Happy Birthday Dashiell!!

The cake I didn't make.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Tasty cake!

Uhhhh...so much cake...

So this time last year I was in the midst of the marathon pushing session, being yelled at by a nurse ("you don't want a section!! PUSH!!!). Dr. Madrid kept popping his head in the room to see how things were going, conferring with the nurses about how much longer they were going to let me keep this up. An hour later, little Dash was born!

We had a great birthday weekend the past couple of days. A big party yesterday, and dinner at the grandparents' house tonight. D worked the crowd well yesterday and loved hanging out with his Aunt Elizabeth this whole weekend. Yes he had a cold but it didn't seem to bother him much.

Keeping this short because I'm completely EXHAUSTED but I wanted to wish my big guy a happy day and post some pictures for all of you! Thanks for sharing this wonderful year with us!

Busy busy busy...

The above photos are an example of my attempt to take pictures of Dashiell these days. He's always on the move and it's impossible to get a good, head-on, smiling at the camera photo! Seriously, I took about 30 pictures and these five are the best I could come up with. So I squished them all together so you could get an idea what life with Dashiell is like these days!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted but we've been super busy around here getting ready for Dashiell's big day! And work's been busy too so I don't even have time to do a quick post while I'm there, either. Not that I condone blogging while working but some days it gets kind of dull there and if I'm blogging it at least looks like I'm working, right?

So the big party is tomorrow, and as mentioned we've been all a-flutter trying to get the house ready, buying supplies, ordering balloons, etc. Then early this week Rick got hit with a nasty cold, which means that now I have this nasty cold. It's been hard motivating to do anything (hence blogging instead of cleaning). I'm just hoping Dashiell won't get it, or if he does the worst of it won't hit until after his party. But don't worry, party-goers, we'll have plenty of hand sanitizer and wipes and whatnot to try to keep the germs at bay. And I will be wiping down every surface of our house tomorrow before everyone gets here to lessen the germ quotient. I'd do it today but it'd be counter-productive, given my current germy state.

Dashiell's aunt Elizabeth is arriving from LA this afternoon, and we're so excited to see her! She's pretty excited to see our little guy, too. She hasn't seen him since Thanksgiving, and he's changed so much since then! He wasn't even crawling at that point, now he RUNS. Constantly!

Our other news is that we finally finished our dining room (which was started only 3 years ago), and now it's lovely and like new! And since it's now done, we set up our aquarium again! Dash and Rick bought 3 new fishies yesterday. Since the aquarium is rather large these 3 fish have plenty of room to swim. Dash loves them--he looks into the aquarium and giggles. It's very cute.

Wish us luck with the party (and the colds)! The next time I post our little guy will be ONE YEAR OLD!!! Wow!!!

Run!

Dashiell and I walked down to the park near our house yesterday to enjoy the lovely warm afternoon. This was the first chance we've had to let him run around outside, and though he was hesitant at first, he soon got the hang of it and was off like a shot! I spent 30-40 minutes chasing after him, making sure he didn't step in dog doo or run into the street or eat leaves and branches (there were tears involved when I put a stop to the leaf-and-branch eating). The above picture was taken prior to all the running when he was trying to figure out what this whole park business was all about; the video obviously is when he warmed up to the idea of playing in outside. I think the thing he loved the most was the dogs--one of our neighbors was walking his dog around the perimeter of the park and Dash kept running in the direction of the big doggy. Whee! And as one person put it upon seeing this video, Dash is definitely starting to live up to his name!

Almost done!

The photo book project continues, and I'm happy to report that it's almost done! I think I've included all the photos I want, except for any that are taken in the next couple of weeks (such as the b-day party photos), now I just need to figure out how to condense it more so it's not 45 pages long! I haven't actually priced it out yet but that's got to be pretty spendy!



Now that Dashiell can walk that is all he does--he paces the floor constantly! Living room - kitchen - dining room - living room - kitchen - dining room - couple of laps around the dining room table - living room - couple of laps around the ottoman - kitchen - short break to play with the tupperware - dining room...it's dizzying! But what's weird is that I feel less like I need to follow him or watch him at every step since he's always moving, which gives him less opportunity to get into things he's not supposed to get into! We've blocked off the stair, so he's safe from the most dangerous spots in the house. As long as I can hear him walking I know he's ok. Of course as soon as the footsteps stop I'm on him like glue but that hardly ever happens! He's just busy, busy, busy!



We're running out of ideas of what to feed him now that he's eating finger foods, so we're taking suggestions! We try to feed him whatever we're eating but in general he's not very interested in pork chops or asparagus (though he does try everything! And we'll keep on re-introducing everything until he like it!). So far his go-to meals are toast, grilled cheese and turkey sandwiches, and broccoli, cauliflower, and cheese quesadillas. I tried adding refried beans to the quesadilla yesterday and he wanted none of it. He'll also usually eat pears or peaches, though some days he decides to boycott them. We've had ravioli a couple of times, too, with some success. Who knew that feeding a toddler (is he officially a toddler since he now toddles?) could be so challenging! ;-)

Here's another oldie-but-goodie picture. He looks like such a proud American in his camo romper on the flag quilt...