September 26

Joshua is 16 months today! This past month has definitely been a lot of fun, as we've watched him discover new things and grow in his personality and abilities to communicate with us. Some of his obvious developments are:

* his walking is taking off - he tries to run, but soon does a face-plant as his feet is not moving as fast as his will! He still walks in a "drunkard" stance - arms out, totting side-to-side. But, oh so cute!
* he's moved into size 5 shoes!!
* he's recently developed a smile that we call "the cheeky smile" - huge smile, showing off his pearly whites, eyes closed. He usually does this in a state of mischeviousness (is this a word?). He knows that he's not suppose to do something, but is going to try and get away with it anyway! It's hard to say "no" to him with a straight face when this happens!
* he's using more words now, like up, ball, dog, duck, "meow", and the most recent acquisition, "no" (we knew the day would come!).
* he likes to beat on Reggie with his plastic yellow baseball bat. Actually, they play pretty well together! Most of Joshua's toys have Reggie's teeth-marks on them!
* Speaking of teeth, have we told you that Joshua has a full mouth of teeth already!? We go to his first dentist appointment next week!

Joshua continues to delight us in so many ways. We are so thankful that he's healthy and transitioning nicely into Toddlerhood (although, I still relish his baby moments and wonder if there's a way I can stop him from growing up too fast. Suggestions anyone?)

September 23

We were in Indiana this weekend visiting friends. It's amazing that in Joshua's short 15 months of life, he's already an international, as well as an interstate traveler! Singapore in March, Colorado in July, and Indiana in September (oh, and Wisconsin for the holidays, of course!).

As I type this, Jared is in Green Bay at a Packer Game! Joshua is napping, and I'm on the verge of slumber, too. These past few weeks have been busy, and it's nice to be able to lay on the couch and rest a little. I can't remember the last time I took a nap!

Anyway, part of our intention of starting a blog is to be able to document some of Joshua's milestones. Many times I've said to myself "I really need to write this down - he just said "dog" and he's starting to interact with Reggie!" And by the time I know it, time's flown right by and I didn't get to journal about it!

So, I hope I can post a blog once a week or so, just to give updates on Joshua, and what's going on in our lives. Really, it's for me to get better about journaling (so it's for selfish reasons!), but we welcome others reading it, and we hope you can laugh, love, cry, pray, experience life with us! May God's fingerprints be evident in the events of the life of the Ahrens Family!

It took a while but...

we're here! We've finally joined the world-wide-web of blogging (we should have done this a long time ago!). Anyway, we hope this will allow family and friends to stay updated with the happenings in our family. We'll try our best to post a weekly entry - please feel free to send comments, as we'd love to hear from you!

We'll post some recent pics soon!