All Aboard!!!

Today Aunt Sarah and her five little ones (Nathan, Aileena, Jarrett, Ella and Chase) came over to play for a while. Kayda and Dillon LOVED it! Jarrett, Aileena and Nathan are so good with the little ones. They will push Kayda, Dillon and Ella around on the little cars, chase them, spin them, tickle them and many other things which the little ones can't get enough of. After Dillon went down for a nap Jarrett and Aileena decided a train would be great fun. So Aileena was the engine on the trike with Jarrett, Ella and Kayda tagging along behind her, along for a carefree ride. Aileena eventually got tired and had Jarrett take over but he ditched the cargo pretty quickly. They had a wonderful time! I love that we have so much family so close by that we can see them frequently. Kayda and Dillon will always have a great support system, they have a mob of cousins their age and a whole network of adults that adore them. Enjoy the show!

Two Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed...

I thought this was funny. I was trying to put Dillon down for a nap and Kayda came in. She decided to flip herself into the crib and she started jumping. Well Hank followed her in and Dillon got all excited so I put him in the crib too. Pretty soon they're both jumping in the crib. Hank got a little upset and barked which is a pretty rare occurence but they just thought it was funny!

Anyways, on to the real reason I posted. Here is a short clip of Dillon walking, he kept stopping to play with stuff but he walks everywhere now. He's gotten really good at picking stuff up without holding on to anything and he carries big things around now.

Last but not least...Kayda was playing with her baby and stroller the other day. She decided that she needed to walk the dog too so she had me help her hook her dog's "leash" onto the stroller and entertained herself for quite a while walking around with her baby in the stroller and her dog tagging along. Not Hank of course. That's the way we take our walks now, she walks, Dillon rides and Hank tags along beside us. She LOVES going out on walks and when I had an extra leash she tried to help walk him. Problem now is I can't find that leash anywhere!

We love having Hank, he's a little chew happy and nips but he's learning and he's usually really good with the kids.

The Walking Man!!!

Dillon is officially a walker!!! He hardly crawls at all anymore. He started on Wednesday. Hurray for Dillon. Pictures later I promise!

Dillon's Party

We celebrated Dillon's birthday yesterday, on his birthday. It ended up being quite the group of people! We had most of our relatives and our neighbors! The kids had a great time playing and would've completely forgotten about cake and presents if we hadn't reminded them. Dillon didn't understand the candle but Kayda remembered so she blew it out for him. He tried to grab it at first but I only had to pull his hand back once, he didn't try again, he's so smart. When we got to the cake and icecream it took him a second to warm up to his cupcake but once he did he scarfed it right down! When he finished his icecream he actually picked up the bowl and tried to lick the rest out!

Since he is too young to really understand the whole opening presents thing we were letting the other kids help. Well that turned in to having the gifts opened in a matter of seconds. It was chaos! Thanks everyone for the gifts, Dillon and Kayda are both enjoying them, it's just trying to get Kayda to let him play with HIS toys!!! I can't believe he's one, they grow up way too fast!

Dillon's Beginning

A year ago (yesterday), our sweet little boy was born.  At his five month anatomy ultrasound they discovered that the placenta was too close to the cervix (placenta previa) which means they couldn't let me go into labor at the risk of losing both mother and baby.  We had MANY ultrasounds after that to see if it moved far enough away.  Our last ultrasound was in December and the placenta still needed to move 1/2 a centimeter to be safe.  It had moved but was now moving too slowly and they didn't think it would move far enough.  On December 31st we had an amniocentisis to try to determine if his lungs were mature enough.  The test showed that they were "transitional" so they weren't quite ready.  They had originally wanted to do the c-section on January 2nd but they postponed it to January 8th. 

So, the morning of January 8th we went over to be prepped for surgery.  I was very anxious about the surgery.  They finally wheeled me in and gave me a spinal block.  After a few minutes they ran something across my stomach "can you feel that?"  Yes I could!  They tried again a few minutes later "can you feel that?"  YES I could!  "We'll give it 20 minutes or so to set up".  20 minutes later "can you feel that?"  YES I COULD!  PLEASE just do another one.  So they did a second spinal block.  This spinal block was much less pleasant and made me feel like I needed to throw up but my stomach muscles wouldn't let me.  It was awful. 

Finally the surgery got started with Daddy sitting by my head.  Dillon was born via c-section at 9:36 in the morning. He was 18.25 inches long (though he grew 2 inches in a week so we think that was inaccurate) he was 7 lbs 7.7 oz. I was stitched up, Dillon was cleaned up and given to Daddy.  We (Daddy, Dillon and I) were all brought back to our room. Grandma G had Kayda and brought her in to meet baby brother. 

Shortly after arriving there the nurse noticed Dillon was starting to get a little ashy so they called in an NICU nurse to check him over. She came in an decided to take him over to the NICU because he seemed to be struggling to breathe.  I asked to hold him because I'd only gotten to look at him, I held him long enough to take a picture and then they took him away.  They hooked him up to a respirator and had him in an incubator of sorts to help him maintain his body temperature. They wouldn't let me go see him until I could get myself out of bed and into the wheelchair.  This proved to be easier said than done, they had me on morphine which meant everytime I tried to raise the head of my bed even a little I got light headed and nauseous.

At about 9 Daddy said good night, Dillon was doing well and Daddy needed to get back home for Kayda. Around midnight I was FINALLY able to make it over to him for the first time. He was doing REALLY well, they had lowered his oxygen percentage to almost the normal level and weren't having to use as much pressure. Knowing this, I waited for Daddy to come back the next morning around 9 before going over to see Dillon again (we had to name him still). When we went back over he was doing worse and the doctor said that his left lung had collapsed, he was going to reinflate Dillon's lung by drawing the air in the chest cavity out with a syringe. Turned out they couldn't reinflate the lung that way due to the hole being too large in his lung. They ended up putting in a chest tube and hooking him to a special machine which would pull the extra air out without allowing it to go back in when Dillon exhaled, thus keeping his lung expanded.

Grandpa G and Uncle Pat came to give him a blessing which was a great comfort to Daddy and I. We weren't able to hold him until the 11th because any pressure on or near the chest-tube would hurt him and we didn't want to risk it. I was with him every day and once I was discharged I headed right over to sleep in his room.  I went home once or twice a day to spend time with Kayda but spent most of the time with Dillon.  He ended up recovering much more quickly than expected. He got to come home on the 16th with no permanent effects from having his lung collapse.

Dillon's Firsts:

Intentional smile: 2/20 (1 month, 2.5 weeks)

Grabbed a toy: 4/16 (3 months, 1 week)

Laughed; 4/27 (3 months, 2.5 weeks)

Solid food: 5/22 (4 months, 2 weeks)

Responded to name: 5/31 (4 months, 3 weeks)

First tooth (bottom right): 7/1 ( 5 months, 3 weeks)

Sits alone: 7/21 (6 months, 2 weeks)

Rolls tummy to back: 8/25 (7 months, 2 weeks)

Rolls back to tummy: 8/31 (7 months 3.5 weeks)

Pulls to standing: 9/17 (8 months, 1.5 weeks)

Crawling: 9/26 (8 months, 2.5 weeks)

Stands alone: 11/5 (9 months, 4 weeks)

Climbs stairs: 11/7 (day before 10 months)

Walks between things: 12/5 (10 months, 3.5 weeks)

Other things Dillon can do:

Wave Bye, clap, blow kisses, say "da", "ma", "ba", "pa", "th", "s"

We have big news!

After watching Kayda and Dillon with other families' pets (chasing Uncle Justin's cats, Grandma and Grandpa G's dog, bird and fish, Grandma and Grandpa H's former dog, Uncle Pat's dog, etc) we have decided that it is a good time to get a pet. Dillon is at a good age now, becoming pretty independent, so we can fine tune the dogs training relatively conveniently and we're not having another baby for at least another year and a half. We considered taking Blue (Grandma and Grandpa G's husky) but for the time being it isn't a good fit, though we do hope that he and the dog we chose will be good friends (eventually we'd like to bring Blue over for "playdates").

After a visit to the pound there was a dog we really liked in Bellevue but we weren't 100% sure about, we talked about it and decided to see him again. Grandma and Grandpa H watched the babies so that we could take him for a little walk, pet him, spend a little time with him... We decided that he would be our newest addition! He is 7 months old, knows some basic commands and seems to be mostly potty trained. He is an Australian Cattle Dog mix and he is very sweet. He wanted very much to cuddle with Daddy when we were sitting with him. He is being neutered tomorrow hopefully and we will be picking him up when they give us the okay. He's a very sweet dog, we've never heard him bark, not even when we first walked in to the kennel. He was a stray so they don't know a lot about him but he seems to be pretty mellow and incredibly loving. Meet HANK! Yes I know, odd name for a dog but it seems to fit him so we're keeping it.
For those of you who will be at Dillon's birthday party he won't be available for your petting pleasure since he will still be getting used to us and the house but you will be able to sneak a peek, say hello and rub his ears if you so choose! Though he'll have the cone on so it could be difficult...

Zoolights!

We decided that a trip to zoolights was in order. So we packed up and met Grandma and Grandpa G down at point Defiance. The lights were pretty cool and they still had the aquarium open which Kayda adored. She didn't want to leave the fish and got very upset when we made her. We're thinking about making zoolights a yearly holiday tradition. They had light "animations" where a frog would jump or a whale or there was one where a chameleon caught a fly. In the picture they had Mount Rainier on the right and Tacoma Narrows bridge on the left. Kayda thought the rope lights lining the pathways were fantastic. We had a great time all bundled up, the only bad part was that it was INCREDIBLY busy and it was hard to be able to stop and look at the lights.