and then collapse from sheer exhaustion for pulling off a grand event.

thanks to the many wonderful family and especially friends who were supposed to be our guests, but ended up helping out in the end. i went online and did some light research on baby's first luau's and saw this great video (excuse the 70s look) that described the preparation and event of a baby's first birthday luau. i thought of it the whole time our friends stepped in to help us get things going. i loved having our family and good friends over to celebrate the joy of our lives.

the kids' secret garden

castillo boys playing

couldn't resist posting the castillo boys frolicking...enjoy!

remembrances...

our memorial day was about remembering our dad's. felix's dad passed away two years ago and my dad passed away 12 years ago. they would have loved playing with their grandkids. we'll have lots of stories to tell of their yeye and amang.

our day started out with a breakfast at ihop with the chan's. it was nice, asher had his first taste of pancakes with butter, nothing else. saving the sweets for his birthday cake =). he wasn't in such a great and accommodating mood because it all happen to fall around his nap time. so you know mr. man was cranky. afterwards we headed to the cemetery to visit yeye. it was asher's first visit where he was awake.

then we headed to the other cemetery across town to visit amang. along the way i was remembering dad's expressions...be careless...best in the west...anak ti salit (don't ask, i don't know, i just knew we were in trouble whenever dad said that). i do miss my dad, he was so much fun, and he would have had a great time with asher and mateo. he would have taught them to make mischief just to get back at us for when we made mischief with them. tell them stories of the philippines, growing up, and what we were like as kids. he would have spoiled them rotten and loved them to bits.

lions and tigers and bears oh my...

it was our day at the zoo. since it was a sunny and semi-warm day in the chi, we decided to visit the zoo. it was a nice excursion, i think we were more excited to show asher the zoo than he was going =). he was a great sport, he sat in his stroller most of the time not causing too much fuss. we met up with cousin logan, auntie mildred, and uncle milton. then dana and unity surprised mildred with a visit, so it was extra fun hanging out with them as well.

the animals were pretty much resting up in their quarters so there wasn't much too see. asher did get to glimpse the lions basking in the sun, some vultures having a mid afternoon snack (yum), a seal swimming by, giraffes, lots of fish, lemings, a bear, and lots of kiddies & parents =).

it was great fun and we hope to do it more often. when he's able to walk more confidently, i'm sure he'll enjoy it more.