Deep Weekend

Once again we took Asher away with us on a youth residential. This is his fourth (if you count Soul Survivor) and the fifth is coming up next month. He'll be bored of them long before he's in his teens at this rate!

We had a great time, as usual. I think for the most part Asher enjoyed having lots of people to talk to and play with. We had fun getting him to point to various things (he specialises in ceilings, doors, lights and Daddy, but will also point to noses, feet, windows and occasionally Mama). We also had a few fun games of "Who will Asher walk to?" - he prefers to walk to his Mummy, but is getting more confident at walking to other people too. It's interesting that he is now starting to choose walking rather than crawling to get from place to place unprompted. Sometimes he even carries things!

Asher's favourite part of the weekend was undoubtedly the time we spent outside. He'll just pause and look around whenever we go out (and our room was separate from the hall where the youth activities were taking place, so we went out several times a day). Here are some photos from Saturday morning.

I'm not sure what he was looking at in this picture. But he's definitely waterproof!

Asher with a very dirty stone that he was absolutely determined to keep on licking. Yum.

Asher: "Oooh! Ooh, oh oh oh, oooooh!!"

Watching some sheep

"But why can't I pick up this rock? My hand is touching it!"

"Oh, it's too heavy. Silly me!"

This was perhaps Asher's happiest moment of the entire weekend.

Splash!

On the move

This video was taken just over a week ago.

He's still only really walking in short bursts - usually between me and Noah, but also towards something he really wants (like the cat). I've also seen him stand holding onto something, clearly wanting to walk a few steps to get to somewhere else, but not quite brave enough to take the plunge. He'll step his feet up and down repeatedly on the spot but doesn't quite dare let go. Usually I take pity and give him a hand! Otherwise he will probably crawl.

But sometimes I look into his eyes and smile, and say "You can do it!" and he smiles back, and walks.