Trick-or-Treat

What a perfect night for trick-or-treating! Seriously, the weather was PERFECT! We got some snow earlier in the week so I was a little nervous, but all the snow had melted and the temperature was just right.

Dawson went trick-or-treating for the first time tonight! We stopped my dad's house first and went to a few houses in his neighborhood and then we went to my mom's house and went to a few more houses. Dawson was really, really good. When we were with my dad you could tell that Dawson was happy to be outside and would get excited as we would walk to each house. When we went out at my mom's he was just calm and showed no emotion at all. I think it was probably because it was dark outside by that time. We never really go any where at night so he probably didn't know what to think of it.

I couldn't really get any good pictures of Dawson in his costume because he would not sit still! Here are a few that I did get, though.

Dawson was a dinosaur!


He looked so cute! You can't see his face in the picture, but you can see the back of his costume. :-)


Drea as Cinderella, Hailee as a Witch and Dawson as a dinosaur!


My dad, Dawson and Hailee.


Walking from house to house.


This house looked so cool! They had a haunted house set up in their garage but it wasn't ready when we stopped by.


Speaking of haunted houses though, the management of my apartments set up a haunted house in the clubhouse last night and me and my mom took Dawson, Hailee and Drea. They let the little kids go first and they made it less scary for them. They all seemed to like it and they got some candy at the end!

This house was really neat, too.


Look at all this candy he got!


Too bad he can't have any of it. I did let him have a couple licks of a sucker, but he isn't trying anything else.

I hope everybody had a great Halloween!

Cake Pops and More

Here are some cake pops that I made for Reyna's Halloween party that she's having tonight. Dawson and I are going to my parents' house, so we won't be at the party but I wanted to at least send treats. :-)


I think they turned out so cute!

I went to lunch with Reyna, Reyna's sister-in-law, Jessica and all of our kiddos yesterday. (We had soup, salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden. YUM!) Dawson was a little piggy! He ate a breadstick, a couple small bites of my salad, a jelly sandwich, a jar of sliced apples and a handful of lil crunchies (those cheeto looking things) and when he was finished he tried to steal Shayla's macaroni and cheese! I thought I packed a big enough lunch for him, but apparently not.

Jessica asked me if I would cake pops for Harmony's birthday. She turns 1 in May and she's going to have a lady bug themed party. Lady bug cake pops would be so cute! I don't think we are going to be here in May though. So I told her she should come over sometime and we'd make them together that way she can just make them for Harmony's party. I'm excited! I'll post those cake pops as soon as we make them.

I took a few really cute pictures of Dawson yesterday that I wanted to share. He's wearing the hoodie that Jessica got him for his birthday (it came with sweatpants, too, but those are too long. He's got mama's short legs). Thanks again, Jessica. He looks so cute in the hoodie!!! (And I'm sure it won't be long until he fits into the pants)


He is so good at walking with his push toy (even better than what he was doing the video that I posted) he can practically run with it because he walks so fast. And if he gets caught against the wall or something, he'll take a few steps backward to free himself. It's fun to watch him with it.

I'm taking Dawson trick-or-treating and my dad's and my mom's houses tonight. I'll be posting a Halloween blog with pictures tomorrow. :-)

Have a fun and safe Halloween!

Storytime With Dada

Dawson and I have storytime everyday, he loves it when I read to him. He even points to his books when we are in his room, so sometimes I read to him a couple times a day. And I leave books in his play area so he can read whenever he wants. He just got some Sesame Streets books that I think are his new favorite because they have Elmo in them.

This week storytime was extra special! Dave has sent a few books home and each of the books have a dvd to go along with them. On the dvd Dave is reading the book. That way I can pop the dvd in, get out the book and we can follow along with Dada.

Dawson and I have watched a few of the dvds a few times, but before this week I never thought to have daddy read during storytime. Usually I read to Dawson right after his morning nap. We have a rocking chair in his room so I grab the book we are reading, sit down with Dawson on my lap and we read the story. We read the same book everyday for a week, usually starting on Saturday.

This week we read Just Like My Dad by David Melling.



And Daddy did the reading everyday! I made sure to get the book and the dvd ready while Dawson was napping and then as soon as he woke up I'd take him out to the living room and start the dvd. We sat on the couch together and followed along with Daddy most days. But I wanted to get pictures of Dawson so I let him follow along on his own one day and he did so good! He turned all the pages (he would just randomly flip pages, he wasn't really following along) and he kept looking up at the TV. It was so sweet.

I have a lot of pictures to share because they are just too sweet not to!

Time to turn the page...


Looking up at dada...


Too sweet for words.


I love how he would turn the page and still keep his eye on Dada.


And me taking a million pictures of him didn't even phase him.

I am definitely going to have to let Dave be a part of our daily storytime more often. Dawson really loved seeing daddy on the TV everyday, as did I. We miss him so much and can't wait for him to come home!

He Can Do It!

Just last night I had posted a blog about some of the toys that Dawson had gotten for his birthday. One of the toys I had mentioned was a dump truck that is also a push toy. I said that Dawson wasn't able to walk behind it as he pushed it around, but I was wrong!

This afternoon my sister came over to watch Dawson while I went grocery shopping. It snowed a lot yesterday and is really, really cold and windy outside today, so I didn't think it would be a good idea to take Dawson out. Especially since he is just getting over his ear infection and he has a bit of a cough.

Anyway, when I got home from the store my sister told me that Dawson was pushing his truck all around the living room! I was so excited and had to see for myself! I stood him up behind the truck and sure enough he took off!

I got it on video for all of you to see too! Yay!

He does so good! Just yesterday he wouldn't even take one step while he was holding on to it and now today he's walking around behind it like he's been doing it for weeks!

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this in the blog yet, but he has been standing on his own a lot lately. He'll pull himself up next to the couch and then let go. The longest he has stood by himself is about 10-15 seconds. He doesn't fall, he just leans back onto the couch or whatever he used to stand himself up. He is getting so big!!!

New Toys

I'm not sure if you noticed that Dawson's birthday post didn't have any pictures of him opening presents. Well, that's because he wasn't really interested in opening them at all. I opened them and he... Well, let me show you what he would do...


And there he goes again...


He played with some toys too as I unwrapped the rest.


I didn't expect him to unwrap his presents, I really didn't know what he would do. I thought it was funny that he kept crawling down the hall though. :-)

Here is a hoodie that he got, it has Nemo from Finding Nemo on the hood! It's so cute!


He got a lot of neat toys and I am going to try and get pictures of him playing with them over the next few days so I can post them here.

Here are a few that I have taken already...

Here is a truck that my dad and Carrie got for him:


He can ride on it as you see in the picture. And he can also use it to learn to walk. When the bed of the truck is up, like it is in the picture, there is a handle that he can hold on to and push it as he walks behind it. So far he hasn't been able to do it. He does hold on to the side of the bed and push it around, so he's walking sideways. To me that seems like it would be harder to do, but he does it and has fun while he's doing it. :-)


Now that I see the picture that I posted above I just remembered he did walk behind it for two or three steps before he ran into the tv stand. The bed of the truck wasn't up like it's supposed to be when used as a push toy, but still he took a few steps.

The truck also came with blocks that you can put in the bed of the truck. Earlier tonight Dawson put a few blocks in there and pushed the truck around the living room (he was on his knees). I thought it was super cute.

He also got a basketball hoop:


Slam dunk! As you can see he has already learned to put the ball in the basket. :-D It's so fun to watch him play!

Brandee and Andy got him a dinosaur!


It's so cool and he loves it! It roars and walks!

That's all the pictures I have for now, but he got a lot more neat toys so I'll try to catch him playing with them over the next few days. :-)

Dawson's First Birthday

Our baby boy turned 1 today! His birthday party turned out wonderful and it was so much fun to spend the day with family and friends. The only thing that was missing was daddy. But Dawson did get a build-a-bear from Dave for his birthday and when you push on the bear's hand you can hear Dave's voice. Dawson loved it. When he heard Dave's voice he started looking around to see where it was coming from. :-( I didn't actually see him do that (I purposely didn't push the bear's hand because I knew I would cry if I heard it) but Dave's mom told me what Dawson did when he heard. (And I still cried) They played the bear for Dawson a few times and I guess Dawson started to hug the bear. (That also made me cry when I heard it) I know he misses Dave so much.

But lets talk about fun stuff! His party! I had it in the clubhouse of the apartments that I live in.

Here is the birthday boy!


And some presents:


Some guests and decorations:


I made some tortilla chips in the shape of dogs and dog bones, they were a huge hit! (I didn't think about taking pictures until half the food was gone. Oops!)


I made a queso dip for the chips and we also had lil smokies, a fruit tray and a veggie tray. So yummy!

My dad wanted to hold up the chips so we could get a better picture of them. *lol* Thanks Dad! :-)


Oh, I made cake pops, too. Those were also a big hit!


And the cakes!


He LOVED when everybody sang happy birthday to him!


He also LOVED his cake. :-)



Happy Birthday, Dawson. We love you so much!

Our Baby is Sick

It hasn't been a fun couple of days for us. Yesterday Dawson started getting a fever. :-( At first Tylenol was helping and his fever went away for a few hours, but later in the evening Tylenol wasn't helping anymore. He wasn't really acting sick. He was a little bit cranky, but if it wasn't for the fever I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

Anyway, I would take his temperature every hour and I couldn't sleep knowing that it wasn't going away. He was sleeping though, except when I would wake him up to check his temp. Around 11 it had jumped from 99.3 to 100.9, it had been that high earlier in the day but then it came down so I was hoping it would come down again. I put him back in bed and he went right to sleep. Then at midnight I checked again and it was 102.5! I started freaking out. I called Instacare but they were already closed, so I called my sister and asked her to wake up my mom. My mom called me back a few minutes later and told me to come pick her up and we'd take him to the ER. So that's what I did.

When we got to the ER they took his temp and it was 103.1! :-( They asked if I had given him anything and I told them Tylenol. He was about due for another dose once we got to the hospital so they told me they were going to give him Tylenol and Motrin. (I didn't know you could give them both at the same time, then Tylenol every 4 hours and Motrin every 6...good to know!) They also gave him a popsicle to help the fever come down. He LOVED that!


He ate the whole thing! We had the lights off in the room because we were trying to get him to go to sleep before they came in with a popsicle. I should have known he wouldn't sleep though, he won't sleep anywhere except his crib.

Anyway, the doctor came in and was asking me if he had been sick or been around anybody that was sick, my answer to both was no. He checked his ears and throat and he said he did have an ear infection in his left ear. :-( He also tested him for the flu and that came back negative, so that's good.

He wrote Dawson a prescription for Amoxicillin, which he has to take for 10 days and he said he will probably have a fever for a couple more days so I need to keep giving him Tylenol and Motrin as needed.

Dawson seemed fine today. I gave him the Amoxicillin and some Tylenol in the morning and he really didn't have much of a fever all day until around 8. :-( So I gave him some more Tylenol and some Motrin. I'm trying to stay up until a little after midnight so I can give him another dose of Tylenol if he needs it. And I'll probably set my alarm to wake up every couple of hours to check on him. That is if he doesn't wake me up first.

Before he went to sleep tonight he started getting really cranky. I can definitely tell that he is not feeling well now. Poor baby. I hope his fever goes away soon and I hope his ear doesn't bother him for too long. :-(

I am so thankful that we were able to move back to Utah so we could be close to family while Dave is deployed. My mom was such a HUGE help last night. I was seriously so upset and scared and just having her go with me calmed me down a ton!

And then my sister Brandee went and got Dawson's prescription when the pharmacy opened this morning. I don't want to take Dawson out while he is sick so that also helped out tremendously!

Thank you again!

My Little Artist

Dawson painted for the first time today! Sorta. I can't exactly give him paint because I know that everything ends up in his mouth still. So we used sugar-free Jello! I wrote "Happy Halloween" and drew a pumpkin on some art paper. Then I opened a pack of orange sugar-free jello, put it into a bowl and poured some water into the bowl until I got a paint-like consistency.

Next up I stripped Dawson down to his diaper, put him in his high chair and gave him the paper. I spooned a little bit of the jello onto the paper and then put his hands in it and showed him how to move them around...

I didn't get very many pictures because I didn't have the memory card in the camera! I should have looked before we started but I didn't even think about it. Once he got going I ran into the other room and grabbed the memory card and then I was able to take a few pictures.

Good thing we used Jello because he tasted it a few times. Ick. I tried it before I gave it to him and it was nasty...I thought he'd only try it once but he must of liked it because he took 3 or 4 bites.

Besides my little bit of help at the beginning he pretty much did it himself. :-D


I love how it turned out. :-) I had to hang up after it dried completely!


He definitely needed a bath when he was finished, but this wasn't as messy as I anticipated it would be. I think he had fun doing it and I definitely had fun watching him. Now I just need to figure out how I am going to store this without attracting ants or something. I really don't want to throw it away...ever! Any ideas?

Our Baby is Growing Up

I got some pictures of Dawson showing off his new teeth today!

You are probably going to have to click on the picture to enlarge it in order to see his little teeth. That's his new cheesy smile too. :-D It's funny, he'll be sitting there playing and all of a sudden he'll look up at me, smile like that and then continue on playing.

Anyway, back to his teeth! He got his front left tooth and the one next to that a few days ago. And it looks like his right front tooth and the one next to that are going to be making an appearance any day now. They are coming in two at a time now...no fun at all.

Here is a little bit of a better picture, again with his cheesy smile. :-D


I can't believe he is going to have 6 teeth soon! I hope they come in fast and easy, but I don't think that is going to happen. :-(

He is going to be 1 year old in less than two weeks! I can't believe it. Earlier today I was thinking about how much he knows already. He only says a few words, but he understands so much! If I ask him to get his ball, he'll get it. If I ask him where a book is, he'll look at it and reach for it. He also knows what these words are and/or mean: drink, baba, kisses, dance, binky, night-night, bye-bye, outside, car, Tigger, Elmo, SpongeBob, dog, dinosaur, phone, bath...I'm sure there are a few more that I am forgetting. He is just so smart! He also knows where his belly and feet are. If I ask him where his belly or feet are he will touch his belly or grab his feet. He doesn't do it every time that I ask, but he's done it enough times that I know he knows where they are.

Oh, and he knows who people are too. When we are with my family I will ask him where Papa is and he'll look at him. Same thing with Kaka (Arika), Becca, Brandee, Hailee and Drea. And of course Mama and Dada, too. When I ask him where dada is he looks up at the pictures on the wall and waves to a picture of Dave. It's too sweet.

I've been starting to wean him off the bottle lately. He used to drink four 8oz bottles a day, but we are now down to two 8oz bottles a day. (He gets a bottle when he wakes up and one an hour or so before bed.) He also eats breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner. I wish he wasn't teething at the same time that I cut two bottles out of his day. When he gets cranky I start to worry that maybe he is hungry. He eats a lot of food though, so I'm pretty sure it's his teeth that are bothering him. And I always keep a sippy of water nearby in case he gets thirsty.

I think that's about it for now. :-)

Trip to the Zoo

We finally made it to the zoo last Friday! I've been wanting to take Dawson for awhile now because he loves animals so much. I'm happy that we were finally able to go. We went on the perfect day, too. I think I am always going to plan zoo trips for early October. The weather was PERFECT.

My friend Reyna and her daughter Shayla, my sister Brandee and my nieces Hailee and Drea, me and Dawson and my friend Jessica and her baby girl Harmony. :-)

This is the first time since I've been back in Utah that I went to do something with my friends. I had so much fun! We need to get together more often.

Can anybody guess what Dawson's favorite animal was?

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The wolf. Probably because he thought it was a dog. :-) I loved watching him look at the animals. It took him a little bit to find them, but I always knew when he finally saw one because he would get all excited and have a huge smile on his face! I tried not to leave an exhibit until Dawson had seen at least one of the animals in there.

We got a ton of pictures, I won't share them all, but here are a few of my favorite animals:

Baby elephant:

Baby giraffe:
And the baby tiger:


I love the babies! They were all so cute!

On Friday night my dad and Carrie had all of us over for dinner. We don't have stairs in our apartment so Dawson has never tried to climb stairs before. He climbed halfway up my dad's stairs 5 or 6 times! I thought it was awesome that he was doing so well for this being his first time on stairs at all!

Here is a short video of him climbing up to me. :-)