Now that is crawling...down to a science!

I just have to share this and I sure hope to get it on video some time soon, as it is probably funnier in person.



Just the other day, while our dude was crawling I assume he wanted to get going faster, and as he was crawling he ducked his head down really low and has he did that...he crawled faster.



Now, is that because the true science of crawling that with your head held high you don't crawl as fast. And in fact, if you put your head down lower, you get going faster..???



Who knows, but it is pretty darn cute. It's like he is at a steady pace and all of the sudden his head drops and he is going twice as fast. Pretty amusing and entertaining to say the least. I think he looks like a hedgehog!



Just thought I would blog about that funny moment with our little dude. (And it seems to not be just that one time as he does it all the time now...of course when he is on a mission)

My Little Helper!

As my baby is becoming more and more mobile and into everything, he is starting to have less patience for his toys that only grab his attention for about 10 minutes and he is on to the next exciting thing (most of the time not a toy).

Lately for some reason, he is absolutely infatuated with the microwave! Why? We have no idea. I do know that it was at one point a game for him and dad to play with and look at all the buttons that make noise. As well as open and close the door. (Our microwave has a handle so he is able to open and close it himself) Anytime he cries due to a bumped head, or is upset about something, if he sees that microwave he is all of the sudden a happy camper, pointing and saying "da" "da". Finally tonight we figured out maybe he is trying to say "that" but is saying "da". No matter how many times we tell him microwave he says "da".

The microwave is not the only appliance he has obsession with...he also can book it to the refrigerator anytime he sees it open. He loves to bang on the shelves and pull things out of the door. Needless to say we do not let him play in there as much any more, since he is much more coordinated now and can reach more shelves (plus that involves glass objects...not so safe).

Last but no least, he loves the dryer! Until he figured out how to open and close the door, he would bang on it like the beat of a drum. Now, he practically crawls in there to pull clothes out. And of course, opens and closes the door. He loves to talk into the dryer when there is nothing in there, as it echoes and is hollow sounding. It is hilarious.

Needless to say, he loves the dirty/clean clothes hamper. He will pull pieces out one by one as if he knows what he is looking for...and sometimes even goes for a ride in the hamper and holds on tight. Always a big smile on that rendezvous.

Hopefully, the helpfulness won't wear off and he will love to help with his laundry as he gets older...fingers crossed at least!

A frightening discovery...a Recall!

I have to say that when you hear about recalls in the media on children's toys, car seats or even food for that matter...you always say, that could never happen to me.



Well, that small thought in my head, sure did come to a reality a week ago. I just happened to be looking on http://www.babycenter.com/, from an email they had sent me about development and in that email was a tab about a car seat that had been recalled. Well, since we had just purchased a new car seat for our lil one...I decided I would take a look. Of course, it was NOT the car seat we had just purchased. But I saw that you could search other recalls...so I thought I would take a look. By fluke, I looked under Breastfeeding, in my head thinking what could be recalled on a topic such as breastfeeding. Well low and behold that is where all the furniture was categorized.



I knew a few months back the furniture manufacturer that we had bought Dylan's furniture from had a recall on springs...but nothing to the magnitude that I saw. I was in absolute shock. Double checking the recall that was right before my eyes. Sure enough, every piece of furniture that Munire made for Newport Rubbed Black had been recalled, and had been since December.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09075.html

How could I not know about this?


Well, ultimately Munire is replacing or sending us a voucher to replace piece by piece the furniture we have in a different color/style. The red paint that is underneath the black paint had substantial amounts of lead in it, and has had one confirmed case of Lead Poisoning. I couldn't believe it! Dylan had been cribbing, and how did I not know about this before now.



With all the chaos of going on vacation we got Dylan in to do some blood work to test for lead, and we arranged for our coupon to arrive prior to us getting home from our trip.



Babies 1st furniture has been tremendous in helping us out with this issue. Of course the color we want is now on back order until mid-May. Thanks to Babies 1st they are supplying us with a loaner crib, as our lil guy is not sleeping well in his pack n play, until we receive our new furniture.



Hopefully all of this nonsense will be over and done with in no time. But all I can say is "sign up for the recall notifications" at: http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCList.aspx it is well worth it.


And yes, more importantly...the test results came back and they were negative! Thank goodness! I don't think he had "cribbed" enough to penetrate the paint that has the lead in it anyway.


But until May, hopefully sooner rather than later, his room will be a bit of a mess. But what are you going to do? Sign up, that is for sure!

Dylan's 1st St. Patrick's Day

While vacationing in Tahoe, we had yet another 1st holiday for Dylan...that of the lucky charm, green clover, beer drinking holiday, better known as St. Patrick's Day!

We didn't do much until the last half of the day. We let the dude hang out and enjoy himself. He loved his new ride on...that he managed to figure out pretty quickly how to get on and off and push himself right along.

That did however, leave us some time to hit up the casinos and grab a few drinks to celebrate the happy go lucky green day! We missed out on some mountain adventures for the special day (up at Squaw Valley they had green snow, and it is known to be that a man in a kilt ski's at Heavenly) but we opted for the more chilled, lazy celebration.

Mike was adamant that he have a Cabo Wabo Margarita at the Cabo Wabo bar. So after a drink at the bar in Harrah's, which didn't have Guinness on tap what's up with that, we bet a few buckies and ended up down at the Tahoe Wabo Bar having a few margaritas! Or shall I say we each split one, they were so gosh darn big.

We ended the night hanging out at the Cronan's in The Keys. With the usual Irish dinner, Corned Beef and Cabbage. And a little game Mr. Cronan likes to call Midnight! Oh my, I didn't know how addicting this game could be. As I try to put the little dude down for bed, I hear everyone down stairs yelling and banging a cup on the table. What could all the ruckus be about...well...we would soon find out. We got suckered into many rounds of Midnight (24) and finally had to call it a night. Some in the group just had all the luck! I bet they didn't have the leprechan playing any tricks on them! hahahaha!

This is Cody showing off real "beer goggles". We sure did have fun, but I am slowly finding out that I can't hang anymore...I haven't even hit the big 30...yet! I'm chalking it up to the little one that likes to get up early = no sleeping in after a long night! Either way it was a fun, happy go lucky green day. Cheers!

March Madness 09 (Dylan's 1st )

As always March Madness for us is normally the first week in March (normally celebrating my birthday) vacationing in Lake Tahoe. This year was our 6th annual trip and it was extended a week and what a difference a week made in the snow! Prior to us arriving they had received up to 6ft of snow...well by the time we got there, we were welcomed with warm days much like that of Spring skiing. By the last day, we were scrounging for snow on a hill to take Dylan sledding.

This go around we took our fun loving and entertaining friends Katie and Mike! Dylan was originally going to have a friend join him however Braden (Katie & Mike's lil one) had to stay home due to a everlasting ear infection. I don't know how Katie did it, but she was a trooper! A little tid bit on these two crazy kids, words cannot even explain what a hoot they are, definitely never a dull moment. We definitely had a good time and good laughs were had by all!

The first full day we had to spend, it was very cold and windy. Dylan was not a happy camper...he toughed it out, but was unsure of the bitter cold freezing air he was in while wearing an uncomfortable bulky jacket.

We ended up skiing our first day at Heavenly. Cody and I skied the top half of the mountain getting our feet wet (since it had been two years) and meeting up with Katie and Mike from their not so friendly ski instructor. So for the rest of the day, they said bon voyage to him and we skied the rest of the afternoon introducing Mike to the chair lift and green runs. Not bad for the first time around.

We did get to ski two more days at a local mountain, Sierra. We had never been there before and it is fantastic for beginners. I don't know why we hadn't ventured out there before for all of our beginners that have trailed along with us (sorry Russell, Kristen, Andy and Shawn). For now on, that will be the first days outing...as it is an easy mountain with wide trails to get comfortable with before heading on intermediate runs.

We had a breather the last day and took Dylan sledding on this hill that this man let us play in on the backside of his property. (It sure was a task trying to find a spot to sled with all the snow melting).

Dylan had a blast! We bundled him up in his snow suit and strapped him in the red sled, and off he went. I didn't even realize that he was going down the hill all by himself from Papa John to Daddy, until I looked outside my viewfinder of the camcorder!!! Needless to say the dude had a huge smile on his face. He loved it, he even didn't mind playing with the snow.

All in all the trip was great. We are all a bit exhausted and sad we had to come home back to reality, but that is what vacations are all about, right? Until next year...we will keep these memories in our hearts oh and these insiders too: twitter berry, spacebook, dumb it down, Midnight, Red Vines, pump...what pump?

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go...

We finally got things together and were ready for a week vacation in South Lake Tahoe. It's hard to believe that the time has come. Seems like we have been waiting for this trip for two years! (Probably because we missed out on skiing last year, well because, I was prego).

It's also hard to believe that this will be Dylan's second trip to Lake Tahoe...as we visited there for a week last July when he was only 3 months old!

We like to say he is an expert at flying now...we have truly been lucky. He has been a super star on the plane. You get that gleaming look from everyone on the plane, like "oh no...I hope they aren't sitting next to us". But the best and most rewarding part is when at the end of the flight someone in front of or behind you stands up and says "I forgot he was on the plane, he was so quiet!". He truly is a good baby and either sits and plays or lays down on our lap and falls asleep.

This plane trip was a little bit more trying as we had a delay on our 2nd leg of our trip in Phoenix. We sat on the hot airplane, for almost 2 hours. That sure can be trying when you have an 11 month old that is ready to crawl everywhere and doesn't want to sit still. Thanks to the flight attendant for letting us stand back in her galley!

Either way, we couldn't wait and are excited to have a week vacation enjoying the bluebird skies of Lake Tahoe!

11 Months and growing...

As our little one turns 11 months old, I sit and look back and try to figure out where the time has gone. It seems like some of it (the first 3 months) is but a distant blur and memory, while everything in between has been filled with firsts, joyous moments, belly aching laughs, wonderful memories and oh so many surprises!

I can't believe this time last year, I was waddling around 9 1/2 months pregnant and waiting in anxiousness for our precious baby boy to arrive. Here we are a year later, and we have this angel in our life who is so innocent and sweet, loving, adorable, cute and inspiring! He has been such a happy baby and has definitely taught us things as first time parents that I look back on and go "that wasn't such a big deal" but at the time it was.

I sat down last night to FINALLY pack up all his old clothes in his closet. From the clothes he wears today all the way down to newborn, and oh my goodness...it's hard to imagine he was that little! I would hold them up and just look at Cody and smile...how adorable!

At 11 months he is 29 1/2" tall, almost 21 pounds and is still not sure about walking. He loves to push things around the house, but doing so kind of clumsy with gumby legs. But loves to push anything and everything he can get his hands on. If he's given the choice of walking with mommy and daddy's assistance and crawling...he picks crawling! I can see how he is thinking and he can get there much faster and efficiently if it is on his own time, crawling. The walking with assistance thing he hasn't figured out his center of gravity...still wobbly from front to back. He will get it, I know he will.

Like I said previously, he is pointing at anything and everything. Most of the time it is followed with a "da" or "duh"...not sure if that is supposed to mean dog or what. But he definitely knows what he is talking about and is confident about it.

He has become quite confident and controlled with his throwing abilities. Most of the time it is a ball with the dogs or playing with us...but he can throw other objects too, that is for sure. I am beginning to wonder whether he is going to be a baseball player...he has got an arm for sure. And I have to say it, most of the time it is with his LEFT hand!!! Thanks all you lefties in the family...I will be surprised if he ends up being a righty!

He is becoming more vocal and chatter box these days. He gets pretty excited at himself and continues to babble or waits for you to respond.

He is like greased lightening when he crawls. I kid you not, that boy can book it! He has got this milestone down pat!!

He's also using his index finger more to touch and pick up things. He is on more table foods these days. Not so fond of baby food anymore, but if you try to feed him something on a spoon or fork, he would much rather eat it with his own fingers. That independence in him, I guess!

Last but not least, he finally made the transition to the big boy forward facing car seat! It's a whole new world and he loves it! He can watch mommy sing and dance like a crazy women in the front seat. This tends to entertain him as he laughs and giggles and sometimes just blank stares at me! I think he is really going to like it! He just needs to get use to the fact that means waking him up every time we get out of the car if he is asleep. I guess we always are on the learning end and have to jump on that train.

How I communicate!

So our little one, just in the blink of an eye, started pointing the other day. Out of the blue we were in a store and I was holding him, and out went his arm and he pointed. He continued to point until we went to check it out. We had to show daddy what a big boy he was and interrupt him from what he was doing, but it was well worth it!

Of course, now two days later, he points at everything, even things we can't reach. But hey at least he is exploring his surroundings!

I know I know, nothing big and outrageous like walking...but just another step in his evolving world and understanding of things.

Just like that...he learns something new! It's amazing!