Dashy is ONE YEAR old today!!

Happy Birthday to our little man!

We have graduated to size 4 diapers and they fit him great. He is growing so much. We have his one year well child appointment Monday so we'll get his actual weight then.

Dash has also transitioned to whole milk and we've tossed out all the formula. We are working on weaning him from bottles, but he still likes a bottle before bed at night.

Dash has five teeth now and they're all adorable and pearly white! He eats pretty much what we eat, just chopped into little bites.
Dash is sleeping okay. He goes to bed around 7:00 or 7:30 and gets up between 5:30 and 6:00. He does still wake up once or twice in the night. We are working on sleep training and now we put him in bed awake and he puts himself to sleep.

He is a different baby than we had at nine months. He's happy, mobile, and a ton of fun. We truly believe he was in pain from his hernia or the surgery and that he is fully recovered now. I can't tell you how great it is to have a happy baby.

He can stand supported, cruise, and pull to standing. He's close to walking I think. He's started to stand unsupported for up to ten seconds, so that's a big deal.

Dash still has beautiful eyes, and now they are definitely hazel. His hair isn't as curly, but it is wavy.

Dash signs hi, bye, yay, more, all done, nite-nite, eat, hot, and water independently or with very minimal cueing.

I can't wait to celebrate this special day with our family today. He deserves a great party!

The daring girl on the .. kiddie rides

Delaney has always been brave. She is rarely scared of anything. Right now, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that she's "afraid" of. She points out spiders and bugs to us and she's loves to jump off anything she can climb.
We went to Lakefair on Saturday and it is the big fair and parade that Olympia celebrate in the summer. We have always sat at the spot that Joyce and Jerry have sat at for years and we put our lawn chairs down a few days early to be sure we get a good spot.

Delaney and Dash had a great time watching the parade go by. Delaney was a little bothered by the loud sounds of the motorcycles going by and she kept her ears covered for most of their run. She enjoyed the marching bands though. Dash sat with Grandma Joyce for a while and he even managed to catch a quick nap.














Dash got to try Oreo cookies for the first time at the parade. He was covered!

So after the parade, we said goodbye to everyone and went into the fair to give Delaney a chance to do the rides.
The first one she tried was a motorcycle ride that went around and around. I think that at first she was a little unsure. But once it started moving, she was ALL about it. We ended up riding that once twice.







Then she rode the little boats and she really loved that. She loved that she could put her hands in the water while the boat cruised around the track.

The last ride she rode was the fire engine that went around and stopped at the top for the view. I don't have any pictures of that because she asked Papa "by myself?" and I was too nervous for her to get pictures.
Of course all my worrying was for nothing. She loved it. I do have a picture of her getting off of the ride.
We played a duck picking game and the ball rolling game where you race the horses and we bought some cotton candy before we left. Delaney won a stuffed banana and a pink elephant, so she was quite the happy camper on the way home.

I didn't forget about Dash, but he was too little for any rides and he spent the evening in his backpack on either me or Zap. He was one tired boy when we got home.
Next year Lakefair, we will have two little ones riding the rides. Papa will be cheering them on and Mama will be biting her nails watching them.

summer is B..U..S..Y!!

and I am loving it.
One new thing that we started was letterboxing (www.atlasquest.com if you want more information). The idea is that you get the clues together and you go on a hunt. If you follow the clues correctly, you're led to a stamp cache. What's so neat is that most of the stamps are handmade and you get a great hike or walk while you are out looking for them.
On our first day we went with our friends Ryan and his son Noah. We went out to a Catholic church out near Evergreen University and followed the clues. We found a hand carved ram stamp.
Then we went out to Mud Bay Road and after a nice walk we found a hand carved egret stamp. It was so much fun.
The next day I took the kids out with Grandpa Jerry and we went out to Black Hills High School and found a hand carved "ARTS" stamp and from there we went out to a nature trail and hunted and hunted and hunted. We didn't find the stamp but we did find a geocache (trinkets and toys in little boxes) so Delaney left with a bracelet.


We also spent a weekend camping and had a great time. The kids did better than I think Zap or I thought they would do and once they got to sleep they stayed asleep most of the night. It was so relaxing to just sit by the fire. Delaney loved the marshmallows.

What else? We've been going to the Entertainment in the Park series that Lacey is throwing. We meet up with some of our friends and eat a picnic dinner. The first show we went to was a show of performing pigs. Delaney and Dash loved it. Delaney got her face painted like a piglet.
We also went to a olde time music show at the Yelm library yesterday. My favorite part was when the musician played a limberjack; a little man that dances and his feet tap out a rhythm. We saw a juggler show at the park last night and we were pretty impressed.

Today we are taking it easy and spending time in the yard and cleaning around the house. We've got a busy few weeks coming up (Mama's 30th Birthday!, Dash's 1st Birthday, Lakefair) and we're so excited about it all.