My Baby is One!!!

Dash turned one year old February 12th!  I'm not gonna lie, I kind of love him being a baby.  He has been such a good baby, and so happy!  And because Jeter and Jerzi were a little older when he was born, I have got to just enjoy every little baby stage that he's been in.  I can't get enough of him!  I smother him with kisses and munch his cheeks, and squeeze him and hug him every second I can.  Had says I'm treating him like he's the baby of the family, so we must be done having kids.  I say we better have another so I can do this again!  

We took him to get some balloons cuz what one year old doesn't love balloons?  He had a good ol time with them!

I really had no idea what I should get him for his birthday.  He has all of Jeter's clothes, all of Jeter and Jerzi's toys to play with...and he's not going to remember or even notice if we get him something or not. But I had to get him something!  I saw a tutorial on pinterest on how to make a sock monkey and decided it would be the perfect little gift for him.  

(Ok, ok, that's kind of a lie.  I had those thoughts for him for Christmas, and planned to make this for a Christmas gift, but didn't get it done, so it became the perfect birthday present!)

I found a cute pair of socks (after a long search), and I got to work.  Once I got halfway into it, I again realized how little I know about sewing.  Needless to say, I had to do some research to figure out how to do a bunch of stitches so I could finish him up.  Had even showed me a few techniques because apparently, doctors know how to sew! 

He turned out to be pretty cute and the sock patterns worked awesome for a monkey!

I made him his own little cake (which was a good thing it was just for him, cuz it wasn't very good).

He was not like my other kids with their first cake.  He jumped right in and grabbed a handful and put it right up to his face.  HAHA I love him!

Things about Dash right now:

-He loves to eat.  He eats everything in sight... except corn.

-He is in the 90% for height.

-When we lay him down for bed, he automatically puts one foot up on top of the other leg.

-He doesn't like me to sing to him when I'm rocking him and putting him to bed.  haha  For real, when I start singing, he covers my mouth with his hand, and holds it there.

-He started walking at 10 months, now he's starting to run.

-He loves to laugh and make people laugh.

-He gets into everything, and laughs his head off when he gets caught.

-He tries to grab his parts every time I change his diaper, then laughs like crazy when I tell him no.

-He laughs whenever we tell him no... for anything he's doing that's naughty.

-He hates having his diaper changed, like pulls out all sorts of wrestling moves so that he's not on his back.

-He has to have 2 binks to go to sleep, one in his mouth and one in his hand.
-When we strip him to put him in the bath, he sticks his belly and chest out and starts scratching it like crazy.
-He has the opposite of OCD.  He hates having anything in its place. If it's in it's place, he has to wreck it.  A few examples...He seriously will not go out of the kitchen if the dish towels are not on the floor.  He won't leave my bathroom until he has emptied every drawer.  He won't go out of my bedroom if he hasn't emptied my jewelry stand.  And not one bracelet can remain in its place!  He runs to the pantry if the door is opened so he can swipe everything off the bottom shelf before we can stop him.

We love this little boy like crazy!!! 

Happy Birthday sweet little Dashy!!

Crash and Burn

Jerzi had a pretty good little crash on our bike ride this morning.  She also had a good little freak-out/screaming session when she saw the damage.  I wouldn't let her look at it when she first did it.  I made her get back on her bike and ride it home.  Then when we got home and she saw the blood, she lost it!  She screamed for awhile and wouldn't let me get near it for a little bit, but eventually I got it all cleaned and bandaged up.  Poor little munchkin. All the screaming must have worn her right out!

Super Bowl Patriots vs Seahawks

We love the Super Bowl.  We always struggle with the decision to watch it with other people, or just watch it ourselves.  We want to actually watch the game, and that's hard to do when you're with a lot of people, or people that like to talk throughout the whole game.  I had the Seahawks as my defense this year on my Fantasy team, and Russell Wilson was my QB so I have been following them all season.  We really wanted them to win!  We decided to just have our own little Super Bowl party this year.  It was fun in its own way, and such a great game!! The Patriots were down by 10 in the 4th quarter and came back to win 28-24.  The wrong team won, but it was good!

Park Days

We love going to the parks. And the kids love feeding the ducks, chasing the ducks, and throwing bread at the ducks.  This little lake is right across from our house. 

I love how Jeter and Jerzi have so much fun with Dash!!  They beg to be the one that takes him down the slides.

She whips her hair back and forth, she whips her hair back and forth. I just love how Jerz has fun wherever she goes!

Me and Jerz and Dash go to a lot of parks while Jete is in school.  I'm gonna miss this!!

Bird Party

Is this not the sickest thing ever?  This is at HEB, our grocery store that we go to regularly.  My kids say the birds are having a bird party here, and they love to see it.  It is like this whenever we go in the evenings.  I don't love to see it at all. It's a creepy feeling to walk through this and have so many birds all around, flying in the air, on the ground, and on your cars.  They are not afraid of people at all.  Needless to say, I try real hard to avoid grocery shopping at night!!!

Little Dash Man

Dash is getting to be so funny!  He makes us all laugh every day.  He gets into everything and makes messes wherever he goes, but then he gives us that cheesy grin and we can't help but laugh.  We're in trouble with this little charmer.

He LOVES playing in the dishwasher.  If he sees it open, he comes as fast as he can and starts throwing everything on the floor.  

These are his favorite places to make messes.  He recently discovered where I keep the marshmallows.....and he got caught getting into them!  haha  He picks things up with just his one index finger.  It's my favorite.  

He also learned how to walk when he was just under 10 months old.  He's getting pretty good now, and is so proud of himself.  I can't get the video's to download, but they are hilarious!

And now that he knows how to walk, church is pretty pointless for me. I try to take him to class with me, but he can't stand to sit there for more than 2 minutes.  So he walks up and down the rows  of people, and distracts everyone, including the teacher.  Someone asks me almost every week when he gets to go to nursery.  Or they say, well good thing he's going to nursery soon.  (It's gonna be a loooong 8 months before he goes to nursery!)  That's usually my que to leave the class. So then we roam the halls.  Or play in the lobby.  Or when I've had enough, I take him on a drive. At least he's always happy at church and not crying!!! Plus, I love seeing him in his cute little church clothes.

The only thing he'll actually sit there for a few minutes and watch is this same little show called Brainy Baby that Jete and Jerz both liked when they were his age.  And apparently Jerz still likes it! HA

This little guy sleeps in the exact same position as his momma does!

Hot date to Italy

 I gave Had this cheesy little gift of a homemade passport, airline tickets, and a bunch of places me and him were going to visit, along with itineraries for each place.  One place/date a month, for one year.  (You get creative when you have no money!) Since I'm in charge, we get to go to cool places that Had would never take me. 😉 Our first date was Italy. We went to Rome and visited the Collosseum. We did a little gladiator combat in the the Colloseum.  We painted (portraits of each other) upside down like Michelangelo did in the Sistine Chapel. We ate pasta and then went for a gondola ride in Venice.  Had may have thought I was a little crazy, going to all this work and with each new activity that we were doing... but overall, it was a different, fun night at home that we didn't have to get a babysitter for, and it didn't cost us a cent!  And I got to show Had how we can have fun in other countries. :)

National Championship!

The Oregon Ducks made it to the National Championship, which happened to be in Dallas at the Cowboy's stadium.  We HAD to go!!!  So we left our kids with friends and met John, Melissa, Rob, Kenzie, Jake, and Kendall there.  

The stadium in unreal!!!  Everything is ginormous and the big screen was like watching it at home on tv.   Lady Antebellum sang the National Anthem.  I love them.  They also played Kenny Chesney's "The Boys of Fall" over the loud speaker when they were warming up.  I love that song, and it got me so excited to watch this game!  The Ducks played Ohio State. They started off the game driving down the field and scored early, getting all our hopes up.  Then it all kinda went downhill from there.  Ohio State beat Oregon 42-20.  It was still pretty sweet that we actually got to go the National Championship, be in that atmosphere, and that we got to watch our team play in it!!!  So cool!

 Thanks again John and Melissa for making this happen!!!

It's happening!!!

The day has finally come!!!  Jeter is old enough to play basketball.  I CANNOT GET ENOUGH!!!

It is so stinkin cute.  

Alamo Bowl

I'm pretty sure we're the luckiest! Uncle Mike's football team, Kansas State, made it to the Alamo Bowl, so Mike and Jill said they would get us tickets if we wanted to come to the game since it was in San Antonio!!  Of course we wanted to come!  It was so fun to get to see and hang out with family, and so fun to watch a good football game!  Jill hooked us all up with Wildcats gear, even Dashy, so we were legit.  The Wildcats played the Bruins, and unfortunately the Bruins ended up beating them 40-35, but we still had a blast.  My kids don't even understand how lucky they are that they get to go these big games!

It's Christmas!

Christmas is here!!!

Somehow this was the best picture I got of them in front of the tree. 

Dashy's first Christmas!  He didn't know what to think of it at first, but he quickly caught on.  Those binks were by far a favorite.

Here's some of Jerz's favorite gifts, or at least what I got a picture of.

To say they loved the bean bag is a big understatement!!! They all thought this was THE coolest gift!

Jete had a lot of favorites too.  He's growing up too fast! That picture of him on the bean bag just relaxing, listening to his headphones about kills me.  He's not a teenager yet!

Had got a new road bike and I got a Bosch!  Both things we've been dreaming of!

I love seeing everyone so happy, and being able to spend time with my family.  I love the Savior, and am so grateful that he came into this world for us.  What a great Christmas!!

Christmas Festivities

We love to go look at Christmas lights!  Ok, so maybe everyone doesn't love it, maybe they just like it, but I love it.  It's one of my favorite things to do at Christmas time.  When I was little, my mom used to drive us around Rexburg, all packed into our station wagon, looking at all the Christmas lights.  There were so many of us crammed in that car, we'd fog up the windows and not hardly be able to see out, and then complain cuz we couldn't see the lights. My mom would tell us to quit breathing so much.  HAHA So we would all try and hold our breath as long as we could.  Those were the good ol days.  So now we take our family all around and try and find the best lit up neighborhoods we can. This is right outside the hospital that Had works at. Houston knows how to light it up.  I love love love going downtown Houston at Christmas!!  The palm trees and walkways and down the sides of the road are just the greatest! Lit up palm trees might be my new favorite.  

We have to make our gifts for our siblings each year, so I spend a lot of December trying to come up with ideas.  I finally decided, and made this giant wreath and picture for Ang.  

We went over to our friend's house (Gusty and Teri Graham) for Christmas Eve dinner.  We had so much yummy food, then we roasted marshmallows and had smores.  The kids ran around and played outside, played catch, and jumped on the tramp while the grown ups visited.  If we're gonna live in Texas, we might as well embrace the warm weather at Christmas time right? Then we had everyone come in and we got all the kids to act out the story of Jesus' birth.  Dashy got to be Baby Jesus, Jerzi was the angel, and Jeter did not want to be in it at all.  He finally accepted the part of holding the star.  All in all it was such a good night, and I'm happy that we got to share it with friends!!!

Gettin Away

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to run away from your problems, but on this particular day, I was having a bad day...and me and Had got in a fight over something dumb.  I needed to just get away for a little bit.  So I grabbed this little light in my life, and we went for a bike ride.  We rode and rode.  For miles and miles.  

He's the best little biking partner.  He seems to just soak up the surroundings and stare at everything in awe.  I feel that way too when I'm out in nature.  I love this particular bike path because it is so lush and green, and I feel close to the Savior when I'm in places like this.

We stopped at this overlook and watched for alligators.  We took pics, and threw rocks in the water. I just felt so lucky to be a mom.  To live in this beautiful world.  To have a husband that cares about me.  I know life isn't always gonna be perfect, and there's gonna be ups and downs, but I am grateful for what I have, and for the chance I had to get away for a minute to help me put things in perspective.

Thanksgiving On Our Own

When you live as far away from family as we do, sometimes ya have to do holidays by yourself.  This year was no exception.  We had our own little Thanksgiving dinner.  I tried to teach the kids about the Pilgrims and Indians, which I'm sure they listened to really good. Ha

Then we made our own little placemats.  They loved doin this, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Even though it was just us, we still made sure to have all of our favorites: home made rolls, corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, a yummy apple pomegranate salad, and of course a big ol' turkey.

We may not be fancy, and we're small in number, but we still love our food!  I have to say, it felt kinda nice and cozy to have our first Thanksgiving dinner in our first home we've ever owned.