May 2010

In May Michael and I celebrated our fourth anniversary, and my 27th birthday. Honestly it's hard for me to remember how old I am any more since I passed 25, not too sure why. I'm sure I'll remember when it's my turn to turn 30.

The best part of May though was flying down to see my sister's first baby Eli. I got to be with them for four wonderful days. Stupidly I only took pictures once, and my sister wasn't awake at the time.

Such a proud Poppa

And here he is a enjoying his bath about a month later ( I think).Poor Michael didn't have such a good time while I was gone. Dade's sleep schedule has always been a bit of a struggle, but at the time I left he was doing just fine. Milk, books, song -then bed worked every night. Then Mommy went away and he decided that sleep wasn't something he was going to choose. I'm very thankful that Michael was able to take time off of work to watch Dade while I was gone, but I don't think he'll let me leave again for so long. I loved seeing my sister's new lovely house, and to be able to help a little with Eli. If California wasn't so bad off right now, we might just have to live there to be close to them.

Here is our anniversary celebration. The card that Michael picked is very true to life, but the cover hogging goes both ways. ;)

Here is Dade in May after a bath - Gotta love his crazy hair
Dade's favorite thing ever was kicking his soccer ball.

April 2010

For some reason I don't have any pictures from December to April. I know that Winter this past year lasted way too long, but that shouldn't cause such an absence.

In April we flew as a family to Texas to see Michael's sister get married. The flight there went better than expected because of a borrowed DVD player, mountains of books and snacks.

The flight back was only terrible because we had to sit on the Tarmac for an hour to wait out a thunderstorm, and the DVD player's batteries died halfway home. We found the electrical outlet only after calling the stewardess. Many thanks to whoever thought of putting an outlet on a plane.

Lisa's wedding was beautiful, and would have been more enjoyable had Dade not been a complete hellion. There was a fountain in the courtyard of the country club, and all Dade wanted to do was throw everything into the water. Everything including grass, rocks, snacks, and of course himself.

Here is a picture of the entire Watson side. We waited till everyone else was set up and then ran in with Dade. Oh well, at least everyone else looks very nice.
Dade's Uncle John did get a couple of really cute pictures. Dade discovered that his cousin had Thomas the train shoes on, which he thought were the coolest thing ever. And John actually got a good picture of our family.

The Holidays

And then the holidays were upon us. We went Halloween day to pick out a pumpkin. It was hard to find a time that Michael and I could go at the same time, and the time we found was a very muddy day.Dade had already picked out a couple of miniature pumpkins from the grocery store, and had lost of fun running around and picking up muddy pumpkins at the patch. I really wanted to go so that I could turn a real pumpkin, instead of a can, into a pie. I bought two, and gave one to my sister. It was very tasty, and I had some left over to make a pumpkin pie shake. Very good also. Michael didn't care for the shake too much, but liked the pie. Dade did not have a halloween costume this year. We couldn't think of anything that we wanted to make or buy, and he didn't really have anywhere to wear it. As far as trick-or-treating, Dade doesn't eat candy, and Michael and I certainly didn't need any.

We don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving, but had a very good dinner at my sisters house.

Then Christmas preperations were under way. Gotta love tinsel and lights.
This is the picture that we used for our Christmas cards. A couple of people said that they didn't even notice the tree at first.

We had a very nice Christmas morning thanks to generous family members. Dade didn't really understand the whole wrapped present thing, but enjoyed the toys that we unwrapped for him.

He started with one train...

and ended with a whole train set complete with tracks. We set up the tracks for him, and he rarely leaves the table.No snow on Christmas this year, but you won't hear me complaining. It's either none or too much when it comes to snow. My family in KS is definitely in the too much category right now.

New years is just a couple of days away. It's been a very eventful year, and hopefully next year will go even better.

September Fun

I'm sure that you can tell by the length of time between the last post and this one, that we've been very busy. So I'll just quickly catch up with some of my favorite days.

For Dade's birthday in August his Mimi Watson got him a tricycle.He loved it from day one, and used it all summer.
He got very good at driving himself, and especially loved going backward.

Another activity that we tried to do on every warm day was visit the local water park. He was usually apprehensive at first, but would be soaked by the end.

Sometimes we would bring his trike with us and he would ride it through the water.

One fine Day we decided to try something new and headed off to Whidby Island. Dade really loved the ferry.
We tried to find a good hiking trail, but got very lost among all the campgrounds. Eventually we found a map and followed a very steep trail down to the beach.

The beach was perfect, and you can tell by this last picture that Dade had a lot of fun.
That was really the end of Summer. We still went to the park on mildly warm days for him to ride his trike. Here is a video of his backwards expertise.

Happy Birthday

So the last post I was complaining about no camera, I forgot about our old camera that was stuck in the back of the closet. It's almost impossible to take a good picture with this camera. Someday I would really love to have a well functioning camera.

Anyway, we used this camera to document Dade turning two. As I said before it was a very low key day.Dade really loves his train set!

And of course birthday balloons are fun to wrestle with.

And here we all are with the remains of Dade's cake.

I bought a little personal sized cake from Central Market. We cut it in half so Michael and I could share, and so Dade wouldn't have a tummy ache. It was really yummy.

Yeah for birthdays. Maybe next year we'll have a party. Dade will actually know what's happening and will care more.

Dade has changed so much this year. He's learned so much more about how to get around in the world since his last birthday. He has definitely improved on his climbing skills for one. He has also become very adept at letting us know what he wants, even though he doesn't talk yet.

He loves to run and spin and play outside. I love to make him smile and laugh. It's so much fun to have him in our family.

You'd think with it being so long since I've posted we have so many fun pictures from the Summer...well guess again.

Here is one of the last pictures from our little camera before I dropped it into the Puget Sound in June.

This is Dade helping my good friend Ely dig out a geoduck to check out. I didn't get any pictures of the gigantic clam like creature, but if you want to see one just google. (it's pronounced gooey duck - go figure)
This Summer has been pretty busy. I work three days a week and only see michael after 9:30 at night, unless it's Sunday. Sunday is the only day we have off together. There have been lots of visits to the park, the pool, and the beach. But even after all that time outside only got a very nice farmers tan on my arms. I hope that the warm weather isn't over for the year. It's been raining and chilled all week. Such is Seattle I guess.
Last weekend Michael flew to Alabama to see his lovely oldest niece get married. He had a great time with family, but really didn't like the humidity. I chose not to go with him because then Dade would have gone too. It would have been really nice to see Michael's family, but not so nice to travel with an almost 2 year old. Especially since his terrible twos are here in full force.
It's almost funny how mad he gets about the weirdest things. The other day I started whistling and he yelled and fell on the ground until I stopped. I guess he doesn't have an appreciation for my tunes. But on the other end he is growing so fast, and learning new things all the time. On Sunday in nursery we sang "roll your hands" a couple of times, and all day today he has been doing the action. I started singing the song every time he started rolling his hands and he just loves it. He'll laugh and then fall on the ground. hmm, I think he just likes falling down.
The next trip planned is me flying to KS to see my best friend get married Sept 25th. I'm so excited to see my parents and KS family. I wasn't sure if I would be able to go, but my boss gave me a very nice bonus this week for holding down the fort. The rest of the girls from work (all 8 of them) went to Vegas for the work trip. They left Wednesday morning, and so I worked alone Wed and today. I was invited, but since I don't gamble or drink I figured I'd be more of a downer then anything. There is only so much time you can spend by the pool and read before you get bored.
DADE TURNS TWO TOMORROW! I can't believe it's been two years since our baby Dade joined our family. Last year we did a big party, and this year we have nothing planned. We were thinking about having people over on Sunday for cupcakes, but sick kids brought that plan up short. It's okay though, We'll just buy a couple of fancy cupcakes and get a balloon for him. That should be good. He does have a couple of presents to open, hopefully he likes his gifts.

When you have little kids the days are long and the years are short.

Who know where we'll be this time next year, but hopefully by then Dade will be talking instead of yelling.

spinning is so fun

Dade invents new games all the time.   Sometimes they are not the best, such as climbing on chairs, but his newest invention was just too funny.   Sorry the camera was shaking so badly, I was laughing too hard.( no toddlers were harmed in the making of this film)