On Monday, we said farewell to our little Civic... We watched it drive away with someone else inside. It's off to live in Tucson.
We loved the car, but since Dylan joined the family, we've realized just how small it is (especially the back seat). For example, if his forward facing car seat is in the middle, you really can't fit anyone comfortably in either of the other back seats! So, we decided it was time to upgrade. After much deliberation (and a lot of battling used car dealers), we bought this Ford Flex on Tuesday:
And so far, we love it! It's a little bigger than I'm used to, but I think I've got it all figured out. The selling point for me: there's a button that folds down the back seat automatically so people can climb in the way back. (Yes, I'm that easy to impress...)
On Monday, as the time for handing over the Civic got closer, I realized I was going to miss that car. It holds a lot of memories for us:
We bought before our wedding, in preparation for our life together.
We drove away from our wedding reception in it, amidst flying rose petals and crying parents.
Somehow the keys to the car left the temple with my parents, leaving me and Shane to hang out for an extra 45 minutes after our wedding.
We shared the car at BYU.
We drove the car all the way to Baltimore in 2006, with side trips to Philadelphia and D.C., and all the way back.
It followed the moving van to Phoenix after graduation.
It made many trips between Phoenix and Salt Lake, and even to San Diego once.
It brought tiny baby Dylan home from the hospital.
Part of me thought we'd have the car forever...that it'd be the car Dylan would drive when he turned 16. But we're excited for our new car...even Dylan will enjoy the tinted windows and rear air conditioning in the coming months.
I know it's been over 2 months since I blogged last and really I should catch up on Christmas and our trip to Utah...but I'd rather let Dylan show you what he's been up to as of late...
Dylan is walking! [Actually, he hasn't decided that walking is his getting-around mode of choice yet, but he's realized that he can do it...]
Here's proof:
and more:
Plus, he's exploring more and more...
Dylan is more and more fun every day! I'm working on keeping the cameras close by to capture it all since he's changing so fast. I promise to catch up on Christmas soon...lots of pictures to share!
Thanks to much coaching and practice, if you asked Dylan this question today he'd wave his little hand around and eventually hold up one finger. I'm trying to get it on video, but haven't been successful so far.
My baby is officially one year old!
I can't believe it's been a year...but another part of me can't remember life without our little man.
Dylan's 12-month appointment isn't until next week, so I don't have stats, but here are some other fun facts about the boy:
Getting around: Dylan finally realized how exhausting (and painful, I'm sure) it was to crawl around like a walrus and decided one day he preferred the standard hands-and-knees method...and when motivated he can move pretty fast. He generally prefers the wait and see approach to things--he waits to see if what he wants will come to him (e.g. Mom, food, ball, toys). He loves to pull up on anything and everything he can find, so we've had our fair share of head bonks, but he's getting better. I don't think walking is in our near future...
Teeth: After teething for what felt like months, two tiny little teeth are barely poking through on the bottom. Based on the length of what we thought was his teething, we expected him to get 8 at once!
Eating: This may be a surprise, but Dylan LOVES food! I have only ever seen him turn away food once and after sampling it myself I understand why (side note: Gerber pick-ups raviolis are disgusting... I'll post a video as proof later).
"Talking": Dylan calls pretty much everything he sees "dada" but he uses different tones and inflection to help us know what he means... For example, "a-Da" means all done (which he only ever uses to tell us his bottle is empty and he'd like more). He uses "ma" and "mama" only when he's tired or whiny. He knows how to say baby, but it takes a little coaching to remind him he knows how. And I swear he knows duck and dog, but they sound very similar to everything else, so who knows...
Other randomness:
He LOVES cars, but he especially loves real cars...moving ones. If he could, he'd spend all day out on the busy street near our neighborhood pointing and squealing as the cars went by.
He's an open mouth kisser, and once he hears the word "kiss" he opens wide and dive bombs your face...
He plays with his hair when he's sleepy. Since he has so little hair, he pretty much just pinches little pieces.
He still uses a pacifier for sleeping. I know this has to end someday...
He knows what a fish says. However, he learned this from the stuffed blowfish hanging in our garage (that's a story for another time). So if you ask him what a fishy says, he'll tell you and then point up at the ceiling because to him fish live in the sky...
He knows what a cow says...except he says boo instead of moo. At least we've got the "oo" part down.
He loves other people's hair, especially long hair. He likes to grab sections of my hair and let it run through his hands.
He does not dance to music. I think we've trained him that it's our job to dance for him whenever music comes on. So whenever he hears music, he looks at the nearest person as if waiting for you to dance...
He knows how to wave hi and bye to everyone now, so he's quite a hit when we go out.
He's starting to dislike car rides... I'm hoping a new car seat and a new view will help him get over this before we drive to my parents' for Christmas...
I think I'll stop there... I can record the rest in his baby book.
At Dylan's birthday party (which was last weekend while my parents were in town), we had a Wall of Dylan, which included a picture collage for every month of his life thus far, which I'm going to share with the blogging world. Enjoy!
Birth Day
December
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
We're so happy we have Dylan as part of our family, and we can't wait to see what this next year brings.
I went to my weekly OB appointment. For some reason I decided to pack my car with my hospital bag and computer (I think it was the non-stop Braxton-Hicks contractions).
My appointment went as usual: no baby progress (1 cm, 0% effaced); high blood pressure; a spike in my glucose (admitting I had chocolate milk for breakfast)...
Then the doctor came in and said, "I don't feel comfortable letting you go another week... looks like we're going to have this baby today."
The rest of the day was a blur... driving (.2 miles) to the hospital, checking in, hours of Law & Order reruns in triage while "ripening" (oh what fun), lots of text messages and phone calls, notifying work I was officially gone for the next 4 months, my last meal...
And finally, 24 hours later, our lives changed forever.
For Halloween weekend, we escaped to San Diego to meet up with my mom, three of her sisters, and five of my cousins for a weekend adventure. We were scattered around the city (we were downtown, some were on Coronado, other were in Chula Vista) but we were still able to get in a lot of quality time with them.
We started with lunch on Coronado...
Then headed to the Del to wander along the beach...
{Dylan was amazed by the Del...}
Then headed to old town San Diego to visit the Mormon Battalion museum and dinner...
{Panning for gold...}
{Making bricks}
{Meeting cousin Tera}
The next day we spent some time at Balboa Park. Then Shane, Dylan, and I had dinner together in Little Italy, with a nice lesson in baby signs at Yogurtland (Dylan learned the meaning of "more" very quickly when chocolate yogurt was the incentive).
Sunday we headed back over to my aunt's house to hang out before we had to leave.
{Dylan LOVED cousin Heidi}
{Just in case you missed my Halloween post below...}
{Dylan enjoying a special treat from grandma--an organic lollipop}
Finally, it was time to say goodbye...
{I promise my head isn't 10 times the size of my mom's....but I liked this picture so I still posted it}
Yes, I do realize that Halloween was two weeks ago, but I didn't want to forget how cute our little paper bag was...
Yes, Dylan was a paper bag...more specifically a Ladmo bag, but if you didn't grow up in Arizona and watch the Wallace and Ladmo show, you won't understand (I didn't until I went here and here). For his birthday, Shane got a Ladmo t-shirt so the family costume was set in motion...and we figured this was the year because we didn't think Dylan would want to be a paper bag once he was old enough to have a say in his costume. I dressed up as a very minor character named Jodie...everyone just thought I was a girl scout.
Here we are before a neighborhood Halloween party. Sadly, it was an adults-only party so Dylan just put on his costume for the picture.
The actual weekend of Halloween (when our church and family parties were), we were in San Diego... so we brought Dylan's costume along with it and let him wear it to my cousin's house on Sunday.
Did I mention I made this costume by hand?? Yeah, I know...a lot of you are super crafty and could whip this baby out in a couple hours, but this was a big accomplishment for me. And my mom was oh-so-impressed.
I've been waiting for life to slow down so I could write a new post... Between the upcoming Primary program (did I mention I'm the second counselor and I'm in charge of it?), way too much work, and a very active little Dylan I'm not sure when that will be. For now, enjoy a photo update on our month so far:
{Click for larger}
And even a video of the little man and his version of crawling... I can't imagine it's the most comfortable way, but he can't seem to keep his knees under him so he prefers this method.
