First, the Katiebug…

The Dixon Fam…

Mr. Dixon…

That’s a fishing pole, not a rifle. Doesn’t it kind of look like a rifle?

The kidlets…

That’s Dash’s “cheese” face now. Lovely.

And finally, Kate being ridiculously cute.

I think Dash got 9 pieces of candy or so, and he would stop as soon as he got one and eat it… I’m wondering if the “don’t eat anything until we get home and we can inspect it!” was really for our safety when we were kids or just to keep us from eating it all…

We’re back from a night of trick or treating and pictures are coming!!

Also, here is the next installment in a long line of ridiculous hats I can make for my daughter…

And because I felt bad for making Kate 500 new things and nothing for Dash, a new hat is in the works for him… Hopefully I can finish it up tonight.

Happy Thursday everyone, my little girl is 3 months old today, someone PLEASE tell me how that happened so I can stop it from happening in the future…

2. Dash is a complete mushball and I LOVE it.

3. He says “I missed you” and “Oh mommy” and “I love you” on a regular basis. Usually while hugging you.

4. Two nights ago, he hugged his frog while we were going to bed and said “you’re my FAVORITE.” to the frog, and then he looked at me and said very seriously “not Daddy’s favorite” while shaking his head. John often snuggles his frog and says “no, you’re MY favorite” and I guess it rubbed off on Dash. Don’t touch the Dashman’s frog.

5. Kate’s putting on weight like a madwoman. She gets a new roll of baby fat every week it seems. So freaking cute. I love the baby stage way more than the newborn stage.

6. I’m sick of this freaking crappy weather.

7. I’m getting a new laptop at work. Yay! Who knew all it took was multiple bluescreens to convince your boss that your laptop sucked?

8. We’re going to St. Louis in November to meet up with some internet friends and I can’t wait. We’ve been online buddies for 3 years now and it’s about time we met face to face. I can’t wait to visit my old haunts while we’re there, too.

9. I made Kate a dress and it turned out well. It also cost me $4.99… I’ll post a pic this weekend, I need to sew on two buttons and hem the bottom. The basic construction went well though.

10. I made Kate another hat. Forgive the crappy flash, it was evening and I was too lazy to get my speedlight…

Sorry, babygirl, I had to have at least ONE picture in the hat I made you. Just one.

Sorry I chopped your hair off, Mr. Dixon. I had the best intentions.

And ETA, we ARE going to get her own chair. I promise. It’s on Santa’s Christmas list.

2 Months

1 Month

She also had her shots and shockingly wasn’t too happy. Three shots and one oral medicine. We also gave Dash a flu vaccine, and I’m still on the fence about it. The determining factor was The Little Gym, it’s really the only time he’s around other kids. They had the nasal vaccine instead of the shot, so we got that, and I didn’t realize at the time that the nasal one is the live vaccine. So I hope he doesn’t have any problem with that. As much as I hate getting him shots I feel a lot better about a dead vaccine than a live one. The shot is dead. Boo. Oh, well. Too late now. Hopefully he’ll be fine. Kate’s too young to get one and I doubt John and I will. Dash is the one who licks toys and stuff.

And for comparison…

2 weeks…

Dash being a cheeseball…

I was playing with the white balance setting on this one, and it’s way off, but I still like it. And I’m pretty sure he was about to whack me with that frog behind his head…

Happy Friday everyone!! Thank GOODNESS It’s Friday!!!

And the DETAILS… oh the details…

Yes, that’s a crocheted bunny. And there are like 6 of them.

As Dash would say “teeny… tiny… baby flowers!!”

Kate: “Don’t you like my blanket???”

Now head over to Debbi’s blog and see how ridiculously hard this puppy was. It makes me even MORE appreciative. You rock Debbi! Fair Isle crocheted bunnies aren’t easy!!

So for those of you that don’t know, while I was on leave my domains came up for renewel and I didn’t realize the credit card was invalid so the shut down both of my websites!! I had to pay a fee to get it back up but I freaking don’t care. I did let cakesbycolleen go though. It wasn’t worth 120.00 to reinstate it.

So in the meantime, I made Kate’s Blog non-private and started posting over there. Really, I need to have a blog not tied to my website. But for whatever reason, I just can’t let this one go. So I’m just going to post to both blogs. Same info on both, follow whichever one you want. It might be gay, but I can’t help it. I love this blog.

Here’s the link to Kate’s blog if you want to follow it on blogger…

http://thedixonsblog.blogspot.com/

2. The youngest Dixon…

3. Kate will be 6 weeks old tomorrow… I don’t know where that time went. I’m sure that’s the story of the rest of my life though…

4. I go back to work tomorrow. I think I’ll be ok. I’ve liked being home for the past 6 weeks and I’m not sure how I’ll function tomorrow without a nap but if working is going to continue being my normal then I kind of feel non-normal without it. If that makes sense.

5. There’s an assistant teacher position at Calhoun that I think John’s going to take. It works with his schedule and will bring in some extra cash.

6. I’ve been thinking a lot about Halloween costumes. I can’t believe it’s so close.

7… it’s the new 10…

This is Kate at a month old. Thanks to Amy, I thought it was a cute way to document how big she’s getting. I have no idea if I’ll keep it up, but hey, one month down is a start… She’s getting her own chair soon, Dash was kind enough to let us borrow his…

Kate’s doing great. Turns out she has an issue with dairy and since I’m breastfeeding that means no dairy for me. Holy cow milk is in everything!! It makes for a happier baby though so it’s worth it. Of course I’ve only been going about a week without it so ask me that again in a few months.

We had her 3 week checkup last week and she gained 2 pounds in two weeks. She was born at 8lbs 5oz, left the hospital at 7lbs 6oz and was back up to 7lbs 12oz at her doctor appointment the Monday after we were discharged. She was 9lbs 8oz 2 weeks later! I have no idea what she is now but I’m guessing its around 10lbs. She feels like a sack of potatoes when I’m nursing.

She also had a little bout of jandice which thankfully corrected itself without the lights. It was a 9 when we left the hospital on a Saturday and was 16 the following Monday! We fed the crap out of her and she gained 4 ozs overnight and was back down to a 14 the next day. It’s completely out of her system now and she’s cute and pink instead of yellow. Yay!

Dash is doing great, he’s still very adoring of Kate and not jealous at all. He’s said “Mommy’s all done” a few times while I’m nursing but that’s about it. He still giggles about her “tee tiny toes!” and wants to hold her or get her to grab his finger. Sometimes he’s a little rough like when he wants to “lay on baby Kate” but for the most part he’s gentle with her.

John’s starting his last semester of school next week. He has class Monday thru Thursday, I’m not sure how that’s going to work at first with me working all day and then taking care of both of them on my own and him taking care of both of them and then going to class all night but we’ll get through it. I remember it getting remarkably easier with Dash around 3 months so maybe the same will hold true for Miss Kate.

Kate’s a great sleeper… in the daytime. She’s lousy at night… Well, not lousy. It could be worse. She’s up every 1.5-2 hours to nurse at night and has her 3-4 hour stretches during the day. I sure would like to switch those!! With Dash I could sleep when he slept during the day but with both of them that’s harder. Plus Dash stays up super late so I’m not getting much sleep. I’m not sure how that’s going to work when I go back to work, I’m thinking not well. Hopefully by then she’ll drop a feeding.

I still have 2 more weeks of maternity leave and I’m thankful. I don’t really think I could function at work like this. She goes back to sleep easily at the 12 and 2:30 feeding but she’s hit or miss at the 4 one. I’ve been having John stay up with her for that one and just wake me up when she’s hungry so I can get some kind of sleep. He’s such a good Dad. I’m so thankful for him.

I’m healing up well, I still have one really sore spot that feels like something’s twisted in there and it’s in a really weird place, like an inch away from my incision. Not sure what that’s about. It only hurts when I turn a certain way. I also lost 30 pounds of baby weight super quickly but now I’m hanging on to the rest of it. John and I have been walking trying to inch down pound by pound.

That’s pretty much all that’s going on in the Dixon household. Kate will be 4 weeks old Wednesday and a month old Saturday, I have no idea how that happened. Seems like forever ago and not very long ago all at the same time. She grew an inch and a half at her 3 week appointment and I think she’s grown another inch or so since them. She seems so much bigger now! I promise I’ll update more frequently…

That he put on himself, by the way…

Asleep in the bathtub…

And Miss Dixon snoozing…

Happy Friday, everyone!

Dash at 2+ weeks…

And Miss Kate at the same age…

And some other random cuteness…

And then pictures like this make me think they don’t look alike at all. She’s a cutie, isn’t she?

I heart her.

2. Kate is doing great, nursing is going ok, her jaundice levels got dangerously high the Monday after her birth but we fed the crap out of her and Tuesday they had dropped. She has since de-yellowed.

3. Kate does not like to lay on her back. Ever. Including bedtime. She’ll lay down to nurse, finally, and I can usually get her to sleep laying down like that. That means she’s sleeping with us though. So I’m not sleeping a whole heck of a lot. I think it’s because she was breech. We have another friend with a breech baby and same deal.

4. Other than that, she’s a sweet girl with an insane set of pipes. That girl can wail when she’s mad. Thankfully she’s not mad much.

5. She has the same mannerisms as Dash, and I’m enjoying getting to relive him as a baby occasionally.

6. She’s BeYOUtiful.

7. Dash is adjusting SO well. Beyond well. He loves her. And he plays by himself or watches cartoons when we’re tied up with her. He’s such a great kid. All those months of wondering if he got what I was saying… he sure did.

8. Kate had her photosession with Miss Erin today. I’m SO EXCITED to see the sneak peek.

9. I got to play with Ephraim and Sarah today. Those are some seriously great kids.

10. John is thoroughly enjoying his new car. He deserves it after 5 years of driving the pink neon with pink “princess” seat covers, right?

BUT, I had to come on here for this.

We bought a new car!! We went to the dealership to see about the government buy back program and while the neon didn’t qualify they gave us a great deal on this avenger. It was 21K and they had 4500 cash back going plus Dad’s employee discount so we got it for 15K after taxes. And we REALLY needed a new car. )

Dash at 3 days old…

Talk to you all soon and I’ll take pictures and post them this afternoon…

XOXO

So the c-section officially started at 9:14 and she was born at 9:18. I was on my hospital bed and ready to leave at 9:34. Super fast. She came out screaming a LOT and is a big fan of breastfeeding. She is 8lbs 5oz and 20.5 inches long, but she seems like a tiny baby to me. Maybe because I’m used to Dash.

Speaking of Dash, he’s been doing SO GREAT. He was so excited to meet his baby sister and some love on some more after the pedi comes by. I think she’ll be fine though.

Thank you all for thinking about us; I know you were.

Our appointment was at 9AM and we had to get there for paperwork at 8 so we left Decatur at 5:30AM. We get there and a nurse comes and tells us that 4 women are lined up for c-sections, each one taking at least an hour, and we’d be behind all of them plus whatever else came in that needed the OR. Since there’s a risk that we would need an emergency c-section, they have to have an OR available and they only have one. One you say? Vandy L&D only has one operating room? Apparently. So she says we can either wait it out or come back Friday and possibly be in the same situation. Since we were there and I had taken off work, we decided to wait it out. She tells us to go eat since it’s going to be a while and call her around noon to see where I stand.

So we go to McDonald’s and head off to the mall and around 10AM the nurse calls me again and says she has an opening if I haven’t eaten. Argh! Since I had eaten the earliest they could see us again is 2:45PM. She says to come in then. We go on to the mall and find a theater with Harry Potter and watch that. No big deal.

We head back to the hospital and at 3 get in a room, I tell them I have veins that roll and like to blow up and the first IV attempt blows up and the second one rolls. Awesome. The original nurse comes in to try the third one and gets it in in like 5 seconds. They put me on a saline drip just to keep the IV line going and put us on the monitors. She comes in at 4 and says a c-section just went in so it would be another hour.

At the end of that hour, she comes in and says two more c-sections are lined up and it’ll be another 2 hours at least. That was at like 4:40 so we have until 6:40 at least. Sigh. And guess what happened at 6:40? Another c-section. By this time I’m through an entire bag of saline and started on another bag. They had a shift change, too, so we met the morning nurses/doctors and the evening ones.

Finally the OR is cleared and ready to go at like 8:45. An army of folk come in; a midwife and student midwife, a student ultrasound tech, the anestisiologist and his assistant, the doctor and his assistant and a nurse. They give me terbutaline to relax my uterus and another drug (rhenyphenaline?) that’s a mild pain killer and a loopy drug. And like 5 minutes later they get started.

I used the hypnobirthing techniques to zone out and laugh all you want but I swear that worked. I felt like I was in a far away place but still aware of what they were doing. The anesthisiologist asked me at one point if I was ok because I was completely silent with my eyes closed and I had to kind of snap out of it to answer him.

So one doc found her bootie and the other found her head. They tried to the right first and she budged about an inch but couldn’t get past my waist. It hurt but it wasn’t unbearable, it seriously didn’t hurt as much as that chiropractor pressing on my round ligaments; it was just all over my belly instead of isolated to one point. It just felt like someone was pressing really hard. Then they tried the other direction and she hardly moved at all. My girl was just too big and too stubborn. The whole procedure lasted about 5 minutes. He said if they’re going to turn they turn right away and there’s no point in stressing her out if it’s not going to happen. I’ve heard that too but it still sucked they only tried twice.

Afterward I was really upset. That was pretty much our last hope and it had been just an insanely long day. Plus, the loopy drugs made me sick and I didn’t have anything on my stomach and I was pretty much just miserable. I started crying and the room cleared out remarkably quickly. They gave me an anti-nausea drug, watched Kate for a half hour or so (her heartrate never flinched, she was completely fine) and let us go around 10PM. We stopped off at McDonald’s and headed home and made it here around 12:45AM.

Since then, I’ve talked to my midwife and talked to the OB that delivered Dash. Everyone is on the same page that a VBAC is probably not going to happen. None of us see any point in me driving 2 hours for a c-section and I have a consultation with my OB Monday at 2:30 to see if he’s willing to just do a c-section for us. There’s still a chance she could flip on her own but it’s really small and I don’t think either my midwife or OB is comfortable letting me go very long since I’m she’s breech and I’ve had a prior c-section. So we’d be driving to Nashville to buy about 4 more days for her to flip when she’s probably not going to. It’s frustrating and I feel defeated but what can you do. We tried. EVERYTHING. It’s just not in the cards.

The upside is I”m probably not going to be pregnant past this week. YAY. Her head up under my ribs is horrendously uncomfortable. A bootie is way more squishy than a head. I’ll keep you all posted with what he says Monday. He delivers at a different hospital now and some of the policies at the first hospital are what made that c-section so hard on me the first time. I’m hoping this hospital will do the checkup on Miss Kate in my recovery room instead of sweeping her off for 7 hours to the nursery like they did with Dash.

Anyone have any experience with L&D at the Huntsville Hospitals? I won’t post which one it is just so the 500 spammers I get a day don’t know but if you have any experience at any of them I’d love to hear it. Especially if it’s positive.

Thanks to everyone for thinking and praying for us. I know you guys were pulling for us.

I’ll be back with the long ridiculous story later today when Dash naps (and believe me, it’s ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I met every nurse and doctor on staff because we were there from 8AM to 10PM for literally, a 5 minute procedure.)

In the meantime, we’re going to see about changing doctors at 38W 2D so we can have a c-section closer to home. The good news is, we’ll probably have our little girl in our arms in about a week. I’m disappointed the VBAC is pretty much a 0% chance now but I’m coming around by focusing on her coming next week…

Talk to you all soon and thank you SO MUCH for the well wishes. I know we had about 100 people routing for us.

So I went to the midwife on Friday, she thinks she’s head down because the mass of baby at the top of my stomach is too big in her opinion to be her head. She listened for the heartbeat to make sure and found it right away down low, so that goes along with her being head down, however then she listened for it up high and found it there as well. It was fainter up high but there nonetheless. She scheduled an ultrasound for July 6th to confirm and get an estimate on the baby’s size; I’ll also have my GBS test and 37 week appointment immediately following. So I’ll know something for sure in a week. Yay! I’m tired of thinking about it. My gut says she’s moved but I’m not convinced she’s head down. I’m a bit worried she might be tranverse or footling breech now; I’m still not feeling very many kicks up high or on the side, they’re almost exclusively down low along with her hands. I really have no idea though. Footling or transverse isn’t good though, so keep thinking head down thoughts…

2. Happy Birthday to Candi!

3. 35 weeks tomorrow, woo hoo!

4. I also have a midwife appointment Friday so we’ll see if this girl is still breech. I’m pretty sure she is. Still a hard spot in my upper abdomen and still most movement down low.

5. I chopped my hair off. It was just too darn hot. I have no idea how many inches she cut off but it was a lot. I’m guessing 6 or so. It’s just below my shoulder with heavy layers from my cheekbones down.

6. I’d post a picture but the double chin is omnipresent now and I think I’ll just spare you guys.

7. I’m meeting John and Dash at Chuck E Cheese for lunch. Say what you will but that place is overly air-conditioned and Dash loves it. It’s a pregnant momma’s dream.

8. Some dork at work told me “you’re getting quite a belly on you”. Um. Thanks. Babies do that to you.

9. John’s baseball team is doing really well. I think they’ve only lost one game.

10. Did I post that we got 5% of our salary back? Yay. I can handle being at 90% a lot better than 85%.

John wanted to get dessert at Ruby Tuesdays on the way home and see if they had any of the newly legalized, higher alcohol content beers on tap. You can pretty much get me to go anywhere with the promise of dessert. Especially if it’s Oreo Tallcake.

So we walk in and the hostess asks me when I’m due, which I think is kind of odd, most folks have been pretty mum about me being pregnant if they don’t know me. I tell her and she starts leading us back into this back room where someone’s obviously having a party. I’m thinking, I’ve got to tell this woman I don’t want to sit near a party with a 2 year old in tow. It’s just not a good idea. Then I realize she thinks I’M the pregnant girl that goes to this party!! Ahhh!! So I say, “Oh no, I’m not with them!” and try not to make eye contact. You can probably guess who it was. I hope Roz and Rachel are proud of themselves for pulling off such a surprise.

Honestly, it’s a good thing my mom was sitting closest to the door or I would have made a bigger dork of myself.

So, you got me girls, and I think you all rock. Thank you so much for celebrating our sweet impending arrival. It’s always so good to see you all in one place and to laugh our butts off and eat good food.

Here’s the crew before I showed up… do they look giddy with anticipation? I think so…

The cake…

Roz and Liz giving John a hard time about not thinking he could get me there (I’m guessing… somebody’s saying something funny, regardless…)

Me and the Dashman who was saintlike during his sister’s first party…

He sat out in the bar with John and my Dad and told my Dad how he had a vagina. Good times.

And finally, the gifts. You girls went completely overboard.

I love you all very much and again, thank you so much!!

I made the picture above the crib (as many of you know, I’m sure) and the bedding is Amy Coe’s Pink Pop bedding. I scored it at TJMaxx for 19.99 for the whole set! I found it on ebay for 129.99 so I was really proud of myself. It’s discontinued so I guess that’s why it was so cheap. I found the peonies at Carlton cards around Mother’s day for 4 bucks a piece. I’m still looking for a mirror or something for above the dresser and a mobile of some sort. And curtains. The mobile that matches the bedding isn’t very cute. So I guess that’s my next mission…

I started that blog to keep up with what was going on with Kate when I first found out I was pregnant but before I told anyone so I made it private so no one would find out my secret before I told them. Then I was playing around with the idea of twittering Kate’s birth (insert eye roll here from all of you, I don’t care…) and I didn’t want to make it public until she was here so I wouldn’t have some weirdo following my tweets and telling me I was nuts for trying a natural child birth or anything.

Anyway, forgive it’s random mushy posts and the posts that are written directly to Kate, I’m not a big fan of letters written to people on public blogs, it makes me feel like I’m reading over their shoulder, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was talking to her a lot of time, or at least talking to myself. I think there are only 10 posts over there, too, so you won’t have to look at much.

I’ve added most of you to the blogroll and I DON’T MIND AT ALL adding anyone else. Yeah, you have to admit that you read my blog and briefly come out of lurkdom but I swear you can go right back to it. I seriously don’t care. I just don’t want a lot of spammers getting access to that tweet, really. If you’re a real live person, I don’t mind at all if you have access to that blog. Just post a comment here and I’ll get a notice with your email address and I’ll add you. Even if you’re a friend of a friend who liked a picture I posted or something. I don’t care.

So here’s the link…

Blog

Be careful that you don’t just go to thedixons.blogspot… that’s a different set of Dixons.

The theory is if you remove all obstructions in your body the baby will more than likely turn. I think the Webster technique (working on your tailbone and your round ligaments) has an 82% success rate or something. A lot of people argue that the 82% are those that the baby would have flipped anyway, but that’s all up in the air. I mean, who knows. And really, if I can get her to flip now rather than later, I’ll take now. Having a head between the outside of your stomach and your lungs isn’t any kind of fun. And it’s not like that sucker is going to get smaller over the next few weeks…

So she adjusted my lower back and put a lot of pressure on those round ligaments to get them to release. I’m supposed to work on it on my own and go back tomorrow and Friday. Hopefully it’ll help. If it all fails, at least I can say I tried everything.

Except having John talk to my girlie parts. I’m not trying that. I don’t care if it’s supposed to work or not. Some things are off limits.

We had our state of the company meeting today, we’re getting 5% of our salary back in July. So yay. I guess. So here’s the thing. When I go on leave, I get 60% of whatever is on the books. Technically the 90% salary should be on the books July 1st. I have no idea if it actually will be. I’m going to be mad if I miss out on it by a few days though.

Also, we had a restaurant downstairs from us that went out of business. A new one is going in. Guess what it is? Are you ready? The Daily Brew, a local coffee shop that has freaking GELATO. How happy am I???

http://www.dfwbirthphotographer.com/home/

2. And this made me laugh

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

3. I hate Mozilla Firefox. Developers love it because it has some nifty debugging add ons you can stick in there and debug webpages which helps us since our stuff is web based. I don’t care though, it’s slow and I hate it.

4. Dash, God love him, was laying in his bed with me the other night before story/bed time and was pushing around on my belly with his feet so I reminded him that his baby sister was in there and to be careful. He lifted up his shirt and said “Baby sister in Dashy’s belly!” Sigh. That kid.

5. I’m so excited for Candi, who found out she’s welcoming a baby GIRL in a few months.

6. I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday.

7. We have our state of the company meeting tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. I have a feeling it’s going to be a “we’re doing great! the company is doing great! Salaries? what salaries?” kind of meeting.

8. I’m pretty sure they’re weeks away from losing several good developers. The economy around here is picking up and these guys are highly marketable.

9. I’m going to stop at 9 instead of forcing out a 10.

1. I’m sicker than crap right now. Blah. Bad cold. Congestion. It’s loosening up now so I’m coughing like crazy. Dash and I both have it but thankfully Dash is handling it better than me. John is on the verge of it. Hopefully zycam will make it not so bad for him.

2. I had my MW appointment, Kate is still breech. She gave me some exercises to do; swim a lot, get on all fours and wiggle my hips and I have another checkup June 26 at 35.5 weeks. If she hasn’t turned, they’ll do an ultrasound to make sure she’s really breech and if she is they’ll schedule an external version for exactly 38 weeks. The external version usually works if it’s possible for them to turn and you have room, but things can go wrong (like she may not tolerate it well) so they do it that late so I can have an emergency c-section if necessary. Fun. And if it doesn’t work, then I have a huge decision to make. Switch doctors at 38 weeks so I can be close to home with a c-section or opt for a c-section in Nashville and hope maybe she turns before then. Blah. So keep your fingers crossed that she turns. I can also lay on an inclined ironing board with my feet above my head so gravity causes her to cram up under my rib cage so she has room to turn. Sounds awesome with a chest cold, right?

Her hand…

And her face…

We went to the zoo afterwards and had a good time. I'm pooped though.

2. I also have 70 days left. I’m not sure which sounds better. 70 days or 10 weeks. Hmmmm…

3. The scale and I aren’t speaking.

4. I have birthday pictures, I promise.

5. I’ve done very little in preparation for Dash’s party this weekend. The cake is ordered and the decorations are bought, the food is a different story…

6. Dash is learning parts of Old McDonald. He says “E-I-O” and “moo moo here” and I fill in the rest.

7. Dash thinks it’s cool to drink water and then let it dribble out of his mouth while giggling. Any ideas for breaking that habit?? Anyone??

8. I had to go to Nashville for work yesterday and I’m pooped.

9. If you haven’t gotten an invite in the mail and you live in the Huntsville/Decatur vacinity, leave me a comment! I addressed them as I got addresses and John sent them off before I had a chance to make a list and cross anyone off. If I missed you, it wasn’t intentional!!

10. The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL this week. I hope it’s like this on Saturday. Oh and there’s a crapload of stuff going on this weekend if you’re coming from out of town and want something else to do. Point Mallard opens and has their balloon festival this weekend, the Daikan festival is Saturday night, and I think that’s it.

John and my Dad (and me, a little bit) put together a swingset for him last night and 500 bolts later, we have a happy little kid. Dash swam in the kiddie pool while Mom watched him and would randomly jump out in all his nakedness and run through the swingset legs screaming with excitement. It was really cute. I have pics but I haven’t ripped them off my camera yet. I’ll take pics tonight of his little family birthday party and post them tomorrow.

So at 2…

Dash can count to 20, but it goes like this. 1,2,3,5,6,7,18,19,20! He just recently learned there were more numbers beyond 10 and now he intermingles them as he sees fit. I have no idea why he shows no love to 4.

Dash will come over to me and say “Big Hug, Mommy!” and throw his arms around me. Melts my heart every time. He however has figured that I will always wrap my arms back around him so if he wants me to pick him up, say out of the shopping cart, he’ll say “big hug, mommy!” and when I hug him he’ll immediately start climbing me trying to get out of the cart. Smartypants.

Dash will tell me he’s 2 by holding up both of his index fingers next to each other. Yesterday he was trying to figure out how to hold up his first two fingers but can’t quite get his thumb in the right place.

I am Mommy and John is Daddy. Mama and dada are gone forever.

We recently taught Dash his name and where he lives, so if anything ever happened and he was lost he could tell someone (not that his shyness would let him.) If you ask him his name he says “Dah DIXon!” And where he lives is “Deher, Labalama”.

Dash has zero interest in potty training. Except maybe sticking his foot in the toilet.

He loves bossing us around. Must be a trip for a 2 year old to think he has complete control over his parents. He’ll say “Mommy sit right THERE.” and point.

Dash still hasn’t learned how to scream, bless him. His ‘Nos’ are simply statements.

Dash is obsessed with trains. He says “all aboard!” and “more train coming” and loves tunnels and tracks and anything to do with trains. He has enough Thomas trains to circle his track. So we bought him more track for his birthday. (And a few more trains.)

If I say “Dash, your little sister is coming!” he says “little sis…Happy Easter!!” apparently little sister and Happy Easter sound very similar.

Happy Birthday, kiddo, you are one loved little boy…

We have to fill out a crapload of paperwork and of course we’re working on a time crunch but I’ll take it over owing 16K next week..

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, I can’t tell you what a HUGE damper that put on Mother’s Day and the whole weekend…

So we have a home equity credit line that we (I) opened to avoid the PMI with our mortgage. I thought it was a credit line that existed as long as the mortgage existed and that we would try to pay it off if we could but if not when we sold our house it would get paid off.

So Friday night right before I went to bed, I noticed a handwritten thank-you card looking envelope on my counter. I opened it and it said “Colleen, please contact us regarding your credit line that matures this month”. And I thought, surely, matures doesn’t mean what I think it means.

Oh yes it does.

So we owe 16K by May 20th. Woo-hoo! Anyone got 16K in their back pocket? Anyone? Yeah, neither do we. We dug up the old paperwork and sure enough, it has a maturity date on there which I feel sure we didn’t know about or I never would have signed up for it. It says “on the maturity date, we may or may not be able to refinance the loan” and goes on to talk about possible closing costs. So keep your fingers crossed for us being able to refinance the loan at a decent rate and not paying a crapload in closing costs.

Needless to day, I was up all night Friday night (literally, until 4AM) and Saturday was pretty much ruined, too. I refused to let it ruin Sunday and just didn’t let myself think about it. Afterall, we can’t do anything until we hear back from the bank (who still hasn’t called.) I figure her wanting to get in touch with us about it is a sign that there is some sort of financing available. Hope, hope, hope.

2. I failed my 1 hour glucose test on Monday, found out on Tuesday, had to drive BACK up to Nashville on Wednesday to take the three hour. I passed that one though.

3. The three hour glucose test was completely comical. I mean, it sucked, but it had it’s funny moments. First there was a couple next to me in the waiting room (which didn’t have a TV) who reminded me of the couple on Friends who go into the labor room with Rachel when she’s laboring and giggle and laugh about their contractions. They were obviously first time parents and very, very cheesy. Beyond cheesy. “oh, honey, the baby only kicks when you touch her, giggle, giggle…” I wanted to strangle them while I was waiting for each successive needle prick. (forgive my rant, I’m sure it’s hormone related.)

4. I’m very much looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully it will be MUCH better. I feel like I haven’t quite been present for Dash in the evenings, between our whirlwind 2 hour drives to Nashville and other crap that’s been going on at work, I’ve had a lot of crappy stuff on my mind lately and haven’t really been able to enjoy just vegging out with the kiddo. I’m looking forward to a lot of vegging this weekend.

5. John has mandatory baseball practice on Mother’s Day. Seriously? On mother’s day? They had it on Easter too but it wasn’t mandatory. Grrrrr.

6. Dash has turned into a complete chatterbox lately. He narrates everything we’re doing. It’s wonderful. It’s so good to communicate with him and he’s so funny. I love seeing his little personality. He likes telling us where we’re supposed to be… “Mommy sit right THERE.” as he points.

7. Dash thinks my tattoo is a sticker. He tries to peel it off.

8. If you haven’t sung this song with your child, please do.

Tony Chestnut knows I love you…
Tony knows…
Tony knows…
Tony Chestnut knows I love you…
That’s what Tony knows…

You point to each body part as you sing. Toe, Knee, Chest, Nut (head), nose, Eye, (heart), you…

While I was singing that song, Dash threw his arms out and exclaimed “I love you!” It’s now my favorite kids’ song of all time.

9. Dash has also learned that I say I’m sorry when he gets hurt. So now if he hurts himself, he cries “Ow! Hurt! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” and it completely breaks my heart.

10. A very happy mother’s day to all of the mama’s out there and soon to be mama’s… I hope you all have a beautiful day and get exactly what you need for the day….

I saw something similar in Pottery Barn Kids and decided it must go on Kate’s wall. It was super easy and really cheap and I thought someone out there might get some ideas from it, so here’s how I did it.

Supplies:

1 piece of art canvas (mine was 22 x 26 or something like that) - $13 at Hobby Lobby (I used my coupon so it was $6.50. Woo hoo!)

1 piece of fabric large enough to cover the canvas plus a few extra inches on all sides. (mine was a yard and was 10.99 at Hobby Lobby)

Felt in various colors (this took 2 light pink, 2 dark pink, and 2 brown) all were $.25 a piece.

Felt glue

Thumbtacks

Directions:

1. Iron your fabric! I can’t stress this enough. it has to be super smooth because you can only do so much once it’s on the board.

2. Lay the fabric down on a solid surface and place the board on top with the wrong side facing you. Make sure it lines up properly if you have a pattern on your fabric (I used the lines in the fabric as a guide)

3. Fold the sides around the board and thumbtack in place.

4. Fold the tops like you would a present, tucking in the side pieces until it looks good to you. Remember to keep everything as taught as possible without making the fabric all wonky. Thumbtack in place.

Finished board:

5. Cut out the pattern of what you want to put on the board onto some regular paper. Position them on the board and make any adjustments. Cut out your felt. I free handed all of these but I’m sure you could find things online and print them out to use as templates. I used plates for the circle template and printed the letter K out on the printer and used that to cut out the letter.

6. Start gluing the pieces on one by one. I used sewing glue because I couldn’t find felt glue. I should have kept looking for felt glue. Felt glue won’t bleed at all through felt, the sewing glue was too thin. You can see glue marks in the picture above, but those have hopefully worked themselves out now that it’s dry. They aren’t nearly as noticable in regular light, thank goodness.

7. Either attach a ribbon or use a nail to hang. Trim the extra fabric from the back so it doesn’t hang down.

That’s it! Took me about an hour and a half start to finish. And the total was a whopping 25 bucks. Woo-hoo!

2. I had Chik-fil-a for breakfast, I’m having Chinese for lunch and Outback for dinner.

3. The smilies showing up in framed boxes drives me insane.

4. I have pictures to share!

5. This is my birthday present. I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, do. Their diaper bags are so freaking technologically advanced it’s insane. They’re pricey but oh so cool. They have a video on their website for each one showing the features. I got the “be all”.

Ju Ju Be

And they come up on baby steals a lot at half price.

6. John ordered me a cookie cake that he thankfully got last night so I could have a piece for breakfast, and mom is making me a German chocolate cake. She has an awesome recipe for the frosting that keeps it from getting grainy like so many of the store bought ones. I could eat just the icing alone.

7. I’m also 26 weeks today. And 6 months exactly (I go by my LMP date, not 4 weeks = a month. The logic behind that drives me COMPLETELY INSANE. If 4 weeks = a month than 52 weeks = 13 months. Since when did we have 13 months in the year? I get surprisingly riled up over that on babycenter… 4.4 weeks = a month is better but who wants to do that kind of math all the time? )

8. I feel fine and I’m getting much bigger than I’d like, I think she’s just having a growth spurt. Suddenly it’s not as fun to sit down on the ground and play. She’s still sitting much lower than Dash was, so that rocks. I’ll take carrying around a bowling ball any day to not being able to breathe.

9. We are having a plethera of car problems at the moment. Poor John. The air conditioning went out on the neon, he thought it was the compressor (the motor that runs the air conditioning) but when he got that out of the car he jump started it with a battery and it kicked on and actually blew out cool air. So it has to be some kind of short in a wire either powering the compressor or a short in the switch that turns it on. The wiring schmatics for the teeny tiny neon are insane. He mentioned having to rip out the steering wheel, console, and something else to be able to get to part of it. Fun. The truck also has two slow leaks in the back two tires, and the transmission is acting up. When it rains it pours, I guess.

10. We did go look at new cars last week, I’d like for John to have a 4 door with two car seats. Even with the deals Chrysler is offering, we just couldn’t bite the bullet. It’s hard to go from no car payment to a hefty one when your job has made salary cuts (which should be ending in a month or two, we’re doing well.) If they’ll offer 0% for 60 mos when the baby comes we’ll jump though. Right now it’s 0% for 36 mos which would make a 27K mini van cost $808 a month. Um, ok. I’ll take a second house instead, thanks. The minivan was REALLY nice though. Ahhh, a minivan…

I took this at like 6PM today, with Lucy screaming in the background and Dash wondering what the heck I was doing. That’s probably the biggest reason I’m not keeping up with pictures, chasing a toddler hogs up most of my time.

This is Dash and John before their first Viper game. The Vipers are SO much fun to watch. If you haven’t been to a game, go. And get the Nutty Bavarian almonds. They’re fantastic.

And finally… the Dash. We took these in the front yard today. He wanted to do everything but sit still, but he’s still saying “Cheese!” every time he sees my camera so that rocks.

2. Her room is coming along. I have her letters made (seems like a staple of every nursery now, doesn’t it?) and her bedding in and her closet full. There’s still a random amount of junk lying around that isn’t getting moved very quickly. I’m about to box it all up and dump it in the hallway so it has to be dealt with.

3. Dash is growing like a weed and talking up a storm. He’s starting to put words together really well, we got “pink pez, please” out of him the other day. He knows when to use please and thank-you appropriately and it’s really freaking hard to say no to.

4. My brilliant, super husband has been named Student of the Year of the Aerospace Technology department at Calhoun. I’m so proud of him. He loves his aerospace classes and is putting in tons of effort, and any extra stuff that comes up he jumps on. His instructors have noticed and I’m so happy for him. He’ll be presented the award at the honors ceremony on May 1st.

5. Our neighborhood is having it’s annual yard sale May 2nd. We’ve got to get on the ball! We have a lot of stuff we need to sell and some extra funds would rock to pay for a certain dog.

6. My 24 week appointment is today and I’ll schedule my 28 week appointment and the glucose test at this one. After that, I’ll be down to appointments every 2 weeks. You know, at the beginning of this pregnancy I thought I was never going to make it 40 weeks. Hell, I’ve known since 4 weeks and 40 weeks seems like FOREVER. But here we are, almost there.

Dash sporting his new hat… forgive my appearance, I was the hot pregnant girl at the game…

John and Dash enjoying themselves in the pool. If Dash’s lips look blue, it’s not because my camera was off. Poor kid was freezing but wouldn’t give it up…

2. Our little girl’s name is Kate. We’re not sure about a middle name. Kate Elizabeth, more than likely.

3. My work took a downward turn Monday. We all still have jobs, we’re taking a salary cut for the next three months to keep the company afloat. Boo. Just when I was getting ready to buy all sorts of girl clothes…

4. I’m a skittle eating fool today.

5. We’re going to Florida in two days! After the news of Monday, I could use a bigass break.

6. We watched two interesting movies lately (yay netflix). Religulous and My Best Friend’s Girl. Religulous would probably piss a bunch of people off and My Best Friend’s Girl might offend a lot of people. I learned a lot from Religulous and I laughed out loud at My Best Friend’s Girl.

My favorite part is at the end of this clip. If you can’t handle the vulgarity, skip to 2:17. It’s worth it.

7. A certain little girl’s birthday is coming up and I’m super excited…

8. This is going to have to be an 8 on Tuesday. Even though we took a paycut our workload increased. Yay! Gotta love the economy…

From the bottom side looking up…

GIRL baby! She’s perfectly healthy and measuring only 3 days ahead, shocking considering how big Dash was measuring at this point… We’re super excited around these parts!

So after much poking and prodding… (kidding) here’s my 19 week pic. Excuse the blurriness. I took it myself.

And here I am with Dash at 19 weeks.

So I’ve heard several things so far. One that it’s a boy because I’m carrying him the exact same and two, it’s a girl because I’m carrying her totally different. (Excuse the frame around the smilies. I don’t know how to make that stop.) Just to clarify, what you’re looking at in that first picture (from the top down) is several internal organs crammed up under my ribs, a whole lot of residual baby blubber, and maybe a baby in there. Somewhere. Seriously, the baby is still super low. I can feel him/her moving around below my belly button. So I think the only thing similar between these two pictures is my internal organs have shifted the same. I haven’t seen anything listed on google about what THAT indicates. Whatever, I’ll let you decide. I’ll be back around 7 or 8 this evening with some results. Hopefully. Show us the goods, baby!

So I took this picture around 7 AM the other day. Manual mode, autofocus, no flash. ISO 640, SS freaking 25 and f/3.5. It’s not crystal clear, but I would have never gotten this shot with my old lens. A shutter speed of 25 would have been ultra blurry with my kit lens. It’s about as big as that lens, heavier, and the zoom his 65mm higher. So in summary, vibration reduction gets a GIANT thumbs up from me. I think my next lens will be an 85mm with VR, but that will be a while. Right now, I’m pretty happy with this one. And hell, I’ve got to pay it off first.

2. I dropped my camera lens and need to replace it. I’m thinking about the Nikon 18mm-105mm lens with vibration reduction (it’s the D90 kit lens but I like the vibration reduction) or the Nikon 18mm-200mm lens with vibration reduction. The 200mm is twice as much as the 105mm and the 105mm isn’t cheap. But the 200mm gets reviews like “replaces every lens in my bag”. Sigh. I need to decide by today so it has a chance to get here by the time we go to Florida next weekend.

3. I really want the 18mm-200mm.

4. We had an interesting day yesterday. Manny was going to the vet to get fixed and turns out the poor dog has heartworms! Apparently, it isn’t too bad and it’s treatable, but it’s $450. And then we still have to get him fixed. Good thing our refund is on it’s way. I hate to use it for freaking heartworms though.

5. Manny stayed at the vet overnight to see if he had any reactions to the shot for treatment, and then has to stay IN THE HOUSE for the next 30 days. I have no idea how that’s going to work.

6. Also yesterday, my mom’s good knee gave out on her at work and Dad had to take her to the emergency room. She said she was just standing up and all of a sudden it felt like it broke or slipped out of place. The emergency room did an xray and said nothing looked out of place except for some arthritis (which she knew she had) and gave her an anti-inflammatory shot and a pain shot. She said the pain shot hadn’t helped at all by the time she got home, which I thought was odd, usually emergency room pain shots are pretty strong. She’s supposed to go see our family doctor today. I’ll let you know when I hear anything…

7. In lighter news, Mr. Dash had a fantastic time in the snow for like 5 minutes until he got cold and wanted to come in.

If you didn’t witness the snow you probably don’t realize all of it was gone by noon. I mean, dried up and gone like it had never happened. Alabama weather is crazy.

8. We put shelves up in the garage to move some boxes out of the baby’s room and I went through some of them to see what was baby stuff and what needed to go in the garage. Dash had a particularly good time with the rings from my bachelorette party and the bottles.

9. Excuse the focus in that last one. That’s why I need a new lens. Dropping it made the focus not work and it doesn’t recognize the external flash any more for some reason. I guess it’s just all wonky inside. Boo.

10. My belly has finally popped and I look exactly like I did in the 19 week picture from Dash. One of these days I’ll take a picture, I promise.

I’ll post some belly pics as soon as I take them. I know, I know. I haven’t taken a single belly shot this time and I’ll be 19 weeks on Tuesday. I feel like I’m taking pictures of displaced plushiness.

And also, two isn’t early to move a toddler to a big kid bed depending on the toddler. If they’ve figured out how to crawl out of the crib, it’s safer to convert it to a toddler bed. You lose your ability to contain them though… Dash hadn’t figured out how to crawl out of the crib yet, and he still gives me some troubles laying down, so I wanted to keep him in there until he was going down without a fight and not getting up and wandering around in the middle of the night. So far, we haven’t had problems with either of those and the big kid bed yet. He seems pretty content to stay in it.

On to the pictures…

We had a funny night the other night. First Dash took a bath and figured out the cold water faucet and thought it was hilarious to turn it on full blast, splash himself and say “Cold! Brrrr!” Pretty soon the tub was really full and freezing cold. Sorry if his lips are a little blue.

And I dropped my camera lens so a few of these are blurry. Looks like I need to go camera shopping…

Then he used it as a drinking fountain…

And after we were done, he put on his pajamas and insisted on wearing swim diapers.

And finally, Dash’s big kid bed.

2. Dash has learned how to use several words in the appropriate context lately, and it’s made for some interesting nights. Mostly “no”. “It’s time for bed.” “No.” “Come on, let’s go.” “No.” “Do you even know how to say yes?” “No.”

3. We moved Dash to a big boy bed. Did I say that already? Bedtime was sucking it up big time (see number 2) and we thought a big boy bed would make it easier. It definitely has. I know it’s early, but he’s responding well to it.

4. Dash has a little girlfriend at the Little Gym. She’s adorable.

5. I have a series of cute pictures of Dash, involving drinking out of the bathtub faucet like a water fountain and wearing swim diapers over his pj bottoms. I’ll upload them tomorrow, I promise.

6. We made a lovely homemade mac and cheese last night.

Preheat oven to 350.
Boil a big bag of noodles.
In a skillet, melt half a stick of butter.
Add enough flour to make a thick sauce, about 4 heaping tablespoons.
Whisk until well combined and free of lumps.
Add 2 cups of milk.
Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer.
Add 3 cups of cheese. The stronger the better.
Stir until melted, add one good squirt of mustard and salt and pepper.
Mix with noodles, pour into a 9 x 13 baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

7. I think next time we make it I’m going to add rotelle.

8. I’m sick. With the second cold in two weeks. Blah. And I can’t use my sick leave because I need it for maternity leave.

9. My old company laid off it’s two secretaries yesterday. I’d be really nervous if I still worked there.

10. We’re going to Florida in two weeks! Yay! I hope it’s warm down there…

Pulling our donuts off the line…

Usually there’s a back up of 20 donuts or so, so they’re hot, but not flaming hot. Not this night. The place was packed so she actually had to wait for them to come off the line. I couldn’t pick them up when we first got them.

Donutty goodness. 8 glazed (heart-shaped, aw), two raspberry filled and two creme filled chocolate ones.

Dash enjoying himself. He had fallen asleep in the car about 10 minutes before we got there so he was a little out of it until he got his hands on one of those gems.

Happy Friday everyone!

Dashy with the coconut cake John made for us…

2. I have an appointment Friday and I’ll make my big ultrasound appointment then. I’ll keep you all updated! The suspense is killing me!!

3. Dash is seriously addicted to Finding Nemo. He calls it his “fishy tape”. I kid you not.

4. The girl scout cookie girl came by the other day. Her mom specifically calls us because we order so much. When I handed the little girl our order, her eyes literally bugged out. I heart girl scout cookies.

5. It’s cold here! Stop it! I want my warm weather! The day that picture was taken (Sunday) it was a beautiful 63 degrees. It’s getting down to 18 tonight.

6. Motherhood maternity has fantastical new maternity pants. I almost cried when I put them on. The old full belly pants drive me nuts with that waistband so high on my belly and the low cut ones cut my belly in half and look really lame. These have a thin “secret belly” that covers your entire belly but doesn’t bind you. I could kiss the guy who invented these (woman? maybe?)

7. There’s a woman on my birth board who has three daughters named Hawaiian names. I won’t post them but they are all different versions of something-iko. Very Hawaiian sounding. She posted that if she had another girl she would continue the trend, but if she had a boy she was going to name him George. I don’t know why that cracked me up, but it really, really did.

8. And speaking of names, I have no problem sharing ours or the sex or anything like that. However, we’re torn on names and I’m not going to post them until we decide since I don’t want to be influenced too much. The girl name I really like, John knows a girl named that who’s “effing crazy” according to him, and tells me everytime I say I like that name. He likes it too, he just knows another girl named that who’s nuts. So that might be a dealbreaker on that one. Boo.

9. We’re going to Florida soon and I can’t freaking wait. I want 80 degree weather!! Another 6 weeks or so before we go. I’m not looking forward to the 13 hour drive at 5 months pregnant though. With a toddler. Thank goodness for Nemo.

10. Dash loves talking on the phone. The person he talks to the most is Paw-paw. For a while he’d pick up the phone and say “O?… Paw-paw?”. Lately though, he’s become obsessed with saying “toys” and there are of course tons of toys at paw-paws house. So now he says “O?… Toys?”

Happy Tuesday!!

So other than the three peepees on the potty a couple of weeks ago, he’s all but forgotten the potty. OK by us. Whenever you’re ready, man. Night before last, he rips off his diaper and yells “Potty! Potty! Potty!” so we tear off for the nearest potty, I plop him on there, he looks down for a second, turns around and flushes, waves bye-bye to the water, and reaches for me to get him off. OK, false alarm. Fine. I go to get his diaper, and he pees all over the floor by the time I come back. Repeat this scene 3 times in about 2 hours.

So now, I think I’m a bit stuck. He obviously gets needing to pee means taking his diaper off and tearing for the bathroom. He’s not afraid of the flush and actually enjoys it. We’re just not quite connecting that you should pee ON the potty. Not around it. So what can I do? Tell him no, to keep his diaper on? That would take us back a notch. Are we just doomed to peepees on the floor until he makes the connection? Sigh.

So I think I’m going to get the “Potty Train Your Toddler in a Day” book, buy some training pants and give it a go this weekend. I think if I can get him to pee ON the potty one more time, I can give him a sticker or something and reward the crap out of him until he makes the connection. Peepee on the potty = best thing in the world (in the form of a sticker.) If he doesn’t go for it, we’re not out anything except a few puddles on the carpet. But if he DOES go for it…

First, some info on the pregnancy…

The biggest news is I’m trying for a VBAC this time. If you know anything about the state of Alabama, you know that’s really not a possibility here. At least not with my doctor. I think the VBAC rate at the hospital where I delivered Dash is 4.6%. Pitiful.

There’s a midwifery group in Nashville where we took our hypnobirthing classes last time. They’re super supportive and I feel very comfortable with them. They have a 85% success rate with VBACs so if everything goes ok we’ll have a pretty good shot at it. I won’t go into specifics of why we’re going this route here, I’m sure I’ll talk plenty more about it in the next several months. Plus, I get all fired up and wind up saying more than I should type in any single blog post.

Second, work stinks. I like my job but we’re under a ton of pressure to produce software we can sell and it’s making for a stressful work environment. I think our big push is in February so hopefully this will let up soon.

Third, Dash is doing awesome. We went to The Little Gym in Huntsville this weekend and had so much fun. They have classes every Saturday at 9:30 and we went to a free trial this weekend. They have organized activities and then free time to run around and check out all of the gym equipment. Dash had a blast. We did too. It makes me feel better for not having him in a structured daycare.

I think that’s all for now, I hope you all are doing well… I promise I’ll post again soon so it’s not weeks between blog posts.

We were watching a video and he started trying to undo his diaper and when I asked him what was wrong and if he had to go potty, he nodded yes. I set him down on the floor and he took off for the bathroom, I put him on the ducky kids’ toilet seat and he sat there and watched for 5 seconds or so and then freaking peed on the potty! Woo-hoo! I know we have a long way to go but at least he gets the concept!

He did it again later that night but didn’t make it to the potty… I don’t care, at least he gets it!

And I’m pregnant! 13 weeks tomorrow, due July 29th! That’s probably what you thought anyway when I said I had big news, right?

So one night I’m sitting on the floor with Dash and one goes RUNNING past me. Scared the bejeezus out of me. It ran under the stove and we couldn’t get it. So we contemplated getting a humane mouse trap for a while, the mouse stopped making noise and we kind of left it alone. UNTIL…

It got into our pantry. Every day, there was a little more stuff on the floor that it had chewed through. Cardboard, bird seed, chicken noodle soup, powedered sugar… Finally we bought a humane trap, tried for a few days with no results and decided to take drastic measures…

And empty the pantry. I can’t tell you the trepidation I had every time I pulled out the next box. I was waiting for a little mousy to be behind each one. When we got the pantry emptied and didn’t see a single mouse, I was really freaked out. Where were they? IN a box? Did it slip by us?

Well, thank goodness for cats. The other day, John found one that Black Baby had a little too much fun with, bless his heart. But TODAY… Orangey caught one and dropped it in the pantry and sat there with it cornered. John went and looked and saw there were TWO mousies. (Obviously, they’ve spawned.) He was able to catch them both in a cardboard box and let them go outside. John. My hero.

They’re still acting like there’re mousies in there (they seem to be running between under the stove and the pantry, probably looking for the chicken noodle soup box) but hopefully that was the last one. I’d be creeped out but they really are so stinking cute. Little gray field mouses. About the size of my thumb.

I’ll keep you guys posted. How many mousies are in my house??

We went to Nashville the weekend after our anniversary and had a great time! We ate at The Aquarium restaurant, horrendously expensive but good food and the giant aquarium in the center of the restaurant was HUGE entertainment for Dash. Very cool.

We also went to see “ICE”, a giant ice exhibit that we’ve been to a few times. Dash had a good time this time though, he had his little parka on and ran around the whole place.

John and Dash at the restaurant…

One of the ICE sculptures…

Dash in his baby sized parka…

Dash must have run through this tunnel 500 times…

Not too sure about the Grinch…

(Who is, really?)

Checking out the animals in the last scene, the nativity…

Right after this picture was taken, he ran over to me, threw his hands in the air and said “Cold. Cold.” Poor kid. It was freezing in there. Thank goodness a heated room and hot chocolate were waiting for us!

This is the last year for The Grinch, I’m not sure what the theme next year will be. It sure has been colorful the past few years though, I’m excited to see what they think of next!

So John became Santa last night, and I think he dug it more than he wants to admit…. He wore the wig just a wee bit too long…

We finally got this one…

After a lot that looked like this…

Doesn’t John make a good Santa? He’s not sure if that’s a compliment or not…

I hope you all have the wonderful Christmas you deserve.

I haven’t gotten a picture with Dash and Santa yet, I’ve been kind of scared to take him, honestly, but I think I’d regret not getting one. My solution? Buy John a Santa suit. So I’ll let you know how that goes over. Ha! We bought one last night at Target and he’s going to try it today…

I’m stuck working on Christmas Eve because we have Thursday and Friday off, which stinks, but we brought in chik-fil-a chicken biscuits and we’re having margaritas at work today. So it’s not all bad…

1.

The setup…

2.

The boys…

3.

The first sight…

4.

The Wedding Party…

5.

The cake… (pic via Candi)

6.

The Bryant-Denney cake… (also via Candi)

7.

The chocolate…

8.

The sign on the building across the street…

9.

The toast…

10.

The second before the reception…

Happy Anniversary to my dear, sweet, John. Here’s to 544,347 more years just like the last three…

2. I was so afraid Dash would stop making the face he’s making in picture number 3 at some point.

Here he is making it last year…

Sigh. Look at that cute sitting up goodness. And the ornaments on the LOW BRANCHES of the tree. Never again.

3. Speaking of tree, Dash is fascinated with our Christmas tree. I have a miniature one with Hallmark miniature ornaments on it that he loves to the extent that I think I’m going to have to hide it. He sees it and cries until I distract him with one of those dancing musical snowmen things from Hallmark.

4. Dash is learning new words every day, most recently - road runner, ladder, shut the door, sit, uh-oh and my favorite… No. He sings it almost. NooOOOOooo. It’s awesome. Except when he means it. And I guess he usually means it.

5. My super smart hubby was inducted into a national honor society. I’m so proud! He’s way smarter than me! It’s Phi Theta Kappa, the 2 year version of Phi Beta Kappa. They invite the top 10% from each university to join each year.

6. I had to google Phi Beta Kappa to make sure I didn’t have it confused with Phi Beta Sigma. That would rock if he was inducted into Phi Beta Sigma…

7. At the induction ceremony, we ran into a family who’s son was being inducted. He’s a dual enrolled high school student and happens to be majoring in computer science. When I told him where I worked, his mom asked if they hired interns there. I told him we do and gave him my bosses contact info. I’m pretty sure I made his day… It would have made mine 7 years ago…

8. The big auto bailout is scaring the bejeezus out of me. Since my Dad is retired UAW, his benefits would drop to nil if Chrysler filed for bankruptcy. Hopefully they’ll take the bailout! Candi, your Dad is a retired autoworker, too, right? Although it sounds like GM will definitely take it if it’s offered. Chrysler said they might be better off filing for bankruptcy and Ford said they might be able to get by without it.

9. I sent these to a friend of mine for her birthday…

Bangerang Bake Shop

She said they were great!

10. I’m knitting John something for Christmas and the yarn just came yesterday. I’m so excited! I hope it turns out well, and more importantly, that I get it done in time! It’s an easy stitch so I’m more worried about finishing it than anything. I’m a horrendously slow knitter!!

Maybe Baby posted this song this morning, I thought it was lovely and oh-so-true.

Usually we don’t put our Christmas tree up until Thanksgiving day, but last year when we were taking it down one of the legs snapped. John got it out the other day to fix it, and I told him to just bring it in and work on it since we’d be putting it up in a week anyway and it’s FREEZING in the garage. So he did, and Dash went crazy over it. He kept throwing his stuffed frog in the branches and waving and saying “night-night” and then he’d run to the other side and look through the branches.

Last night we turned it on for the first time and this little guy made it into the branches. Who knew a horse stuck in a Christmas tree could make me smile.

Happy Friday everyone!!

2. This weekend we went to North Huntsville on a Fall Color Train Ride. It was Dash’s first time on a train and he was great. He never got his train legs, so we carried him from car to car, but he had fun looking out the window…

3. We also went to Wheeler Wildlife Refuge, they have a little exhibit of all of the local animals in the refuge and Dash looked like this the whole time…

Running furiously from exhibit to exhibit.

4. Some more pics from Wheeler…

(Don’t ask me what he was doing here…)

5. I’m newly obsessed with two blogs.

Nie Nie Dialogues

This one is the blog of Stephanie Nielson. In August, her and her husband were in a plane crash, he escaped with burns over 35% of his body, and miraculously she lived as well but had burns over 85% of her body. While she is recovering, her fans are sending their favorite posts to her sisters and they’re reposting them. The love she has for her kids and husband is inspirational and I can’t hardly stop looking at it. I’m trying to catch up and so far I’m on February of 2006. She posts a lot.

She’s doing well and slowly recovering. The doctors told her family she was out of the woods and her sister went to visit her recently and she’s talking as well. It’s an amazing story.

6. The other one is Confessions of a Pioneer Woman…

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

It’s the day to day ongoings of a country girl turned city girl turned country girl. Her style of writing is hilarious and it’s a side of life I’m never ever exposed to. It’s another one I can’t really stop reading…

7. Happy Veteran’s Day! Especially to my hubby and my Dad. I appreciate everything you’ve done even though I can’t fathom everything that you’ve done.

8. I have 10 cavities. That’s not a typo. I changed dentists when my insurance changed and my new dentist showed them all to me. I can hardly believe they all popped up since the last time I had x-rays. I’ve had four on the top filled and two on the bottom, so I have 4 to go, two on the other top and two on the other bottom. I’ve always had cavity prone teeth and I’m a crappy flosser. I don’t know if the last guy was waiting until they were bad enough to justify a crown or what.

9. John has about 7 classes left. Yay! He’s taking three Spring semester. Hopefully he can finish up the other four over Summer and Fall.

10. It’s my parents anniversary today. 39 years ago, they decided to get married about 3 months before on Veteran’s Day. My Dad was in the military and he had three days leave for the holiday. Happy 39th anniversary!! It’s Rachel’s birthday too. Happy Birthday Rach!

Hopefully you all had a wonderful Halloween! We did, too. We went to Publix and to the mall here, each of the stores gives out candy and they have several games set up. Dash wasn’t particularly thrilled with his costume, so this is the best shot I got. He was so. stinking. cute. though. I have a series of photos of him ripping it off, I’ll put those in a slideshow and post them later this week!

2. Here is ze hubby and I at said reunion…

3. It’s frigid in Alabama. Got down to 29 yesterday. The older I get the less I like winter. Fall, yes. Winter no. I miss those breezy 70 degree days and I think they’re gone until Spring.

4. Our weight loss is going well. John has taken a smidge of a hiatus but is still keeping off a few of the pounds he lost. I’m down 49.7 since January and 15.8 since we started this diet together. Looks like we started 2 months ago, so it’s not record weight loss or anything but I’ll take it.

5. My dear best friend has moved back across state lines! Welcome home, Miss Roz. I got to hang out with her a bunch this weekend because of the reunion and Dash and I got to hang out with her dear little one Monday night. Such a sweet girl.

6. I have to say, while I was hanging out with the aforementioned sweet girl, I was reminded of life with a six month old. Stationary. Ahhhhhhh…. Back when “not for Dash…” wasn’t part of our everyday vocabulary.

7. Speaking of vocabularly, Dash is starting to talk up a storm. He’s learning new consonants and when he does, he learns several new words at once. So far the list is: Hat, Light, Log (thanks to geotrax logging building), Mamamamamama, Da, Coke (shame on me, I know. It’s diet usually, though.), bird, book, burp, poop, moon, duck, fish, sheep, pig (although neither of those really sound like that)… maybe more. Odd assortment, huh? He also has a few sounds that he makes in the back of his throat with his mouth closed, Choo-choo, vroom and Cuck-oo. I don’t know how he does it.

8. A very sweet little girl turned three yesterday…

9. Sarah turning three made me think how long I’ve been following Erin’s blog. Since she was about 8 months old, I guess. And then it made me wonder how long all of YOU have been following this one. Most of you have at least since I was pregnant in Sept. 06, and some of you a while before that. Long time, huh?

10. Sweet Lauren is getting very, very close to welcoming her own little bundle. I’m pretty sure she’s going to push me over the edge on the babyfeverness. Seeing how Dash was with Miss S. Monday made me realize that he would be great with another little one around. Plus, I think he’d dig seeing the old baby toys out again, we could hardly get him out of Miss S’s bouncer. Oh, if only I had my camera.

11. Before anyone gets any ideas… I’m seriously trying to lose some more weight before we TTC again. I’m about 20 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight and I’d really like to get back there again before we start on the journey all over again. I don’t know how much longer I can hold off with all these sweet babies around, though.

My boy.

Before he realized the water out there MOVED. Moving water is not cool.

We saw a lot of this this weekend…

One of like two shots I got of him sitting still…

Daddy and Dashy flying a kite.

The wedding was gorgeous and Dash was freakishly well-behaved. I think it was a mix of shyness and exhaustion.

Oh, and I almost forgot this one…

When he gets older, I’m in so. much. trouble.

This was us at Tate Farms almost exactly a year ago (from Friday, I think…) and there are pictures of us THIS year in the post below…

From several weeks ago at the BBQ festival…

One of Dash’s favorite games, stinks at bedtime. (That’s the crib he’s under…)

Our teeny tiny baby fish. Those pebbles in the bottom are the little marbley ones you buy for candles and stuff.

John’s been on a team building a rocket. They shot it off this weekend…

John’s team…

Dash and John in front of the giant tractor that Dash couldn’t get enough of. See his leg sticking out like he’s ready to take off? He was.

Me successfully teaching Dash to “cover your ears!” when the rockets went off. He really liked them; especially the parachute part.

After the rockets, we headed over to Tate Farms.

He was way too enthralled to look at me.

Dash in the corn bin, with about 100 other kids, half of which were WAY too old to be in there with little kids. He was timid at first…

But that quickly turned into this:

And eventually, this:

He had corn everywhere.

Sunday, we headed down to our friend Steve’s going away party. He’s a radio reporter and left NPR out of Birmingham for a position in LA. We’re going to miss him, but the LA gig is nationally syndicated so at least we can still hear him.

(Notice the curly hair. This is after I did all that stuff I was talking about a few posts ago. Not too bad, right?)

The Mr. and Mrs…

This is how much fun Dash has with trucks…

And coffee cups (empty, of course. I’m not crazy. At least not THAT crazy…)

My hair turned curly when I was 12, thanks to dear old dad and a few hormones it went from thick and straight to curly and unfortunately, frizzy. My dad didn’t know what to do with it since his is short, and neither did my mom since hers is fine and stick straight. We tried several things, from relaxer, to perms, to gels and sprays and they all looked like garbage. Finally, when I was 15 or so, Rachel from Friends came out with her layered look and suddenly the hair care market was flooded with products for layers - products that hold your hair without being stiff. Great for the layered look, and great for curls, too, it turned out.

Every once in a while I change up the product I’m using, either because they stop making it, or it stops working for my hair. I’ve been using the same gel and hairspray on my hair at least since college, so a good 6 or 7 years now. Here lately, my hair has turned into this frizzy, non-curl holding mop on my head. Bleh.

So I go looking around online, and came across this website (www.naturallycurly.com for those of you (anyone?) interested. (And this isn’t an advertisement for them, but if someone would have pointed me here like 10 years ago I would have been mucho thankful). The site is a spin off (and may be sponsered by, I’m not sure) of a book a stylist wrote (and I actually read several years ago) about a natural approach to taking care of curls.

Here’s the nutshell…

First, you cut out all the styling products that leave buildup on your hair, mostly silicones. (Dimethicone is in a ton of stuff. Anything ending in ‘cone is a silicone) Silicone is a smoother, and a shiner, so it’s usually in curly hair products. Then you use a clarifying shampoo to get rid of all the buildup. And then, here’s the real kicker, you stop shampooing your hair and start “shampooing” it with a natural conditioner. Crazy right? It gets better.

This site is acronym loaded. CK, KK, all kinds of stuff. No idea what it stands for. Turns out CK stands for Curl Keeper and it’s this lightweight water-soluble gel. All these girls swear by it and have much curlier hair than I do (mine’s apparently deemed 3A on their site, whatever that means. ) After reading a few other forums on there, come to find out that KY liquid does the same thing that curl keeper does. I kept thinking, ok, what does KY stand for? Surely it stands for something. Surely it’s not… KY jelly… right?

Turns out, it is. Only the liquid form. You know, I’ve put crazier things in my hair, so what the hell. Off to the drugstore I go.

So I’m in the drugstore with Dash, buying my clarifying shampoo (Suave clarifying, like 2.53 for a jug of it), deep conditioner to use right after the clarifying (bioinfusion something or another), conditioner to use in the place of shampoo (suave naturals, 2/3.00 and also a giant jug) and KY freaking liquid. With my baby. And hair products.

So I do all the stuff I’m supposed to (wash with clarifying, put the bioinfusion in for 3 minutes, rinse it out, rinse with cold water to close the hair folicle, put freaking KY mixed with Herbel Essences Tightly Wound in my hair and scrunch with a t-shirt, diffuse) and lo and behold, my hair looks better than it has in years.

(In small, sheepish voice) Thank you, KY.

So I look in the back seat one day while Dash was eating goldfish and he had stuck one between his toes. The following is a recreation of what happened next.

We went to Nashville this weekend to meet up with friends and while we had a great time hanging out with them, Dash was pretty stinking content with the bed in our room. He’s usually pretty content with everything these days, including throwing things. Thinks it’s hysterical. Thank goodness he’s not in daycare, I’m pretty sure he’d be “that kid” this week. At least he’s happy while he’s throwing his train at you…

We went to the zoo last weekend, Dash had a good time. He particularly liked the pig, anything fowl related and the tiger…

They have a baby giraffe there, very cute…

And just a few of my favorites lately…

Is this his heartbreaker look or what?

We’ve been asking Dash several times every day “Where’s your head?”… “Where’s your nose?”… and on and on. I asked him randomly where his teeth were, and this is him showing me.

So now that’s what I say when I’m taking his picture and want a little smile action…

(He’ll also do it if you ask him while his mouth is full of food. Too funny )

ETA: Looks like photobucket is under maintenance right now, hopefully it’ll be back up soon.

That’s my boy.

So a few weeks ago, I somehow misplaced my photo card and lost pictures from the end of May to the beginning of August. At first I was convinced it must be somewhere in the house, I think I probably took it out of the camera and put it into the computer, and then took it out of the computer and set it somewhere. Now, after seeing Dash throw away our kitchenaid mixer beater attachment, I’m not so sure. I’m not saying he did it or anything, I’m just saying.

So bummed about that, but I had a lot of the good pictures saved off somewhere so not tragic. It drove me nuts for a little while though.

My sony laptop is great but has always been a little nutty. I’m not sure how much of it is Vista (ok, hang on while I stop laughing) and how much of it is the computer. Last night, the battery was low, I turned put my camera card in it and turned it on, not realizing the battery was low. Wiped my camera card clean. Grr. After much googling on “recover SD card” I found several nifty little programs. Two were free, one was 40 bucks but let you run a free trial to see what you could recover. The two free ones didn’t recover anything, but the 40 dollar one found all of my pictures! Hooray! So I bought it. So if anyone needs anything like that, leave me a message and I’ll tell you where I got it. (or just send me your camera card and I’ll fix yours, too, which is why I’m not posting the software name here… ) It found EVERY deleted file on my card, even ones I intentionally deleted. But it recovered my whacked files, too.

John and I are looking into a business venture, I’m not ready to post it on the wonderful world wide web yet, but keep us in your thoughts if you don’t mind. Good oppurtunity and maybe a road out of softwareness in the future. I’ll post details as soon as we know what the hell we’re doing.

2. My 401K isn’t coming out of my check yet, you have to be here 3 months to be able to do it, and while I’m enjoying the extra money I’m dreading when I have to say goodbye to it. They don’t match here yet since they’re a new company and I’m going to try to make up for it by putting 10% (GASP!) of my check into it. Before I put 5% in, Bentley matched the first 2% by 100% and the next 3% by 50%. So I was getting like 8% or something.

3. John and I started a diet. Together. Has John ever been on a diet? No. He’s doing so well though! He usually has this technique of eating less and exercising more, which is GREAT, but we don’t do it. So we started the South Beach Diet a week ago. It’s very similar to what I was already doing, a little more veggies, a lot less fat, and so far, we’re both holding strong. I’ve lost 6 pounds this week and John’s lost 4. Yay for us!

4. The past week’s weight loss puts me at 40 pounds lost since January. I can’t tell you how much better I feel. A little more like myself.

5. Dash is teething like a maniac. I think they’ve finally all broken through now.

6. Dash has also been sick for the past 10 days. Fussy, clingy, snotty. Just a mess. He’s finally getting back to his normal sweet, independant self. I missed my baby!

7. He’s started stomping his feet when he’s upset. So. Freaking. Cute. Hard not to laugh. I asked him if he was hungry while I was cooking him some dinner and he came over, looked up at me and started crying and started stomping his feet. Ha!

8. We went to Cathedral Caverns this past weekend. Nifty. On the way in, you go like 100 ft, stop, listen to the tour guide, start moving again. On the way OUT, the tour guide says “ok, head out of the cave and I’ll follow you…” We must have been 2 miles in. Dash was in his fussy stage and had cried several times on the way in. What’s worse than a crying baby? A crying baby in an echoing cave. So I was booking it on the way out. I’ve never walked so far up so many hills pushing a 25 pound baby in my life. Holy Moly.

9. College football starts tonight! Hooray!

10. The Tennessee Valley Vipers won the Arena 2 Football championship. They were runners up their first year, fairly successful for a few years but a TON of fun to watch, and then the owner got fed up with the Arena 2 organization and moved them to the Universal Football Association (or something like that) and all but squelched the team. Several good players left, and they had a horrible, horrible season. They rejoined AF2 and were able to turn it around over the past few years. I’m so glad for them, and can’t wait to go to a game next year. It’s always fun when a bunch of people are there and there will be more people with a winning season. If you’re in the Huntsville area, check them out. 12 dollar tickets, kid-oriented promotions and beer. It’s hard to beat that. And they seriously are fun. If the ref makes a bad call the commentator goes “Need your eyes checked?… Check out Sears Optical…” and turns it into a commercial.

First, Chattanooga…

Dash’s favorite part of the hotel stay

We went to the Chattanooga Aquarium, I thought Dash would have a good time because he LOVES fish and I was right, he had a blast.

Jellyfish

Eel…. ewww….

Butterfly garden…

The otters. Easily my favorite part

After we left Chattanooga, we drove to Gatlinburg (during Dash’s naptime and with a little help from the Backyardigans when he woke up. I owe the Backyardigans a LOT.)

We just enjoyed the sights and stayed at a great hotel, I had no idea since I found it online and just went on user reviews but it turned out to be great. Saturday morning we trekked up to see Laural Falls, about a 2.6 mile roundtrip hike for some pretty spectacular falls. John carried Dash in the Beco up and back, no falling babies here….

And just a random shot. Dash having a fantastic time in a bag. I just looked over and he had put this on his head.

And me scarring Dash for life.

Hope you all have a good Monday, we’re doing great except Dash is having a hard time with teething. We went to the doctor for his 15 month checkup and he had 2 molars poking through that we didn’t know about, and a front tooth coming (it’s since broken through). His nose has been running like crazy and he’s been super tired all week, I’m not sure if it’s teething or a little cold. I think his eye teeth might be coming in (canines? I’ve heard them called both) and I’ve heard those are the worst.

John and I started a diet together, we’re doing really well so far, 4 pounds for me since Thursday and 3.5 for John. We both have about 30 to go… I’ll keep you posted!

It’s Manny’s crate, actually, but you’d think it was Dash’s. We decided to try and bring Manny in so we’re crate training him, and Dash is nuts about the crate when Manny’s not in it. Still not too nuts about Manny though…

This is just a test of Flickr’s blogging capabilities… Sorry it’s not the best picture! I just googled “blog flickr wordpress” (since I have a wordpress blog) and found the instructions. Now I can just upload a picture, click “blog this” above it and it lets me fill out the post and title. I’m not sure if I can do multiple pictures at a time, but maybe you’ll get some more pictures out of me this way!

So this new job is great. The people are really fun and laid back and the company owners are super-excited about what’s going on here. They started out developing beta software for potential customers so for a few years they didn’t turn any kind of a profit, and now that the product is out of the beta stage (which just means the development and prototyping stage) it’s really taking off. The CEO bought us all new monitors yesterday, we were on archaic 15 inch monsters, and he was so, so excited. It’s a great work environment. If I’m ever here when no one else is I’ll take pictures too, it’s open and airy and windows everywhere.

So I’m doing really well. Much happier. I changing jobs was definitely the right thing to do and I was a little iffy while I was quitting Bentley so I’m glad to have a little piece of mind now…

Some pictures of the Dashman…

And first, I guess, an update on him… He’s doing great, picking up new words quickly now. So far his list is Hi, Bye, Duck, Daddy, Hat, and last night he added Night-Night. He’s said Light and Ball a few random times but not all the time. The others he says all the time. He waves at everything he sees and he’s really walking well now.

The creek we’ve been going to. Did I post these?

Dash having fun with John…

Dash on the fourth of July… he’s obsessed with shoes, particularly my Dad’s shoes. He’ll point and fuss if you don’t let him walk in them.

I think I’ve heard that flickr has a blogging tool, where you can post a picture and write a name and description and it will blog it for you. I’m not sure how that works but I think I might check it out…

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/videos.shtml?fbid=BUcpnM

That’s a HD version. If you’re on a slow network or can’t see it, here’s the youtube version, not nearly as high quality but still worth it.

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/index.shtml?fbid=BUcpnM

And you can go to that site or http://www.wherethehellismatt.com and check out his outtakes, too.

My big news is I’m stepping down from Bentley July 11 and starting a new position with 3-GIS in Decatur July 14th. I had to wait until this afternoon so I could tell my boss first. And I technically haven’t told him yet. I’m nervous! I’m going to send him my letter as soon as I hit send though, and them I’m leaving so I don’t have to talk to him. How mature am I? I thought so.

Anyway, they FINALLY called me over there, offered me more than I asked for and they do four days a week for 9 hours a day and then work four hours from home on Fridays and take the rest of Friday off. So what I save in commute I could use towards the 9 hours and not be away from home any more, plus get to stay in my jammies on Fridays. And it will cut my commute down from 300 miles a week to 40. With gas the way it is, that’s like 3800 bucks right there. I just can’t turn it down.

So I’m excited and anxious and all of the other things that come with leaving the comfort of something old for the unknown of something new. I think it’s a good move for us though, and for my sanity. I haven’t been happy here for a while and I think I’m really going to like what I’m doing over there.

Here’s some pics…

Kelley’s little boy is Carl, his birthday is May 31st so he’s a few weeks younger than Dash. We met another one of our friends online, Jenn and her little girl Ava. Ava is the sweetest little girl, super affectionate and doesn’t know a stranger. We also caught up with Roz, Miss S and KJ, which was AWESOME, but I don’t have a picture. Can you believe that? What was I thinking? We’ll have to go down there again soon then so I can get one.

Dash and Carl on the beach.  They were kind of hit or miss on sharing, mostly because Dash has never had to share before…

Both kids were exhausted but fighting sleep, so Kelley took Carl for a ride on her back in her beco which worked like a charm, and then took Dash for a ride and didn’t quite work as well… )  But it got him to the point where he could go to sleep with a little patting so we laid them next too each other.

Cutie-pie Carl. 

Kelley, Carl and Ava at the cafe where we met Jenn

Ava loving it up on Carl

Dash was a little more skeptical

Cutie-pie Carl, again. 

2. Dash is officially walking. He would take 5 steps or so maybe once every three days but this weekend I started holding one hand and getting him to walk with me (so cute) and now he’s walking 5 or 6 steps together several times a day. If he’s standing and wants something that’s close he’ll walk to it instead of crawl.

3. I’m going to meet my internet buddy this weekend and hopefully catch up with Roz, too. Yay!! Panama City, here we come!

4. In our work weight loss challenge, I’m in second place overall for most pounds lost and second place overall for highest percentage of weight lost. It ends at the end of this month so I’m trying to edge out the number one’s in both of those categories. So far I’ve lost 29 lbs and 11.8% body weight since January. I still feel like a big roly poly, maybe just not AS big.

5. All of my chatting buddies are on vacation this week, Kelly, my internet friend is in Panama City without internet connection and Debbi, the girl I work with is in Wyoming running a race in the mountains. Big Horn, I think. Amy, you might have heard of it… Anyway, I’m lonesome and work is going really slow.

6. I started knitting a blanket the other day, what a nutjob. Any idea how long it takes to KNIT a blanket? Crochet is a whole other story. But knitting takes a LONG time. It’s cute though, and I like it, so it’s not so bad.

7. We’ve been car shopping lately. We figure if we buy a car for 8000 or so the car payment will offset the gas savings we’d get so we’d be no worse off money-wise and John could have the durango for driving around town instead of the obnoxious 2 door neon. We’re having a hard time finding a decent fuel efficient used car for under 8000. EVERYONE seems to have had the same idea we had. We found a 2002 Honda Civic with 89K miles on it for 14,000. A new one is only 23,000. Talk about some return on your car. Nissan’s and Toyota’s are about the same. You can get an SUV right now for REALLY cheap though.

OK, I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. I’m struggling for the next three. I hope you all have a great day and I’ll try to get a video of the Dashman walking…

We get grins and smiles from Dash a lot but the full-on having a blast smiles are a little harder to come by. Dash was cheesing it up at the park though. He met a few little girls, too, and had fun standing there staring at them. He’s so big he looks like he should be running around like crazy, most of the little kids there were running around like mad but I’m sure they were closer to two although Dash was quite a bit bigger. Hopefully in a few months he’ll be running around, too…

And a not so sucky picture with my new lens. FINALLY a clear shot. Jeez.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!

Anyway, here’s some shots I took this weekend…

My favorite of all, it kills me that Dash is a wee bit blurry in this one, you can’t tell so much when it’s small but when it’s big you can. I still love it though.

Dash enjoying bath time…

And finally a better shot of what I can only say is our dog.

I need to figure out photoshop since my photoshopping skills are seriously lacking. I have a book though, and I meant to read it this weekend, but you know how that goes. Soon, though, maybe.

Happy Monday, everyone, if you can call it that….

In no order of importance…

1. Open a savings account for Dash (I just did this one today. )
2. Expand my retirement portfolio to include more than just my 401K
3. Knit a sweater
4. Go to Hawaii
5. Have another baby
6. Be happier with my job or find another job altogether
7. Improve my photography skills
8. Actually sell something on Etsy
9. Scrapbook Dash’s first year (ha.)
10. Learn to cook the spicy beef dish from Surin (Thai) that I like so much
11. Learn enough Spanish to be able to talk to some of the hispanics that live here
12. Go to Houston
13. Lose 50 pounds
14. Finish John’s Christmas stocking that I started last December.

OK, I’ll be back for the rest. I want to make them good instead of just random things that I try to think up. Although they’re all pretty random…

So Friday, John’s coming to have lunch with me and when he goes to leave there’s this young, collarless, black lab by the neon. Very interested in John and Dash. John goes and gets him some water, starts driving over, texts me and tells me what happened and sends me this picture.

How many of you just said “Aw…”? I know, he’s cute. So I tell John to go back and see if he’s still there and if he is, to put him in the backyard and we’ll try to find his owners. I’d feel horrible if something happened to him.

So he goes back, sure enough the dog’s still there. We have a big power box behind our house right by our fence, so he sends me this picture.

I know. So that’s how Mannie / That Dog / Buddy came to live with us. Still no word in the paper, we have signs up, no word from anywhere. I can’t believe someone would just misplace a gorgeous lab puppy and not come looking for him, when we lost John’s dog we flipped out, roamed the neighborhoods, talked to people, ran an ad in the paper for 4 weeks. If he’s still ours by this coming Monday, we’re just assuming he’s ours.

A friend recommended reading puppies for dummies, and I like the idea of taking him to Petco to a puppy seminar.

Oh and Dash doesn’t like him. He likes the thought of him. He likes to watch him from inside. Mannie is too jumpy for him though, as soon as he jumps up anywhere near him Dash flips out and the only solution is to take him far away from the dog. I’m sure when the puppy stops being a puppy, Dash will love him, we went to a picnic and there was a dog there and Dash was nuts about him.

So I’ll keep you all posted. Really, he’s a nice dog. A little mischievous but just a puppy. He’s nuts about John and John’s nuts about him and he’s growing on me too. Its funny that Lucy just dropped a notch from the most high maintenance pet to the second most.

2. Ironman is next on my movie list.

3. Followed by the Zohan movie with Adam Sandler. )

4. It’s POURING down here. It’s been raining since 5 last night. Gloomy but much needed.

5. Did I post about the dog? I think I did. Hm. He showed up on our doorstep Friday afternoon, sweet little black lab puppy. No one’s claimed him so he’s ours for the moment. Two cats, a bird, several fish, a toddler and a very excited black lab puppy.

6. Puppy casualties thus far - beach ball, plastic ball (the big swirly ones you get at Walmart) planter box of mums, green frog baby swimming pool (sorry, Dash) and big blue swimming pool (he bit the inflatable ring. John was able to patch it though.) I’m sure there’s many more to come.

7. May has a TON of stuff going on. Roz’s birthday, Erin’s birthday, Patrice’s birthday, Dash’s birthday, Mother’s Day, on and on.

8. I finished my first pair of socks. Yay! They’re for Dash, but still. They’re actually the same SIZE. ) I’ll post pics one day…

9. I ordered a new camera lens, a 50mm f1.8. The f1.4 was almos three times as much and a lot of buyers of the f1.4 recommended the f1.8. So we’ll see how it goes. I think it was 125 with free shipping at best buy. The f1.4 was 329.

10. Has anyone checked out the “Pounce” option on etsy? SO my favorite bored-out-of-my-mind thing to do. Go to “Buy” and like the third option down is pounce. You can set it for either recently sold or undiscovered, and each time you click it it will show you the three most recent sold items on etsy. So you can see what everyone else is buying and check out the other stuff from that store. Nifty little tool.

I could go on about other randomness but I’ll leave it at 10 for now. Happy Tuesday, everyone, hope you all had a great Memorial Day…

And ignore my chubbiness and schleppiness in this one…

He loves that slide. So cute. )