Home

We were here:


Doing things like this:


And taking beautiful pictures like this:



And now I'm home, catching up on more mundane things. So I'll leave it at that tidbit for now, while I still have hundreds of photos to go through. What I would really love is a new copy of CS4, which The Creative Mama is giving away in a short giveaway today... She's doing photography related giveaways all week, so stay tuned, and I'll tell you about each one! With maybe some fun photos of our vacation each time :)

Reconnecting / Disconnecting

Tomorrow morning we're heading out bright and early to spend some quality family time over at Lake Chelan. It will be reconnecting time with Jason's younger sister Jessica, my Mom and Step Dad, My Step Sister and Nephew, my Step Brother, and a few other assorted family members along the way! I'm looking forward to it... We have plenty of sun block and water toys. My camera batteries are charged, and I'm prepared to take a TON of photos!

The disconnecting part is that I will be internet-free for the most part. I'll have my phone, so I'll have email and facebook, but I don't expect to be online much :)

That's all for now! Look for an exciting photo filled post next week some time!

eight?

So Baxter had 5 teeth for a long time. Then he broke 3 teeth in the last three days, and he only woke up once last night!

Today we had a playdate (well, actually lunch) with some new friends. Now Jason is taking the car back to the shop because it came home with a new dent... I'm hoping they fix it, or we won't be using them again!

I'm finally starting to feel normal again, it's nice. Tomorrow I'm helping to run the breastfeeding booth at the farmers market for the mother baby center. Fun stuff!!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

About Life

Hmmm, How should I explain what all has happened in the last week and a half? I'll just go chronologically. Because then I'll be less likely to forget something! And I'm looking at my calendar, so that helps too....

A week ago Sunday we went to Lake Padden to my friend Danielle's graduation BBQ. Baxter was a hit, and he wanted to walk everywhere, and meet all the dogs. Jason took him to the playground for a bit, but he found having to be held on all the toys a bit too constraining. And I think it might have been too close to nap time to enjoy the slide.


On monday I got a haircut, and Baxter sat sweetly in the stroller the whole time! Even though it was nap time and I got there early hoping to walk him to sleep in the stroller... he just thought that was funny. So he only took ONE nap that day, in the middle of the day, and went to bed early. He behaved really well though, so now I know he can do it if I need him to. Tuesday we spent doing a ton of laundry, because the rest of the week was going to be FULL.

On wednesday the 17th was Jason's last day of school. They were doing a block schedule, and they only had 6th period that day. Jason has 6th period planning, so he had no students. He had some cleaning and organizing to do, so Baxter and I joined him at school. A few students came in, and Baxter charmed all of them :) He's so sweet. I even managed to get him to nap in the sling for 40 minutes while Jason had a staff meeting! After that there was a staff BBQ, where Baxter continued his conquest to acquire as many admirers as possible. Then we went home, exhausted.

Thursday was spent packing, and cleaning, and doing all sorts of preparing stuffs, so we could go to Seattle for the weekend. We decided to try something new, before now Baxter's carseat has always been in our 4 door Nissan. The Nissan is a good little car, but the gas milage is only okay, and there's only a radio that doesn't tune well. The trunk space is minimal to say the least. So we decided to try putting the carseat in the 2 door Toyota, since it gets much better mileage, has a CD player, a radio, and the iPod player works in that car. As Baxter gets bigger it's somewhat easier to get him in and out of the carseat, and we found that this worked well for us. Good thing too! This was planned as a trial run for our trip to Chelan. Another bonus? The carseat only fits in the middle of the back in the Nissan, but fits on the side in the echo. I know the middle is a little safer, but on the side means the passenger in the front can lean the seat back... almost a must for long drives! We also managed to find time to do some finger painting... Well, more like finger painting the deck, but I did manage to get two paintings finished before Baxter was.



Friday morning Jason dropped us off at playgroup then went home and packed up the car. He came to pick us up, then we had to stop in Seedro Woolley to do a few things before heading down to Seattle for a long weekend. Baxter was a doll the entire time. Did I forget to mention that I taught Baxter a few new tricks on Thursday? :) If you ask "How big is Baxter?" he raises his arms above his head and grins, and you then have to respond enthusiastically with "So big!!!" and then he's pleased and will often do it several more times to see if he can get the same response. And now when you clap your hands, he claps right away, then continues to clap for a little bit... So cute!

Ok, anyway, we got into Seattle around 4:00 and tried to surprise my mom at her office, but she wasn't there. Fail #1. So we went to my brother Brent's store to surprise him, but he was with a really long customer (quoting an entire deck). Fail #2. Luckily, we had arranged with Jessica, Jason's younger sister, to babysit for us that night. So we headed over to the Dilley house and settled in for the weekend. After Baxter went to bed, Jason and I set out for our first date night since Bax was born!

We started at King Wa's, our FAVORITE chinese restaurant ever. We had thought about seeing a movie, but we didn't think it would work timing wise, because it left us just under an hour to eat. Well, King Wa's had exceptionally fast and excellent service, so when we were done we decided to try for the movie anyway. We (when I say we I mean mostly Jason) wanted to see "The Hangover", and it was playing at Southcenter. So we got there 2 minutes after the movie had started, and realized when they remodeled the mall they put in a new theater... and we were at the wrong one. So we decided what the heck, lets check out the other one and see if we make it, it's ok if we miss the first few minutes. Can I just say that the Southcenter mall is now amazing? We didn't have time to explore, but Jason and I just boggled as we rode the escalators (escalators!?!) up to the third floor (third floor!?!). The movie was not 15 minutes in, but we got tickets at what looked like a fancy touch screen atm, and went in. Guess what? We still saw a preview! LOL! Of course, we rushed home after the movie, so there were only two things our date night was missing... drinks and dessert. Ah well, another time.

Saturday we spent hanging out at my Mom's house in honor of her birthday (which is actually today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!). April and Riley were there, and Andrew was there for a bit (my step-siblings and nephew). Richard (my step-father) grilled, and we had a fantastic meal. I took about a billion pictures. A fun time was had by all :) That night after getting Baxter down for bed, Jessica babysat again (LOVE THAT GIRL!) and we went out to dinner with Mom, Richard, and Brent. Tony was flying home from California, and managed to get here an hour early, so Richard left to go pick him up right after ordering. We went to the Ram, and my fries came cold. And they forgot to bring the Chicken for Jason's fajitas. But they kept Richard's steak warm while he was gone, got me new fries, and discounted Jason's dinner, so it ended up ok. It was nice being able to spend a bit of time with Brent. While at my mom's I could feel a bit of Mastitis coming on that morning, so I tried to take it easy. No luck. By the end of the day I was miserable. I had a really bad fever Saturday night that just took me out for the count.

Sunday was Father's day, and we spent the day hanging with the Dilley clan. Jason's older sister JoAnne came to visit, and Jason's parents bought him a bike (which he really wanted). I spent most of the day on the couch or in bed. I must say, that if you have to have mastitis, having it while around a super helpful 16 year old who loves her nephew makes it soooooo much easier. Oh, and Baxter loves her too. I swear, that boy only wanted attention from me if it was for food. I could have been chopped liver all weekend for all he was concerned. Jason grilled up some nice ribeye steaks and we had it with baked potatoes for dinner. Overall, very satisfying even if I was pretty sick.

When I've had mastitis in the past, it's passed in about a day. Not this time. Our plan was to leave on Monday whenever, but it was pretty clear by monday morning when I was still having fevers and my mastitis was still getting worse that it was time for me to see a doctor. So I had a 3:15 appt on monday back in Bellingham, and we tried to get out by 11:30... which turned into 12:30. On top of that we needed to stop by and pick something up from my brother and drop something off with him too, and get gas. We finally got on the road and made good time. At this time I'd like to mention that having a passenger seat that reclined was a LIFESAVER. I was in so much pain I couldn't have done it any other way. Baxter was an angel in the car too. We ended up going straight to the doctors office, and I got some antibiotics. So much fun.

So here it is, Tuesday. My mastitis still isn't better, but the antibiotics got rid of the fevers at least. But they give me migraines... so I haven't been overly productive. My friend Danielle came over to visit, which was nice though. Oh, and the lack oh photos of all of this? Two reasons....

1) I pretty much only took photos on Saturday
2) Jason left my camera at his parents house.....

Luckily my friend Laura is coming up to visit on Thursday and she graciously offered to pick it up and bring it to me. Then I can edit cute nephew photos, cute Baxter photos, and start taking more photos! I guess tomorrow I should try to video Baxter's new tricks. He can now climb onto the glider ottoman (which I tried to constrain but it still rocks some). He then sits and rocks it back and forth clapping... too cute!

GAH! I LOVE THAT BOY! Wow, this turned into a long update!

Love this boy!

I posted these on flickr, but I needed to blog about them too.

My little man is growing up! See how handsome he is?



He's turned into SUCH a climber. He will try to climb on anything and everything. This was before the cat litter got taken upstairs. It made a great ladder.



Oh, and here's his funny new scrunched face smile. It cracks me up!

It's entirely too late to do this

It's after 10pm, and I should be heading to bed. But I sat down at my computer desk, and realized I have been super neglectful.



Baxter is still ridiculously cute. No worries. I actually have more pictures on my camera I should upload and edit, but as previously state, it's too late tonight. So just an update. Maybe short, maybe long? We'll see :)

Ok, it's been a LONG time! Baxter is walking everywhere now. He hates to crawl it seems like. Until earlier this week he was crawling a tiny bit so he could pull himself to standing so he could take off again, but he learned how to stand up on his own. It's sooo cute! But it means my baby boy is growing up :( Can you believe he's 10 months old already? It's crazy! He still isn't working on any words, but he has learned a few signs. He rarely uses them though. In fact, I taught him to sign "more" the other day using blueberries, but now he only wants more blueberries. He loves blueberries. Almost as much as he loves pudding.




Oh yeah, if you didn't see them on Flickr or Facebook already, we gave Baxter chocolate pudding. He made a royal mess, but it was so stinkin cute, and he loved it. I still have pudding spots on my walls though... Oops! He's starting to want to eat 3 meals a day, but not eating much. He's such a slow eater, and HATES bibs, so now that its finally warm I've just been stripping him down.

I started doing some Photography on the side, and I've been really liking it! Right now I've only taken pictures of a few friend's kids, and I have more to put up, but here's my gallery of photos. I'm hoping that if I get good enough it can bring in a little bit of extra cash next year. I've still been sewing diapers, and my newest creations, embellished birthday diapers, have been a hit so far! Check out my Dilley Dally blog for pictures of those though.

Jason is getting close to the end of the school year. His last day is the 17th, but then the 18-19 are the beginning of summer school. He's teaching a Geometry class this summer for students who want to skip ahead to Advanced Algebra next year. Usually it goes Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Algebra. So this class will be mostly online, and then Jason will be at the school for 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays to be there for help. It's a pretty neat system, and I'm looking forward to having him around this summer!

Speaking of summer plans, I'm totally excited to be taking our first vacation over the 4th of July! The Spears/Irvine family is going to the Chelan house, but we're staying a whole week. So some family time, and some just us. We bought a pool/lake toy for Baxter, and stocked up on sunscreen. I even faced the dreaded swimsuit shopping, because none of my old ones fit.

Now, swimsuit shopping is NEVER fun, but it's worse right now. My old suits are all too big, which is a nice feeling, but my tummy is in need of a lot more ahem control now, and by chest is in need of a lot more support. I also can't use anything that ties behind the neck, and V-necks and low necks are out. Yes, Baxter knows where his next meal is coming from, and he's not afraid to go after it if he's hungry enough. So those had to stay on the hangar. Luckily I found the perfect suit at the first place, and scored two amazing skirts that have been a lifesaver in this weather.

Ok, that's enough of an update for now, right? Steve and Krystal and little Bruce are coming over tomorrow, so I better get some rest tonight :)

I'm behind...

I'm sorry I'm not caught up on blogging, life got the best of me! I've been busy, and if you check out the Dilley Dally Blog you'll see why :) I'll try to update more later, but Baxter was up every 40 minutes to an hour last night, and I'm exhausted today.

Also, I wrote a guest blog for Angie over at The Creative Mama all about cloth diapering! At the end, there are four different ways to enter to win a free Dilley Dally Diaper! So head on over and check it out!!!

A Boy and His Spoon

Baxter is obsessed with spoons. They're pretty much his favorite toy. If you have one, he wants it. It doesn't matter if he's already playing with one, he wants both. He carries them around with him, walking, crawling, whatever. He will hold them while nursing, he will carry it in his mouth, he will bang it on random objects. As long as he has his spoon he's happy.









Besides that, we've had a good week! Mother's day was nice family time. No pictures, it was all just a good day. We ended up buying a new grill, because the one Uncle Don and Aunt Cindy gave us for our wedding 7 years ago finally rusted through and was no longer safe to grill on. We have grilled every night (and sometimes twice a day) since. I guess we love grilling!

Baxter is walking more and more, but still isn't standing up in the middle of the room on his own. However, he has figured out how to climb out of the bathtub if he really wants something. That boy is a born monkey! Seriously, a major monkey.

Yesterday we went to a 3rd birthday party for one of my friend's daughters, and we all had a great time :)

If you're happy and you know it

Clap your hands!

Or shake your head...

Both of which Baxter has now mastered. He won't do it on command though, and he doesn't associate them with anything, but it's super cute. He will walk around the living room clapping his hands, or spend 15 minutes shaking his head at you when you shake yours or nod at him. Too cute!

He's also become quite the accomplished flirt. He likes to lay his head down on my chest then peek up at someone else. It melts my heart every time! The other day he wanted to flirt with me while walking, so he turned, clasped his hands together and raised them to his cheek, then laid his head on them and grinned. It was so sickeningly adorable!

He still can't get into the standing position without pulling up, so most of the time Baxter crawls to where he can stand, then walks from there until he falls again. I've lost track, but the last time I counted he was up over 20 steps. So incredible!

My mom and Richard came to visit last week, and that was a lot of fun. Baxter spent quite a bit of time flirting with them.

Tonight I'm going to lay down, because I think I"m getting sick (again?!?) and I'm exhausted. Baxter is teething again and not sleeping well, and Jason has had a migraine for 6 days. As well as an odd rash type thing, and so I'm thinking he's having a lactose sensitivity. He's going to try cutting out dairy for a while to see if that fixes it.

We don't have any grand plans for Mother's Day tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to relaxing with my boys. Maybe taking some cute pictures.

I feel like there was more, but I've lost my train of thought :)

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I haven't done this in a while, and it's time to be honest again.

This week I did not take advantage of being sick to stay in bed all day and let Jason take care of Baxter. And I didn't use that time to do completely useless things like watch TV instead of knit or blog, or... something useful.

Baxter did NOT turn 9 months old a few days ago, he is my little baby boy forever and ever! And I haven't been putting off taking 9 month pictures of him because my room wasn't clean. But I did not spend the first portion of his two hour morning nap today organizing my closet and making the bed so that my mom wouldn't be shocked when she comes to visit. My mother's opinion of me is not more important than taking Baxter's pictures!

I did not canvas all my friends to find someone to go with me to the Tulip festival so I had an excuse to take a ridiculous amount of pictures, and I didn't turn it into an all day fun day, starting with breakfast at my favorite pastry shop and ending with allowing Jason to go buy dinner...

I also did not give Baxter a bit of my sandwich last night so he would stop fussing while I finished eating so I could put him to bed.

And most of all I did not end Baxter's bath after 2 minutes and the washing parts were done because he peed in the water. And how did your week go?

Tulip Photos

I took a billion. Ok, like 500. We had so much fun!



Check out my flickr page for all of them. I think this is my favorite of the day though :)

I'm excited!

I wanted to go to the Tulip Festival this year, but with our sickness it didn't look like it was going to happen. Well, they extended the festival, and it looks like I'll be meeting a friend of mine there tomorrow! I can't wait to take a ton of photos. I hope the weather stays nice!

Some Baxter Videos

I uploaded them to YouTube (link at the top of the page), but here are some of them anyway :)

For Better or Worse?

Well, Jason and I are feeling mostly better. Jason is back at school, so that's progress! He ended up missing friday and monday. Baxter is looking well during the day, and then still vomiting at night. My friend recommended giving him some probiotics and we're trying that. So far it delayed his nightly vomit from 8-9pm to when he woke up this morning. At least that's some progress, right? We're still doing laundry.

Here's my little sock stealer in action:


He's walking better and better. Last night we drove out to Birch Bay to visit Jason's uncles Dick and Ben. We had a great time, and Baxter showed off his walking skills quite a bit. It was so nice to spend time with family. We hadn't seen Uncle Ben in ages!

As far as the happy times of Baxter's day, he's quite an amusing little boy. He makes kissy noises now, and he says mama and dada and baba all the time. Not necessarily to the right person, but at least its progress in the right direction! I have videos which I should upload, but this nap is coming to an end soon.

Funny story time! Baxter likes getting into the bathroom cabinets. The other day he pulled out my tub of velcro hair rollers. They stuck to his wool pants, and I just about died laughing. He thought I was weird.



And to end this super fragmented post, here's a picture of us :)

Sick, sick, sick

Baxters croup is getting better, but then he developed a projectile vomiting/massive dirrhea tummy bug. Guess what he passed on? So I was in bed all day yesterday, and now it's Jason's turn. Baxter is still vomiting, and he's on a nursing strike. So I keep having to pump to prevent mastitis, and I think he's getting dehydrated.

I keep think back to when we used to play Oregon Trail on our 486, on floppy disks.

"Your family has died of dysentary. You lose."

I'm currently in search of someone local to go buy some immodium for us. Oh the joys... My step dad offered to drive the 2 hours, but that seems like a big waste of gas. There are times when having family close by would be amazing. Even more so if Bax would take a bottle.

At least he seems happy when he's not needing to sleep. I'm camped out on the futon in his room while he plays. Trying to gather the energy for another diaper change. Not that he's peeing much anyway :(

So if you have a moment, pray for our family. I know we will survive, but I'm not looking forward to the laundry involved... :)

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Croup.

Baxter has croup. It kept him up all night last night, so we went to the doctors today. He sounds like a barking seal. I did get some current stats on him though. He's 28.5 inches long, and 21 lbs, 13 oz. So tonight we have the humidifier set up, and the heat will be on high.

Baxter also sampled cantaloupe today, but was not impressed. He liked chicken the other night though, so we'll have that for dinner.

Baxter is a walking machine this afternoon too. They grow up sooo fast!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Wordless Wednesday - Rejects (not all pictures are pretty)

Just a few...

cute photos of Baxter.... :)

Nifty New Noises

Baxter loves to make noise. Every friday at GBC (Getting Behind Cloth, the cloth diapering playgroup) he learns something new. Some new grunt, or squeak or growl, you never know. On friday he was laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. We all were laughing, then realized he was watching everyone in the overhead mirror used for cooking demonstrations.

The boy is so smart. Today he was playing a game where he would put the remote control somewhere, take it down, and then put it somewhere else. I couldn't find it for hours today. He's taken to opening the drawers on the cabinet and putting things inside. We found the remote, Jason's rubix cube, his cell phone, and another toy in one. He also likes dropping items over baby gates. I'll give him a stack of toys and he'll get angry because he can no longer reach them because they're all on the other side of the gate!

We've had a good week so far. On Monday (I think this is going to be our routine) after he had his first nap we went to story time at the library. I'm not sure if he really enjoyed it, but he seemed to. Mostly it gives me new songs to sing him. After that we went to the April-October produce market. Love that place!



I spent under $7 and got 3 onions, 3 tomatoes, a head a lettuce, 2 pears, a cantaloupe, and 6 lemons. I'm drinking freshly squeezed lemonaide right now, are you jealous? I'm making an attempt to have dinner ready every night by 5 so Baxter can eat with us. That means I need a snack in the evening, but that's ok :) Us breastfeeding mamas burn up a lot of calories!

Oh, and I finally uploaded a ton of photos to flickr! Enjoy!

Trouble

Baxter regularly takes 2-3 steps, and has taken up to 5 (although Kit who also witnessed it says 6). He's still pulling to stand, but about half the time when you go to set him down he only wants to be put on his feet, not sitting. He can stand pretty well unsupported, but not for longer than about 30 seconds. It's crazy how fast they grow though! I did not expect him to be walking before 9 months. I was trying to deny it before but the last couple days it's been really evident that this is a growing trend.

I'm having problems uploading pictures to flickr today for some reason, but I have some other fun pictures to post. Yesterday we took a spur of the moment trip to Oak Harbor to visit our good friends Kit and Christine and their two little boys. We had a great time, and every time we see them we say we should see them more often... And we really should! The boys had a great time playing together, and were nice the whole time. Baxter loves being around other kids, especially mobile ones. At playgroup he hangs out with the "older" kids (they're all under 3, but he hangs out with the mobile babies) instead of the ones closer to his own age.

I probably have more to post, but I'm not feeling the greatest and I have more to do. Ta ta!