We Took Our Monkeys to the Zoo!

We went to the zoo yesterday and I have a lot of pictures that I want to share. First of all I want to say that we had SO much fun! We're thinking about going back and buying a membership (if we buy one within the next 7 days the price that we paid for yesterday's admission will be put towards our membership price) so we can go as often as we want. I wasn't sure what Ashlynn would think of the animals or if she'd even be able to see some of them but she LOVED them!! She got really excited and would point to everything. She kept saying "uff uff" which is what she says when we ask her what a dog says or whenever she sees ANY animal. haha

I really like this picture of the black and white colobus monkey that we got.

 

The elephants are one of my favorites (I have a lot of favorites...).

I have to include a picture of a crocodile! I thought this would be one of Dawson's favorite animals because he is really into Peter Pan right now and there is a crocodile in Peter Pan. He was excited to see them at the time but when we got home and we were asking him what his favorite animals were he told us he didn't like the crocodiles because they go "tick tock." *lol* He's a silly boy!
 

I love this picture of Ashlynn pointing at this cute little animal (I don't know what it is... some sort of wallaby??) Ashlynn was so happy to be so close to it!

Mine and Dave's favorite animal was the tiger. We were able to get pretty close to a couple of them, too! This one was sleeping right in front of the glass. He rolled around a bit but didn't want to wake up. We waited for about 10 minutes (which is an eternity with two little kids!) hoping that he would wake up but he didn't.

The kids liked looking at him, though.

But when we walked around to the other side we saw another tiger that was awake! He licked his paws for a little bit and then walked over to some shade and laid down. He was definitely my favorite!

Dawson's favorite animal was the giraffe (another one of my favorites, too!).

 

We were able to get pretty close to one of them, too.

Dawson thought this lion drinking fountain was pretty cool. We had bottles of water but of course he wanted to drink water from the fountain.

 

This peacock was beautiful! 

Here is Dawson seeing how he measures up next to the gorillas.

This orangutan looked like it was deep in thought.

Dawson said he didn't like the gorilla too much because he looked scary. Ashlynn was super excited to see him, though!

Earlier in the day when we saw the elephants there was a lot of kids playing on this elephant so we didn't get any good pictures of the kids with it. Dawson wanted to go back to it again and when we did there wasn't hardly anybody around so the kids were able to play on it for a couple of minutes.

We rode on the carousel and the train which both kids loved. And before we left Dave took this cute little picture.

Dawson thought the zoo should also be called the jungle because there were a lot of animals and trees there. I love the way his little mind works. He also told us that he was a little sad that there were no pigs there. Hopefully we'll see some pigs at the fair this summer to make up for it!

As we were walking to the car to go home I was holding Ashlynn and asked her if she had fun seeing all the animals and she shook her head yes and then gave me a kiss and a big hug. It was so sweet. I know she had a lot of fun and I think she was trying to tell me thank you. ♥

Pebbles and Peter Pan...

We went on a little walk last night to a park that isn't too far from our house. I tried to take a few pictures but the kids were way too busy having fun to look at me. I want to at least post one picture of Ashlynn because lately I've been starting to put her hair up more. She still doesn't have much but I can do little pigtails in the back or pull up the front a little like Pebbles Flintstone! I like the Pebbles look, it's pretty cute. :) Here are a couple of pictures that I got. Like I said both kids were too busy running around and playing to look at me and I wanted to play with them, too, so I didn't have the camera out for too long.

Pretty cute hair, huh?

Besides showing off Ashlynn's cute hairdo I also just wanted to post about some cute things that Dawson said yesterday. I'm not sure if I've talked much about how obsessed he is with Peter Pan in the blog or not but he is. Peter Pan and Jake and the Never Land Pirates are pretty much all we talk about anymore... okay, okay, I might be exaggerating a bit. :P Anyway, yesterday morning Dave asked Dawson if he wanted to be Peter Pan when he grew up and Dawson's reply was, "Peter Pan doesn't grow up!" haha Such a smart kid! I love when we ask him a question and we are completely surprised by his answer. It happens all the time!

Last night before bed we read Peter Pan like we usually do and afterward he had a ton of questions for me. He asked me if Mr. Smee was Captain Hook's first mate (his exact words, too) and he also asked me what Mr. Smee's first name was? I told him I thought his first name was Smee and then he said he thought I was right and he thinks his full name is Mr. Smee Nicholas Harrison. That kid cracks me up! The last two nights before bed he makes me pretend to put the air mattress in his room so Peter Pan has a place to sleep. I have to give Peter a blanket, a pillow, and a tissue (all pretend) in case he has to blow his nose. I have to do all of this before Dawson will lay down to go to sleep. And actually tonight Peter, Captain Hook, and Mr. Smee were all sleeping over. Slumber party in Dawson's room! :) I love his imagination. ♥

We Met Some Jazz Players!

On Friday night the Fanzz store in the City Creek Center had a couple of the Jazz players there to sign autographs. Have I mentioned yet how much we LOVE that mall?? It just opened a month or two ago and we've already been 3 or 4 times and I'm sure we'll go back soon. Anyway, we decided to go meet the Jazz players. We are thinking that Dawson might think it's cool that he got a couple of autographs when he gets older. (I REALLY hope he's a Jazz fan, I hope Dave comes around eventually, too ;) ) We're also hoping to add to his autograph collection over the years.

Here we are meeting Jeremy Evans and Gordon Hayward.

And the ball that we got autographed.

 

A few weeks ago we also met Mickey at that same mall. They always have fun stuff going on there! :)

 

Marching for Ashlynn! March for Babies!

A couple of days ago I got an email inviting us to the Naval Medical Center San Diego annual NICU reunion that will be in June this year. We went last year when Ashlynn was just a few months old and we had a lot of fun. We thought it was a great way to celebrate how far she has come since her 24 day stay in the NICU. So when I got the email I was a little bit sad. Sad because the reunion is, of course, at the hospital in San Diego and we're here in West Jordan. A trip to San Diego isn't really possible for us right now even though we want to go so bad!! Ashlynn had some nurses that we absolutely loved and are so grateful for and it would be nice to be able to see them again and show off how well Ashlynn is doing now. It isn't going to happen this year, though. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to the next one.

The day after I got the email about the NICU reunion I saw that the March of Dimes March for Babies walk was going to be in Salt Lake in just a few weeks! I knew right away that we were going to try to raise money and walk! I feel like it was meant to be. It's another great way to celebrate how far Ashlynn has come and we'll be doing it for a great cause at the same time.

We are marching in honor of our sweet little preemie, Ashlynn, who was born 6 weeks early, spent 24 days in the NICU, and is now a happy, healthy, and very active 15 month old!


Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small, and often very sick. I'm walking in March for Babies because I want to do something about this. And I need your help. Please support my walk. Making a secure donation is easy: just click this link and it will take you to my donation page. Make a donation here. Thank you for helping me give all babies a healthy start! 

The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

 We are very exciting to start raising money! As parents of a preemie this really means a lot to us. If you can donate, please do. And if you would like to help us spread the word we would be very grateful! If you share this link it will send people directly to our page when they can donate. http://www.marchforbabies.org/Jamie0811 

I'll be sure to share pictures after we've walked. :D

Ashlynn's 15 Month Checkup

Ashlynn had her 15 month checkup today. She weighed in at 20lbs 7oz and is 30 inches tall. She is meeting all of the milestones that she is supposed to and everything looked good. Her ears have cleared up (she's had two ear infections in the last month. Well I guess she's actually had 4 ear infections in the last month because she had an infection in both ears each time!) and she got 3 shots. :( That part was no fun but the nurse gave her a sucker and that made her happy again. They checked her iron and that was a little low so we need to make sure she is eating more green veggies (which she loves) and some red meat. We hardly ever eat red meat, maybe once or twice a month, so I need to make sure to work that into our diet a little more.

She's down almost a pound but her doctor isn't worried at all because she's been sick and she's more active now so she's burning more calories. She's been walking a lot lately. The past few days she hasn't been crawling but is toddling around instead. It's so cute!! I got some action shots of her walking down the hallway towards me today. 

 

She made it all the way to me without falling. She still falls sometimes but she definitely gets around really good! 

Here she is with her stroller and her baby. She loves her baby, it's so cute to see her cuddle and rock her. ♥ For some reason she doesn't like her in the stroller though. I wanted to get some pictures of Ashlynn pushing her around but she won't start pushing the stroller until the baby is out of it. haha Here she taking the baby out.

 

She threw her on the floor. And now she's ready to go!

I love watching her push around the stroller, it's too cute!

 

She has been talking a lot more lately, too! She doesn't say words perfectly so I think me and Dave (and probably Dawson) are the only ones that can understand her but she's saying a lot! When I took her to her appointment today the room that we were in had Blue's Clues painted on the wall, right when she saw it she said "boo boo" which was her saying "Blue's Clues" I thought it was really good that she was trying to say both words even though they ended up sounding the same. She also says "love" but it sounds more like "uff." Some other words that she says are mama, dada, light, dog, tree, done, hi, papa, cheese, nana... and that's all that I can think of right now. There are probably a few that I am forgetting. 

I think that's about it for now!

Happy Easter 2012

I have been staying away from blogger a little bit because I updated to the new blogger interface and I don't really like it that much. Maybe it's just something that I have to get used to. I haven't figured out how to change back to the old blogger so I guess I will have to get used to it. And actually now that I am typing out a new blog (this is the first blog I have posted with the new interface) I actually really like the changes that I am seeing. Uploading the pictures is much easier so far AND I have the option to make the pictures really big. Bigger pictures look better to me so I am excited to see how this post looks when I'm finished with it. I have LOTS of pictures to share! 

I'll start with Saturday night, the night before Easter. We colored some Easter eggs! I found these Easter place mats at Target in their dollar section and they were perfect to color Easter eggs on. Everything wiped up super easily. Dawson colored the eggs while Ashlynn sat back and watched.

 

Dawson did an AWESOME job this year not needing much help at all. Dave had to help him turn the eggs over a few times but after awhile Dawson started doing it all on his own. Dave took the eggs out when they were finished but other than that Dawson was in charge of the rest. 

 

He accidentally dropped an egg and it cracked so I gave it to Ashlynn to eat. She wouldn't try it, though. She kept putting it up to her mouth but wouldn't take a bite. I took a bite to show her how yummy it was but she ended up giving it back to me to finish. 

 

Here are our beautiful Easter eggs!

 

After we colored eggs we got cleaned up and started our bedtime routine. 

The next morning we all slept in until about 8:30. When I woke up before either of the kids I thought about how nice it was to sleep in, especially with it being a holiday, and realized it won't be long before Dawson starts waking up really early on holidays because he's so excited. As much as I love sleep I am actually really looking forward to that. 

Anyway, we ended up having to wake Dawson up (Ashlynn woke up on her own right after we did) and reminded him that it was Easter! He was really excited to get up and find the Easter eggs!

 

The Easter bunny had hidden a few eggs on the floor where Ashlynn could easily find them but she wasn't interested in picking them up at all. I think she was just enjoying watching Dawson run around excitedly! 

Dawson did really good! He found all 16 eggs that he colored and 10 plastic eggs that had dollar bills in them! He put $5 in his piggy bank and put the other $5 in Ashlynn's bank for her. Here he is showing off his favorite eggs and a dollar.

 

After he found all the eggs it was time to find their Easter baskets! The Easter bunny left some clues for us so we went on a little scavenger hunt. We didn't get any pictures of Dawson getting his clues, we did get it on video but I don't feel like waiting for it to upload. haha So here is a picture of the clues that he found. The first clue was on the TV stand and it lead him to the next clue and so on until the last clue lead him to the baskets.

 

Dawson got a kite, a bubble gun, sidewalk chalk, Hop on blu-ray, a sword (he is REALLY into Peter Pan and pirates right now), some swim trunks and top, and some sandals to wear to the pool.

Ashlynn got some bath toys, a book, a dress, a swimsuit, sunglasses, a sun hat, and a stroller. She LOVES to walk around pushing her push toy and she LOVES her baby so we decided it'd be too cute to watch her walking around pushing her baby. I need to get pictures of her because it is too cute!

 

Funny little side note: when Dawson picked up his bubble gun from his basket he yelled "batteries!" haha The gun came with batteries and he thought that was his gift. Silly boy.

 

We ate a quick breakfast and then headed outside. It was a BEAUTIFUL day! Dawson was excited to try out his new bubble gun.

 

And Ashlynn had fun just being outside. She decided she wanted to get down and walk so Dave had to run in and grab her shoes! Bare feet:

 

With shoes:

 

Much better!

Me and Ashlynn walked around for a good 20 minutes (she loves to walk around while holding hands even though she walks pretty good on her own now, she enjoys the company, I guess) while Dawson emptied out his bubbles. We decided to head over to the swings for a couple of minutes. Ashlynn had fun but we didn't stay too long because the swing isn't very baby safe and I was scared she was going to lean forward and fall out (the belt is missing).

 

After that we went inside. While I cleaned up a little bit Dawson took his sidewalk chalk out on the patio and played a little but longer. Then we all sat down and watched Hop. 

We had planned to go to my mom's for dinner so we headed over there a little after 4. She had a little Easter egg hunt set up for the kids and had little baskets for them, too. Hailee and Drea got these little wigs in their baskets and Drea wanted Ashlynn to try hers on.

 

After we ate dinner and hung around the house for awhile we decided to go to the park that's in mom's neighborhood so the kids could play and Dawson could fly his kite. 

Arika was excited to try our camera so I let her take over and she got some really good pictures! Here is Dave getting Dawson's kite up.

 

And Dawson flying it. He did really good and would even run when Dave told him to to help keep the kite up if it started to fall. 

 

I just love this picture. (Thank you, Arika!)

 

Here is Ashlynn with aunt Becca. She was trying to smile with the sucker in her mouth. 

 

And of course she had to go down the slide, she LOVES slides!

 

Here's Dawson playing basketball with uncle Bronson.

 

And Hailee-bug having fun.

 

The static in Drea's hair was cracking me up when she'd come down the slide.

 

Here's Dave crossing the monkey bars, he did good! When I tried I couldn't move so I had to drop. haha

 

And Brandee being silly on the zipline thing. haha

 

I also really liked this picture of my mom and dad that Arika got.

 

We had such a busy but really fun day yesterday! I hope you all had a good time as well!