Valentine's

Sawyer

About the time I finished my last post, Sawyer was going through a super pleasant phase using phrases like "get away from me" and "I don't care". It's seems to have passed for now, though there is still plenty of three-year-old sass going around. I'll tell you what, "terrible twos" have got nothing on this "threenager" experience.

During one of our all too frequent trips to Walmart, Sawyer managed to dart away while we were checking out so that he could push all of the buttons on the key copying machine...while the door was open and the maintenance guy was inside. I chased after him and was quick to scold him about not touching things when the worker stepped out, smiled, and said, "Kids are just curious. It doesn't bother me at all." Then he gave Sawyer a card that had a coupon code and told him that he could use it to make his very own key for free. Sawyer could pick the design on the key and everything. We used it on our next visit and Sawyer is now the proud owner of a "puppy key" that he loves. That guy is the real MVP of our Walmart trips so far. I always appreciate it so much when other people have patience with my children and show them kindness. 

When the weather was still playing nice I took the boys outside for walks. For one of our walks Sawyer decided he wanted to bring his scooter. He uses it correctly but goes at a snail's pace. It makes me laugh so hard. We decided to do a loop around the church and it took us 20 minutes with his little scootering self. But the whole time he was grinning and would turn to me and say, "'Mazing, scooter! 'Mmmmazing!" Things that really impress him have been deemed amazing and it's the best.

He has started to sing his little heart out in sacrament and I have to keep from laughing because I don't want to make him self conscious. He doesn't know the words to a lot of the hymns they pick, so he just makes what he thinks are singing noises, and he makes them LOUDLY. Dawson has started to pick up on it and will join in so they duet gibberish songs. It's definitely at the top of my favorites right now in their little lives.

Dawson

Dawson is picking up words all the time, trying to parrot what we say. Two of his top most used words are "stinky" and "bum". There's a lot of diaper changing with that one. The way he says bum is so funny- juts his chin out and holds the "m" for a long time.

We decided it was time to wean some of his binky usage so that he was only using it to fall asleep with for naps and bedtime. He had developed quite the attachment rather suddenly that I could see being a real problem in the future. The first morning I had him leave his binky in the crib he was FULL of baby rage. He screamed by the crib and tried to stretch his little arms to reach it. After that went on for too long, I decided to bring him out and just close the door to his room to see if I could distract him. Instead, he literally pounded on the door with his fists and yelled, "Bink-bee! BINK-BEE!!" Soooo that was rough, but it really only took that first day, and now he thinks it's a great game to toss his binky back in the crib himself after he's woken up.

Dawson is at that cute little helper stage. He'll walk his own diapers to the trash after being changed, hands plates to me one by one out of the dish washer so I can put them away, and delights in getting to put the bounce sheet in the dryer when I switch over loads of laundry. I'm loving it.

Dawson also got a new car seat since he was approaching the height limit for his infant seat. He likes it as much as he liked the other one- very minimally. I don't know why he's so fussy about being in the car, even for five minute rides. Good thing we keep a special stash of dum-dums in our vehicle. They provide a few minutes of quiet.

Dillon

Dillon's been working on fixing the few odds and ends on our van that we knew needed to be fixed when we got it. One of the things it needed was a new hubcap. We found out it was actually cheaper to buy a set of four new hubcaps with a new design than it would have been to buy just the one hubcap that matched the other three already on there. Dillon changed them out and it was all fine until he got to the last tire and discovered that two of the lug nuts hadn't been tightened completely so they had gotten all warped and wouldn't come off. He bought a couple of parts at an auto store and then called Dan (our super handy and helpful friend) to see if he had the tools to get the job done. They got it all sorted and now we have matching hubcaps.

We took the van down to St. George a few weekends ago to watch Braden's ball games and stop at Costco. It was doing totally fine and then decided not to start back up after one of our stops. Thankfully, my parents had also traveled down to St. George so they came to help out. After some trial and error, my dad and Dillon got it started back up and we cut our day short to head back to Cedar. Dillon called Dan (again...we seriously owe him) to see what he thought. They hooked the van up to some special reader thing I don't understand and it gave them a code for the problem. We looked it up and it had a few suggestions as to what needed to be fixed. We decided to start with the cheapest one - the MAF sensor - and go from there. Dillon cleaned the sensor and the van seems to be fine now. We even took it back on the freeway and it didn't have any problems so, we'll see if that solved it for the long term or not. 

DaNae

Dillon and I had decided to do a low-key valentines this year and hit up Ross to find some finds worth our time. We both left with socks and grooming stuff- him: a hair trimmer, me: makeup brushes. Neither of us were sad about our practical gifts this year (and he still surprised me with flowers later so he wins all the romance points). 

I did our taxes which, if I'm being honest, often feels like a guessing game. I try to be as careful and thorough as possible but sometimes TurboTax throws stuff at me and I'm not entirely sure what I'm reading ha. But they're all done and we were pleasantly surprised with the outcome. We decided this year to use some of our refund that results from having dependents to start savings accounts for the boys. It's nice to have those set up for them so that we can contribute to it and hopefully give them something worthwhile for their future.

One of our walks.

This baby needed a real haircut in a bad way.

Catching some zzz's at the table..obviously pre-binky weaning.

Haircut time.

He actually did really good for his age. He was definitely confused when he noticed the hair fall down onto the cape and was trying to figure out what in the world was going on.

The salon gave him two suckers for doing so good and he was set.

Visiting Delta family for Allie's baptism. Dawson is trying his hardest to talk to the "kitty, kitty" through the door in this picture.

Allie and Dawson.

Kristin caught a video of Dawson saying "bummm" and I'm so glad she did.

Drink thief.

He LOVES the snow.

Especially eating it.

As does his big brother.

Those lip smacks.

Dropped off Valentine's flowers to grandma. It wouldn't be a trip to visit Grandma Paula's work without these boys thieving her Triscuits.

We stopped by the high school to give Grandpa Dale a Valentine's treat too. Sawyer used this row of desks as a jungle gym for a good twenty minutes.

"Minion heart!" He was even more impressed when he discovered there was chocolate inside.

And this boy was all about his tube of Valentine's mini M&M's.

My beautiful Valentine's flowers.

Mom Car

Sawyer

Sawyer had his three-year-old checkup and came in at 39 1/4 inches tall (82nd percentile) and weighing 35 lbs (80th percentile). He's growing like a little weed and looks a lot older for his age which can sometimes be hard when people expect him to act like the four-year-old he looks like. He's nice and healthy with the exception of his little abdomen hernia that he was born with that hasn't closed up yet. It's thankfully not causing problems right now and the pediatrician said they usually wait until age five to see if it will resolve itself before moving ahead with surgery. Fingers crossed. The pediatrician and I also talked about Sawyer's anxiety and he thought it would be a good idea to meet with a specialist just to get some help with methods to help him cope with separation. We met with someone down in St. George and she gave us some tips that will hopefully guide us in the right direction. Sawyer has made a lot of improvement from a year and a half ago. I just want to make sure that we can give him some tools to hopefully make preschool (and the rest of school) something that is fun for him and doesn't cause stress.

Sawyer has daytime potty training down but is still struggling with nighttime. After talking with some other moms, Dillon and I decided that pull-ups were coming to our house. As much as I was hoping to do all the training in one go, it just wasn't working out (I think his little bladder is too small for how long he still sleeps at night). Buuuut...the first few nights I tried to put Sawyer in a pull-up, he straight up had a come apart and kept screaming, "No diapers! Just underwear!", while he cried and pulled them off. So then we were totally stuck because we definitely didn't want to traumatize him over a pair of freaking pull-ups. Then one night I was changing his jammies and sheets after an accident- and he was freezing. So I explained to him that if we did pull-ups while his body figured out how to hold it all night, he wouldn't have to get out of bed and be cold in the middle of the night. His head gave a little nod and he whispered, "Okay." He hasn't had a problem with the pull-ups since.

Sawyer is doing well in primary and likes to be around the other kids. He has been obsessive with slipping away from me during sharing and singing time so that he can talk in the microphone. We're talking every thirty seconds I would have to use my ninja-mom reflexes to stop him. He was mercifully assigned the prayer last week so that he could use the microphone and he did really well. And it seemed to calm his microphone bug for a bit.

Dawson

Dawson had his 15 month checkup and his stats were- Weight:17 lbs 15 oz (0.16th percentile), Height: 29 inches (3rd percentile), Head: 18 inches (13th percentile). He's still a little fella but he's grown since his last checkup so the doctor wasn't as concerned about his calorie intake. 

Dawson's got more than enough spunk (to put it kindly) packed in for his size. He's all stubbornness and fire. He's loving that we get to go outside more with the weather warming up and would definitely stay out all day long given the chance. He's such a watcher and tries to do all the things that Sawyer does. He only takes one nap a day about ninety percent of the time now. But both boys still take a nap at the same time in the afternoon so I can't complain too much. Daws was sick with croup starting about a week and a half ago but a humidifier and some Tylenol helped him through the roughest days and now we're just waiting for his nose to stop running perpetually.

Dawson has created his own routine for bedtime that requires him being rocked by me, and me alone. He's never been a snuggly baby when he's ready to sleep. He used to just want to be laid down. But now he wants me to stand and hold him in my arms while he rests his head on my shoulder and I sway back and forth. We do that for about sixty seconds while I rub his head and then he's completely fine to be laid down in his crib. But if we skip that, or Dillon tries to do it, Dawson's little gremlin self takes over until he gets his one-minute of snuggling.

Dillon

Dillon sold his Jeep this week. He worked on getting it presentable- fixed the window, gave it a good scrub- inside and out etc. and then we listed it in a few different places. Can I just say...selling stuff is the worst (until it's successfully sold, then it's worth it). We had a few people ask about it but then only wanted to pay a fraction of the asking price and we had done a lot of research to make sure our price was fair. And we had some people say they were interested but then never followed up. But we finally had a dad and son who seemed really interested come over to check it out. I was over at my parents with the boys eating Super Bowl snacks while Dillon showed the Jeep. He called me to say that they wanted it but wanted to pay half in cash and half with a check. And my skeptical/non-trusting self gave a big, fat nope to that idea. Then they wanted to show Dillon the account and that there was money in it to prove that the check would be good. After some over-the-phone discussion, we decided that I would come get the check and deposit it in the ATM while Dillon stayed with the Jeep. Once it was cleared and in our account, I would call and Dillon would then hand over the key and title. Poor guys probably thought I was crazy. Although the dad did laugh and told Dillon in a heavy accent, "Hey, wife da boss." Everything worked out. We got the money and they drove away happy. And now Dillon gets to drive the Escape, so he's pretty happy too (not quite as happy as he'd be with a truck...one day).

DaNae

A week before we sold the Jeep, I hopped on Facebook and saw that my Uncle Jared and Aunt Lisa were selling their van for a really great price. I showed Dillon and we talked about the perks of getting that van while we finished paying off Escape. We figured it will hopefully give us a few extra years to save up a down payment for our next vehicle purchase, it has more room for any future kids we might have (which means we don't have to buy new car seats which we would have to do if we tried to haul more babies in the Escape), both of our vehicles will be trustworthy on the freeway, and I won't be stuck at home for days during the times Dillon helps at the farm but we don't go with him (since the Jeep usually stayed home..and it's not really something to drive kids around in). So we took the van for a spin and decided we wanted it. Jared and Lisa were nice and let us sell the Jeep first then come back and buy the van. The van makes me feel like I've officially arrived in the "parent club". I dig everything about our new "mom car" and don't care about how "not cool" it is. Functionality totally beats out coolness for me in the car category at this point in my life. Even the guys at Dillon's work who have a van told him that he'll end up loving it because of how much easier it makes things with kids. 

At the pediatrician's for their well-checks.

The boys and I made our very first visit ever to a Chick-fil-a. We walked over to the college to grab lunch and it was only once we were there that I processed that they were not very likely to have kids meals ha. But we all liked our food and the boys especially enjoyed their hats the nice worker gave them.

Headed to church while Dad stayed home with a sick Dawson.

Dawson loved playing in the snow for his very first time. This picture happened after he bent over to pick some up and got some on his nose since the snow pile was so high.

So much snow.

Sawyer's reaction to Dillon throwing snowballs at him.

A little snow-dipped sucker time.

We took a trip to the dollar store and I told Sawyer he could pick one thing to bring home and he picked this. Like, what? So funny.

All the mess, every meal.

"He tickle me!" Sawyer's face as Dawson gets his toes.

We stopped at our favorite St. George park before visiting with the specialist.

All bundled up to try and watch Braden's baseball game. We made it about halfway before we had to call it because of the cold and looming bedtimes.

While we were at Jared and Lisa's, Kyler took Sawyer for a short ride on the four wheeler.

Looking good in a helmet and Jared's jacket.

He loved riding on the "big bike".

These two have really started to play together and like to pass hugs back and forth. The best.

Outside time with some Orbeez.

A picture for the memories. Sawyer's first love was definitely this Jeep and he is so confused about why it's not at our house anymore but doesn't seem too upset about it. I think the van will win him over pretty quickly with it's movie playing capabilities