memorial day milk and cookies

happy memorial day to everyone, and thank you to all the fallen soldiers. it is easy to take a day off and lose count of why we have the day off. so again thank you to the fallen soldiers.

dan, donovan, buck and myself spent the day getting ready for "summertime when the living is easy". we cleaned up after having company, ran errands, and just hung out. dan and i caved on the cookies at the fresh market, and of course donovan got one as well. so, we took a video of donovan that to a parent, and probably grandparents is awesome! to everyone else it is an over 5 minute long video of donovan sitting in his highchair. the thing that makes it such a great video to his parents is that for the first time donovan just hung out instead of being preoccupied with the camera. he showed off his new showing us his mouth before we give him another bite, his use of "ahhhhhhh" after every drink he takes, his humming and bouncing without realizing he does it (he gets that from his mom), and a peek at a "hooray" from his hip-hip-horray act he does. so to family it is a chock full video.....to everyone else it is a long video of a much loved kid.

and he is a walkin'

last week i came home after work to see dan and donovan on the kitchen floor hanging out. dan had just gotten back from a training in new york and was just catching up with donovan.....so i sat down and joined catching up on our days.

dan said, "oh yeah donovan let's show your mom your new tricks". he sat donovan down and donovan walked straight over to me! for the past year donovan has amazed me almost every day in some way, but this blew me out of the water! i spent all morning with him crawling and now he is up and walking!!! so crazy. my parents had been in town and had been working with him earlier that day.

i have attached a few videos and it is probably overkill for everyone, but me being the proud mama cannot decide because each video is so cool. the first one is video from the first night he took steps.



as we have practiced and practiced we see more and more of donovan's personality. the next two videos are displays of donovan's drive to succeed (temper). i am very very very anxious and not the least bit competitive, and dan is confidant, competitive and has a temper. which one of his parents do you see being displayed here?

happy birthday dan

we have spent the past week celebrating dan's 40th birthday. i love a birthday, and despite dan's requests i have drug this out for close to a week. this week dan has been showered with gifts from friends and family....i stirred the pot here by asking friends and family to send dan 40 of something. we enjoyed seeing what people
came up with to send.


40 q-tips to help with hearing loss and wax build-up, 40 dry erase boards to hang around the house to help with memory loss, a jock strap with 40 bells (a joke between dan and his mother), 40 candles complete with a chocolate cheesecake, photo album of 40 pictures of friends and family wishing him a happy birthday, 4 packs of chicklets (his sister use to share chicklets with him on the bus......she got a pack for each decade), 40 golf tees, 40 viagra (seriously) and 40 hairs (again, seriously). he also got 2 sets of 40 texts on his birthday from friends and a secret message we had to figure out.

saturday he played golf with a group of guys. and that is the detail i have of that day. all in all we had a great time. 39 was a good year for dan with the birth of his son, a promotion at work, and another year of bliss with his lovely wife. happy birthday dan!

we took a header

although we have had a few falls with pump knots...and even a busted lip with blood, this header was the worst so far. it happened while we were cleaning up the kitchen and donovan was playing in the tupperware drawer. i heard a pretty mild fall and knew tears were on the way. by the time i bent down to pick him up blood dripped to the floor! oh my! i looked away to get a towel and by the time i looked back his eye brow was growing and turning blue in front of my eyes! i had always heard head injuries always look super bad, i was amazed at how quickly things looked scary. as quickly as the screams came they stopped. we had a few of his favorite snacks, read a few books and to bed he went. he did wake up to the minute of when his next advil dose was (4am). the next day he had a swollen green eye lid and was pretty fussy. the picture shows his head injury with a bug bite on his forehead. his knee is also skinned from crawling in the driveway. i have a hard time staying calm during injuries, and especially donovan's. i am trying to figure out how i can coax him into being an artist or maybe a dancer or possibly a master of sign language.

problem?

a couple months ago donovan got his first cold and it was recommended that we spray saliene in his nose. the idea of this made me tense. i cannot get donovan to let me wipe his hands, take his temperature, cut his finger nails...and my dr. wanted me to spray saliene in his nose???

well, donovan's response to this continues to surprise us. it seems that he always has huge boogers and he often rubs his nose so we have continued with the saliene...and especially since donovan has a bit of a habit. when he sees the bottles he points to it, and when handed the bottle he puts it straight up his nose. i will spray it in his nose until he chokes and sneezes and after he composes himself he begs for more.

is being addicted to saliene a problem or a blessing?

the farm

while in burnsville mama and daddy pulled some strings to get donovan to get to visit a farm. some old family friends from church have 200 acres with horses, turkeys, chickens, goats, cows...and probably some other stuff. donovan stayed serious, like he usually does when he is taking it all in. the evans family was nice enough to even send us home with some eggs, and donovan got to go in the chicken coop and get his own. we all had a great time checkin' out the evans family farm.

mother's day 2011

this is my second mother's day, but so much different than last year. last year donovan was only a month old and i was just beginning to feel better after the c-section. i remember i wanted a picture holding donovan that i did not look scary in. most all the pictures up to this point i looked really scary in. i wanted to be able to put it on facebook so everyone could see how put together as a new mom that i was. that is what i love about facebook...with just one picture you can create your own story :)

the real story was that i was touched and very proud to be able to celebrate mother's day, but a one month old does not really know how to pamper. i was exhausted, and frankly the last thing i wanted to do was to shower, put make-up on, and stuff myself into my jeans for a picture. but i had a plan that i wanted to execute and so it was done.

this year donovan was a little better at pampering. well i guess he is still not great at pampering, but he is a lot more fun to be around. dan was working from home on friday so we were able to take donovan to his gymboree class together, and then go to lunch. i had been looking forward to dan seeing him in his class. saturday dan had a tri-athalon in the morning, and then we packed up and headed to burnsville . when we got into town we headed to the hilltop (for those of you not familiar with burnsville it is the town soda shop) so donovan could have his first milkshake. he also learned pretty quickly to drink from a straw on that visit. mama and daddy had plans for the night so dan, donovan and myself took gigi to dinner.

dan had to fly to new york for work on sunday afternoon, so we spent sunday morning being lazy. we had breakfast and took donovan for a walk....i am realizing me listing the events of my mother's day weekend sound really boring, but it is mother's day, and so i am listing all the things i did because i wanted to. dan left around noon and mama and daddy graciously offered to let me take a nap while they took donovan to help plant some tomato plants. after my nap gigi came to visit. donovan, daddy and i took another walk, then we had dinner, then we sat around. i did take a shower, but did not wear make-up or fix my hair, and i wore the equivalent of pj's all day. happy mother's day to me.