Nitrocircus

Sawyer

Sawyer's gotten into this weird funk of constantly saying he can't do things and telling me or Dillon to do it instead. Like pulling up his own pants, or cleaning up his toys, or trying pretty much anything on his own before insisting he needs help. It's exhausting and I don't get it. 

We found a Lego Jurassic World movie on Netflix and both he and Dawson think it's the greatest thing. They watch and growl, roar, and stomp around for the entire show. Then they're usually in dinosaur mode for a good chunk of time after that. 

Sawyer is just now adding boy and girl into his vocab and will ask me on the regular, "Mommy, you a gurr-all?" He says it exactly like Gru- with the two syllables, minus the accent. I tell him that yes, I'm a girl and then we make the rounds. "Daddy's a boy? Brother's a boy? I'm a boy? But mommy, you a gurr-all?" It's so funny.

Sawyer went up with the primary kids to sing on Mother's Day and let me tell you, he put on a show. He was singing in his way (which I love- no words, just singing sounds) but also hopping down each step, then turning around and hopping up each step, then running over to the window, then playing some of the piano keys (while the person was trying to play the songs) then he took a break to run back to me and Dillon and exclaim, "I just singing!" before running back up. They sang three songs so he had lots of time for his performance. When they were done, he came back and triumphantly shouted, "I did it!". I'm not gonna lie you guys, I laughed the whole time (there was little bit of embarrassment, but what can you do? so laughing it was). But the rest of the congregation did too, so at least we could all appreciate Sawyer's rambunctious spirit together.

He also got to give a talk in primary. He thinks it's the best thing ever to talk in the microphone so there's no anxiety there. I love that crazy boy so much. 

Dawson

Dawson had his 18 month checkup and is now 20 lbs (1st percentile), 30 1/4 in. tall (3rd percentile), with an 18 1/2 in. noggin (25th percentile). He's healthy and growing just like we like it. He doesn't appreciate the doctor's office like Sawyer does. Even with all of the shots, Sawyer thought doctor visits were the best. Dawson, on the other hand, sees the long strip of paper they have on the exam table and immediately melts down and latches himself hard into my arms so I have to peel him off to put him on it.

Besides for the Jurassic World movie, Dawson has also started to really like Secret Life of Pets because it's full of puppies, which he just loves. So when he gets the chance to vote, he votes to watch, "puppies!" He also likes to watch Dillon play MLB baseball on the xbox? I don't understand the appeal but he'll regularly bring out the controller and sweetly ask for, "bae-ball?" He loves music and dances to it whenever he hears it. One of his favorites right now is "Badtown". He sings along to it in the van and asks to hear it if something else is playing.

Whenever Dawson wants to be held now he says, "dit you" (get you) and holds up his arms. When he's feeling particularly sweet he'll then say "uuuug?" (hug) and lay his little body down on your shoulder. Those moments are definitely some of my favorites with that feisty little boy. 

Dillon

Dillon has put a lot of work into our sprinkler system the last couple of summers. This year, he got all of the sprinkler heads cleaned out and set and was ready to put that system to good use but after a couple rounds one night, our back lawn was being flooded near the valves again. So we've called in some reinforcements to help us solve the problem because our back lawn is just too dang big to keep up with with just a plain old hose and sprinkler head.

He took Sawyer to his first overnight Fathers and Sons and said that he had a good time. Sawyer came back with a nice bruise and scratch on his face after apparently throwing rocks in the air and not moving out of the way in time. And Dillon said that some of the boys decided to make dry ice bombs. I told him that I probably just shouldn't know about the crazy and not safe things that go on at camp. As long as they have fun and he keeps himself and our kid in one piece, I guess it's all good.

I took Dillon to the Nitrocircus Next Level Tour show down in St. George and it was so, so fun. There was a lot of chaos at the entrances (whoever organized it, didn't think it through very well) so there were a lot of people still in line when the show was supposed to start. Thankfully they decided to hold back the show for half an  hour so we didn't miss a thing. During the show, I could tell Dillon was really into it and I've never been prouder of picking such a good (and really early) birthday gift. Topping it will be hard.

DaNae

Our washer and dryer have been taking turns giving me fits which just made the drudgery of laundry even worse. The dryer was really the biggest problem. It was taking up to five drying cycles to dry a load of clothes. After a week of that ridiculousness, I decided to call a guy to clean out our vent in hopes that that was the problem. They guy showed up and I think was assuming it would be a typical job and that the vent would be easy to get to. Not so, sir. He had to hop down in our crawl space with Dillon (a place I've vowed to never go if I can help it) to check it out. He was not at all impressed with the setup of our vent from dryer to outside. Apparently it's pretty wonky, from everything he's told us. So he cleaned all out, which took more work than he was anticipating but then told us that we need to get someone over to reconfigure the setup. So that's been added to our never ending to-do list. But now the dryer works like a dream! So, silver lining.

I was spoiled for the Mother's Day holiday. My mom and I got early Mother's Day pedicures since she was going to be out of town during the weekend. It was a fun and quick little break. Then Dillon took me to get a couple of new summer shirts. After shopping, he told me to go ahead and make a honey-do cleaning list and he would take care of it. Definitely one of the best Mother's Day gifts ever. So I listed a few deep cleaning chores that I knew needed to be done but that I'd been avoiding and he did them all for me. He rocks so hard. The day of, he took care of meals and I got to take a nap and the boys gave me cute crafts they made at church. It was definitely a good day and week. I've said it before but Dillon is just so good at holidays and I don't ever quite make it up to him I don't think, but I'm sure going to try. 

Dawson with Dillon's hat. 

Telling Grandma Paula, "Happy Birthday."

We stopped at a splash pad in St. George for a little bit. Sawyer dove right in, Dawson had to warm up to it.

As we were walking to the van, Dawson stopped and held his hand out to Sawyer and asked, "Haaann??" so Sawyer held his hand and walked him the rest of the way. And I had all the happy feels and a melty heart.

We did our first Home Depot workshop. Both these boys in their little aprons were the cutest thing on this whole planet.

Sawyer really liked the hammering steps, and we're like 98% sure he's a lefty.

Dawson was into building too but didn't want help, which was just really sketchy with the pointy tools laying all around.

All done with their windmills.

Rocking on his horse.

Dollar store water "rocket" as Sawyer calls it. Best dollar spent so far this season.

The face he gave me after he made himself gag and barf because I offered him mac and cheese...so I cleaned him up and made him sit back to down to eat it. (So he barfed again... so annoying. He's definitely in his picky eater stage of life.)

Ice cream at the grandparents.

Dancing! It's my favorite.

Setting up the tent with Dillon.

Actually eating a hamburger. Straight up miracle.

Early morning selfie.

Dillon is definitely Dawson's favorite and he did not appreciate being left behind during Fathers and Sons. He was attached to Dillon as soon as he and Sawyer came back.

On our way to Nitrocircus.

It's hard to see them in this picture but they did some crazy stunts.

Still attached.

Magnets that Sawyer and Dawson made for me at church.

Sawyer made this while we were in Sunbeams. It felt a little weird to be like, "Hey buddy, make this to give to me." ha but we had all the other kids make them for their moms so, of course, he got to make one too. He thinks it's so cool that we traced and cut out his hands to hang on our fridge.

Water Balloons

Sawyer

I got Sawyer all preregistered for preschool. He's been making a lot of progress lately with his anxiety so we decided to sign him up in hopes that by the time school starts, he'll be okay. And we figured that if it ends up blowing up in our faces, we can just pull him and wait until next year since he's only three. The day I signed him up, I would randomly get teary eyed the rest of the day if I thought about him not spending all day with me. Those firsts are hard on moms. I joked with Dillon that maybe I'm the problem and Sawyer and I have created a codependency with each other.

One of Sawyer's new things he tried included spending the night at my parents house. He decided that it would be all right if he slept in Grandma's bed and watched movies. This was such a big step for him considering he used to have panic attacks and throw up if we left him at their house for even an hour. So hooray for progress!

Sawyer has taken it upon himself to be Dawson's keeper... usually when Dawson doesn't need it. But he'll take Dawson by the arm and lead him to wherever Sawyer believes he should be. Either away from something "dangerous" or over to me after I've told Dawson to "come here". Sometimes Dawson takes it well. Other times he screeches in frustration at having multiple people boss him around.

Sawyer finally filled his piggy bank up all the way with coins so I told him we could take it to the store and pick something out. After running it through the Coinstar machine, he had about $28 to his name. He decided that every dollar needed to be spent on water balloons. A few times I told him, "You have enough you could get water balloons AND a toy", to which he replied, "no, ALL balloons." So he got alllll the water balloons, plus a dollar treat to share with Dawson. 

Dawson

For the last while, Dawson has started to get really, really upset at the end of his bath (I don't know if it's the actually washing or knowing he's going to be pulled out into the cold air or what) and the only thing that will calm him down enough for me to get him dressed is a tube of ChapStick. He gets the lid in one hand and the tube in the other, and is perfectly content to click them together then take them apart over and over and over. Toddlers.

He is progressing really fast with his vocabulary and parrots pretty much everything. I say "my goodness!" and "are you serious?" a lot throughout the day (mostly to avoid saying other choice things) and Dawson walks around saying, "doodness" and "seer-us" on repeat. I've noticed that he doesn't make mistakes with words like Sawyer did when he was learning (I assume because big brother is around so Dawson hears the correct terms for things) and that makes me a little sad because those are usually the cutest (although dibbles is still going strong at this house. What are Cheetos?)

Poor Dawson is definitely a spring allergy sufferer. Dude has had a faucet for a nose the last month and half. I'm hoping it eases up soon since one of the joys of coming out of the winter months is usually less snot to deal with.

Dawson has become OBSESSED with Dillon's bright yellow softball. He carts it around and has even slept with it curled under his arm a few nights. He's quite attached.

Dillon

Dillon has started spring softball. We've been meaning to go watch him but the weather has canceled a couple of games and then the other ones have been really late at night. 

He had planned for us to go to Grifols (a plasma donation center) for a date night. Just for something different and fun (plus you get paid, nothing sad about that). But it turns out that I've donated blood much too recently for them to allow me to donate plasma so he ended up going by himself. He's actually gone back a few times since because he said it's not bad at all, he gets to hang out and read for an hour and then gets paid when he leaves ha. 

Dillon and his buddies decided to plan a guys getaway to hang out and watch the NFL draft. They headed down to Mesquite where one of their parents has a timeshare. It sounds like they had a good time- xbox, tennis, golf, the draft, food. I think it was a nice break for him.

DaNae

Back when my Grandpa Loveland passed away, I bought the Photomyne app for my phone so I could make digital copies of some of his pictures. The app allows you to scan printed pictures and converts them into digital files. I was supposed to just have the free week long trial, but of course forgot to cancel the subscription and now proudly own a photo scanning app for the next year. So holler at me if you need pictures scanned. It has been nice though to start going through old pictures and creating digital copies. One of these days when I get a little more organized, those Photomyne gems will be hitting the blog.

I finished Whole 30 and I gotta say, I really enjoyed it for the most part. There were some days of pretty serious cravings but overall it really stretched me to come up with different, healthier things to eat. And a lot of the recipes I found are actually really simple to make, which I'm all about. I'm not sad that sugar (and dairy, I definitely missed cheese) is back in my life but I am glad that it's back in a much healthier way...and less of a regular gorge-fest way. Plus, if we're being honest, the weight loss is not too shabby either.

Dawson loves to sit as close to Sawyer as possible when they watch movies now.

Water balloons. They would seriously play with these all day, every day. 

Dancing to The Greatest Showman. I didn't catch when he was REALLY into it but it's still cute.

His favorite ball currently- dad's softball.

Saying "ball".

Finally warm enough for swimsuits and water toys.

And picnics.

"Airplane!"

Just a picture of my cute boys...and the hand I apparently didn't crop out.

Piggy bank money!

So delighted with his purchase.

Proof that my genes played a bigger role in the making of child #2.

It makes me so happy when they play together.

They both think this is the greatest game: Dawson climbs up...

...and Sawyer gets him down.

Lather, rinse, repeat.