sNOw fun!

I have decided that the weathermen here need to go back and take some refresher courses on predicting weather. We ended up getting way more snow here than what was predicted. Well, maybe I should rephrase that. They changed their predictions throughout the week about 15 times. When we went to bed last night, we were told to expect 1-3" of snow in our area. We have way more than that! We took Dawson outside for a little bit this afternoon to play in the snow. He refuses to wear mittens so he will learn from experience that not wearing mitten will mean cold hands! Logical consequences!! ;) He was outside for a few minutes and started saying, "All done, All done" which means he's ready to go inside. I was getting ready to take him in and he discovered Geoff shoveling off the driveway. Dawson thought that he needed to help his daddy and found a tennis racket in the garage. He started shoveling the driveway with the tennis racket. This worked well until he got a little too much snow on it and poured the racket full of snow right on his face! He was one mad, cold little boy!

Potty dance!

Dawson went pee pee in the potty this weekend! He woke up from a nap with a dry diaper and I decided to let him sit on his potty chair. He sat there for a few minutes and then he peed! Seeing me jump, clap, and scream, "yeahhhh....you went pee pee in the potty" over and over again must have been enough to make him want to do it again the next day. He did it again the next morning after he woke up. Right now we are not pushing potty training at all but are letting him sit on the potty when he wakes up if his diaper isn't really wet and then again at bath time. Here's a picture I took of him sitting on the potty after nap time. Geoff flipped out when he saw that he had his dog with him! He was giving the dog hugs, kisses, and "nosey" so it wasn't in his lap until I took his picture. Now on to two other random things. 1. Bed time/nap time is going MUCH better. I ended up talking to the nurse at his doctors office last week after Dawson started waking up in the middle of the night and moving his stuff into the hallway to sleep. She said to change his door knob, let him cry it out, and to not move him back to his bed b/c he would eventually decide his bed is more comfortable. He screamed, cried, and kicked his door and wall for 1 hour the first night. The second night was down to 40 minutes of crying but not screaming. We have had no tears at bedtime or nap time since then!!! Now he still loads his arms full of 2 pillows, a blanket and a dog and moves to the floor, but we are tearless! Geoff and I both have a hard time leaving him asleep on the floor all night so we are moving him back to bed. Sometimes he moves back to the floor by morning and sometimes he stays in there all night. Crazy kid....I wish I knew why he wanted to sleep on the floor!! 2. "All done" as became a favorite word. He used to just say it when he was finished eating. Last week he started saying it when I was trying to suction the snot out of his nose. He would say it before I was finished but he wanted it to be over. Well he was still battling the massive amounts of snot and had a fever of almost 102 on Saturday so we decided to take him into the clinic while they were open on Saturday morning. Luckily, it was his regular pediatrician who was working that day. As she would look in his ears, throat, etc. he was crying but would start saying "All done, all done" as she was checking him over. We got a good laugh out of him trying to tell her and us that he was ready for us to be done.

Best friend

Dawson's right hand man is his little blue dog or his "ruff ruff" as he calls it. We never go to the gym, church, doctor, or anywhere overnight without the dog. We quickly realized that this blue dog was going to be a favorite for him so I purchased 2 back up dogs. I decided that the dogs needed a bath this morning. After they finished with the bath, Dawson thought he needed to carry all 3 of them around the house! Here are a few pictures of Dawson and his dog over the past 21 months. I think that someone at a school shower gave me this for him but I'm not positive. So, if you were the generous gift giver of this very favorite toy, I would love to know!

Shake your sillies out!

We became familiar with this song from the toddler lapsit that we go to each week at the library. We bought it on i-tunes and Dawson likes to dance along to this song. Here's a video of him today showing off his dancing skills!

Hangin with my buddies

We go to the library each week for a toddler lapsit time. They have 15 minutes of playtime and then 15 minutes of songs, a story, bubbles, etc. Dawson seems to really enjoy going each week and I enjoy watching him. He really started breaking it down with his dancing this week and added in a few head banging moves! We usually go have lunch with some friends afterwards and this week we decided to come over to our house to eat lunch and play. Dawson loves getting together with his buddies during the week and playing.

Dawson, Charlie, and Taylor. Valery sure had their attention in this pic!

Dawson, Charlie, Taylor, and Kennedy.

We are STILL battling bedtime/naptime in his new bed. He's not crying very much anymore, if at all but he insists on sleeping on the floor in the hallway!! He carries this entourage of stuff with him into the hallway so that he's nice and comfortable. I heard him over the monitor at 2:30 in the morning last night. He got a truck and played with it for about 30 seconds and then must have decided he would rather sleep. He took all of his stuff and headed into the hallway. He's getting a new door knob instead of the lever kind installed on his door tonight! ;) His pediatrician also told me to leave him on the floor and let him figure out on his own that his bed is more comfortable than the floor. We will see how this works!

Choo-Choo

Dawson had developed a deep love for trains and developed this interest completely on his own. We drive over train tracks usually everyday and has seen them in books. I'm guessing that has sparked the interest....and the fact that he's all boy and most little boys like them. He now has a few different train tracks to play with and loves them all. My dad recently built him this cool train table keep his wooden trains on. Gramps did a GREAT job building this and Dawson is infatuated with it! Dawson now has a cool new place to play with his trains at and it makes it even more special that Gramps built it!

The great outdoors

We were finally able to spend some time outside earlier this week. It was much needed, by both of us! We played with some balls outside (and someone threw one into the creek). We took a wagon ride, mowed the yard and sidewalk, played with his old ride on car and ran around the driveway in circles!

The floor

Do you notice a common trend in these two pictures? This has happened 4 or 5 different times now. We lay him in his bed, he crawls out, walks around his room for a little bit, stands at the gate and makes some noise, figures out we are not going back upstairs, and decides to fall asleep on the floor by the gate! It's not exactly the most ideal place for him to fall asleep but it's working for now without a massive amount of tears/fit throwing! Last night he decided to skip out on the floor and walked back to his bed but he was on the floor again for naptime today. After he's been asleep for 15-20 minutes then we go put him back in his bed and he stays there for the rest of the night or his naptime. He always manages to keep his binky and his dog with him no matter if he falls asleep on the floor or in his bed. It's under him in the 2nd picture. I'm sure he will eventually decide that his bed is more comfortable than the floor!

Brrrrrrr!

It was SO cold here last week! We usually go to the gym most mornings but didn't make it at the end of last week due to it being so cold. By the afternoon, Dawson was wanting to go somewhere. He stood in the coat closet pointing to his coat on Thursday and kept handing me his shoes on Friday. We was getting cabin fever. We went on a car ride on Thursday afternoon and Friday we had a mommy/son lunch date at McDonalds.

Here are a few pics of a few of the things we did to keep ourselves busy on the cold weather days.

"Dawson...go get back in bed right now!!"

The bedtime/naptime routine has varied all week. One day he walks in his room, climbs in bed, and falls right to sleep. The next, he might fight it like crazy. Last night we tried for over an hour to get him to sleep. We finally decided just to come downstairs and if he got up to try the "cry it out" method for a little bit. About 3 minutes after we came downstairs, he walked to the gate and started crying. I yelled upstairs (while still sitting on the couch) "Dawson....go get back in bed right now!!!" It got quite. After 3-4 minutes, it was still quiet. Geoff and I looked at each other wondering if he really crawled back into bed. We listened on the monitor and didn't hear anything. After we were sure he was hard asleep, we went upstairs and found him asleep in his bed with his head on his pillow. We were shocked! The same thing happened when he started waking up before 7:00 this morning. He usually sleeps until 8:30-9:00 and for some reason woke up and wanted to play with his CD player this morning. I yelled for him to get back in bed. It worked and he slept for another hour and a half. We was fighting it at nap time and I told him again to get back in bed. A few minutes later I started hearing one of his toys and thought he was up playing. I walked up there to see him laying in bed with his car. He listened to what I told him to do. He's asleep now....with his car! Hopefully he will keep listening to the phrase, "Go get back in bed right now." I'm crossing my fingers.

Escape artist

Dawson decided to escape out of his crib yesterday at naptime. I heard him making a little noise. Shortly after, I heard a thud. Right after that I heard the song, "I heard it through the Grape Fine" playing over the monitor. (He has a car that sings that song). I knew exactly what happened and ran upstairs to see our little darling standing there playing with his toys! We converted his bed into a toddler bed last night and he HATED it! It was not the same to him. He bawled, stood at his gate screaming, "momma", threw himself on the floor....you name it! He finally fell asleep in his bed listening to Colbie Calliat (she's a miracle worker with him) and with Geoff rubbing his head and me rubbing his legs. Just in case you were wondering, adults do fit in a crib/toddler bed with a toddler in it, too. Yep....I tried that and he still hated it! Nap time today was wonderful. He laid right down, fell asleep and is still sleeping as I type this.

"What is this??"

"Hey look....I can see over without standing up!" "What's this??"

"Holy cow! I can climb out!"

"I'm outta here!"

Who needs a spoon......

......when you have hands! Dawson decided to toss his spoon to the side and dig in with his hands about half way through his container of applesauce. He ended up getting it all over himself and in his hair. If you double click on the pics, you can see how he's covered in it!

Spending time with cousins

We went back to Geoff's parents house on Saturday to spend the day with Geoff's brother and his family. They were not able to make the trip over Christmas b/c of the weather so we met this weekend. Here are a few pics from our trip.

Kate, Aidan, Dawson, and Lucy checking out Papa's train.

Aidan and Dawson Papa and Grandma Dee-Dee with the grandkids. Getting a good picture was impossible!

Jason, Joanie, Aidan and Kate

Watching the Cotton Bowl in the theater room. Dawson loved the big screen!

Happy New Year!

We went over to a friend's house for New Year Eve for a "kid friendly" event. I didn't manage to take one single picture. I know....big shocker! Being the wild party animals that we are...we stayed out to a big 9:00! I could tell that Dawson was getting tired and I asked him if he was ready to go home and he quickly said, "no" but then walked over to the door and started waving bye. Our child sure knows how to let us know when he's ready for bed! We spent New Years Day at our house. My parents, brother, niece, sister-in-law and her mom all came over for dinner. Geoff and my dad spent most of the afternoon installing new light fixtures upstairs. We had a great timing getting to spend the afternoon together.

Dawson and Kennedy playing with her new i-touch.

Kennedy showing Dawson how it works. I love this pic of them.

My mom and dad

My mom, Brandon, Jennifer and me.

Snow fun

Dawson didn't like the snow on Christmas Eve. It was a blizzard. It was blowing in his face and he didn't like that. He thought he would touch it and that just led to some major tears for a couple of minutes. We are lucky to get him a hat....he refuses mittens so he will just learn not to touch it. He decided a couple of days later that it wasn't so bad after all. He like watching Geoff shovel off the walk way. Geoff very quickly decided that our driveway is way too long to shovel. Dawson basically just walked around in the show, watched Geoff and stood on the piles. He did however convince me to do something....see the last picture.

The things we do for our kids! Dawson sat in this wagon that Nana and Gramps bought him for Christmas and said, "yeah" in his sweet little voice. That's what he says when he wants something. I didn't have the heart to make him get out of it so what do we do???? We take off on a wagon ride in front of our house even though the streets were really slick. I think I had my neighbor worried. He was talking to us and told us a few times to be careful b/c it's so slick out. We made a couple of passes in front of the house and back up the steep driveway without any problems. Dawson was happy....mission accomplished!