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!