Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial day weekend we went to visit with my family and to spend time with Katelyn and Kimberly before they left on Monday to move to New Mexico. Besides Isaac's massive headache, we had a pretty good time. We got there on Saturday night and went to our family's favorite Mexican restaurant, El Ranchero. Sunday we had a barbecue and took some family pictures. We used Kara's fancy new camera and got some great shots. We had so much fun hanging out with everyone!



On Monday we had dinner with Isaac's family and had some very good hamburgers and hot dogs. I love watching my nephews dance around the house. They all get down! My favorite is when Cole shakes it (you can see him doing that below, he's the one with the headband around his forehead). I was going to post a super cute video but wasn't sure how Annie, my sister-in-law, would feel about me posting a video with one of her kids running around in his underwear!


Cameron has become quite the helper. He's so sweet with Dylan.

Dylan loves his Papa Ashment!

Isaac knows how to rock out!

Train conductor photo shoot

Here are some pictures of Dylan in the outfit that he was supposed to wear (minus the train shoes) for his birthday party. I was surprised that he actually kept the hat on his head for longer than 5 seconds!

Hmmm... He's being awfully quiet in there!

Through out the many different stages in Dylan's life, I've always been able to put him in something (i.e. swing, bouncer, exersaucer, jumperoo, pack-n-play) so that I could take a quick shower. But, unfortunately for me, he's outgrown all of these things. Now, I have to shut the door and leave him in his baby safe room. When I got out of the shower I noticed that I didn't hear him playing with any of his toys. When I opened the door I found him like this. I had filled a storage container with his outgrown clothes and he was sitting inside it! Notice the green toothbrush in his hand that he carries around with him whenever he gets the chance! He had it in his hand when I left him, and still had it when I came back! How funny!

No Mom! Let me do it!

For so long I have tried to prevent Dylan from feeding himself. It's a good thing to learn how to feed yourself but I have tried to not allow it because it is SO messy and wasteful! The other night he would not have it any longer. He took my spoon and cried every time I tried to steal it back. So I let in and gave him the spoon. I grabbed another spoon so that he could hold one and so that I could still feed him as well. Then he took that one too! Oh dear! I'll be so glad when he gets this all figured out !

Children's Mueseum of Atlanta, more cake, and his Dr. Appointment

Last week Kara and I took the kids to the Children's Museum of Atlanta. Sadly, Dylan never took a nap before we got there and only played for a little while before he fell asleep there. What a bummer! At least I got to take some pictures before he crashed!






Since Dylan did not get to enjoy his cake because of his swollen lip at his birthday party, I decided to make him another cake. He seemed to like it but I was surprised that he didn't completely devour it. He took a few bites and them mostly played with it. I was happy to take these cute pictures of him.

Today I took Dylan for his 1 year check up. He measured large around the board as normal. But the main issue of concern was that Dylan is somewhat unresponsive to speech (I am pretty sure that he still does not recognize his name when I call it). The doctor seemed a little concerned about it and is referring me to take him to get his hearing tested. I honestly don't think that he has a hearing problem, I think that he may have an issue processing the information that is given to him. I guess the goal is to first test his hearing and rule that out before they work on speech or whatever else may lay in the future. We'll see what happens and I'll keep you posted.

Dylan's train birthday party

On Saturday evening we celebrated Dylan's 1st birthday. We had his party at the park. I wanted the party to be perfect. But, despite my best efforts, I ran behind on time and didn't deck out the cake as much as I had wanted and ended up late to the party! Oh dear! But despite those setbacks I still think it went pretty well.

The theme for the party was trains. I was so mad at myself because I left his train conductor hat (not that he would keep it on his head anyways) and shoes at home, but at least we still had him in his overalls and bandanna. We had fruit salad, potato salad, ham and turkey subs, and my fruit punch that became quite infamous because at first nobody was drinking it until I got on to everyone about not drinking my special birthday punch. Let's just say that after that I never heard the end of it! To top the party off, we had a 3d train cake. A big thanks to coolest-birthday-cakes.com for all of the great ideas! It was a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I decided to make the cake and frosting from scratch. Yes, it's more work, but for whatever reason, in the back of my mind it made me happy to know that I put the extra effort in to it. If only I had more time to decorate it like I had thought up in my head. Oh well, I guess I need to let it go!

Anyhow, we all had a lot of fun except for Dylan. The poor thing's lip decided to swell up twice its normal size. I am still puzzled what caused it, but am guessing that it may be a food allergy. After only eating a few bites of his cake he wouldn't stop fussing and had to call it quits. But, thanks to his Aunt Kimberly for running to get some children's Benadryl, he was good to go to open his presents later on that night. We had so much fun and appreciated our family's help and support. Thanks!
Here is Dylan showing off his new walking skills to the family.


My 3d train cake.


Wow! Look at all of the presents!

Dylan is ready to dig in!



First you have to sing happy birthday!


Then, you have to blow out the candle and make a wish.

Now you can dig in!


I think Dylan liked the cake!


But only for a little while because his swollen lip was really bothering him!


Dylan feels good enough to open his presents!


He loved ALL of his cool toys! But was very excited over his ride-on train toy that his Mommy and Daddy got him!


Here he is with his train toy and if you look closely, you can see how swollen his lip was!

Most of the pictures seen were provided by Kara Opp with her new fancy camera. Thanks for the great shots!

Baby birds

Our neighbor had a bird build a nest on the wreath that was hanging on her door. Look at the four baby birds! Too bad someone moved the nest. I hope that the baby birds will be okay and that the momma bird is still taking care of them!

A look into Dylan's first year

With Dylan's birthday on Friday, I decided to make a slide show so that you can see in pictures Dylan grow from a newborn into my soon to be one year old. I can't get it to stop zooming in on the pictures, so if you'd like to look at the version without that click here (make sure to turn the effects off, it is on the left hand side below the pictures).

My Public Shoebox

My little boy is all grown up

When Dylan turned 11 months I was a little stressed out about him not reaching certain milestones that I thought would be reached by the time he turned one. He still is a milk snob (only takes his milk warm and in a bottle), but I am beginning to realize that drinking his milk from his sippy cup may be something that just won't happen when he turns one. He knows how to do it he just won't! But I've decided that I am not going to force it. I'll just keep offering him it and be patient with him. I figure why push the matter if he isn't ready for that yet. He hasn't ever been big on taking pacifiers, and if a 3+ year old kid in a store can take one, I see no problem in allowing him to fulfill that need to suck on his bottle for a little bit longer. I won't put it off for forever, but I am not going to stress out about it anymore.

I also would have liked his first word to have been something like Mama, I would have even settled for Dada. To tell you the truth I question myself what his real first word is. He used to wave and say "bah-bah" (bye-bye) and I was quite certain that it was his first word. But then one day he mysteriously stopped. Then he began a new word which is vroom. It's cute because he'll say it while he's pushing his trucks around the floor. He also started to say on when the light switch would get turned on. That's all that he has said so far. I am so puzzled because I can't be certain if bah-bah was just a babble or a word with meaning to it. Oh well, I guess I won't hear him say Mama before he turns one either.

But, on Thursday he totally surprised me and started WALKING! I had given up on that idea as well. It's crazy because as each day goes by he gets better and better at it. It's so fun to watch! It has dawned on me how much he really has grown up in the past few weeks. It is incredible! I can't believe my baby is about to be a toddler! I am so lucky to be his Mom and it is such a pleasure to see him grow and learn and experience new things.

Here's a video of Dylan walking!

I've also included a few photos that are recent:

This is Dylan's stache. When I was feeding him he got his food in a cute mustache.

Another new thing that Dylan is doing is trying to use keys to open the door. He gets on his tip toes, and then puts the key of his choice up the door knob. I am always impressed on how smart and observant he is.

We went to the Cheesecake Factory on Friday and there was a little girl across from our table that was celebrating her 1st birthday with her family. The waiters brought out some pudding with whipped cream and sprinkles and sang to her. One of the waitress' told me that if he liked older women she just turned one. I told her how funny that was because Dylan's birthday was a week away. To our surprise, when they brought out our cheesecake they sang and brought Dylan a birthday treat. They said they wanted to sing to him in case we weren't able to come back in a week. We thought that was so nice, and Dylan loved it! Especially the dessert!

Yummy! His face says it all!