8 Months Old

        Our sweet, sweet little man turned 8 months old on Thursday.  I am a little late blogging about it because we have been super busy the last few days.  At 8 months old Dawson continues to be such a delight.  He is thriving and continues to do so well.  He loves to explore and is in the stage where he gets into everything and everything goes into his mouth.  I love to watch him crawl around and just explore his world.  He likes to inspect and look at everything.  I do have to keep a very close eye on him because he can get something in his mouth with such a quickness. 

          Dawson continues to be very mobile.  He is a crawling master and can crawl very quickly.  He also loves tackling the stairs.  We have a very long, steep main staircase.  It is secured with a baby gate.  Sometimes, I let him crawl up the stairs with me right behind him.  He loves it and it so quick at making it up the stairs.  He is pulling himself up constantly and now even moves along furniture.  I also saw him move between two pieces of furniture the other day.  He was holding on the whole time, but I know that's a sign that walking may be coming soon.  I'm in no hurry for him to walk because I know the challenges that walking will present.  I just want for him to stay a baby for as long as possible. 

            Dawson is a great little eater.  He can never seem to get enough food.  I will put cheerios on his tray and I'm always shocked how quickly they disappear.  He hasn't tried a single food yet that he hasn't liked. 

           Dawson is also communicating a great deal more.  He now can wave although its more of him putting his entire hand up and down, he is still waving.  He talks and babbles like crazy.  I fear one day between Ashlyn and Dawson, Joey and I will have a lot of talking to listen to.  He says "mama" which I absolutely love. 

        Dawson still struggles with sleep at night.  Some nights are so much better than others.  The problem is that there has been a lot of sickness going around everywhere.  He has been battling a lot of colds.  It seems that when he isn't feeling up to par it really messes up his sleep patterns.  I just keep telling myself that one day it will get better.  I really have become so used to waking up in the middle of the night that it doesn't bother me one bit.  I'm just enjoying having a baby too much to care.  Before I know it he will be a toddler bouncing around.  I'm trying to take in all of these amazing moments before they are gone. 

      As usual, I took a bunch of pictures of him the day he turned 8 months old.  I think I'm going to do a neat photo project with all the pictures of him each month for his first birthday.  

Seriously, the cutest smile in the world!

This is my new favorite of him.  Such a wonderful picture. 

He loves his cars.

He just stands up any chance he can get.  Bath time has become a lot harder!

Just hanging out.  He has gotten very good at balancing himself.

I love him so much.  What a blessing he is. 

North Pole

We have been meaning to get to the North Pole for our yearly visit for some time.  Now that I'm working part time and have some weekdays off, we decided it would be best to go when school started again.  It can get quite crowded during summer and on weekends.  We decided that we needed to take advantage of the beautiful weather and make a trip up there today.  To make it more fun for Ashlyn, we invited her friend Josh to come to with his grandparents.  Josh and Ashlyn have been playing together once a week for years and they are great friends.  They had a blast there today.    The weather was perfect.  It was just beautiful up there.  There was hardly anyone else there.  They kids loved it because they could ride the same ride over and over if they wanted to without getting off.  There wasn't much for Ella and Dawson to ride, but maybe next year they can get in on some of the fun.  Ashlyn had a smile on her face the whole day.  We definitely decided that we will be making another trip to the North Pole again soon.  

*I will be posting some exciting posts this week.  Dawson turns 8 months this week, so I will post about that.  Ashlyn is going to run in her first race and she is beyond excited for it.  She has been counting down the days.  I am so excited about it for her.  I can't wait to get some great pictures to post!

They rode the motorcycles first, and had a great time as you can tell.

Such silly kids

Ashlyn wanted to try her own bike.

Next, they rode the horse and buggies. 

This pole is really neat.  It is covered in ice.  The kids got a kick out of it. 

Love this picture because you can see the fun being had. 

Priceless!!!

They couldn't get enough motorcycle rides. 

Poor Ella could only watch this time. 

Driving the North Pole bus

The boats that they loved and rode a lot.

The ladybugs were another favorite. 

Look at those speed racers.

Ashlyn is such a brave child.  Josh was a little scared about a lot of the rides and didn't want to ride some of them.  Ashlyn wasn't scared of a single ride.  She rode everything.  I think after riding Splash Mountain, she's not afraid of any ride!

Look how high up she was.

She said the slide was her favorite ride. 

She looks too stinking cute!!!

We always take a picture of Ashlyn on the North Pole sleigh.  Too bad Dawson was asleep because I really wanted him in the picture. 

Chinese Program

I have mentioned it a lot here before, but I absolutely LOVE Ashlyn's new school.  We have been so pleased with it this far.  It is so different from her old school in many positive ways.  She loves going there and has made a lot of new friends there.  This Friday she had her first school program.  I was so excited because they never did anything like that at her old school.  They have been learning about China, so the presentation was all about China.  Ashlyn wasn't shy at all and was quite the little performer.  Some kids were too embarrassed to go up and perform or didn't want to do it.  Not our little star.  She did an awesome job of doing exactly what she was supposed to do.  We are so proud of our princess.  I just can't believe she is already old enough to be in school programs.  Where did my baby go???

They started the program by singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

They then sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Chinese.  I was very impressed with their ability to sing it in Chinese at their age. 

Next they did a very neat dragon dance. 

The kids held onto the paper dragon and moved it up and down.

Ashlyn totally rocked at this.

Look at her go!

After the presentation, it was time to eat.  Her teacher did an amazing job of creating a Chinese feast.  She bought all sorts of authentic Chinese foods for the kids and parents to try.  It was a lot of fun.

The kids made this Chinese soup that was called Ugly Soup.  It was actually pretty tasty. 

Trying a Chinese moon cookie.

It wouldn't be a Chinese feast without a fortune cookie. 

Zoo Trip

Last week, Joey had Tuesday off from work.  Since the weather has been so beautiful, we decided to do something outdoors.  Of course, the perfect choice was the zoo.  Joey hadn't had a chance to go to the zoo with us this year.  It was a great day for the zoo.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  We couldn't have asked for a nicer day.  Since it was during the week, there was hardly anyone there.  It felt like we had the zoo to ourselves.  We had a great time.  Of course Ashlyn's favorite was the hippo.  

In front of the hippo

She is so obsessed with them.

Dawson practicing his pouty face. 

Ella and Dawson in front of the chimps.  Since I was watching Ella that day, she got to come with us.

We had a great time watching the chimps.

Dawson enjoyed looking around.

Ashlyn hatched out of an egg.

This time we tried something new, we let Ashlyn feed the chickens.  She really enjoyed it, although the chickens are very aggressive. 

Luckily, Dad was there to help.

After the chickens, Ashlyn wanted to feed the giraffes. 

She was afraid at first, but she then had a blast.