I just want to dance!
-Emmett

Mommy, please put on your ring. Mommies love the jewels.
-Emmett

After nap I’m going to be nice and earn back my privileges.
-Tessa

We don’t hit people in the head. Emmett isn’t a people. He’s my brother.
-Riley

Mommy, you don’t pee in your pants. You pee in the potty!
-Tessa

I don’t like this song. It’s not Jimi Hendrix.
-Tessa

(Let’s help Daddy clean up and put his shoes away.) Those aren’t Daddy’s shoes. Those are the Scare Crow’s shoes.
-Riley, when Daddy made a Scare Crow for Halloween and dressed it in his clothes

Erik, that’s enough. Go to the stairs and count to ten. You’re in trouble.
-Emmett

(Tessa it’s cold outside. Please put on a long sleeve shirt.)
Actually Mommie, I don’t have to put on a long sleeve shirt. I can put on a sweatshirt.
-Tessa

This is edemame? Can we eat eda-daddy too? I’m funny, Mommie.
-Tessa

It’s the start of birthday and holiday season, and we kicked it off with Riley’s fourth birthday party. It was beautiful outside and Dad had just raked a huge pile of crisp, golden leaves in the backyard. Along with our friend Mei Lia from next door, we spent the entire morning jumping in and running through the leaves. After the party, Mom said that we had enough leaves on the floor inside to make out own tree. We had blue monster cupcakes and Riley got a ton of great presents. Wonderful.

Asher was a big hit at the party and it seemed like people were fighting over him. He’s smiling a ton. That toothless, wide-mouthed, tongue sticking out smile. And when you hold him up so he can kind of weightbear on his feet, he dances. He’s also a little ticklish on his ribs, just under his armpits. You put those last two together, get him standing up and tickle him, and he’s a dancing machine. His go-to move is an arm strut and a little head flick. When Emmett did it, we called it Pig-Foo. (Like Kung Foo, but for Pigs.)

This week, at his four month visit, Asher weighted in a almost twelve-and-a-half-pounds. On the chart, adjusted for his premie-ness, he’s solidly in the 50th percentile. So, yay! We might need to cut his hair, though. He’s got quite the ‘fro. The rest of us didn’t get our first haircut until after our first birthday. (With the exception of Tessa, who got a trim around 8 months to save her from the ignominy of a mullet.) But Asher’s hair is incredible. It’s soft like puppy fur, and so curly. Right after a bath, the curls are tighter, but when it’s been a bit since washing, his ‘fro makes his head look huge. Like Riley-head huge. But we are holding off, for now…

Since we are at home now, and not in school anymore, we spend most of our days exploring outside. We’ve also been doing a lot of art projects. With Hanukkah and Thanksgiving coinciding this year, we made Thanksgiving menorahs. We made our handprints into turkeys and then turned their feathers into candles, complete with yellow flames. We also made hanging Stars of David with popsicle sticks and blue tissue paper. We call them David’s Stars.

Since Daddy will be out of town for all of January, February, and March (he’s training to do psych work with soldiers in the Army), he’s taking the entire month of December off to be with us. We’ve done so much with him, it’s great. We’ve gone to the park a ton and we’ve gone hiking and we’ve gone to the indoor amusement parks. Right now, it’s eight below zero outside, so not too much outside time. But when it’s warm, we are trying to spend as much time outside as we can because in April we are moving to Washington state. A big change for us all! But we are looking forward to it.

We’ve been enjoying our Hanukkah presents. We loved playing with the big kids on their slack line at the park so much that Mom and Dad got us our own slack line for the basement. They also got us a Swingball set. Think tetherball with a tennis ball and rackets. So far, just a few black eyes and bruises have resulted. But we’ve learned. Don’t get close to the person holding the hitter. (That’s what Emmett calls the rackets.) The Lego zoo, firetruck set and race track have also been hits.

Next week is Emmett’s birthday. He’s talking about it–a lot. We are all excited, and we hope that it warms up a bit for the party. But if it doesn’t we can play inside practicing on the slack line and playing with the Swingball. Also, this weekend we are going to Disney on Ice. Mom and Dad think we are going to love it, but it’s the first time we’ve gone to something like that so we’ll see. We’ll let you know how it all goes.

Check back soon,
The Pigs

It’s the start of birthday season! Riley turned four on October 23rd. We celebrated with Halloween themed cupcakes and a present. He got a marble construction tower set. We all work together to build Seuss-ian-like towers, which are hollow, and then we drop a marble in the topmost one and watch it descend. We all love, love it. He also had a family party a few weeks after his official birthday. We were outside playing in the leaves the entire morning. It was wonderful.

We’ve been doing a lot of projects at home lately. In addition to carving pumpkins and building a scarecrow, we’ve made lanterns and we’ve painted a bunch of water colors. Also, we pretended that we were Tinkerbell fairies and, using materials that we found outside, we made things. Emmett made a magic garden, Tessa made a sukkot, and Riley made a forest with shark-infested pond. We made seed-pod boats and waited patiently to see if they floated in our pond (they didn’t). We’ve also spent a ton of time outside searching for fairies and nature spirits. We’ve come THISCLOSE but haven’t yet been successful in finding one. But don’t worry. We’ll keep at it…

Asher is smiling now and we take turns holding him, in Mom or Dad’s lap, and we try to get him to giggle. He loves to stand up and move his arms like he’s walking. His hair is growing fast and if it hasn’t recently been washed, he’s got a little ‘fro. So very cute. He also mimics you if you stick out your tongue. He’s clearly a smarty pants. If only all this maturing came with sleeping though the entire night. But alas, not yet.

We went to cousin Ellie’s house to trick-or-treat this year. Her neighborhood was a lot like Pop-pop’s. Lots of kids and decorations and trick-or-treaters. Tessa dressed as Princess Tiana from the movie Princess and the Frog. Riley dressed as a big blue monster. And Emmett was Spiderman for the third year in a row. He really likes being Spiderman. He even had a wizard costume that he picked out, complete with wand and cape and hat. But he decided that Spiderman would net more candy. This year, though, we really came into our own. We’ve got this thing down. And we appreciate the candy more too. Mom and Dad have been using it to coax good behavior out of us. We are good with that, as long as candy keeps coming our way.

Before Halloween we went to two different pumpkin patches. We rode a pony and petted lots of different kinds of animals. We took hay rides and went into a spooky barn. We picked out pumpkins and got our faces painted. Mom and Dad were kind of afraid of taking all four of us out by themselves, but we did great. We listened and we had only minimal meltdowns. Everyone was happy.

We can’t wait for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Emmett’s birthday and Christmas and Tessa’s birthday. All around the corner!

Stay tuned,
The Pigs

It’s been almost a month since Asher came home and we have established a nice routine with the newest Pig. We are all very helpful. We get Asher’s clothes when he needs a new outfit, and we help by grabbing diapers when he needs changed. We bring blankets to help swaddle him. Riley even uses the step stool to get already-made bottles off of the kitchen counter when Asher’s hungry. We are all very interested in what he does.

When he cries we want to help make him feel better. We hug and kiss and snuggle him. Riley even tries to pick him up to hold him, but Mom tells him no. Emmett likes to whisper things to Asher. It’s like they’ve been talking about stuff for a long time and Emmett is just picking right up in the conversation where they last left off.

Asher is getting so big! He’s out of premie clothes and diapers and into newborns. We guess he’s almost seven pounds about now, but his next doctor’s appointment isn’t until the beginning of October so we won’t know for sure for a while. But he’s eating a ton. He’s developing a double chin and his extra chunk is slowing making it’s way to his thighs, which we all love to see.

And he’s got so much hair! Emmett likes to say that it’s fantastic hair, just like his. It gets very, very curly right after his bath. Riley likes to rub his cheek on Asher’s head and say, “I love his hair. It’s so soft!” It’s like satin. With his hair and funny faces, Asher is still reminding Mom and Dad a lot of Emmett when he was a tiny Pig. We all love it.

He’s still waking up every few hours to eat at night, with some night being better than others. So stay tuned with that. Although he’s not a crier, he just fusses, we’d still like for Mom and Dad to get a decent night’s sleep one day. Until then, they both drink a lot of coffee.

We are definitely a bit of a handful, all us Pigs, when Dad is at work or when Mom is at work and only one person is taking care of us. But it is all worth it, and after a big blow up–where maybe we aren’t sharing well or we fight over something–we settle down pretty quickly.

Us big Pigs got some new toys recently that we love. Mom and Dad got us these inflatable balls that are hollow inside so we can climb in and roll. We’ve also been playing with balloons a lot recently. We like to put a small LED light into them and go into a dark room and play hot potato.

At school, the boys are working on their writing and Tessa is wow’ing her teachers with her incredible memory. We are all three enjoying the new school year, but we’ll all be happy when our routine isn’t disrupted by so many Jewish holidays–as much as we enjoy celebrating them! We are looking forward to our Sukkot BBQ on Sunday…

Mom will post new pictures of everyone ASAP. As soon as Asher takes a nap…

Be well.

With love,
The Four Fantastic Pigs

It’s Back-to-School time! We all started back to school last week. Well, everyone except Asher. He’ll just be back. As in back home. We all moved up a grade! And we are so excited about it. We all love our new teachers and we were getting into the groove when, bam, we came down with colds. Because Asher’s coming home, Dad was extra cautious with us and kept us home from school and worked hard to get us all well. And, it worked.

Anyway, we have all been a bit out of sorts this past month, what with a new baby brother who was born out of state and Mom and Dad shuttling back and forth to see him. And we are all very insistent that our little brother comes home. We don’t understand why he has to stay with the doctors. We don’t stay that long with the doctors when we go to see them. How come Asher can’t come home now? Emmett especially has been very concerned about Asher. But the wait is over!

This month we’ve seen rainbows and hail and rain. We’ve played in the pool, and visited Monkey Business, and had playdates. We’ve had great babysitters when Mom and Dad have to do things for Asher. It has, given the circumstances, been a good month. We’ve been listening to a lot of music and doing a lot of dancing. We’ve taken tractor rides and helped mom weed the flowerbeds and rode our bikes. All around, a typical, wonderful summer.

We’ll check back in soon, and we’ll let you know what’s it like having a new baby brother in the house.

With love,
E, R and T

The day has finally come! After three weeks of living with strangers, albeit nice and caring strangers, I get to come home to my family. Mom and Dad have been out to see me a ton. And I’ve FaceTimed with Emmett, Riley, and Tessa, but I’ve never met them. It’s time to get home to all of the Pigs in the pen.

I’ve grown a bunch in the time that I’ve been here. I’m right around five and a half pounds. That’s huge! I’m ridiculously cute, which is to be expected. I remind Mom a lot of a baby Emmett. The way I purse my lips. The way I scrunch up my nose. Even the way I arch my back and search for the bottle when I’m hungry. We are, for sure, brothers.

I am, everyday, growing more alert and interactive. I smile a lot. And sometimes I even chuckle at the right parts in an overheard conversation. But mostly, I am eating a lot more. And letting people know when I’m hungry. I am sleeping well, and taking good, deep breaths. So, now I am ready.

***

I flew home. The people on the plane gave me a certificate and wings and everything. No one believed that I was real, given my size. Sometimes Mom and Dad don’t believe I’m real, either. But that’s just because they’ve had me in their plans for so long, that they can’t believe that the long road of Pig-acquisition has come to and end. They told me that I completed our family. Now we all get to live. Together. Yay!

When I got home, everyone was super excited. Emmett, right away, became very protective. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch me, saying, “No touching Asher!” He kept repeating, “Wow. Asher. So cool.” Tessa and Riley were not to be put off loving and snuggling me though. They pushed their way to my side and tugged and petted and kissed and hugged me. If ever there was a more exuberant crowd to come home to, I’ve not seen it. It’s clear: I am loved.

Riley asked, right away, when I will grow up. I am so small and, although everyone agrees that I am cute, I am no Pig-Piler at my current height and weight. He asked if I could sleep in his race car bed with him. Sleepovers are right around the corner!

Tessa kept pulling on my feet and legs. She tried to pick me up, out of Mom’s hands. She’s an insistent one, I can tell already. Not to be ordered around. I have a feeling that she’ll be the one organizing our play when I get a bit older.

Pop-pop and Ms. Ann were there too. Taking great pictures and waiting for a turn to hold me.

Check out the pictures of me that Mom uploaded.

Thanks for everyone’s love and support!

Asher