Dave, Jamie, Dawson, and Ashlynn

Ashlynn's First Steps!!

2012-02-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

This video isn't very good but I am so excited so I have to share! Ashlynn took her first steps today!! Dave was trying to get her to walk to one of her toys and she took 1 step and then would fall down. She did that a couple of times. I told Dave that we should see if she'd walk to me instead and she took 4 steps to me!! She did twice before we decided to take out the video camera. She is napping right now but I'm sure we'll get more video after she wakes up and I'll share it. We're so proud of our baby girl!! Oh and she's 13 months old today! What a fun way to celebrate. :)

This video isn't the best but like I said before I'm sure we'll have another video to put up later today or tomorrow. She only takes 3 steps in the video (she took 4 steps both times we tried to get her to walk before we started recording).

Ashlynn's Birthday Party!

2012-01-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

We had Ashlynn's birthday party the weekend after her birthday because we thought Dave's first weekend with the Reserves was going to be on her birthday weekend. Then we found out he wouldn't be going with them until February. As long as we celebrated her birthday, it didn't really matter when it was.

We didn't have too big of a party, we just invited some of my family and our friend Sandy from San Diego said that she wouldn't mind driving up so we invited them, too! She drove 12+ hours with her 3 little kids just to see us. It was great to see her again!!

Here are some pictures of the decorations and guests at her party.

I had decided on a Minnie Mouse theme a few months ago and about a month or so before her birthday Ashlynn started showing a big interest in Minnie so it worked out perfectly! She LOVES Minnie Mouse!

And the presents!

Here's the birthday girl!

Hanging out with her brother.

After everybody ate we opened presents. Brandee and Becca got her this cute little doll with her name on the dress. (You might have to click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see it better.)

And she loved it! She gave it a big kiss right away. We call it her baby. If we ask her "Ashlynn, where's your baby?" She'll crawl to it and grab it. :)

Kisses!

She did a really good job opening her presents. I remember at Dawson's 1st birthday party he opened a couple and then would crawl away, he didn't stay interested for very long. Ashlynn stuck around to open all of her presents!

She needed at little help sometimes but did a really good job!

Here's her smash cake that I made for her.

Singing happy birthday...

And now it's time to eat!

She kept saying "num num" as she was eating it.

She's so sweet that she wanted to share with me. ♥

Water break.

Yay! Cake!

She destroyed it. It was so fun to watch! She LOVED it!!

This video is kind of long but if you want to see the cake smashing in action, here it is!

I love this picture of Ashlynn and Sandy.

Dawson and Landon hanging out on the couch together. Dawson was so excited to have his friends here and to be having a sleepover with them!!

Closeup of the birthday girl.

Me, Dawson, Ashlynn, Sandy, Abby, Maddie, and Landon.

Her party was great and it was even more special because our friends made the trip out here to celebrate with us. We miss you guys already!!!

Our 5th Anniversary!!

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

This post is super late but it's not completely my fault...our internet provider is not very good AT ALL so our internet service is very unreliable. One minute we have access to the internet, the next we do not. It's getting to be pretty frustrating but there's not anything we can do about it so we'll just have to live with it. I think we can do that. ;)

Dave and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on the 12th! My parents came over to watch the kids so we could go out. We decided to try a new restaurant and go see a movie.

We went to Brio for dinner, it was a very nice restaurant and the food was yummy! Neither of us eat seafood, me because I've never really tried and it and it just doesn't seem appetizing to me (well it didn't, I'm getting more open to it now), and Dave because he ate it some growing up and wasn't a big fan so he just convinced himself that he didn't like any of it. Well, we both decided to try something that we normally wouldn't order. I ordered beef medallions with shrimp scampi:

I loved the tournedos (beef) but I wasn't a fan of the shrimp at all. The texture was just gross to me. The orzo and veggies were really good, though! And Dave liked the shrimp!

Dave ordered the shrimp and lobster fettuccine. He loved it. I took a bite of his and I really liked the lobster. I'll definitely be trying more of that in the future.

Last year on our anniversary Ashlynn was only 4 days old and still in the NICU so we didn't celebrate our anniversary at all. I was staying in an extra room at the hospital because I didn't want to leave without Ashlynn and they told me on had to leave on that day so I was super sad. I think they ended up letting me stay until the 13th...but enough of that! We didn't exchange gifts or anything last year because there was so much going on so Dave wanted to make up for that. He follows the list of traditional and modern anniversary gifts that you are supposed to get by year so he didn't want to skip the 4th year. And I decided I have to write in the blog what he gets me every year because we both forgot what he got me for our 2nd anniversary. :( For the 2nd year it's either cotton or china and we know it wasn't china so he must have gotten me a shirt or something. I wish we could remember!!

Anyway, the 4th anniversary gift is supposed to be (according to the list) linen or appliances so he got me this apron.

I LOVE it, it's so cute!!!

And the 5th anniversary gift is supposed to be wood or silverware. So he surprised me with this wooden plaque. ♥

I love, love, LOVE it!! We saw them at the San Diego fair last year and wanted to get one but we were on our way out and didn't want to wait for it right then so we decided we would just look for one online. I think I looked around a little bit online a day or two after we went to the fair but just forgot about it after that. I love the one he picked out because it has palm trees and mountains on it! A little bit of San Diego and a little bit of Salt Lake mixed together. Since that is where we've all lived as a family it really means a lot to me. And it has the year that we were married on it. ♥

He also got me beautiful flowers but I forgot to take a picture of them. :( The only picture that I sort of got of them was at Ashlynn's birthday party (I'll post pics from her party tomorrow). You can see part of them in the lower right hand corner of this picture.

They were beautiful and I loved them!

I got him tickets to the Zac Brown Band concert that was playing later in the month. I'll post pics from the concert in a few days. We had a blast!

I love you, babe!!!

Ashlynn is ONE YEAR old!!!

2012-01-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Our baby girl turned 1 year old yesterday! I have a lot of pictures and video to share from her birthday but first here are some pictures that I took a few days ago and wanted to post.

Here is Ashlynn is some cute new pjs. She actually got 4 new pairs of pjs a few days ago and I love them all! These ones that she has on in the picture have little froggys on them.

A few nights ago I made three cheese penne pasta for dinner and Ashlynn LOVED it. She had two servings of it and she made a huge mess while eating it. :)

And here's our handsome boy getting ready to run some errands with Dada. I thought he looked too cute so I had to snap a picture before they left.

And now for the birthday pics!!! For Dawson's 3rd birthday I made him a special breakfast, lunch, and dinner for his dinner. That is a tradition that I want to do with both kids on their birthdays every year. And of course they are extra spoiled on their birthdays, too!

For breakfast Dada made blueberry pancakes and I topped Ashlynn's with some whipped cream and sprinkles.

She loved them!

For lunch she had a jelly sandwich in the shape a number one and some diced carrots.

She gobbled up all of her lunch... Yum!

And for dinner, since I couldn't ask Ashlynn what she wanted (when she gets older I will let her decide what her birthday dinner will be), I figured you can't go wrong with mac & cheese. And some broccoli. I made homemade stovetop mac and cheese this time because I figured it's more kid friendly rather than the baked mac & cheese that I made for Dawson's birthday dinner. Although Ashlynn does love my baked mac & cheese (Dawson doesn't) I knew she would like this too. And Dawson ate all of his so I found a winner!

Ashlynn had two servings.

Here's the birthday girl with a birthday hat on. She didn't like wearing it but I was able to get a couple of pictures with her wearing it.

Here she is with the balloon that aunt Brandee brought to her. She loved it! Oh, and she's giving Minnie some kisses. She loves her, too.

Birthday kisses for the birthday girl!

That is my new favorite family picture. I love it.

And here is a little video that I made for Ashlynn. Make sure your speakers on turned up so you can hear her special birthday song playing with it.

She had her 12 month checkup today and it went really well! She weighs 21lbs 1oz (down 2oz from her 9 month checkup but we were in CA for that. Different scales so she might not really have lost weight, she's probably staying about the same.) and she is 29.5 inches long. She's grown 2 inches since her 9 month checkup! She's in the 50th percentile for her weight and the 55th percentile for her length. She's growing good and is meeting the milestones that should be. She did have to get 3 shots today. That part of her appointment was no fun but they don't seem to be bothering her too much now so that's good!

Lastly here are some pictures that Dave took of me and Ashlynn today. ♥ Kisses for my 1 year old!

Happy birthday, little Ashlynn!!! We LOVE you!!!

My Sweet Boy

2012-01-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Before Dawson went to sleep tonight he said something really sweet that I want to remember forever. I'm going to write it down and put it with his stuff but I also want to post it here. Here is how our conversation went:

Dawson: Mama, I am thinking about something
Me: What are you thinking about, honey?
Dawson: That I love you.
Me: Aww, baby, I love you too!!
Dawson: I want to buy you a heart and give it to you. (because he knows that hearts mean love)
Me: That would be really sweet.
Dawson: Can me, dada, and Ashlynn buy a heart and give it to you tomorrow?
Me: I would really like that.

Isn't he the sweetest boy ever?!?! I'm getting all teary eyed again just thinking about it. Both of my babies make me so happy and I feel so blessed to be their mama. ♥

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!! We weren't really planning anything special to do on New Year's Eve, I figured we'd have some party food and maybe play a couple of games and that's it. Then I saw that my sister didn't have anything to do so I invited her over. Dave was out running some errands so I asked him to pick up some decorations so we could have a little New Year's Eve party. I called my other sister and asked if her and my nieces wanted to come and I also asked my mom and dad if they wanted to come. Everybody said yes! Yay!

Here's Dawson and Ashlynn all ready for the party.

There was lots of yummy food...

There was also a queso dip but I didn't have that out on the table.

And we also had root beer floats in champagne glasses. Those were a huge hit!

We played Just Dance on the Wii. (And we also played Phase 10 but I didn't get a picture of that.)

Everybody except Ashlynn stayed up until midnight to ring in the new year! There was some fireworks going off so we all stepped outside for a few minutes to watch them. It was a really fun night. I'm glad everyone was able to come over and hang out with us. :) Happy New Year!

Ashlynn is Almost ONE?!

2011-12-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

Ashlynn is almost a year old! I can't believe her birthday is in just over a week. Crazy! She has been up to a lot of new stuff this month so I thought I would hurry and post about it. First of all she finally started crawling!!! She has been getting around pretty good for a few months now by doing the "worm" (it seriously looked like she was doing the worm!) but she finally decided it was much easier to crawl.

She also started pulling herself up on things. At first she could pull herself up to her knees but after just a couple of days she started pulling herself up so she was standing up. And just within the last few days she has started cruising the furniture a little bit. She'll take a step or two while she's holding onto the couch to get closer to something that she wants.

One of her favorite things to say now is MAMA!! Yay!! She finally says mama!! She also says dada, hi, and uh-oh (although uh-oh just sounds like "oh" when she says it, but we know what she means).

She is super smart. If we ask to her wave, clap, blow kisses, give kisses, give loves (hugs), give high five, or show us her tongue, she'll do it without us showing her how. We're working on showing her where her feet and nose are. Sometimes she'll grab her feet when I ask her to but sometimes she won't so I don't if she knows that for sure or not.

If we ask her where mama, dada, Dawson, Minnie, Cinderella, or Blue is she will look at (or go get) whoever we are asking about.

She loves to play, especially with Dawson. She is always crawling into his room even though she has a TON of toys out in the living room. She also loves to pull all the Wii games off the TV stand. Oh and the Wii remotes. They belong on the floor according to her. She's a big sweetheart and loves to cuddle and give kisses and loves. We don't even have to ask for kisses and loves half of the time and she'll just give them to us on her own. ♥

She has been eating a lot of new food lately. No more baby food for our little princess, she's ready to eat what we're eating! She eats cooked carrots, peas, green beans, corn, spaghetti, mashed potatoes, ground turkey, chicken, refried beans, bananas, diced (soft) apples, jelly sandwiches, crackers, cheerios, raviolis, toast, pizza... I think that is it for now. She basically eats a little bit of whatever we eat. And actually sometimes it's not just a "little bit" she often out eats Dawson at dinner time. *lol*

Here are some pictures...

This was over at Papa and Carrie's house on Christmas day. I was hoping she was going to try to climb up the stairs to get me but she didn't.

Here are some pictures of her eating a jelly sandwich and some spaghetti.

Not too much longer and she won't be getting a bottle anymore! She is really good with sippy cups already so I don't think it will be too big of deal making the switch. We are going to wait until February to stop giving her the bottle and formula, though. Since she was 6 weeks premature we're going to wait until she's 13 months before we give her whole milk, just to be sure that she's ready for it.

Here we are before bedtime reading a story.

When Ashlynn smiles she very rarely shows her top teeth. She has FIVE teeth now, two on the bottom and three on the top. When I took this picture her third top tooth had just broke through so you can't see it in the picture but you can see her other two top teeth!

I love her big toothy grin!

And here is a picture of Dawson doing his Risky Business pose. ♥ He's such a stud muffin.

And last but not least, here is a short video of Ashlynn walking a little bit with her push toy. I need to get some video of her crawling, too, because it's so cute!! Anyway, let's watch her practice walking for now. :)

All Things Christmas

2011-12-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

I got behind with pictures that I wanted to share from this month so I am going to share them all in this post. Well, most of them at least, there will be one more post tomorrow and then I think I will be completely caught up. And like I said in yesterday's post, my goal is to post at least once a week from now on. I really like keeping up on this blog because it's fun to go back and look through it and see what we have been up to the past few years.

Anyway, I want to start with the kids' Santa picture! They both did really well when we went to visit Santa. I was nervous about both of them really. Dawson did better than he ever has and actually talked to Santa and told him what he wanted! He asked for Cars 2 and a guitar. He must have been a really good boy this year because Santa brought him both of those things. Ashlynn did really good, too. She didn't smile or anything but at least she let him hold her, that's definitely a win in my book.

Next up is the kids' ornaments for this year. I have posted pictures of Dawson's ornament in the blog every year so I can't stop now! This isn't the best picture but I am glad that I remembered to take one. We got Ashlynn a Baby's 1st Christmas ornament and Dawson a Blue's Clues ornament.

We went to temple square to look at Christmas lights with Brandee and her family. It was a lot of fun! I really like this picture of the temple and the nativity scene in the reflecting pool.

Here's Brandee, Andy, Hailee, and Drea.

And us!

On the Friday before Christmas we went to look at Christmas lights again. We went to "The Night Before Christmas" street. This street has about 8 or 9 houses on each side (you turn around in a cul-de-sac and go up the other side... does that make sense?) that decorate their houses really cool and each house has a billboard out on their lawn that tells the story of The Night Before Christmas.

Here are some of my favorite houses from that street:

And we also drove to a house that has their lights synchronized to music and it looks really neat! There was a ton of traffic and the street isn't that big so we decided to park down the street and walk to the house to watch the show. We all thought it was really cool!

Me and Dawson made rice krispie treat snowmen. (We also made Christmas trees using waffle cones, frosting and m&m's but I didn't take a picture of those.)

And here is a picture of our babies in front of the tree. We almost picked this one for our Christmas card because they are being so sweet and giving each other hugs but we ended up picking a different one. Both pictures are great! :)

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T12:10:00.000-08:00

I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did! I need to hurry and get caught up on things that I want to post in our blog before the year ends. Make sure to check back tomorrow because I'll have another post up then. I'm making it a goal to update our blog at least once a week in 2012 so I won't get behind anymore.

Here is our Christmas tree after Santa came. We all got spoiled this year!

And our stockings were full, too! Ashlynn has a stocking like ours but my dad and Carrie bought her this cute Baby's First Christmas stocking so we definitely wanted to use it this year!

Here's a closeup of Ashynn's stocking just because I think it's adorable.

On Christmas morning Ashlynn woke up around 7. Dave fed her and when he was finished I asked if I could go get Dawson up because I was excited to show him that Santa came! When he walked out to the living room he noticed that stockings first and then he went and stood in front of the tree and said "that's a whole lot of presents!" We all went through our stockings first...

And then it was time to open presents! Dawson loved opening them and he was so excited about everything that he got that he would ask us to get it out of the box right away so he could play with it. We had to keep telling him that he had to open all of his presents first and then he could start playing with his new toys.

Here's a short video of Dawson opening one of his presents.

Ashlynn did pretty good opening presents with Dave's help of course.

Here is most of Dawson's stuff. I say *most* because I took this picture pretty late in the day and he had already been playing with things so when I went to gather everything for the picture I wasn't sure if I had gotten it all. I know for sure that his snow boots, clothes, and cape are missing from the picture... not sure what else is missing, if anything.

He got an Alphie robot, guitar, Mickey blanket with his name on it, Candy Land, a Toy Story puzzle, a couple of books, Cars 2, Woody, Buzz, Bullseye, a Rocket, Minne and Daisy (he already has the rest of the characters), underwear, Memory game, vtech Explore and Learn map, car, LeapFrog Scribble and Write and the things I mentioned above that are missing from the pictures.

This blok table was for Dawson and Ashlynn since they both love blocks so much.

And here is Ashlynn's stuff. Again she is probably missing a few things like the Minnie Mouse doll that was in her stocking and her new clothes are not in the picture. Oh, and she also got a Minnie blanket with her name on it that is not in the picture.

She got some Mega Bloks, Cinderella doll, Eeyore pull along toy with shapes, picnic basket shape sorter, a puzzle, a few books, Winne the Pooh movie, stacking cups, Mozart Magic cube, Vtech Touch and Teach Turtle, counting piggy bank, a bath toy, Vtech Crazy Legs Learning Bug, Fisher Price frog toy.

I wanted to add these pictures of Ashlynn and my dad because I thought they were too sweet. ♥

Dawson seems to have a lot of favorite toys so far. He LOVES his Woody and Buzz action figures, he took them everywhere we went yesterday and played with them all day. He also wouldn't take his cape off at all. He has jammed out on his guitar a lot already and loves building blocks on their new table. Oh, and his Rocket from Little Einsteins is also a huge hit. I know he is going to get a lot of use out of all his new toys because he loves them. We're excited to watch Cars 2 either tonight or tomorrow because he has been asking for that for months now and none of us has seen it yet.

I LOVE this video that I got of Dawson playing his guitar. He's wearing his cape in it too! He's just singing jibberish but I love it.

I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures!

Sharing an apple with Ashlynn

2011-11-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

I was eating an apple last night while I was holding Ashlynn and she wanted a bite so I let her have one... It was a Honeycrisp apple (yum!) and they're pretty bitter this week (nooooooo!) but still yummy to me. Here's what Ashlynn thought about it:

hahahahahahah She still wanted another bite after all of that. I almost choked on my apple because I was laughing so hard when Dave showed me the pictures. *sigh* We're so mean sometimes. :P

Ashlynn's first Halloween!

2011-11-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here are the kids dressed up on Halloween right before we went trick or treating.

Such a cute poodle and Woody! ♥ Ashlynn went to about 10 houses and then I took her home with me to hand out candy to all the trick or treaters that were coming to our house. Dave and Dawson stayed about for another half hour or so until Dawson said he was ready to come home.

This little play area is across the street from our house and as soon as Dawson saw it he ran over to play. He said he wanted to go down the slide just one time and then he wanted to go trick or treating again. haha

These were our neighbors pumpkins. I thought they were too cute! I want to make kitty pumpkins next year. :)

Here is Ashlynn's and Dawson's pumpkins after they were finished trick or treating. Lots of candy!

We picked out a few pieces for each of us (well besides Ashlynn) and Dave took the rest of the candy to work with him. So it's pretty much gone already besides the few pieces that I set aside for Dawson. He isn't really into candy yet thankfully! Of course he wants it if we offer it to him but he doesn't ask for it or anything and he doesn't need it so I didn't feel bad about giving most of it away. I'm sure his dentist will be happy about it too. :P

Halloween was lots of fun! We sat out on the porch and handed out our Halloween candy because there were SO many kids! There was no point in having to keep opening and closing the door. I think the kids had more fun doing it that way because they got to see all the kids in their costumes a little better. Dawson has already decided what he is going to be for Halloween next year. I'm sure he'll change his mind before then, but for now he wants to be Rich from the Imagination Movers. It's kind of funny to me that he picked Rich because he pretends to be Dave and Scott all the time but never Rich. hahah I kind of hope he doesn't change his mind, I want him to be a Mover next Halloween! Here is a picture for those of you who don't know who the Movers are. :)

Dave is in the red hat. Dawson puts on a red hat and pretends like he's Dave all the time (a few of you have seen that on webcam a few times). Rich is next to him (that's who he says he wants to be next year), then there's Smitty in the cowboy hat (he never pretends to be Smitty), and Scott has the wobble googles on his head. Dawson has a pair of goggles that he puts on and he calls them wobble goggles and tells us he's Scott. We love watching him pretend. :D

I hope everybody had a great Halloween!

Dawson's 3rd Birthday Party

2011-11-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Dawson had a great birthday party a few days ago. His friends David, Hailey, Abby, Madie, Landon, and baby Avery all came to celebrate with him. I want to share some pictures really quick! :)

I made him a Blue's Clues cake. This is the first time I have ever made a cake like this and I like the way it turned out! Dawson liked it too!

Ashlynn loved looking a Avery and kept trying to grab her.

Singing happy birthday to the birthday boy.

Ashlynn was eating some Cheerios while everybody else was eating cake and ice cream. Just a couple more months and she'll get some cake too! ;)

I had to get a picture of Landon's messy face. Looks like he enjoyed the cake and ice cream. :D

I wanted to post this picture because you can see Abby, Madie, and Hailey. I need to remember next year to get all of his friends together for a group picture.

And here is some pics of mama and dada with our 3 year old!

Dawson is THREE!

2011-10-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Dawson's birthday!! I can't believe our baby boy is 3 years old!! I wanted to make his birthday extra special because he is a bit older and is appreciating things like that more. The night before his birthday I made sure to get out a party hat for him to wear, and me and Dave blew up balloons and hung them from the playroom ceiling. Dave asked me if I was going to make his cupcakes the night before his birthday but I told him I wanted to make them on his actual birthday because I wanted the house to smell like cake on his birthday. ♥

When Dawson woke up on his birthday morning this was the conversation we had:

Me: Good morning, baby! Happy birthday!!
Dawson: It's not my birthday yet.
Me: Yes it is, today is your birthday!
Dawson: But I don't have a party hat.
Me: Mama has one for you downstairs.
Dawson: Are there balloons and decorations, too?
Me: You'll have to wait and see...

*sigh* I know my baby boy so well. I was so happy that we had gotten everything ready because it made him so happy. Here is what he saw when we came downstairs. *Notice how dark the house is. This kid wakes up between 530-630am everyday.

He loved the balloons.

And he wore his party hat for most of the morning.

I had a special breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned for him too.

For breakfast I made him cake batter pancakes with sprinkles.

They didn't taste as good as I was hoping but they looked cute! Apparently Dawson didn't think they were that great either because he ended up eating a Greek yogurt (with sprinkles!) and a banana for breakfast. Next year I will just stick with regular pancakes with sprinkles added instead.

For lunch I made him a peanut butter & jelly sandwich in the shape of a number 3. He also had salad, chex mix, and grapes.

A couple of days ago I asked him what he would like for his birthday dinner and he told me he wanted macaroni and cheese. I hadn't ever made homemade mac and cheese before but I wanted to make it special for him. So I made homemade baked macaroni and cheese for dinner. I also made homemade baked chicken nuggets and roasted broccoli.

I make chicken nuggets every few weeks and we all love them. Dawson didn't touch his broccoli which I figured he wouldn't and he was scared to try the macaroni! He is the pickiest eater ever. Since it didn't look like his usual Kraft macaroni and cheese he didn't want it. I kind of felt like I ruined his birthday dinner. :( He finished his nuggets and ended up taking a few bites of the macaroni. Me and Dave LOVED the macaroni. It was SO yummy. I'm definitely going to be making it again and hopefully after Dawson has tried it a few times he won't even think twice about eating it and will just enjoy it.

I like this picture with the cupcake tower as the centerpiece. I like how the shadow of the top cupcake and candles are on the wall next to Dawson. It looks kind of cool. :)

After dinner it was time for cupcakes! Dawson kept trying to blow out the candles while we were singing to him.

He was happy when he got to blow them out for real.

He reminded us that he needed his party hat on. Oops! We forgot! He wore it while he was enjoying his cupcake though.

Then he got to open one present. His birthday party is on Saturday so we are saving the rest of his presents for then.

He got a handy dandy notebook!! He loves it and played with it all night until it was time for bed. It was a great day. I know that Dawson really enjoyed everything we did today and had a good time celebrating his birthday. He was able to talk to his mema and peepaw, papa and Carrie, and nana, papa, Arika and Bronson all on webcam today. He loves talking to and seeing his family.

There were a few times today where I just looked at Dawson and cried. Happy tears. It's such a great feeling to look at his sweet little face and feel so much love. He makes me (and Dave and Ashlynn) so happy. I feel so blessed to have the little family that I do. They mean so much to me. I'm going to stop right there because I'm crying again. haha

Happy birthday, Dawson. We love you so much.

3 year & 9 month checkups plus lots of videos!

2011-10-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

We had Dawson's 3 year checkup and Ashlynn's 9 month check up earlier this week. They are both growing great and meeting all of their milestones. Their pediatrician was impressed at how well Dawson talks which makes me laugh because a few months ago she suggested we get him into speech therapy. Since then she has commented twice on how well he talks.

There was a curtain in the room that we were in and Dawson pulled it closed a little bit, went behind it and then came out and asked us if we were ready for the Dawson show! We all thought that was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. He started singing a Blue's Clues song and their pediatrician commented on what an artist he is. ♥

Dawson weighed in at 35.6 lbs and is 40 inches tall. That puts him in the 86th percentile for weight and the 95th percentile for height.

Ashlynn weighed 21.3 lbs and is 27.6 inches tall. She's in the 85th percentile for weight and the 42nd percentile for height. She's a shorty! And those percentiles are on the regular charts, not the preemie charts, she's too big for the preemie charts! Dawson weighed 22.15 lbs at 9 months so Ashlynn is catching up to him!

They both got a flu shot and did really well. Dave said Ashlynn didn't even flinch. I don't like to watch them get their shots if I don't have to so I was playing with Dawson while Ashlynn got hers and vice versa when it was Dawson's turn.

The other night Ashlynn was getting up on her hands and knees better than she ever had before and I was trying to get a picture of her doing it but of course she stopped as soon as I pulled out the camera. I asked Dave to put her up on her hands and knees hoping that if he did so it would encourage her to do it again by herself. She didn't like it when Dave did it though and I got this picture out of it...

She is not a happy camper but I still love the picture. :)

And here is another random picture. After her bath the other night I sat her up on the counter so she could see herself in the mirror and she started giving herself kisses.

Ever since then whenever she is in front of a mirror (a few of her toys have mirrors) and I say to her "give Ashlynn kisses" she'll lean forward and give herself a kiss. It's too cute.

I think I posted video of her clapping the other day, just after I posted that she started clapping when I would sing Patty Cake to her. As soon as she hears it she knows to clap, I don't have be clapping or anything. She is still just saying "dada" and "nana." Every now and then it sounds like she says "hi" when she's waving and "yay" when she's clapping. She is getting 4 bottles a day, eating around 20oz of formula. She also eats baby food 3 times a day. Usually 3.5oz of fruit for breakfast, 3.5oz of veggies for lunch, and about 3oz of a meat and veggie for dinner. She also snacks on puffs and yogurt melts. She LOVES to feed herself. She rolls around everywhere and gets into everything. Lately she has been really interested in cords and trying to get into the TV stand which I remember Dawson loved those things too. She's started scooting forward a little bit better, and I got it on video today. It's not the best video but it gives you an idea on how she moves herself forward. I'll share it in a minute.

Dawson loves to color and draw. We're going to get him a new magnadoodle for his birthday. He got the one that he has now for his last birthday and he uses it everyday, multiple times a day and it's about had it. He could definitely use a new one. He loves to "read" and he loves when we read to him. He loves talking jibberish, too. He's been doing it for a couple of weeks now, he seems to only be doing it when he reads now so that's good. Before he would just randomly break in to speaking jibberish and it would drive me crazy! *lol* He loves doing his puzzles and playing Blue's Clues. He pretends like he is Steve (or sometimes Joe) and I'm mailbox (he always comes up to me when he's playing and says "mailbox can I have my letter?" and then I hand him a pretend letter and he thanks me) and Ashlynn is Magenta. A couple of weeks ago we were meeting with a lawyer to go over our will and she asked Dawson what his name was and he said "Dawson" and then he said, "I mean Steve!" haha It was pretty funny and I had to explain to her how he loves Blue's Clues and likes to pretend like he's Steve.

I know there is a lot more that he loves to do but I can't think of anything else right now! Oh, I know! He loves to rhyme, too. If he hears something on TV that rhymes he will come tell me what words he heard that rhyme. He likes Dr. Seuss books a lot right now, too, although his favorite are still his Clifford books.

I think that about catches everybody up on what the kids are up to! I'll get to the videos now. :)

This first video is of Dawson and Ashlynn rolling a ball to each other. They were having a lot of fun.

In this video Ashlynn is playing Patty Cake and playing with Dawson.

And here is the video of Ashlynn scooting forward. I like how she gets up high and pushes off with her feet.

And this video shows Dawson rhyming. I watched a little bit of it just now and realized that every word that he comes up with starts with a "B", that's not always how it is. He's really good at coming up with words that rhyme. He always spells his name in this video. He's been doing that for a few months now but I couldn't remember if I had gotten it on video or not. And he also draws a little bit. I really need to post more of his artwork because he is really good! Some of the things he draws blows me and Dave away!

I've got one more post that I want to do about our Disney trip, I'll work on that this weekend. I was just excited to get these videos up so I wanted to do this post first. :)

We'll Be Back Soon!

2011-10-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

I still have some more pictures that I want to share from our trip to Disneyland but the kids got sick a couple of days ago. They both have runny noses, Ashlynn's is definitely worse and she gets very stuffed up at night so it's been a rough couple of nights for all of us. I think I'm coming down with whatever they had. I'll hopefully finish up the Disney posts by the end of the week. :) Stay tuned!

Disneyland - Decorations

2011-10-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

I was super excited to see Disneyland all decorated for Halloween. I know there was a lot that we didn't see because there was just so much to do and not enough time to do and see it all but we loved everything that we did see!

These were the first decorations that we saw above the gates.

This was inside the World of Disney store.

And here are some cute sweets from inside Marceline's Confectionery.

Here's the cookie that Dawson got. It's a ghost Mickey!

We thought it was funny that it turned his lips black.

He still has that cookie at home (I wrapped it up and saved it for him) and he hasn't even finished one of the ears yet. *lol* He hasn't asked for it for a couple of days I guess it's probably safe to throw it out now.

Here's Dave and his cupcake.

Even the floral Mickey had a Halloween mask on.

Me and Dawson with the giant Mickey pumpkin.

I really like this picture with the Mickey pumpkins and the castle.

The Haunted Mansion was decorated really neat with The Nightmare Before Christmas decorations. I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to because there were so many people there. It was definitely the most crowded spot of the night. I wish we would have been able to ride the ride but the line was too long. Here are a couple of pictures that I did get, though.

There was a lot to see in Frontierland!

Dave and Dawson were outside waiting to see Woody or else I would have asked them to sit down with these guys. :)

Dawson did a little trick-or-treating. We only went to 3 or 4 booths, getting candy definitely wasn't a priority of ours because there was so much else to do but we still wanted Dawson to experience it. And he actually got a lot of candy because they were handing out handfuls each time!

Here are the kids' buckets that we got and the candy that we collected. It's enough to fill one bucket when we put it all together.

Aren't they so cute?! My friend's daughter has one and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw a picture of it so when I saw them at Disney I had to get them!! They are cool souvenirs that the kids will get to use every year!

And just a few more decorations...

Disneyland - Characters

2011-10-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun at Disneyland and can't wait to share all of our pictures with you. There is going to be a lot of pictures because I had a hard time picking which ones I wanted to share so I am sharing all of my favorites... and there are a lot of them! I figured I'd break it up between 4 posts -- characters, decorations, fireworks, and the parade. Be sure to check back each day for the next few days so you don't miss anything. :) There will probably be a video or two in some of the posts, too. We honestly didn't take very much video because we had our hands full with both kids. I wish we would have been able to capture the interaction between Dawson and some of the characters on video because it was just so sweet. We did get some pretty good pictures so I am thankful for that.

Before I share any pictures let me tell you a little bit about our day! The kids were so good during the entire trip. We left our house around 10:30am and had to make one stop along the way so Dawson could go potty. (Dawson has been potty trained for months now but we decided to put a pullup on him in case there was too much excitement and he had an accident. I'm very proud to say that he let us know when he had to go potty and was completely accident free for the entire trip! He's such a big boy!!) We got to the Disneyland parking lot just before noon. We had the portable DVD player hooked up for Dawson and Ashlynn slept most of the way. It was an easy drive. We only had tickets to Mickey's Halloween Party which didn't start until 6pm but we were allowed to enter the park at 3pm. We had about 3 hours to kill. There is so much to do in Downtown Disney that I knew it wouldn't be hard to find something to do. We ended up spending most of our time in the World of Disney store... I could spend hours in that store just looking at everything and we did spend at least an hour in there. We bought Ashlynn some Minnie ears (Dawson already had Mickey ears from last years trip) and we also bought each of them a Mickey pumpkin to put their Halloween candy in.

After that we went to Marceline's Confectionery to get some sweets. Dawson got a cookie, Dave got a cupcake, and I got a chocolate peanut butter sandwich. Yummy! It was almost 2:30 after we finished our sweets so we went to get in line at the gate. There was a small line formed but there were a lot more gates than there were people so we were first in line in front of one of the gates.

I'll quickly go over the rides that we rode and then I'll start posting pictures and go over the rest of our trip. We only went on a few rides, the first was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Both of the kids LOVED that ride. Dave rode next to Dawson and I rode with Ashlynn. Ashlynn was so excited to see everything. She had the biggest smile on her face and just loved it. We also rode Pinocchio's Daring Journey, the carrousel, and me and Dawson rode on Dumbo and the spinning teacups while Dave was feeding Ashlynn and holding our spot for the fireworks. They both enjoyed all of the rides that we went on.

Now for our pictures with the characters which was definitely Dawson's favorite part!

We saw Tigger first. Dawson was a little shy with him, I think he just needed to be warmed up to the characters... (Ashlynn took her socks off while we were waiting in line. Silly girl!)

Next up was Eeyore. Dawson was definitely less shy with Eeyore and didn't want to take his eyes off of him. Ashlynn kept pulling on his ears and was trying to eat them. *lol*

And then there was Pooh! Dawson loved Pooh and kept giving him hugs and kisses!

He wanted to give him a kiss right on (or in!) the mouth! So sweet. ♥

After we were finished visiting with Pooh Dawson wanted to go see Tigger again. I think he wanted to give him a hug and kiss since he was too shy to do it when we did see him. He knew we were going to find Woody next so he wasn't sad when we told him we couldn't talk to Tigger again this time.

Woody was definitely one of Dawson's favorites. We couldn't get Dawson to look at the camera at all because he was so starstruck by Woody that he didn't want to take his eyes off of him. He was so happy. I definitely wish we would have had the video camera out because it was really sweet seeing Dawson's reaction.

Me and Dawson waited in line to see the villains while Dave and Ashlynn went to find something to eat. I liked seeing them but Dawson was scared of them (except for the Evil Queen, he really liked her) and I wish we would have rode It's a Small World instead seeing the villains. Dawson would have enjoyed it more.

He wouldn't stand next to anybody other than the Evil Queen. Cruella was there but left while we were talking to the Evil Queen and the Queen of Hearts replaced her. We met the Queen of Hearts during our last trip so I didn't bother getting a picture of her since Dawson didn't want anything to do with her anyway but I definitely wanted to get a picture of Jafar!

Where's Perry? Oh there he is! He left before we were able to meet him...

But we did get to meet Phineas and Ferb! Dawson was also very starstruck by them too. He kept giving them hugs and kisses and was just so happy to see them.

Kisses!

And last, but definitely not least, we met Mickey and Minnie. Dawson loved meeting them, too!

Check back tomorrow for more pictures from our trip!

9 Months Old and Clapping!

2011-10-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ashlynn is 9 months old!! (Yes, this post is two days late.) I can't believe she is going to be a year old in 3 months!! She is such a happy girl. She's been "talking" a lot lately. Mostly just babbling. She says "dada", but I don't think she knows what dada means. She also says "hi", she waves every time she says it. I have yet to get it on video, though! She just started clapping yesterday and we thought she was saying "yay" while she was clapping. I was able to get the clapping on video today, which I will share in a minute, but she wasn't saying yay this time.

We have started her on 3rd foods (which is chunky baby food) and she LOVES it! She chews really well. I was going through our blog a couple of weeks ago reading about what Dawson was doing at Ashlynn's age and Dawson didn't like the chunky food the first time we gave it to him. We had to wait a couple of weeks and then try again with him. I thought Ashlynn was going to be the same way but she loved it at first bite. She also loves feeding herself puffs and yogurt melts.

She is all over the place now! She doesn't crawl yet but she can scoot herself forward a little bit. She mostly gets around by rolling. She's never in one place for too long, there is too much to explore.

Here is a video of her clapping. It's so cute!!

Ashlynn's first word... dada!

2011-09-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's official... Ashlynn's first word is dada! She has said dada once or twice before and has said mama once but we're not sure if she meant to say them or if she just said them. This time it's definitely different, she is trying to say dada. At first it comes out nana, but after a few tries she will say dada. Yay!! She started saying it on Saturday (September 24th to be exact) and she would only say it when Dave was around. Every time I would try to get her to say it she would just say "nana" so I thought Dave was crazy. I finally heard her say it on Sunday. And of course I cried. Happy tears! It was so sweet. I was even able to get a little bit on video. She starts out saying nana but then starts saying dada. (It was Sunday so of course she has her Broncos onesie on... we really need to get a pink one. ;) )

More Catching Up!

2011-09-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize I didn't have many pictures on this memory card to share or else I would have just posted them with yesterday's pictures. Oh well. After this I am all caught up and will start posting somewhat regularly again. I also started another blog where I post a new picture everyday. It's a 365 day photo challenge so I'm going to try and post a new picture everyday for the next year! I'm a month into the challenge and I've been doing pretty good so far. You can see that blog here: My 365 Day Photo Challenge

This first picture is from my birthday. Dave made me some cupcakes and Dave and Dawson made us party hats to wear. Dawson is obsessed with party hats when it's somebody's birthday. I need to make sure we have party hats for his birthday in about a month!

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago and really like it. I was out for a run and the sky was gorgeous. We usually go for runs as a family and always have the camera in the bottom of the stroller but it was a little cold that day so I decided to go by myself. I was bummed that I didn't have the camera but it also motivated me to run faster so I could get home and grab the camera! The sky was bright orange while I was running and when I got home it was turning purplish-pink. I'm so glad I was able to get a picture of it. I love it!

We raised some money for Autism a couple of weeks ago by participating in the Autism Walks walk. Thank you to everybody who supported us and donated! We had a lot of fun and want to walk (or run!) for a cause once a year from now on.

This last picture is of Dawson and Ashlynn in their Broncos shirts!

I'm all caught up now! Yay!

Picture Time!

2011-09-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a bunch of pictures from July up until now. They go from newest to oldest because I wasn't thinking about the order when I uploaded them and blogger makes it super difficult to move pictures around so I'm not going to mess with them. I'll have another post tomorrow with more pictures from our other memory card. We have two of them, one of them is always in my laptop and one of them is always in our camera. It's just easier that way so we know that there is always a memory card in the camera when we need it. But then our pictures are split up between two cards. So tomorrow's pictures will also go back to July (or at least August) since we are constantly changing out which card we are using. Geez I talk a lot, let's get to the pictures already! :)

Dave put Ashlynn on Dawson's bike and she loved it. She sat up there pretty good and even let Dave push her around. And the hat he put on just for added cuteness.

I love this picture of Dawson sliding down the slide with Blue. He looks so happy.

And same with the swing. He was having fun.

As you can see we go to the playground a LOT. The kids love it there and we love getting out of the house.

Here's a picture of Ashlynn showing off her teeth. This picture is about a month old, her teeth are a little bigger now but she only has two.

Dawson was catching Dada and Ashlynn as they went down the slide.

This is from a Hawaiian Luau that we went to. There was belly dancers!

And me and Dawson did a little painting. They also had a huge blow up slide that Dawson went down. He loves those big slides.

I love this picture of Dada and Ashlynn. You can't really see it in the picture but she's wearing her "navy baby" onesie.

Our housing had a movie night where we watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It was a fun night!

Dawson made Ashlynn a pasta bracelet.

They gave us ice cream for dessert.

And dinner was meatball sandwiches, fries, jello, and a cookie.

Here's Ashlynn showing off her bracelet. The flash was in her eyes, she wasn't grumpy. :P

That's it for now! Come back tomorrow to see more pictures!! And then after that hopefully I can stay caught up on the posts that I want to do.

Quick Update

2011-09-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind on posting pictures that I plan on doing one huge post with a bunch of pictures just to get caught up! I should have it up within the next few days. For now I just wanted to do a short update. We're getting ready for Halloween already! We took the kids to try on costumes last night mostly because Dawson couldn't decide what he wanted to be. One day he wanted to be Woody, the next day he wanted to be Buzz, and then he finally decided he wanted to be a skeleton. He was firm on being a skeleton for a few days but I had a feeling a skeleton costume would be a little too scary for him and I was right. When we got to Party City we asked for the skeleton costume and Dawson didn't want anything to do with it. So we asked him again to look at all the costumes and he chose Woody. We tried it on him and he looked ADORABLE! We weren't planning on buying any costumes last night but after seeing him in it we couldn't leave without it.

We tried a pumpkin costume on Ashlynn but neither of us really loved it. When we got home I started searching online for a costume for her and I fell in love this pink poodle costume so I ordered it for her! I wanted her to be Snow White at first but we're planning a Disneyland trip next month and we'll be going to Mickey's Halloween Party and we'll be out late so I wanted her to be in something warmer. In the poodle costume she'll have a hood and be able to wear clothes underneath. I can't wait to get it and try it on her!

The other day Dawson knocked on our front door and said "can I have some candy?" We thought it was funny. We keep telling him that he has to say "trick or treat" and he will but then he'll follow it up with "can I have some candy?" *lol* Good thing we have a little over a month to practice.

Last night when I was putting Ashlynn in her car seat so we could head home she wasn't feeling too good. Right before we walked out of the store she spit up and some come out of her nose. :( She was upset and crying. It wasn't her normal cry, though, it was a sweet but sad cry. Her bottom lip was poking out really far and she just had a sad look on her face. In between her cries, clear as day, she said "ma-ma" as she looked up at me. It was the sweetest thing ever. She wanted her mama. ♥ I don't think we're counting that as her first word just yet because I'm not sure if she meant to say it or if she just happened to say it. I'll never forget it though. I hope to hear her say it again soon.

7 Months Old!

2011-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

This post is a few days late but Ashlynn is 7 months old now! Didn't I *just* write her 6 month post like yesterday? It sure seems like it. It has been an exciting few weeks with everything new she is learning and trying. She is getting really good at sitting up unassisted now. Depending on her mood she can sit up and play for a good 5 minutes. She has also started scooting around a little bit. She mostly just goes in a circle but she is moving a little bit!

Yesterday we noticed that her first tooth has starting coming through!! We can't see it yet but we can feel it, it's sharp! So far she hasn't been acting fussy or anything so we didn't even realize that she was getting a tooth. I hope it continues to be easy for her.

I have a feeling that Ashlynn is going to be a fast learner just like Dawson is because a few days ago I was looking through our blog at pictures and videos of Dawson when he was Ashlynn's age and I saw that Dawson could wave so I decided to start waving more to Ashlynn and see if she'd wave back. A day or so later she started waving back!!! Yay!! She waves a lot now! I want to get it on video but of course every time I try to she is not in the mood to wave. haha

She rolls from her belly to back with no problem and at all. She has rolled from her back to her belly once a couple of days ago but hasn't done it since. She tries every now and then, though, so I'm sure it won't be long before she fully gets the hang of that too.

She has been eating a lot of new food lately. So far she has tried and loved squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, garden vegetables (peas, carrots and spinach), and bananas! She has been eating mostly the stage 2 foods. She also tried oatmeal a few times but didn't care for that at all.

She is now wearing 12 month clothing!! That blows my mind when I think about how hard it was to get her gain weight in the beginning. She is doing so well now!!! We actually just went on a little shopping spree yesterday to buy her a bunch of 12 month clothing because we've noticed her 9 month clothing was getting a little snug. I was questioning whether or not she would fit into the 12 month clothing while we were at the store because it looks SO BIG. But when we got home I got everything washed and tried a few things on her and it fits perfectly.

She is such a happy, smiley baby. She loves when we play peek-a-boo and patty cake. She also loves when any of us sing to her. She also loves story time a lot, she loves looking at all the pictures in the book and sometimes it seems like she's trying to read to us. Her stories are wonderful. ♥

Sorry that I don't have any pictures to post today, I have a few things that I have been meaning to post and those will have pictures. Hopefully I can get them up soon!

Sitting Up

2011-08-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post some pictures of Ashlynn sitting up, she is doing so well!! She can sit up for long periods of time and can even catch herself if she starts to fall over. She still does fall over occasionally but she's definitely getting the hang of it!

If you want to see Dawson sitting up at around the same age you can click here to see them. Wow! I just noticed that I posted the pictures of Dawson 3 days before he turned 7 months old. And I took these pictures of Ashlynn yesterday, 3 days before she turns 7 months old! Kind of cool that I took the same pictures of them at the exact same age. :)

Fun in the Water

2011-08-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago Ashlynn took her first dip in a swimming pool. :) When we first got to the pool around 11am it was a little chilly and windy out so I didn't want to get in with Ashlynn right away (and the pools are not heated). Of course Dave and Dawson didn't mind a little bit of cold and jumped right in. Some of our friends met us there about an hour later and it had warmed up some but Ashlynn was starting to get cranky. I decided to take her in the kiddie pool and just let her splash around a bit. She liked it for a few minutes but we didn't stay in for very long.

Dawson had a blast running around and splashing in the kiddie pool. It's only a foot deep all the way around so it's perfect for him to play around in.

Of course he likes to hang out in the regular pool, too. He was having so much fun "swimming" back and forth between Sandy and Dave.

I love this picture of Landon hanging in his tube. He's such a little cutie.

Dawson is always so excited when we tell him we're going to see Landon (and Madie, and Abby, etc.) but he usually ignores all the kids and runs off to play by himself once we get there. Silly boy.

We also went to the sprayground a couple of times last month and Dawson LOVES it there!

Here he is sitting with his friends eating some Cheetos. They each had their own plate of Cheetos at first but Dawson decided that all the Cheetos should be on one plate and then he tried to put that plate in his lap. *lol* What a little stinker. It was really funny and even though I didn't capture any of the Cheeto swapping, I still had to take a picture.

Out on the Playground

2011-08-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

We go on long walks 4 or 5 times a week and we always stop by a playground while we're out so Dawson can get some play time in. Both of the kids really enjoy getting out of the house and being outside. One of Dawson's favorite playgrounds lately has been this one with the swings. Most of the time we let him choose what playground he wants to go to and then plan our walk around that. He doesn't know how to swing by himself yet, but he can swing in a regular swing if we're pushing him. Sometimes he asks to sit in one of the baby swings because we push him higher when he's in that...

He sure is a happy boy!

And recently Ashlynn has started swinging, too! It was a little windy last night so I had her in her jacket just to be sure that she would stay warm. She has a blanket in front of her to help keep her sitting up instead of falling forward. She is getting really good at sitting up by herself for short periods of time on the floor but I think it will be a little while before she can sit up in a swing by herself.

She loves the swing!

She loves sitting up in the stroller while we're walking too. She looks around at everything and just takes it all in. :)

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago when we were at the beach that has the playground right next to it. I love these pictures so I thought I would share them.

Ashlynn Can Rollover!

2011-07-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

Ashlynn can roll from her belly to her back!! Yay Ashlynn!!! She did it for the first time about a week ago while she was playing on the floor with Dave. I was working on some cake pops in the kitchen so I missed it. Dave was excited that he was able to see her do something for the first time. (Remember he was gone a lot with the ship and even deployed for 8 months when Dawson was around this age so he had to rely on pictures and videos to see him doing new things.) She rolled over again a couple of days later while she was in her crib and I missed it again!! But then finally, yesterday, while we were playing on the floor together she rolled over for me! Yay!! I put her back on her belly and she did it again, and then again and again! I hurried and grabbed the Flipcam so I could get it on video. She did it 10 or so times in a row yesterday and then a few times today so I think it's safe to say that she has mastered rolling from her belly to back. Anyway, here's a little video. :)

A Father's Day Tradition

2011-07-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

After Dave left on his deployment in 2009 I took these pictures of Dawson for him. Dawson was 10 months old in this first set of pictures. Both Dave and I absolutely loved how they turned out and I decided that I was going to make it a tradition to take pictures of the kids (at the time it was just Dawson) with those letters every year and give them to Dave for Father's Day.

2009

2010

2011

I needed Dave's help this year with taking the pictures because I wanted to take them at the beach and Dawson likes to run around so I knew I couldn't take them both to the beach by myself safely. Dave's gift was a little late this year (that's ok though because he also got an infrared grill for Father's Day which we gave to him early so it all evens out) and he helped me take the pictures. :) I wanted to take them at the beach this year because we are going to be moving back to Utah at the end of the year so I wanted a little bit of San Diego to be in the pictures as well. They turned out really cute!

Ashlynn's 6 month checkup

2011-07-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I meant to add this to yesterday's post but I totally forgot. (If you missed yesterday's post go check it out, Ashlynn got her first taste of solid food!) Anyway, Ashlynn had her 6 month appointment last Friday and it went great! I was a little worried because she hasn't started rolling over yet but her pediatrician said it was nothing to be worried about. She is growing great and meeting almost all of the milestones expected for a 6 month old which is really good considering she was a preemie (her adjusted age at 6 months is 4 1/2 months old).

She weighs 18lbs 3oz now!! Dawson was 20lbs 8oz at 6 months old so she is right behind him! She started out over 3lbs lighter than he was at birth so she has closed that gap a little bit and is catching up to him. She is 25 1/2 inches long now. I forgot to ask what percentiles she was in, I wish I would have remembered.

She had to get a few shots and she did SO well!! Anytime she has gotten shots before she has been absolutely miserable almost immediately after her shots and it usually lasts about a day or so. We made sure to make her appointment on a Friday this time so Dave would be able to help out some the next day. We also scheduled her appointment for later in the day so Dave would be able to go to it, but there ended up being an accident on the bridge that afternoon and it took him over 2 hours to get to the hospital. He missed her appointment but he got there right before she got her shots. It was pretty good timing because I don't like watching the kids get shots so I was able to step back and he stood next to Ashlynn. She only cried for a couple of seconds and then was back to her happy little self. I think having daddy there helped a lot. :) Her shots didn't seem to bother her at all this time so that made us really happy.

I think it's kind of neat to look back and see how much Ashlynn has grown in the last 6 months...

1/8 (birth) ------- 5 lbs 6 oz ---- 17.5 inches
1/31 (3 weeks) --- 5 lbs 15 oz --- 18.5 inches
3/8 (8 weeks) ---- 8 lbs 10 oz --- 20.5 inches
3/15 (9 weeks) --- 9 lbs 10 oz --- 21 inches
5/5 (4 months) --- 14 lbs 1 oz --- 23 inches
6/7 (5 months) --- 16 lbs 6 oz --- 24.5 inches
7/15 (6 months) -- 18 lbs 3 oz --- 25.5 inches

January 2011

June 2011

Ashlynn's First Taste of Food!

2011-07-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

So I know that I just posted that I wanted to wait until Ashlynn was 7 months old to start her on solids, but we decided that 6 months and 1 week old was old enough. :P We decided to start with some squash and she LOVED it! She was all smiles and didn't even make any funny faces. She also swallowed almost every bite! I was expecting her to push it out with her tongue at first but she didn't. So yeah, she was totally ready for some food!

Here's a little video of her. Please excuse Dawson's loud fake laugh in the background. *lol*

And another short video... Dawson randomly tells Dave "I love you" which he says to all of us often, but because I actually got it on video I decided to post it. He's a sweetheart. I'm getting Ashlynn on video and Dawson is talking in the background so you'll have to listen carefully.

Ashlynn's first taste of pureed solids on July 16th. Yummy squash!

She'll be eating squash for a couple of days and then we'll introduce some oatmeal. Right now she's only eating solids once a day, when we introduce the oatmeal she'll eat that in the morning for breakfast and squash for dinner. By next week she should be up to 3 solid meals a day. We have to slowly introduce foods one at a time so we can watch for any allergic reactions. She'll be trying a new food every 3 or 4 days until she's tried them all. I'm sure I'll have a lot more pictures of her trying different things. It's really exciting to see her doing new things! :)

Ashlynn is 6 months old!

2011-07-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Ashlynn is 6 months old today!! Time seems to be flying by. It's crazy to think that just 6 short months ago she was in the NICU learning how to eat and struggling to gain weight. And the scariest day of my life, January 19th, when the doctors told us they thought she had a disease called NEC which could have ended up being very bad. I thank God everyday that everything turned out the way it did. We are very blessed to have two healthy kids. Ashlynn has come so far and we couldn't be happier. Just looking at her you wouldn't know that she was a preemie... She fits into 6-9 month clothing and wears size 3 diapers already! She hasn't started rolling over or anything yet but I'm sure it won't be much longer until she does. She scoots herself around a little when she's laying on the floor, she mostly goes in a circle but she is moving a little bit.

I thought I would take a few (or a lot!) of pictures to give you a little peek into a day in the life of Ashlynn. She's a busy girl. ;) She doesn't like to do one thing for too long so we have a few "baby stations" around the house that we rotate through a few times a day...

Here she is during some tummy time...

She looks like she is about to take off, doesn't she? *lol* I think she was just looking for a toy...

Dawson absolutely adores Ashlynn and always wants to play with her. He is such a good big brother.

Her play mat is next...

She tries to eat everything. Speaking of trying to eat everything, she will probably get her first taste of solids next month! She is showing signs of being ready now but because she was born early I want to wait until she's 7 months old.

She loves to sit in her Bumbo seat and play with this musical toy. She knows to push the buttons down to hear the music and see the lights light up. And she loves looking at herself, of course.

Her exersaucer is definitely one of her favorites! She can spin herself around and play with every toy on there. :)

She also likes to practice standing (and sitting up but I didn't get a picture of that. She only lasts a half a second anyway :P).

She usually takes 2 or 3 short naps throughout the day. She sleeps in her crib at night but for some reason she insists on taking naps on the couch in her boppy during the day.

She's spoiled and always gets her way. ;)

Oh and I can't forget her bears! This is where she gets dressed and all of her diaper changes. She adores the bears that hang over her. (Dawson loved them, too!) In this picture she is screaming at them (happy screams).

And just to show off her cute chubby legs...

We love our little chubster. ♥ And of course she plays with mama, dada and Dawson a lot throughout the day. She also sits in her swing, sometimes, but that is probably her least favorite thing to do.

Her 6 month well baby visit is next Friday so I will make sure to update then with her current weight and everything. :)

Happy half birthday, Ashlynn. We love you!!

4th of July Weekend

2011-07-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

What a lovely weekend! Why can't all weekends be 3 days long? haha We spent most of Saturday morning and early afternoon shopping (I think we went to 5 different stores total and had lunch at Subway) and then spent the rest of the day just hanging out at home. On Sunday Dave barbecued some ribs on his new grill for the first time. Actually I think this is the first time we have ever barbecued them, we don't have them very often (probably 3 times since we've been married) but when we've made them in the past we used the crock pot. They turned out really, really good! After dinner we ran to Walmart (more shopping?! *lol*) to get Ashlynn a vibrating teething toy. When she bites down on it it vibrates against her gums. She really seems to like it. :)

Monday was the 4th of July so we all got dressed up in our flag shirts as Dawson calls them. Dave got this cute picture of Dawson giving Ashlynn a kiss...

And I got this one of them both smiling with my phone.

Dawson LOVES to hold Ashlynn, he asks to hold her at least once a day and if she's playing on her play mat (which she does a few times a day) he will always lay down right next to her and play with her.

Anyway, we also took this family picture. Me, Dave and Dawson all have Old Navy shirts on and Ashlynn's onesie says All American Baby at the top and the bottom says Born in 2011. ♥ You can probably see it better in the pictures of her and Dawson. We couldn't pass it up when we saw it, next year I'm sure she'll be in Old Navy shirts with the rest of us.

We went to a Freedom Festival after we fed Dawson some dinner. Me and Dave knew we would want to eat there so we skipped dinner at home. Dawson doesn't eat when we're out doing something fun, he's too busy having fun to eat so we knew we had to feed him before we left. Anyway, the festival was a lot of fun. We've been 3 out of the 4 years that we've lived in San Diego and we've always had fun. They had a whole bunch of booths set up where you could win little prizes (there was a FOX booth that was giving away DVDs, we got 4 movies from them!), tons of food, live music and some little rides for the kids. Everything except the food was free so that was pretty cool.

Dawson went down this inflatable slide twice, he looks a little scared in the picture but he loved it!

There was also a little inflatable maze/obstacle course that he went through, too, that he really liked.

There were these 2 photo booths set up so we decided to get our picture taken. I love how they all turned out, even the random one in the middle of the bottom row. *lol* They make me smile.

We stay at the festival for a few hours and when it started getting dark we found a spot to sit down so we could watch fireworks. Dawson was SO excited when they started, I wish I would have brought the flipcam so we could have gotten video. Ashlynn didn't seem to notice the fireworks much, she just sat in my lap and chewed on her fingers the whole time.

The fireworks were awesome! Dawson really, really enjoyed them this year so that made it even more fun. He has liked them in the past but never really got this excited over them. When the fireworks finished we walked home. We were only about 10 minutes away from home and were thankful that we didn't have to deal with any traffic. It really was a wonderful weekend.

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

I will post more pictures tomorrow from the Freedom Festival that we will be going to and also of some fireworks that we see tonight, but for now I wanted to post this picture of us. :) I think I am going to use it to update our banner since Ashlynn has grown quite a bit since that family picture was taken. I'll try to keep it updated every few months or so. :) I hope everybody has a fun and safe 4th of July!

Catch up!

2011-06-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some random pictures to show what we have been up to lately. I think all but one were taken with my phone (how did I ever live without a camera phone?!) so as usual they are not the best quality.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the San Diego fair. All of us had a lot of fun! Dawson loved riding the rides, he said the helicopters and airplanes were his favorite. Another one of his favorites was this obstacle course type thing that him and Dave went through and once they got through it all and were at the very top there was a big slide to go down!

They went through it twice and Dawson loved it. They wouldn't let them go down the slide together so Dawson had to go by himself but he wasn't scared at all. I wish I could have gotten a picture of him coming down the slide (only had the camera on my phone which was too slow to capture him) because he had the biggest smile on his face each time he came down.

This is the view that me and Dawson had from the top of the ferris wheel. He was excited that we could see the ocean, he loves the water.

Ashlynn is a super happy baby, she rarely cries even when she has just woken up. I always have to listen really closely to the monitor to hear her moving around or else I wouldn't know she was awake, she doesn't make a peep! (She's been sleeping through the night for a few months now. yay!!)

We made a quick trip to Salt Lake a little over a week ago to look at houses because we are going to be moving back soon! We saw 17 or 18 houses in 2 days and absolutely feel in love with one of them, but it wasn't meant to be. We've decided it will be best to just rent when we get back and then start looking at houses again at the beginning of next year.

The drive out there was about 12 hours long and both kids were SO good! I think it helped a lot that we decided to drive overnight so the kids would be tired and want to sleep. They both had their moments but for the most part did awesome. Dawson was so excited to see everybody that he hardly slept at all. He was being really sweet. When we were passing through Vegas I let him know that we still had a long way to go and he said "we're coming to see you Papa & Nana." I told him that we were too far away and they couldn't hear him so he said it again but this time he yelled it, thinking if he was louder they would hear him. It was so sweet.

Besides looking at houses (which we spent 4-5 hours each day doing) we had 2 family barbeques to go to. It was nice to spend time with so many family and friends. I feel like we got a lot in in a short amount if time so even though we haven't found our house yet, the trip was still definitely worth it.

We did take very many pictures at all but we did get a few. I love this one of Hailee and Ashlynn.

Here is a family of ducks that we saw on one of our walks. The daddy duck was there, too, following behind the ducklings. SO cute!!

There are many things that I will miss about San Diego when we move, like being 5 minutes away from the ocean, being so close to Sea World and not too far from Disneyland just to name a small few. But I think the thing that I will miss most is being able to walk along the bay, it takes us about 5 minutes to walk there from our house and we see something new and exciting all the time. And just walking along the water is so beautiful and peaceful. And Dawson loves the playgrounds. There are 2 playgrounds that we walk to depending on which way we want to go (they are opposite ways from each other) I'm pretty sure I have posted pictures of Dawson playing on one of them already, this is one that we just found a couple of weeks ago... (Dawson is going down the slide.)

And lastly I have a really cute video to share. Me, Dawson and Ashlynn were playing on the floor yesterday and Ashlynn starting laughing at Dawson out of the blue. I was stoked that I had our flipcam sitting right next to me (I had just video taped her playing a little bit) and was able to get some of it recorded. :D

Swimming

2011-06-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

We took Dawson swimming for the first time this year a couple of weekends ago (I'm a little behind on pictures that I want to post). He had a blast! He spent some time in the kiddie pool (it's only 1 foot deep) and also had fun with Dave in the big pool.

Dave was trying to teach him to kick his legs and he was doing pretty good! He has always loved the water.

I'm sure Ashlynn is going to have a blast when she goes swimming, too. She loves bathtime a lot so being in the pool with us will be a lot of fun for her. We haven't taken her swimming yet because she needs to be 6 months old before we can put sunscreen on her. So for now me and her will hang out poolside and watch the boys swim... or catch up on our sleep. :P

Dawson is potty trained!!

2011-06-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Dawson is potty trained!!! YAY! We started potty training him about a month or so ago and it just clicked for him right away. We had tried potty training him a few times before but never made it passed two or three days because he just wasn't ready at the time. And to be honest, I don't think I was ready at the time either. Potty training, as many of you know, takes a lot of patience! The timing was perfect this time around and me and Dawson (and Dada!) were ready to move forward.

On the first day of potty training I put Dawson in his underwear and was taking him potty every 15-20 minutes. Even if he said he didn't have to go I would ask him to try and I would remind him that he got candy if he went, after that he was more than willing to try to go. He was getting 2 M&M's every time he peed in the potty and 5 M&M's every time he pooped. The second day was pretty much the same. The third day he wasn't as willing to go, the first part of the day he didn't want anything to do with the potty but I wasn't ready to give up because he had been doing so well! By the end of the day he was happy to be using the potty again. And after a couple of days he didn't care about the M&M's any more. Around the fourth day I slowing started waiting longer periods of time before I'd ask him if he had to go. Every 30 minutes, every hour, and so on. It eventually got to the point that I wasn't have to ask him at all, he started coming to me and telling me he had to go. We still make him try to go before naptime, bedtime and if we're leaving the house, but other than that he comes to us when he has to go. It's so nice!!!

I'm nervous about leaving the house for too long because he doesn't like to use public toilets. We have a potty seat at home so he can sit on the big potty without any help from us, but when we go out we need to hold him on the potty so he doesn't fall in and he doesn't like that. He does good with holding it when we're out though. Yesterday we spent 5-6 hours out of the house at the fair and he didn't have an accident (since we started potty training he's only had about 5 accidents total, and 2 of those were when he was sleeping). He only went potty once while we were out, even though we tried to get him to go two or three times. I'm sure he'll get the hang of using public restrooms soon. We're so proud of him!! And he looks darn cute in underwear!

4 Months Old!

2011-05-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Ashlynn turned 4 months old yesterday! I can't believe how big our baby girl is getting! She had her 4 month checkup last Friday and she weighs 14lbs 1oz and is 23 inches long. That puts her in the 75th %ile for her weight and the 28th %ile for her length according to the preemie chart. Just out of curiosity I looked up what she would be on the regular charts and she'd be around the 30th %ile for her weight and between the 5th-10th %ile for her length. She's definitely a shorty!

She has been smiling and using her voice for a little over a month now and we just can't get enough of it, she's so sweet! Dawson got her to laugh for the first time the other day, it was SO cute. We were sitting at the dinner table and I was holding Ashlynn. Dawson started banging his spoon on the table and Ashlynn just thought it was hilarious! It was so cute and funny! I've gotten her to laugh a few times since then by playing peek-a-boo with her but Dawson was the first to get a laugh out of her.

She's been chewing on her right hand a lot lately which means she is getting better control of her hands because she is able to put it into her mouth all the time. She doesn't really grab for things yet but I am sure it won't be long before she does. She likes to hold on to mine and Dave's fingers while we're holding her and she's got a pretty good grip!

She started sleeping in her crib a few days ago. She had been sleeping in a bassinet next to our bed but she's been sleeping through the night for about a month now and this is about the age that we moved Dawson to his crib so we figured we'd do the same with her. It's best that she gets used to falling asleep in her crib now rather than later and she seems to be doing really well so far. In fact, I think she actually likes it more! The first morning that she woke up in her crib she didn't wake up crying, she woke up talking. I think she liked looking at Winnie-the-Pooh.

Her sleep sack matches her bedding, we didn't do that on purpose but I think it's pretty cute! She's a belly sleeper just like Dawson was (well, he still is).

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Enjoying Spring Outside!

2011-05-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend while we were out on a walk we stopped at one of the playgrounds that is in our neighborhood so Dawson could play for a little while. He had the whole place to himself for a few minutes and then this little girl came over. Dawson is such a people person that he was really excited to see her! She was a few years older then him and was climbing to the top of the toys and kind of swinging around. Dawson stood underneath where she was and started yelling "hi up there!" and then he asked her, "do you want me to help you get down safely?" It was SO cute!!! She wasn't answering him so he kept saying it over and over. We didn't have the camera or the flipcam with us and I was so bummed!! I would have loved to have gotten it on video. Anyway, he continued talking to her and when she came down he said "hi, I'm Dawson!" It was so sweet, he looked at me and Dave and said "I'm making a new friend." Our hearts seriously melted. We are so happy that isn't shy and likes to make friends. We're really proud of him and love how sweet he is. ♥

So, like I said I was really bummed that we didn't have the camera with us. Now fast forward a few days. We were out on a walk again and decided to take a new route that we had never taken before. We've driven past this little playground that is right next to the bay so we decided to walk to it so Dawson could play a little bit. We were walking right next to the water and we saw the cutest duck! It was hungry and looking for food so he kept disappearing under the water and then he'd pop back up in a different spot a few seconds later. It was really fun to watch him. We even got to see him catch and fish and eat it which was pretty cool! And once again we did not have the camera with us so we weren't able to get any pictures! We were so close to him too! I told Dave that we have to bring the camera on every walk from now on and he agreed!

I took this picture with my phone the day we saw the duck and didn't have our camera. I'm not sure why I didn't just pull out my phone to try to get a picture of the duck...it would have been better than nothing! Oh well, we got a picture of Dawson having fun. :)

The next day we decided to walk along the water again to the playground (it's definitely our new favorite route) and we had the camera this time. We were so happy that we did too because we saw a seal in the bay!! It was out kind of far so we couldn't get any good pictures but at least we tried. You can kind of see his head in this picture... I cropped the picture a little bit so he'd be easier to find.

There was a helicopter flying around the bay at the same time that we saw the seal and Dawson was much more interested in that. I didn't think he really even noticed the seal because he was so into the helicopter but during our walk the next night he started looking for the seal as soon as we got close to the water. Too bad we didn't see another one! But back to the night before, we watched the seal for a little while and then we walked to the playground so Dawson could play. I didn't get any pictures of him this time because the sun had gone down enough that I was able to get Ashlynn out of the stroller and hold her so she could look around at everything. Just before we were about to go home I had Dave take Ashlynn so we could get a couple of pictures of her. She's getting so big. ♥

Easter 2011

2011-04-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

We have lots of Easter pictures to share with all of you! We'll start with some from Saturday afternoon when Dawson was coloring Easter eggs. He really, really enjoyed it!

Here he is checking on one of his eggs...

And admiring them all when he was finished! Well, he wasn't quite finished yet, we had to wait for the eggs to dry so he could add some stickers to them.

Ashlynn was hanging out in her bouncy seat while big brother was coloring the eggs.

Time to add some stickers! He had a lot of stickers left over when he was finished so we gave him some plastic eggs and let him put stickers on those too. :)

Here's a picture of their Easter baskets. My parents sent some stuff for each of them and we added them to thier baskets. Ashlynn got a few outfits, a couple of books, Bambi DVD, a couple of toys, some shoes and a beanie baby. Dawson got an outfit, swim shirt and shorts, sunglasses, Blue stuffed animal, some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse toys (including Toodles which is his favorite) and some little candies and crackers.

Here is a picture of him finding eggs on Easter morning. He had so much fun and did SO good!!! He would get so excited when he would find each one and would yell "I got it! I got it!" It was so cute!

Growing up ~~my dad~~ the Easter bunny would always hide our Easter baskets and would leave clues to where we should look. The clues would say something like -- go look where you keep your socks... then there would be another clue and we'd end up running back and forth throughout the house until we finally got the clue that led us to our basket. It was always a lot of fun and we've decided to continue the tradition with our kids. We kept Dawson's clues really simple since he's just little but he had a lot of fun with it!

Here is some video of him trying to find his basket... (we had to put Blue's paw print on all the clues since he is obsessed with Blue's Clues right now)

Dawson had so much fun today playing with all his new Mickey toys, he's had a few for awhile and he always calls for Toodles so when we saw him at the store we knew he would love it!

Before I go I have a little video of Ashlynn talking again that I want to share. Dave took it with my cell phone so it's really crappy video (especially since I had it on MMS mode which makes the video super small so I can send it through text) but you can still hear her well even though the picture doesn't look great.

A nice walk and Easter egg hunt!

2011-04-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

We have pictures!! I have been meaning to post these for awhile now, better late than never! I'm sure we'll have a bunch of Easter pictures that we'll want to post so before I get too far behind I decided I better hurry and get these up!

Anyway, now that it's getting warmer outside we've been going on a lot more walks. I know I have mentioned this before but we really love the area that we live in, it's beautiful here! We live right across the street from the bay so it's really easy to walk over and enjoy the views of the water. We usually will walk onto the bridge that goes over the canal, we can see the water, usually some ducks and Dawson's favorite part, airplanes taking off from the airport.

Dawson is always excited to go on walks, we usually give him the choice of riding his trike or riding in the stroller and he always picks the stroller.

Ashlynn usually falls asleep during our walks, if we're out too long she'll wake up and want to be held. She likes being able to look around and see everything too!

While I am thinking about it I figure it's probably a good idea to explain what that little mark on Ashlynn's head is. I don't want anybody to think she got hurt or anything. (When she was in the hospital for RSV all the nurses and doctors that came in would ask how she got that bruise on her head, it was smaller then...) Anyway, it's called hemangioma which is basically a bunch of extra blood vessels under the skin. It's nothing to worry about and they will usually go away on their own. We noticed it when she was a few days old and thought it was just a little birthmark. It was light pink and totally flat then. It's gotten a lot darker and bigger since then. It will most likely continue to grow until she's about 12-18 months old and then it will slowly start to go away. As long as it doesn't bother her (and it shouldn't) it doesn't bother us at all. :) So when you see it, don't worry, she didn't get hurt. She's perfect. :)

Ok, back to the pictures!! This next one is a view from the bridge, you can click on the picture to make it larger, we think it's so peaceful and beautiful!

We saw some ducks while we were up there but they were pretty far away. We decided to go walk along the water to see if we could find any more but we weren't able to this time.

The airplanes take off every few minutes or so, definitely Dawson's favorite part!

That's all the pictures from our walk. These next pictures are from the Easter egg hunt that we went to last weekend. Dawson had a lot of fun finding the eggs to put into his bag!

Here he is showing off one the eggs that he found. :)

And opening it up when he realized there was something in there! Each egg had something in it, stickers, bouncy balls, candy, stuff like that.

Look Mama, I got a lot of eggs!

We saw the Easter bunny but Dawson didn't really want to have anything to do with him. Strange, I know! This kid usually loves all the characters that we meet. Of course a few minutes after we walked away from the bunny Dawson told us that he wanted to go see him... I had to feed Ashlynn so we weren't able to go back. While I fed Ashlynn, Dawson did some artwork.

After Ashlynn was done eating we headed over to this big inflatable slide. Dave and Dawson went down together. (Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see how much fun Dawson had)

He loved the slide. If there wasn't a long line I'm sure he would have wanted to go again and again!

They had a few more rides and things to do but Ashlynn was getting cranky so we decided it was time to go home. It was a fun morning! We didn't get any pictures of Ashlynn while we were out because I wanted to keep her in the stroller and out of the sun as much as I could (is 3 months old enough for sunscreen yet?) but I did take this picture of me and her after we got home...

Now I know my ABC's...

2011-04-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

I still haven't uploaded any pictures but I do have another video to share! Dawson finally learned to sing his ABC's! He has been able to name each letter when he sees it since before he was 2 years old but he just barely took an interest in learning to sing the ABC's a week or two ago. I would try to teach him every now and then but he just wasn't interested. Lately he has been singing a lot so I figured I would try again and he learned to sing it in about 2 days!

Ashlynn talking to Mama

2011-04-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this video along with some pictures for a few days now but just haven't had the time. Hopefully I'll get some new pictures up some time this week but in the meantime here is a video of Ashlynn "talking" She was talking and smiling a lot more before I turned the camera on... How do kids just know to stop what they're doing when the camera comes on??

Also, towards the end you'll see Dawson talking about his haircut, he hated the gel they put in his hair and wanted it out. *lol*

**I used the flipcam to take this video, sorry that it always makes it huge!

Playground and Beach

2011-04-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

We went to a new (to us) beach the other day that Dave just happened to drive by when he was running an errand for work. It's right next to the gate that he went in that day (I think there was an accident or something that caused him to go a different way that he normally does). Anyway, I guess there is a landing strip just on the other side of the gate and he knew Dawson would love seeing the planes land. There is also a little playground right off the beach that he thought looked like fun. We went on a Sunday and there wasn't any planes flying that day but Dawson still had a lot of fun on the playground.

I love this picture of him, even though it's not a straight on shot you can still tell how happy he is because he's having so much fun.

He loved going down the slide.

After he played for a little while we walked down on the beach to watch the waves. We only stayed on the beach for about 15 minutes or so because it was getting late and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. We did take a few pictures while we were there and I love this one of me and the kids.

We are definitely looking forward to going to the beach a lot this summer. Dave and Dawson will have lots of fun playing in the water while me and Ashlynn sit on the beach under an umbrella and play in the sand. :)

Before I go I want to add this video of Dawson. He has been obsessed with Blue's Clues for a couple of months now and he knows almost all the songs they sing by heart now. Here he is singing the song they sing at the end of the show. I'll post the lyrics here in case you have trouble understanding him...he does REALLY good though and only misses a couple of words!

Now it's time for so-long
But we'll sing just one more song
Thanks for doing your part!
You sure are smart!
You know, with me and you and my dog Blue...
We can do anything... that we wanna do!

He's so cute! He always lets us know whether he wants to watch Joe or Steve. haha

Dawson Tells a Joke!

2011-03-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

I just posted some pictures about an hour ago but I wanted to post this video that I just got too! Dave taught Dawson his first joke! I think he was being a little camera shy because he usually cracks up at himself but he just laughs a little bit in the video.

In case you can't understand he says why did the chicken cross the road?

(to get) to the other side!

St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have to post this picture first because I love it. Dave was taking pictures and I think Ashlynn was sick of seeing the flash so she she flashed him this dirty look. *lol*

We bought both of the kids something to wear on St. Patrick's Day but after I washed everything Dawson's didn't fit! It was way to small and we bought it big! Oh well, next year!

Ashlynn's dress fit her perfectly even though we bought that big too!

Dawson is such a little cuddle bug (Ashlynn is too!) and is always trying to cuddle and give Ashlynn kisses. He loves to hold her too. Ashlynn started smiling at us about a week ago and Dawson loves to make her smile. It's so sweet to watch him come up and talk to her, you can tell that they love each other so much!

Dawson told us he wanted to read her a story and ran and got a book...

Ashlynn loved it! She just stared at him and listened...

That's it for now! I am going to try and get in the habit of updating more often again...

RSV

2011-03-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

This last week has been a little stressful! A little over a week ago Dawson started getting sick again...his second cold in a month! We were worried that Ashlynn was going to catch it, so once again we tried to keep Dawson away from her and I sprayed Lysol downstairs each night after everyone went to bed. Unfortunately Ashlynn still caught it. As soon as she started coughing we made her an appointment with her pediatrician. It took a day or so before they could get us in, they saw us Wednesday and decided to test her for RSV. They said they were going to test her for pertussis (whooping cough) but for some reason did not. The RSV came back positive so they admitted her into the hospital for observation. She was hooked up to all the monitors for about 12 hours and they said her lungs sounded fine. So they let us go home.

We had a follow up appointment on Friday and we were so happy that we did because she was coughing so hard that she couldn't keep any milk down! She would eat, have a coughing fit, then spit up everything she just ate. Her lungs still sounded fine at her followup but the pediatrician was concerned about her cough and how much she was spitting up so she was admitted into the hospital again. I asked the peditrician if they would test for pertussis like they said they were going to and she told me to tell the doctors upstairs once we were admitted and they would take care of it. So I did and I felt like they just blew me off. I seriously asked 3 or 4 different doctors and nurses before they finally swabbed her for it on Saturday night.

On Sunday she started to get a fever. This could be because if the RSV but because she was just now getting a fever instead of when she first started getting sick they were concerned. Her oxygen levels started dropping a little bit around this time so they had to put her on a little bit of oxygen. They took some blood and did a spinal tap so they could check for infection. They also started her on antibiotics just in case there was an infection. And guess what?! They were all of a sudden interested in ruling out pertussis. They hadn't even sent it out to be tested yet even though they swabbed her for it the day before! They have to send it to another hospital to get the results so they did that on Sunday night. I'm annoyed that it took so long when I had been bugging them about it for almost 3 days, it could have been ruled out (or confirmed) a couple of days ago!

As of Monday evening she is doing a lot better. Her cough is not at all as bad as it was and she is able to keep down most of her feeds. They have weaned her completely off the oxygen so that's good! Her appetite isn't what it used to be but we're hoping she'll get back up to regular feeds soon. Right now she is eating 1.5-2 ounces every 3 hours and she used to eat 4 ounces every 3 hours. So far all of the cultures are coming back negative and we haven't heard anything about the whooping cough test yet.

We are hoping that she is well enough to come home within the next few days. Either Dave or myself has been with her at the hospital the entire time, and Dawson has been there a lot too since Dave had duty this weekend and has to work during the week. Dawson gets super bored and I feel bad for him but there is no way I could leave Ashlynn there by herself.

Oh, and on Wednesday she weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces!! I thought that was way cool because she has gained so much since she was born (over 3 pounds now!) and she was the exact same weight that Dawson was when he was born! She was just under 21 inches, too, and Dawson was 20 1/2 inches when he was born... All day I kept looking at her and thinking about how big she looked compared to when she was born. I also kept thinking that I couldn't believe I birthed a baby that big! *lol*

Her room is painted cute, with some fairies on the wall and this cute frog!

More Visitors!

2011-02-21T16:10:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful weekend with some of my family who came to visit. My dad, Brandee, Becca, Hailee and Drea were all here for a few days. I think I have mentioned this in the blog before, and if you are family you already know this, but Dawson loves his family so much! Even though he doesn't get to see them often (unless it's on webcam which we try to do a few times a week) he talks about them all the time. He looks at their pictures, knows all of their names and just loves them! I really wish we would have had the video camera out on the night that they got here because Dawson was so excited and so happy when they walked in the door. He's almost always happy, but he was SUPER happy and excited. He has a big smile anyway, but his smile was even bigger that night. It was just so sweet to see. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked to but I want to share some of the ones that we did get.

Here is my dad holding Ashlynn. I love how she is looking up at him. ♥

I love this picture of Hailee holding her too. So sweet.

We didn't really get out of the house much, mostly just hung out at home but we wanted to go to the beach. We don't like to take Ashlynn out just because she is so small but we figured at the beach we'd be out in the open and not around a lot of people. It was kind of windy and a little chilly so we made sure to bundle her up good and we didn't take her out of her carseat while we were there either. We ended up staying for a little less than an hour.

Ashlynn stayed pretty warm and cozy in her seat...

Of course the kids didn't mind the cold, they still wanted to put their feet in the water!

This is our first family picture...

Once we got home I wanted to take another family picture for our blog. This is the picture you will see in our blog now under "Our Little Family". (except I cropped the one that will stay in our blog a little bit and made the lighting look a little better)

I also love this picture of me and Ashlynn.

Papa, Dawson and Ashlynn. (Love Dawson's smile!)

And this picture is so sweet. Hailee is giving Becca a kiss and Dawson is giving Ashlynn a kiss and it wasn't staged at all... we were trying to get a picture of Becca with Dawson and Ashlynn and this is what happened. ♥

I think that is it for now. We had such a good time this weekend and were so happy that they were able to make it out here. We love having visitors and spending time with family!!

This is Love

2011-02-14T05:45:00.000-08:00

Dawson was finally able to hold Ashlynn! He has been sick with a cold since she came home so we have tried our best to keep him away from Ashlynn so he wouldn't get her sick too. It's been hard. He LOVES Ashlynn and wants to kiss and touch her a lot, I always felt so bad telling him that he couldn't touch her yet but he is feeling better now!!

I am so happy that we were able to get pictures of him holding her for the first time, he was so happy and you can tell that he loves her so much. I'm glad that we will always have these pictures to look back and remember this moment.

He wasn't phased at all that she was crying when we first let him hold her. He was just happy to finally cuddle with her a little bit

After a quick adjustment Ashlynn was happy again. :) The look on Dawson's face in this picture is so sweet.

Hugs!

When we told Dawson it was time for Dada to hold her, he held on to her really tight and started crying because he didn't want to let her go. He loves his baby sister and is already such a great big brother!

Ashlynn is Home!!

2011-02-02T05:45:00.000-08:00

Ashlynn is home!! It's beyond wonderful to have her here with us. She is going to be one spoiled baby because me and Dave want to hold her all the time! :) Dawson was excited to see her for the first time at the hospital but once we got home he didn't seem to notice she was even here. He just wanted to play. After awhile though, about an hour before his bedtime, I was holding Ashlynn on the couch and he came over and wanted to cuddle with us. :) I LOVED having both my babies cuddling with me.

Here is the video of Dawson and Ashlynn meeting for the first time...

He was so sweet!!! :) I can't even explain how I felt seeing his reaction to her, I was just so happy!

We bought this outfit for her to come home in when we thought she was going to be born in February... Even though she decided to come early it still worked out really well since she came home on February 1st!

Look at how cute she is in her monkey pj's!

Here we are cuddling on the couch. :)

And just a little video of Ashlynn.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! We are so happy that our baby is home!!

Does this hat make my head look small?

2011-02-01T09:29:00.001-08:00

Ashlynn gained 25 grams last night, that's almost an ounce. :) So far I don't have any new news besides that but I did get some pictures last night.

I dropped her pink hat that she usually wears on the floor. I had the diaper bag with me so I grabbed the hat that I have in there and put it on her. It's newborn size but it's way too big for her. She fits in the newborn onesies pretty well but hats are a different story!

hahahaha That picture makes me laugh. The hat is huge on her! I rolled it up a couple of times and then it fit a lot better. :)

Disney on Ice

2011-01-31T10:19:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we entered a lottery to win Disney on Ice tickets from our housing and we ended up winning some! We were super excited to take Dawson because he LOVES Mickey and all his friends. We were surprised when we got there and saw that we had really good seats, we were expecting to be in the upper bowl but instead we were only 7 rows up in the lower bowl! Sweet!!

Here is Dawson waiting for the show to start. He had to bring his Mickey of course! After we got there we were bummed that we didn't think to bring his Mickey ears that we got from Disneyland too. We ended up getting some cotton candy that had Mickey ears on it so it all worked out. He didn't want to wear them much during the show anyway, he plays with them a lot at home though.

Here they come!!! He had the biggest smile and was SO excited when they first came out.

We had a lot of fun. Dawson stood up and danced to the music a lot and kept turning around to look at us with a huge smile on his face and he'd clap his hands. :) He cried when it was over, he didn't want to say bye to Mickey!!

The other day I mentioned that we got a new car seat from the NICU baby shower last week, we were able to take the car seat that they gave us to Babies R Us and we exchanged it for a Graco. We have 2 graco strollers (a single and a double) so we figured sticking with Graco would be a good idea that way the car seat will fit in the strollers we have and stuff. And the new seat is SO cute and she fits in it SO well!!! It has lower slots than most car seats and you can move the buckle that goes in between the legs closer so it fits her better. Perfect for small babies!

I like to take pictures of her while I am holding her... I'm sure you've noticed that already. haha

She weighs 5lbs 15oz now! She's almost a 6 pounder!! Hopefully she will gain some weight again today, they don't weigh her until around 9pm so we won't know til later, but if she keeps gaining then she should be able to come home SOON!!

Video of Ashlynn!

2011-01-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking with updates and pictures lately! I have a lot of pictures that I want to post but will probably add them tomorrow. For now I will just write a short update. :) Ashlynn is doing really well! She weighs 5lbs 13oz, she passed her car seat test the other day and she's eating between 45cc's and 60cc's every 3 hours. Nothing new to add really. She's still in the NICU until she can gain a little more weight.

Here's a little video that I took of her tonight. I thought it might be fun for you guys to see her moving around and stuff.

When Dawson saw the video he said "baby sister wants a drink!" haha And then he asked to watch it over and over. :)

Baby Shower!

2011-01-26T22:25:00.000-08:00

Around midnight tonight Ashlynn will be off the TPN!!! Yay!! She's off all the antibiotics already. She has been eating great and is up to 32 cc's, that will go up even more tomorrow. She's happy to be eating again.

She weighs around 5lbs 13oz... I say "around" because I was there when the nurse weighed her last night and I was there when the nurse weighed her tonight and both times they had to weigh her 3 times and got different amounts each time. She does have a lot of wires and tubes hanging off of her so I'm sure that makes it hard to get her exact weight. Last night she weighed 5lbs 8oz and tonight 5lbs 13oz. That big of a weight gain doesn't seem right to me... We'll just say she weighs between 5lbs 8oz and 5lbs 13oz. :)

I decided to bring her in some onesies to wear today. She's been wearing the hospital t-shirts since she was born, I decided it's about time that she gets a little dressed up. I can't put pants or anything on her yet because of the PICC line (that will be most likely be removed soon!) and they have to put the blood pressure cuff on her leg when they are getting her blood pressure... But onesies are ok for her wear. She looked adorable. I brought her some new blankets too, I've been bringing her blankets from home for awhile now. They make her bed look a lot cuter. (I tried to bring her some hats too but her head was too small for all of them. haha)

I was at the hospital this morning for a baby shower that they had for all the babies in the NICU and Dave surprised us while I was there! He had a couple of patients cancel so he had a little longer lunchtime so he headed over to the hospital to see Ashlynn. :)

The baby shower was a lot of fun and we got spoiled with lots of stuff!!! We got a car seat, lots of clothes and pj's, diapers, a diaper bag (which we're going to donate back to the hospital because we already have one), lots of little baby toys, a boppy, some books, blankets, a teddy bear... I know I am forgetting a lot of stuff but I have pictures!

Pretty cool huh? I can't believe how much stuff we all got!!

Closeups!

2011-01-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much of an update today. Ashlynn is still doing really well. She is eating 13 cc's (it was 6 yesterday) and they are slowly weening her off the TPN.

Here are a few pics that I took tonight. I guess I was in the mood for closeups. :)

16 days old

2011-01-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

Just about every nurse that Ashlynn has had always tells us what a good baby she is. They always comment on how she hardly ever cries and that she sleeps a lot. I got there to see her tonight just as the day nurse was leaving and she came over and introduced herself and said she just wanted to tell me that she adores Ashlynn and that she is such a good baby. :) Even though we've heard it a number of times it still makes me smile to hear it again from a new person.

Tonight was bath night! Here is Ashlynn almost ready for her bath... Check out her belly button! I mentioned in last night's blog that her umbilical cord had fallen off...what a cute belly button she has! :) (And is it just me or does she REALLY look like Dawson in this picture?!)

She was so good during her bath. She did cry a little bit but for the most part she was just looking around. Here she is all nice and clean and bundled up.

I got to feed her tonight!!! They started giving her 6 cc's of my milk every 3 hours and they are slowly going to increase that as they decrease the TPN. It will probably be a couple of days before she's totally weened off the TPN. It was so nice to be able to feed her again even though she finished in just a minute or two. 6 cc's is not that much at all. After I fed her she was awake for another 30 minutes or so just staring at me and looking around. She had a good grip on one of my fingers for awhile which I absolutely loved. Spending time with her is amazing. I can't wait until we're with her all of the time.

I asked the nurse when she would be finished with her antibiotics and she wasn't sure if they were stopping them tomorrow or if tomorrow was the last day. We'll have to talk to the doctor tomorrow and find out for sure.

Do these booties make my feet look big?

2011-01-23T22:40:00.000-08:00

First of all Ashlynn is doing great! The nurse today told us that the 5 ounces that we thought she lost yesterday must have been a mistake because she had gained it all back already. She weighs 5lbs 8oz!!! That's 2 ounces above her birth weight! Yay! We're happy to know that she didn't lose a bunch of weight like we thought she did. She also gave us more good news... they are going to take an xray of her belly in the morning and as long as everything looks ok they may start feeding her again tomorrow!!! I am so happy about that!!! Tomorrow will be day 6 of antibiotics and TPN so it's a little earlier than we expected, but that just means that she is doing well enough that they think it's time to let her start eating again.

Here are some pics from the last 2 days...

Yesterday I was able to do some kangaroo care again (laying skin to skin), I love Ashlynn's little face in this picture. haha She's so cute!

She is getting pretty strong, too! She kept lifting up her head to look at me. After a couple of minutes of that she fell asleep and we were able to cuddle for about an hour.

This picture is from today. She was asleep most the time that I saw her today.

I forgot to mention the other day that when they put her PICC line in a few days ago they had to put it in her foot. Since it's in her foot they don't wrap her feet up when they are swaddling her in her blanket, so they put some little booties on her so her feet don't get cold. So adorable!

Dawson has been hanging out with Nana and Papa a lot while they are in. He has been having so much fun with them. He loves his family.

Dave and I went out on a date night tonight while my mom and dad watched Dawson. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was SO good! We had a good time just spending time together.

After that we went shopping. We found a really cute t-shirt for Dawson and a really cute dress for Ashlynn for St. Patrick's Day. Yes we realize St. Patrick's Day is 2 months away but we couldn't resist.

So cute!!!

***Breaking News***

Dave and my dad just got home from visiting Ashlynn and they said her umbilical cord fell off!!! They didn't get any pics (bummer!) but I'll make sure to get some tomorrow. They did however bring me home the umbilical cord. Umm, thanks guys... Eww! haha

2 weeks old and visitors!

2011-01-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

We have visitors! My mom and dad got here last night to help out a little with Dawson while Dave and I spend some time with Ashlynn, and of course they wanted to see Ashlynn too! Me and my mom went to visit her last night and my mom was so in love. :)

Ashlynn was asleep most the time that we were there but did wake up for a couple of minutes. I love this picture of her looking up at me...

Then this morning me and Dave went to spend some time with her. She was awake the whole time we were there! It was awesome!!! We love our cuddle time with her. ♥

She has been doing really well. All of her tests are still coming back negative but they are going to continue the antibiotics and TPN for 7-10 days...we're on day 4 right now. I really hope they are able to stop the treatment at 7 days so she can start eating again. She hasn't had any events and her breathing has gotten so much better! She lost 5 ounces in about 24 hours so they are upping the amount of TPN they are giving her. I think that's about it for updates. Besides losing weight she is doing really well.

12 days old

2011-01-20T22:13:00.000-08:00

Ashlynn is doing a lot better today, the antibiotics must be doing their job! Her stomach x-rays are looking better and better, the first ones they took yesterday showed that her intestines were a little swollen, they took some more 6 hours later and it showed that they were already improving and have continued to do so today. We still haven't heard anything on the cultures yet, no news is good news there. They have totally weened her off the oxygen but are keeping the little stickers on her face in case she needs it again.

They are putting in a PICC line tonight since she will be on the antibiotics for a few days and she'll be on TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) for at least 7 days since she can't eat for 7 days. It makes me really sad to know she has to go so long without eating, she is getting all the nutrition that she needs from the TPN but it's still really sad. I feel so bad for her. :(

Here is the definition of a PICC line, I was going to try to explain it but this is much easier! Percutaneously inserted central catheters (PICC lines), are long, thin, plastic tubes that travel from a vein in an arm or leg into one of the large veins near the heart. In premature infants, they are used to deliver fluids or medications.

A PICC line is similar to a peripheral IV, but is longer and lasts longer. Premature infants have fragile veins, and peripheral IVs usually last only 1 to 3 days. A PICC line, though more difficult to insert, can be used for 1 to 2 weeks or more.

They weighed her right before I left tonight and she weighed 5lbs 4oz. She looked good and was awake for a few minutes after they took an x-ray. After that I just cuddled with her and she fell right back asleep.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. It means a lot to us to know that so many people care. Please continue to keep Ashlynn in your prayers.

Need Prayers for Ashlynn

2011-01-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

I've heard people say before that having a baby in the NICU is really hard and is like being on an emotional roller coaster. They weren't kidding. I've had days were I've spent a few hours with her and left there feeling happy and good. And then there are days like today where I feel completely sad and helpless. I can't even imagine what it feels like for Ashlynn. :( Some days she seems to be doing really well but I have learned that things can turn around in a heartbeat. I'm going to let Dave do today's update, so here he is...

Today was a rough day for our little Ashlynn. I went in to feed her at 9am and the nurse told me she had blood in her poop and wouldn't be eating. She was going to have to get the IV back in to get her nutrition since they aren't letting her eat until they find out what's going on.

They are doing lots of tests with her blood, poop & urine and doing some x-rays of her belly & chest every few hours. For the most part so far everything is coming back normal. The cultures take 1-3 days to come back, the longer it takes to hear about those the better it is though. They check for bacteria so if it grows they know it's positive so if it's 3 days & no growth it's negative. They are thinking it may be some sort of infection in her intestines so they are giving her 3 different antibiotics to try and fight it off. She also was having trouble breathing in a good rhythm & that was causing her oxygen levels to drop off a little so she is getting some oxygen to help keep her levels up too.

I stayed while they were starting the tests & the IV's when it all started then called to let Jamie know what was going on. After that I came home to get Jamie. Dawson went to stay with Sandy for the day. Her & Ed have been life savers through all of this. It was hard seeing Ashlynn hooked up to everything & hearing the doctors talking about everything that was going on, but you could tell they were doing everything they could to make sure they are doing everything they can for her. We also felt lucky to have one of our favorite nurses taking care of her today & one of our other favorites helping out since he was with the other baby in the room. She seemed like pretty much the same baby for most of the day. There was an hour or two when she seemed pretty drained and not wanting to move much but then she started getting more active and showing how hungry she was before we left. It was heartbreaking knowing that we couldn't feed her. She is getting nutrition through the IV but that doesn't help her little belly from feeling empty and hungry.

Please pray for our baby girl. We just want her to be happy and healthy.

Mickey Puzzle

2011-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd squeeze a little video of Dawson in between Ashlynn's updates. I'll have another update posted tonight...

You all know how much Dawson loves puzzles, so for Christmas we bought him his first jigsaw puzzles. He loves them and is really good at putting them together. They are perfect starter puzzles because they have a picture of the puzzle on the board to help you see where the pieces go... I'm sure it won't be long until he is ready to graduate to a regular puzzle. For now he's got a Mickey puzzle and a Toy Story puzzle. Here's a little video of him doing the Mickey puzzle.

10 days old

2011-01-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

Ashlynn is 10 days old today! She ate really well again last night and today, she even gained 2 ounces back from the 3 that she lost yesterday. They took her NG tube out again today. Hopefully they won't have to put it back. She has been eating really good though so I don't think she'll need it again.

Her bilirubin level dropped 2 points so that is awesome news too!!

Now for some more not so good news... She's had 5 events since last night. :( They all happened while she was eating so they put her on a 3 day watch for that. She's still in the middle of a 5 day watch though, so as of right now she's on track to come home on Friday. I don't think that will happen though. :( I think it's going to be awhile longer before she gets the hang of eating and breathing at the same time.

I know that it is definitely best for her to be there right now but I want her home so bad. It breaks my heart knowing that when she cries I am not there to cuddle her or take care of whatever she needs. I wish I could be there all the time so I could comfort her after she has an event, even though it scares the crap out of me when her monitors go off, I want to be there to cuddle with her and let her know everything is ok. I just want to take care of my baby, both of my babies, and I feel guilty that I can't be with them both all of the time. I want to be so bad.

Got Milk?!

2011-01-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Because Ashlynn is in the NICU and because she has had trouble eating I have been having to pump my milk for her... Apparently Dawson wants to help out too. He got a hold of a couple of extra attachments and came up to me like this:

He's such a cutie. I thought it was pretty funny!

Just a quick update on Ashlynn, she lost 3 ounces since yesterday but the doctor isn't concerned. He said she lost a little bit because she has been doing so well with eating from the bottle which is causing her to burn calories, whereas before she was getting fed through the NG tube a lot and not having to work for her food. She ate really well again today so that's awesome. :)

She must have been having some pretty happy dreams when I was holding her because she kept smiling. I pulled out my phone to get a picture and was barely able to catch her smiling. It was a huge smile but my phone takes forever to snap the picture so I just caught the last little bit. Adorable.

8 days old - Good and Not So Good News

2011-01-16T17:42:00.000-08:00

Some good news and some not so good news... which would you like to hear first? We'll start with the not so good news...

Ashlynn had an "event" today. Her heartrate dropped below 100 for a couple of seconds due to apnea (she forgets to breath sometimes) so now she has to be monitored for 5 days no matter what. We were hoping she would be home in a day or two, but it's official that she has at least 5 more days in the NICU. When I talked to her doctor he said that she was able to snap herself out of it pretty quick and her breathing and heart rate went back to normal but it is still something that needs to be watched. He told me not to get my heart set on her coming home in 5 days because some kids will make it to day 4 and then have another event and then they are back to day 1 of 5 days again.

We're bummed that she has to stay longer but at the same time we are thankful that it happened while she was still in the hospital. As much as we want her home, we don't want her to come home before she's completely ready.

Now for the good news, she is gaining weight!!! She got down to 4lbs 15oz and stayed there for a couple of days but now she is up to 5lbs 5oz!!! She's almost back up to her birth weight!!

Also she ate really well last night and has continued to do so throughout the day. This morning when Dave was feeding her she finished 47 cc's in 8 minutes!! That's definitely a record for her, she usually takes close to the full 30 minutes that they give her to eat. When I was there feeding her she didn't want to finish the last 15 cc's so they had to put that in her NG tube. But the 2nd feeding I did today went really well! She finished everything in just under 15 minutes.

The last thing that the doctor told me today was we are waiting on 3 things before she is able to come home....

The first thing is the apnea event that I talked about at the beginning of the post. As soon as she makes it 5 days without an event we can scratch that off the list.

The second thing is passing her carseat test. They had us bring in her carseat 2 nights ago and they monitored her while she sat in it for 30 minutes (well, she didn't make it the full 30 minutes...) to make sure she wasn't going to have any events while sitting in it. They want to make sure she'll be safe on the car ride home and any car rides after that. Because she's a preemie her airways are so small and when she's sitting up like that they can be blocked off. She had an event during the test so they will retest in 72 hours, which I think is tomorrow night. Hopefully she'll pass next time or else they will have to wait another 72 hours before they try again.

And the last thing is her bilirubin levels. They are still going up a little bit but he feels like they are going to go down on their own because she is eating and pooping a lot. They are going to check her levels again in 2 days and as long as they are on their way down by then she won't have to go under the bili lights again.

Of course other things can come up but as of right now those are the only issues.

Now for some pictures! :) I brought her a new hat and a cute blanket today. The hat was too big, her head is just so tiny, I think you can kind of imagine how small her head is with this picture. That binky is huge in her mouth! At least she can use the blanket I brought. :)

I think this next picture is my absolute favorite so far. She was wide awake while I was holding her and just staring at me. ♥ I think we both were in heaven.

Ashlynn's Birth Story

2011-01-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

Ashlynn is here! We weren't expecting her until mid-February but she had other plans... Last Saturday we had just finished eating dinner and I decided to clean out the fridge, I had been doing a lot of deep cleaning that day and the day before, I guess I had started nesting! Anyway, I started to pull stuff out of the fridge so I was kind of leaning over and I coughed... and I thought I peed my pants! haha Dave came into the kitchen and I told him I coughed and peed my pants and needed to take a shower... as I started walking out of the kitchen I felt what I thought was pee running down my legs. I told Dave and he was like are you sure you peed your pants and I told him I didn't know. (I think we both knew at this point that it wasn't pee but were in denial) I told him I would take a quick shower and if I still felt like I was leaking that we'd head to the hospital. So I took a quick shower, rinsed off and as soon as I got out I realized that I wasn't peeing but my water had broke. I yelled downstairs to Dave to get Dawson ready because we had to go!

We got to the hospital around 6:30pm and had to wait a few minutes to be seen. They took a little swab to verify that my water had broke and a few minutes later a nurse came in and said it was my water. I cried. I was scared because Ashlynn was going to be born almost 6 weeks early. It took them a little while to get me admitted and got me into a room in labor and delivery. We called our friend Sandy to see if she could come get Dawson and she was out of town. She was able to get a hold of another friend of ours, Heather, and she said she would be able to come get him. We weren't prepared at all so Dave had to run home to get diapers and pj's for Dawson and anything else he thought he'd need. Good thing we only live about 10-15 minutes from the hospital!

While Dave was gone they gave me an IV with some antibiotics (for group b strep) and pitocin. I started having contractions and they were getting pretty painful really fast. I think I made it almost an hour before I finally asked for an epidural. Dave made it back just in time to see me get the epidural. I was already dilated to a 4 when I first got admitted which surprised me a little bit. After I got the epidural I was pretty much pain free for probably about 30 minutes. Then I started feeling a lot of pressure. I told the nurse and she checked me again and said I was a 5. The pressure got worse really, really fast. Like within 30 minutes after she had checked me I was feeling so much pain and pressure and I was begging her to check me again. She said she hadn't even turned up the pitocin yet and that she just checked and I was a 5. Earlier she had said something to Dave about how she thought the baby would be here the next morning... ha! The pain and pressure was so bad that I knew Ashlynn was coming soon, I was crying with each contraction which were right on top of each other and I kept telling Dave to get the nurse back in the room because she had to check me again. I felt like I needed to push!!! (Dave told me afterward that I was very "vocal" haha) The nurse came back in and said something about how I wasn't through the first bag of antibiotics yet (which afterward I asked about and I think she said they try to get you through 2 bags 4 hours before the baby is born) and then she FINALLY checked me again and what do you know, I was fully dilated!

She called for the doctor and the NICU doctors to come in and finally let me start pushing. I think I pushed through 4 contractions, less than 10 pushes all together and Ashlynn was born. It happened SO fast! She started crying almost right away, I was so happy to hear her little cry. The NICU doctors and nurses took her right away to check her out (they were still in the room with us). After they made sure that she was ok they wrapped her up and laid her on my chest, I held her for less than 2 minutes before they took her to the NICU. We were so happy when they finally let us go down to see her!!

Ashlynn Marie Harrison
1/8/2011 11:11 pm
5 lbs 6 oz 17 3/4 inches long

Here are some pics!

Just after she was born...

Mama holding her in the NICU for the first time.

Dada holding her...

Her bilirubin levels were a little high so she was under the lights for a couple of days.

4 days old and she got a new bed! No more bili lights, no bed warmer AND she got her IV removed! (She had an IV that was basically feeding her since she wasn't eating much and she was getting antibiotics)

I love this sweet little face.

Here she is at 1 week old...

We are so in love with our baby girl. She is just so sweet. She's still in the NICU but she is doing pretty good. She is having a hard time eating and that's why she has the NG tube. We feed her every 3 hours (she's eating about 47 cc's at each feeding) and whatever she doesn't finish on her own they put the rest in the tube which goes directly into her stomach. They only allow her to eat for 30 minutes at a time, they say if she takes any longer to eat than that that she is burning more calories than she is taking in and won't gain any weight. I really hope she gets the hang of eating soon so she can come home soon! She usually does really well at the beginning of the feeding but she gets tired so quickly and wants to fall asleep instead of eat. Dave and I have been going to all of her day feeds and hanging out with her for about an hour each time because we both want to spend as much time with her as possible. I hate being at home without her. :( My last day in the hospital was yesterday and it killed me to come home without her. I know it's for the best and I want her to get strong and healthy but it is so hard.

Dawson hasn't met her yet because they don't allow anybody except parents and grandparents into the NICU to visit. I'm excited to bring her home, I know that Dawson will just love her.

Now that I finally got her birth story posted I will try to update every day with how she is doing. Please keep little Ashlynn in your thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Christmas! We were a little worried on Christmas Eve morning because Dawson threw up during breakfast. :( I was really bummed that he was getting sick after he had been so excited for Christmas for so long. But as the day went on we could tell that he was feeling fine. He was able to eat and was playing like he normally does. Yay!! There is this place not too far from us that had some fake snow falling a couple of times a day and Christmas Eve was the last day they were going to do it so we decided to go check it out. Even though it wasn't even close to the real thing, it was awesome to see snow on Christmas Eve!! Seeing the snow and Dawson's reaction to it was enough to make me all teary-eyed. I'm glad we were able to experience that together and we look forward to Dawson playing in real snow one day!

On our way home we realized that we forgot to bake cookies for Santa!! Oops! It was getting late so we just decided to stop by the store and pick some up. After we got home we each opened a present (we all got new pj's!) and then we set out some milk and cookies for Santa, changed into our new pj's, and then read The Night Before Christmas before we headed to bed.

When Dawson woke up on Christmas morning I asked him if he knew what day it was and he immediately told me it was Christmas! We were excited to head downstairs and see what Santa had brought!

We've had a few presents under the tree for a couple of weeks now so Dawson was really excited that it was finally time to open all of them!

I didn't get pictures of him playing with all of his new toys but he is definitely happy with everything that he got and I think he played with everything at least once today.

He really, really loves the kitchen and told us multiple times today that he was making us dinner. :)

He was excited to read some of his new books with Dada.

And do his new puzzles!

Another thing that we all played with a lot today was his basketball hoop. We have it on the lowest setting right now and he does really good with it already, I think we're going to have to higher it to make it a little bit of a challenge for him.

Some other things that he got was a tool bench, a little car that came with some tools so he could work on it or "fix it", play-doh, a couple fold and go car sets, books, coloring books, crayons, a LeapFrog laptop...I'm probably forgetting 1 or 2 things but I think that's about it.

We had a wonderful Christmas and were so happy to be able to spend it together this year!!

Christmas and Singing!

2010-12-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to post about our trip to see Santa for a few weeks now... better late than never I suppose! We decided to go early to hopefully avoid the crowds and it worked! We only had to wait about 15 minutes before we saw Santa which wasn't bad at all. Dawson was super shy, but he didn't cry! He doesn't look very happy in the picture, in fact he looks sad, but he wasn't...he was just being shy.

Here is a picture of our tree this year... I'm so in love with it! This is the first year that we used white lights and we both think it looks so pretty.

A tradition that we started on Dawson's first Christmas is buying him his own ornament every year. We've been trying to have the ornament show what he liked or what he was into that year. The first year was just a Baby's 1st Christmas ornament. Last year was a Bolt ornament because he loves dogs. This year we decided to get him a Buzz ornament since he loves Toy Story and he got his new Toy Story room this year!

Here are a couple more ornaments that are new this year...

We got this one during our trip to Disneyland earlier in the year.

And although Ashlynn won't get her first ornament until next year, we decided we wanted to include her on our tree so we added one of her ultrasound pictures to this ornament...

I also have a cute video that I want to share. Dawson has been singing a lot lately. He knows a few little songs and sings them pretty well. The first one he sings is Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. He says "bonk his head, doctor said, no more monkeys jumping on the couch!" Sometimes he says bed, sometimes he says couch. *lol* I guess it just depends on what kind of mood he's in. And then the next song that he sings is one that I have been singing to him since he was a newborn... it goes like this:

I love you, I love you, morning, noon and night.
I love you, I love you, you make the world so bright!

And this is what Dawson says when he sings it... "I love you, I love you, morning, noon and night. So bright!" I makes my heart swim every time I hear him sing it. Anyway, here is the video so you can hear him sing it too!

Almost 30 week ultrasound

2010-12-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

We went and had another 3D ultrasound yesterday. It was fun being able to see Ashlynn again! She is laying sideways, I was hoping she would be head down already just so I wouldn't have to worry about it. She still has time to turn so she's head down, though, let's hope that she does! She is estimated to weigh 3lbs 5oz now. She's growing quickly! Here are some pictures that we got...

We'll start out with a couple of the 2D profile pics...

This is blurry but it looks like she's giving us a little smile. :)

I like this one where you can see her cute little face and her arm kind of tucked under her chin.

This one is kind of hard to make out if you don't know what you're looking at but the arrow is pointing to her foot, just to the right of that is her arm and just to the right of that is her face. She had her foot up by her face. *lol* She's squished in there already!

And another cute one of her face.

She was moving around quite a bit, it was fun to see. On our way home we decided to stop by Burlington and picked a few things that I have been looking forward to getting.

First of all a diaper bag! I hated the diaper bag we had with Dawson so I was really excited to get a new one. Hopefully this one will work out a lot better for us.

We found the cutest piggy bank! I wish it was a little bit bigger but it was way too cute to pass up, I had to get it!

And we finally got a baby book!! We have been looking at these forever but all the ones we've seen were either too expensive or we just didn't like them.

And a boppy cover. We still have the boppy pillow that we used with Dawson so we just needed to buy a girly cover and now we're set to use it again. :)

That's about it for now. I have been meaning to put up pictures of our Christmas tree, I'll try to get that post up soon!

Dawson's new bed (and room!)

2010-11-19T16:38:00.000-08:00

Dawson has a new room!!! We ordered his toddler bed last week and when it got here we were excited to get it set up so Dawson could try it out. Instead of moving his crib out of his room so we could put his new bed in there we decided to just let him have the other room. Dawson's old room will be Ashlynn's room...and we'll start working on that next!

Anyway, last night was his first night sleeping in his new bed. It didn't go as well as we hoped it would but it's a start! He didn't want us to leave him so I laid with him for a little while and then Dave came up and laid with him for a little while until he fell asleep. He woke up in the middle of the night too, which he normally doesn't do. Dave had to lay with him again until he fell asleep. Naptime this afternoon went a lot better. I took him upstairs, tucked him in and gave him kisses and then came back downstairs and we didn't hear a peep out of him! He stayed in bed and took a nap! Yay! Hopefully tonight goes as well as naptime did.

Here are some pictures of his new room...

I snuck in his room while he was napping and took this picture. :)

And after he woke up I took these.

Last night his room was pretty much empty (only his bed and chest were in there) because we didn't want him to have any distractions. After his nap today we moved everything into his room and put the Toy Story stickers on the wall and everything. He was SO excited to see everything in his room. I think that tonight will go better just because I can tell he really loves his room now that it's (mostly) complete.

Can you believe our baby is sleeping in a big boy bed??! I can't!

Just Like Dad

2010-11-05T14:11:00.001-07:00

We bought Dawson a uniform like the one Dave wears a few months ago and we finally got around to trying it on him. We knew it was going to be big so we were in no hurry. He still has a lot of growing room, but he still looked so cute in it! I'm sure I have mentioned before how hard it is to take a picture of Dawson because he is ALWAYS on the move! Here's a few pics that I was able to get, some are blurry because he wouldn't stand still! *lol*

Birthday Presents and 2 Year Checkup

2010-11-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

We were waiting until Dave was done with the ship to celebrate Dawson's birthday since Dave was gone for his actual birthday. We were planning on taking him to Chuck E Cheese to play, open presents and have some cake around mid-November. Well, things changed a little bit. Since I was put on bedrest Dave was able to leave the ship early, he's on emergency leave right now. So we decided to celebrate last night! I'm not supposed to go out at all and need to stay off my feet as much as possible so we weren't able to go to Chuck E Cheese like we had planned but Dave baked a cake and Dawson had presents to open. :)

He's really good at unwrapping presents. Here he is opening Mr. Potato Head

And a numbers puzzle

Toy Story 3!

And he also got a magnadoodle. He wanted to play with everything right away, it was cute.

He was happy that he got to blow out more candles and he loved that we were singing to him.

He blew out 1 candle by himself and needed a little help with the other one.

Yummy cake, Dada!

After we ate cake we watched Toy Story 3 and Dawson actually cuddled with me on the couch and watched the whole movie! (He asked to watch it again this morning, but only watched for a few minutes.) He was happy with all of his presents and cake!

His 2 year checkup was also yesterday. I was sad that I wasn't able to go, and even thought about going, but knew it was best if I stayed home. Dave has been Mr. Mom lately, taking care of everything and he doesn't mind one bit. Me and Dawson sure are lucky! Anyway, his appointment went great. He had to get a few shots (after he got home he kept telling me his leg hurt and would ask me to kiss it) but he did pretty good with them. He weighs 32.4 pounds and is 36.5 inches tall! His doctor was impressed with how much he talks and said he looks great.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Last night Dawson went trick-or-treating! He was so excited and had so much fun! I went to the first 2 houses with him just because I didn't want to completely miss out and then after that I came back home to stay off my feet while Dave took him around the neighborhood. They were probably only gone for about 20 minutes before they came home...the fun wasn't over yet though! Dawson LOVED seeing all the kids coming to the door and was telling them to come in! It was cute. We left the front door open and made sure the screen door was locked (because Dawson could open it otherwise) so Dawson could see everything that was going on outside. He kept yelling "kids! kids!" it was cute.

We didn't really get too many pictures or videos just because I had to stay home but here is what we did get. :)

Everybody loved his pirate costume.

Here is some video from the first house we went to. I'm not sure if you can hear very well but he does say "trick or treat!"

And here is the next house. There was a kid standing there in a scary mask and Dawson didn't really know what to think of him.

After those 2 houses I headed home...it wasn't too much longer until Dawson was finished...

All done!

Look at all this candy!

And here he is watching for kids and helping dada hand out candy.

We had a pretty good night and we had a lot of trick or treaters stop by. :)

Time For Play

2010-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I just posted yesterday about Dawson's birthday so if you missed that don't forget to check it out.

I just wanted to do a quick post about new things that Dawson has been up to. I like to try and add things to our blog not long after they happen so I don't forget. And a few years from now it will be fun to go back and read what Dawson was doing when he turned 2.

Anyway, he has just recently started doing a lot of pretend play. Well, I'm sure a lot of his play has been pretend for awhile now but he has just started vocalizing what he is playing a lot better.

For a couple of days now he has been asking me to take the label off my water bottle and he'll stick it wall or whatever and has a lot of fun with it. Tonight he put it on his head and told me they were his glasses. (He was wearing it like how you would wear your sunglasses on top of your head when they're not on your eyes.) And then he said "bye bye, Mom, I go to beach" and he walked away. It was so cute. He came over to me a couple minutes later and handed me that water bottle label because it had fallen off his head and he asked me to put his "glasses" back on and then he told me he was going to the beach again. He was having so much fun pretending that he was leaving and I enjoyed just sitting back and watching him. It's so neat to see him using his imagination.

We need to buy him a new pad of blank art paper because he loves to draw and he's already filled up a whole notebook. He will tell me that he is drawing me (it just looks like scribbles, but I love it) and then he tells me that he's drawing Dada. It's so fun to see him doing new things.

Like I mentioned in my last post I did give him one present on his birthday even though we aren't officially celebrating it for a few more weeks. He got a shape puzzle. He has been able to identified and name a few shapes for awhile now like square, triangle and circle. (He also knows star and heart but those aren't on the puzzle. The puzzle has 9 different shapes on it and so far he knows 5 of them (3 he already knew before). The 2 new ones that he has learned are diamond and oval. He is getting close to knowing octagon and pentagon, but he gets them mixed up a lot of the time. I'll have to post some video of him doing the puzzle and naming the shapes that he knows soon...I'll probably have it posted by this weekend.

That's it for now! :)

Dawson is 2!!

2010-10-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Dawson turned 2 years old yesterday! Two years! I can't believe it, he's still my little baby but he's not so little anymore.

10/25/08

10/25/09

10/25/10

Dave's ship is out right now so we're going to wait to celebrate his birthday until Dave is done with the ship around mid-November. I did still want to get Dawson some balloons, let him have a cupcake and let him open just one present on his actual birthday. We had a pretty good day. Here is a short video of me asking him how old he is now...

This doesn't have anything to do with his birthday, but I had been planning a little activity for him to do for a few days but then we ending up getting colds so we weren't able to do it until yesterday. I cut out the shape of a pumpkin from orange construction paper and then I cut out the pumpkin's eyes, nose and mouth from black construction paper. I showed Dawson where all the pieces went and then let him try to do it on his own. Kind of like a homemade puzzle, I guess. I did have some double sided tape on the pieces but he kept taking the tape off. He did get the pieces in all the right places twice, but mostly he just had fun putting them anywhere. Here's a little video.

(Sorry it's so big again. I've realized the videos I take with our camera are the right size, the videos I take with the flipcam are huge!)

He had a lot of fun with the pumpkin activity. He sat at his table and did it over and over again for about 20 minutes. And then after that he played with the pumpkin on and off all night. I'm going to have to think of or search for more little activities like that that we can do since he seemed to enjoy it so much!

Dawson has a new talent!

2010-10-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Earlier today me and Dawson were on Skype with my mom, dad, Arika and Bronson. They had sent some birthday presents for Dawson and wanted to see him open them. He loves all of his new toys but there was one that he really loved right away...this Spongebob flashlight.

It needs batteries so I wasn't able to turn it on for him when I took it out of the package but that didn't matter to him, he thought it was a microphone anyway! I had no idea he knew what a microphone was! It was so funny watching him dance around and sing into it. And then he came over to the laptop and was putting it up to my mom's mouth so she could sing too. I got a little bit of it on video...

He made up that song all on his own a few weeks ago. *lol* He sings it often, it's pretty cute. My mom says she is going to get him a microphone for Christmas, I know he's going to love it! I posted a video of him singing a Tim McGraw song yesterday on Facebook, in case you missed it, here it is again. He's really getting into singing lately.

Fall Into Fun

2010-10-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Last week our housing through a Fall Into Fun party. We started walking over to the park next to the office just before it was supposed to start. We were surprised when we saw everything they had, there was little games, rides, music, food, and lots more!

We let Dawson play a couple of games first where you throw a bean bag and try to get it through a hole, and another game where you throw and ball and try to get it to land in a marked cup. He got pretty close on both games and won a couple of prizes. His first prize was a little paper airplane that he loves. And he also got a small bottle of bubbles. Here are some videos of him playing the games.

(I'm not sure why the videos are so big, hopefully you can see them ok!)

After the games we decided to eat because we were all hungry (mostly me!). They had chicken kabobs over rice and corn on the cob. It was really good! And then for dessert we had funnel cake. YUM! Dawson actually didn't eat anything, he is really, really picky about trying new food. He wouldn't even try the yummy funnel cake! He has been like this for awhile, I'm not sure why he won't try new things but I hope it doesn't last too much longer. Luckily there was a lot going on and Dawson wanted to check everything out so we decided to not stay too long and make him some mac and cheese when we got home.

When we finished eating we headed over to the slide to let Dawson go down a few times. He thought that was a lot of fun!

When he was done playing we took him over to the rides. He wanted to ride the ferris wheel, I was nervous to let him since he had to go by himself but Dave talked me in to letting him go. While he was on the ride he didn't show any emotion at all, just looked around but as soon as he got off him kept asking us if he could ride again so I guess he really liked it!

There was a little carousel, like the ones that you see out in front of stores but about double the size. He was the first one on and I guess it was taking too long for the ride to start so he wanted off. I know he would have really liked that ride too if he would have only waited a minute or so longer for it to actually start.

We headed home after that and decided to take a few pictures of Dawson in his costume before we went in. Here are a few of my favorites.

Pumpkins and lots of fun!

2010-10-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

We went to Pumpkin Station yesterday to pick out a pumpkin and let Dawson have some fun. When we got there we realized that our batteries were dead in our camera so I had to use my phone to take pictures, hopefully they turned out ok. First of all we had to stop and take this picture of Dawson as a scarecrow.

He wouldn't look at me but that's ok. :) Next up we picked out a pumpkin. They had some pretty big ones there but we ended up getting a medium sized one.

I didn't get a picture of the one we picked out but I'll make sure to take some of it after Dawson paints it. :)

They had some fun things there for the kids to do. Dawson LOVED this big inflatable slide. The first time he climbed up it took him a few minutes because it gets pretty steep at the top but he did it all by himself.

He had the biggest smile on his face every time he came down. He kept asking to do it over and over again. He went down it about 10 times before we talked him into leaving the slide to go into the bounce house.

He really liked that, too. He would laugh so hard every time he fell down, I think that was his favorite part.

After jumping around for 10-15 minutes we headed over to the train. Dawson got to sit in front and even rang the bell a few times. He had a blast with that too!

After the train it was time to go home to get some lunch and get Dawson down for a nap. He was NOT happy that we were leaving. He cried and threw a fit until we were about halfway home. This is the first time that he has acted like this, he is usually really good when we have to leave and will tell everything bye. I hope this isn't the terrible two's starting...hopefully he was just tired because he played a lot and it was getting close to nap time.

This week has been a wonderful week so far! Dave has had the week off and I have had a burst of energy and have been in the mood to clean and organize. I've teased Dave that maybe I am nesting...our entire house is almost completely cleaned and organized. It feels great! And Dave has been a huge help and doesn't complain when I ask him to do something or help with something. :) He's the best! All of our closets, cupboards, pantry, etc. are all cleaned and organized. :D Even all of our 300+ DVDs are in alphabetically order...that's how much I am paying attention to detail. Don't worry though we haven't been spending all of Dave's time off working. We have been able to get a lot done but we've also been having a lot of fun playing with Dawson and watching movies together. I just can't get over how nice it is to have him home. He hasn't been home for this long in MONTHS!

Dave's last day on the ship is November 12th! Yay!