Happy Birthday Asher!

Summer is the time for birthdays at the Layton home. Asher has summer birthday #2, and he is now nine years old! I love this picture of Asher eating an apple when he was two years old. We used to go to Sydney's diving meets together, and he would always sit and watch quietly as long as he had an apple. It's too bad my scanner doesn't do justice to his blue eyes.

Asher was a skinny, long newborn with fuzzy red hair. We brought him home to our little townhouse in Phoenix during the hottest part of the summer. When I look back on that time, I'm glad it's over! He was a hard baby who cried a lot because of his ear infections. As soon as those were taken care of, he was a sweet, mellow little guy!

Not sure what's on his chin here--it must be on my scanner! Here is is at about 18 months ready for church.

Hmmm....who has his same hair now? It's so funny how much Bridget's hair looks like his--especially the two curls on the sides.

Here is Asher and the fam on the night of his actual birthday. It didn't turn out as planned this year, and in fact was quite a bummer! The day before his birthday he went to a fun swimming party for scouts, but when he got home he was really tired and sunburned. I didn't think much of it until later that night when I realized he had been in the shower for over a half an hour. I knocked and then pounded on the door but he didn't answer. I ran and got a knife to jimmy the lock with and found him lying face down in the shower with his eyes closed. I thought he was dead--it was soooo horrible. I screamed his name and he opened his eyes, got up in a daze, then went to his room--he had fallen asleep in the shower! Who does that? About an hour later he woke up vomiting and we ended up having to take him to the emergency room--strep throat. After two rounds of anti-nausea medicine he finally was able to swallow his anti-biotic and we got home just before midnight.

For his birthday we had planned a birthday party that we had to cancel, but later that night we swam together as a family. That evening was when I found my neighbor in his garage after he shot himself in the back (long story--he is doing okay now I guess--as well as you can do without a colon or lower intestine--but I don't know for sure the details of what or why it actually happened). I was putting my kids in the van when I heard him screaming about his back. I was hoping his family was home but drove over to check on him and found him on the ground in the garage. I ran home and called 911, leaving my kids in the van parked in front of his house, then came back and waited for the ambulance, although I have now heard from my neighbor who knows a police officer that maybe he had a phone with him before I got there, so I basically didn't really do anything to help , which I feel bad about. I tried to talk to him to keep him awake and lucid until they came for him, but anyway, it was pretty traumatic for me at the time. Coincidentally, the son of the man who shot himself was supposed to be at Asher's party at the exact time of the shooting, so I think there must have been a reason for Asher to get sick and have to cancel the party so that that boy didn't have to be around to see the trauma. So that was Asher's actual birthday--wasn't that fun?

We rescheduled the party for this Tuesday, and I think it was a lot of fun. They swam, played with water balloons, had jumping off the ladder contests, ate pizza, opened presents--all that fun stuff. It ended up that he was the first of 5 cases of strep in our family--me included! Bridget also had a fever but no strep, and Steve was already on antibiotics from his walking pneumonia a week or two before, so he was spared. So, thanks Asher, for your birthday gift to us!:0) We all love you Ash. Thanks for being a good kid, a kind brother, and a loyal friend. Asher reminded me that he will be going on a mission in only 10 years. I'm sure that will go by in a flash the way life is going. The first nine have gone by too quickly!