Just for Laughs...

Every time I see this I can't help but laugh! My kids make me happy.

Hello? Is anyone there?

Oh my freaking heck! I have no idea what my problem is, I just have not been in the blogging mood lately. I haven't read blogs of blogged myself in forever. It could be that I have moved or that I am trying to start a business or that summer in general has no set schedules. Whatever it is I hope it has past because I really would like to keep up with this crazy blog and all of yours as well.

We have had a fun summer so far. We are loving the new house and all of the room that we have here. I love sending the kiddos outside and letting them be free. I will try to recap as much as I can in some pictures. Here we go...

Here is a picture of our new house. Like I said before, we are loving the space. I loved the fact that we can shut the garage and have all of our possessions enclosed in one area...it was a weird feeling. We miss our old neighborhood like crazy and wish we could transplant all of our friends here. We were really spoiled in Willow Springs.

This might be a down side to the house, yard work. I have to admit that I have a black thumb. I can not grow anything. Aaron is the lucky one to get to mow the lawn. As of right now we are doing fantastic at growing weeds, not grass. We inherited a non existent yard full of glass and cigarette butts, but are trying really hard to revive it...if anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

We purchased a trampoline in hopes to keep our kids around our house. The kids love it. I love that I can be doing dishes and see this sight from my kitchen window. I do not frequent this toy because I usually pee my pants...which the kids do not understand. They ask us all the time to go jump with them, luckily daddy does not have the same problem as mommy.

Ethan turned 7 this year. Wow 7! He is already talking about his baptism, which is next year...holy crap! We had the fam over for Cake and Ice Cream and of course he was spoiled!

He loves hanging out with his cousins and meeting new friends in the neighborhood. The other day he asked to go to a friends house I said he could. About a half hour later he came home with 2 friends. They asked to go ride bikes, I said yes. Twenty minutes later he had 2 more friends with him. It was a total snowball effect. I love that he makes friends so easily!

For his Birthday we got him a bike. I felt like such a horrible mom because he never really had a bike. When we moved in all of the kids his age were riding two wheelers and Ethan had never. It only took him about 3 days to get the hang of the two wheeler...notice the training wheel...it never really worked so they were off real soon!

Emilee Mae turned 4 in April. She has grown up so much lately. I look at her and think, when did you get so big? Where is my little girl?

In June she had her summer dance recital. They danced to the "Tiki Room" it was really cute. Sometimes she will walk around the house saying..."I am practicing my sashe's"

I love this girl to death and I am glad that I have her!

This crazy boy is growing so big! He loves playing with his brother and sister. I wish he loved food. What Dawdy does not love food? He is rolling all over the place...and scooting backward. I really hope that crawling is not in the near future. I just want him to stay little.

Check out the hair! He is such a happy baby. He smiles all of the time and his laugh is the cutest thing I have ever heard!

Aaron and I are doing well. Aaron's company was bought by Symantec this past June so he is adjusting to the changes there. He was called to work with the wolves in scouting. He loves tinkering in his garage and doing all of my honey-do's around the house.

I am busy trying to keep up with the kiddos and get my preschool going. I am really excited to start teaching again. I can't wait until next year when I can hopefully have my dream preschool in the basement. If you know of anyone looking for a preschool in my area send them my way!

My goal is to update this once a week...hopefully by telling you this I will be held accountable and be able to do it!

If I lost all of my teeth...

...how much money would I get? That has been the question the last few weeks at our house. Both of Ethans top front teeth have been pretty loose. He is all about the loosing of teeth to get a visit from the tooth fairy, oh yeah, and get money. Yesterday, He lost the first of his top teeth. I know the second one is not far behind. There is just something about little kids and missing teeth, it is just too cute to see them smile, talk and eat!

Now, if we could just get that tooth fairy to not wake Ethan up everytime she comes, we would be sitting pretty!

Go Fly A Kite!

The past few weekends have been so very nice here. Last weekend we took advantage of the weather and went out to the park to fly kites. I have to say our family is quite talented at flying kites.

Ethan is a pro now. I remember the first time trying to fly a kite with him, I would get it up in the air and then hand off the string to him. He would hold it for a few seconds and then just let it go. I think that he just liked seeing me chase that kite down. Now he can get the kite up all by himself. He knows when to pull it in, pull back, and when to run.

Emilee is still in the "Mom gets it in the air and I will hold the string, stage." But her specialty is sitting on the stroller holding the string. Heaven forbid the princess has to do any work. She is pretty cute though, while holding her kite she asks repeatedly if she is doing a good job.

Grayson did what Grayson does best. Sit in the car seat lookin' so cute!

Welcome Spring!!

Movin' on up!

The Dawdy's are now on to their next adventure! We have decided to sell our little condo and get a real live house! We are so excited, and nervous, and stressed, and tired.

Besides the fact that we want a garage and a yard and our own walls, I want to start teaching preschool again, yipee! We feel that this will help with our bills tremendously. We are so very grateful for Aaron's job. It has been such a blessing in our lives. But now people want our money, and of coarse there is not enough to go around... is there ever? So we feel like this is the best solution for our family, for me to go back to work.

I wish we could say that we are going to buy a house but we can not. Our credit is pretty bad and no one in their right mind would give us a loan. We are trying to look for a rent-to-own place here in the Ranches, we really enjoy living here, and have a lot of friends here that might support me in my business..hint, hint! So that is the game plan. We have done a lot of work on our condo and really like it, we just hope some other family will come along and like it as much as we do. (By the way I am completely aware that I have the "my grand kids are cuter than yours" mentality, except substitute "condo" for "grand kids", we really do just want someone to come in and love our home and ward and neighbors as much as we do.)

So I wanted to post some pictures of our humble abode for a few reasons

1. I want to remember our first home

2. I like to see my decorating skills-or lack there of- I wish I had before and after pic's...in past posts I guess I do.

and 3. Maybe some of you know someone who wants a fabulous top floor condo?!

(I don't know why these photo's are so grainy, I think Aaron has been messing with the camera.)

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen...Duh

Master Bedroom Master Bath- with Jetted tub

Bedroom#2

Bedroom#3

Bedroom #3 again because I thought the first picture looked bare.

Bathroom #2 Laundry Room, with extra storage above Washer and Dryer

Laundry room with extra storage (aka...my craft room)

BUY ME! BUY ME! BUY ME!

Grayson Blessing & Update

Grayson is now two months and 18 days old to be exact and time has flown by. The other week we went to his two month appointment and he is now 23 inches long and 10 pounds 9 ounces, still little for his age.

He is doing better and better every day. For the past week he has dropped the midnight feeding and just wakes up at 3:30 and 6:30- which I can totally handle. I put him to bed with the other kids at 8:00 and he goes to sleep on his own. I can't tell you how great it is to have my nights back. Aaron is still working from 12-9pm so he doesn't get home until about 9:30, so from about 8:15-9:30 it is "me" time- a time I look forward to everyday! (Wait-this post is not about me...back to Grayson)

He is now smiling and cooing at us. The kids love to see who can get him to smile first in the day. Emilee asks questions like, when is he going to talk? when is he going to walk? When will he say that he loves us? I told her that he can not do those things for a while but we know that he is happy and that he loves us because he smiles at us. I also told her that he show he loves us when he wraps his little fingers around our finger. So now whenever he wraps his finger around hers she gets so excited and says "He loves me mom!" it really is so sweet.

This past weekend we were able to bless him. Aaron did a great job with the blessing and I was a proud mama that day. We appreciate all of those that were able to come and support us that day. We wish all of our family could have been there, but we know they were there in spirit!

We went the non traditional route for a blessing outfit. I found a great website that makes matching dad and son ties. Grayson's little one is just too cute, I think I might put it in a shadow box with the copy of his blessing that my aunt and sister wrote down for him. Below are just a few pictures of the day. We are so grateful for our little guy.

Grayson Matthew Dawdy

Grayson Matthew

December 19, 2009 1:37pm

Wow he is finally here. I still can hardly believe it. It seems like he has been with us forever when really it has only been a few weeks.

Of coarse I made it to my induction date, I told you I would.

9am: We got to the hospital and the first thing that the nurse did was check me. I was dilated to a five. Her eyes got real big and she looked at me and ask me why was I not in Labor? Like I know. I had tried everything to go into labor.

They hooked me up to an IV and Pitocin and she told me to let me know when I wanted my Epi, I said how 'bout now. She said lets wait a minute to see if things are rolling along. Fine. *PS I had this young little student nurse following my nurse...hold onto your seat for more stories about her.

10am: I am most definitely ready for my Epidural. Call the nurse tell her I am ready. She can see I am in pain and goes to call the Anestheiologist. Comes back, "I forgot that is is Saturday, he is not here but on his way he lives like 10 minutes away." GREAT!

10:30am: I am dying, where is that blasted man? Don't shower, don't stop for a soda, don't even kiss your wife just get here!!

11am: Finally Mr. Wonderful announces himself at my door and kick everyone out. He knows I know I need this drug but does he have to be so rude and have such an ego, just because I would give him anything for the drug he has on his little cart does not give him the right to be so rude.

11:15am Epidural in, Daddy almost out. For some reason after the doc gave me the drugs Aaron decided to almost pass out on me. He got to a chair and got the blood running again and we were fine. *Little miss student nurse is commenting on everything the doctor is doing. After ward telling me "That looked really painful, did it hurt? You are so tough. I forgot how hard child brith could be." Shut Up! Do not get on my bad side, I have never yelled at anyone during my labor but I really want to smack this girl in the face.

12:30pm I am really feeling the need to push. I call my nurse to ask her if she will come check me. Evidently it was a good time to go on Lunch break because that is exactly what she did. Another nurse came in to check me. You know those times that you need to act cool under pressure, not letting on that something bad could happen, but you try to stay cool so you don't freak anyone out. This nurse was having one of those times. She checks me and says "OH! well, you are at a nine and we will get your room ready. I know for a fact that I was not a nine,I was probably an 11, because after she left there were lots of people in my room running around getting stuff ready. Then this fill in nurse says, "we will call your midwife and see where she is. We are turning off your pitocin, oh and by the way, DO NOT PUSH!"

I am thinking my midwife is not even here, and don't push, this lady is crazy! Soon my real nurse came in with her "shadow". Nurse says, " you wait until I go on break to start the fun." Yep I planned it lady. Miss thing behind her says to me "you look really good for being in labor"...again, Shut up! Nurse says to me my midwife is on the way. She is on the freeway at 106th south. Don't push.

1:30pm Midwife arrives, finally. Everything is set Midwife says to go ahead when I am ready Two pushes later I have my little guy on my tummy he is not crying, and he looks disgusting. Nurse takes him. I can hear her telling Aaron that he is not breathing right and that they need to take him to the nursery. And with that my baby is gone.

Everyone is cleaning the room up, Aaron left with Grayson, my mom is there with me. I look at her and think, what the hell just happened here? I know I just gave birth to a baby but where is he? It was a very weird feeling to be sitting in the bed, the place where my baby should be is empty and in comes the student nurse with a tray of food asking me if i am hungry, yes I am but I would really like my baby. She tells me how good I did and that she does not know if she wants to go through with that herself....Shut up!

I later learn that Grayson had a hard time "transitioning" and that he had a lot of fluid in his lungs that needed to be sucked out. 2 hours later I had him in my arms and the world was right again.

We are so glad to have him in our family. Now we are complete. He has a brother that just adores him and calls him Mr. Cute Stuff, a sister that will not let you call him anything but BABY Grayson, and a mom and dad that would give the world to him.

Welcome Home Grayson!

Special thanks to my friend Erin Wood for taking such amazing pictures of my little guy.