Valentines Weekend

Dave heard of a good deal called "The Cache Valley Getaway Package" and checked into it. What it entailed is an overnight stay in a hotel (several to choose from) two dinner vouchers for various restaurants (your choice) and breakfast in the morning.

We were sure it was meant to be some sort of romance getaway, but we thought it would be fun to take the kids and let them swim at the hotel and just get out of the house. My sister also lives in Logan, so we were able to visit her for a little bit Friday night.
Dave booked the hotel two weeks prior to going. We had been getting Landon stoked for it a few days before we were to leave. Thursday morning both my kids came down with fevers. We were all pretty bummed thinking we needed to cancel. Miraculously, both kids seemed to be just fine Friday morning, so we were excited to still be going.

I took the kids to the mall Friday morning to let them each pick out a new stuffed animal for a Vday present. Both my kids loved stuffed animals. While we were headed out to our car we passed a lady at Mrs. Fields cookies who was decorating those giant heart cookies. Landon's mouth was salivating. But Landon, he's a thinker. His way of getting one of those giant cookies for himself was to suggest getting it for Daddy for Valentines Day. Dave and I had promised we would not get anything for each other, but I figured this would be fine. Landon was soooo excited! He even asked the lady to add sprinkles (which she did not have out, but she went and found some anyway).

When we got to the hotel both my kids were on super-hyper mode. We set up the pack-n-play for Dawson who immediately had to get inside. He was so excited to be in there he just kept on squealing. Landon was super excited to have his very own giant bed. He didn't want to leave the hotel room at all. He just wanted to stay on his bed. I feel pretty bad for whoever had to sleep below us, or on either side. Let's just say our kids took turns waking up every 20 minutes throughout the night. They definitely take after me, I DESPISE sleeping in hotels and never sleep well.


After the excitement from the hotel room died down just a little we took the kids swimming then to dinner. Landon used to love swimming and was never afraid of "the deep" but then again, taking after his mom, he is now afraid and did a great job staying right by the steps and clinging on for life. We will be putting him in swimming lessons for sure, we don't want his fear of water to turn as bad as mine! :) Dawson loved every second of swimming! It was cute to watch him float on his own.




We had several options to chose for dinner, both our kids were tired and getting cranky at this point, so we decided to go with a more kid friendly place. Ruby Tuesdays. Never been there before and honestly, dont think I'll ever go back :) The food wasn't terrible, but not great either. We had fun going out to dinner as a fam, which doesn't happen too often for us.
Landon engaging Dave with a very humorous story.
The food Landon didn't touch. Seriously, how does he stay alive with what he DOESN'T eat?
After swimming and dinner we went to visit Becky, my sis. We didn't bring the camera, but it was fun to see her new place, and visit with her and her hubby. My kids love Becky and Mike!

Saturday morning we woke to a blizzard outside. We were going to do lots of shopping and factory visits, but felt we should hurry home before the snow got worse. We hurry and headed over to Gossner, got some cheese curds and two cases of flavored milk. We also got ice cream cones. I had to get a black licorice ice cream cone, for the sake of childhood memories (YUM!)
Then we drove home in the blizzard, scary.

On Saturday (Vday) my mom said she would watch our kids so Dave and I could go to a movie and out to dinner. We don't get sitters much, so we were excited. But knowing me, I started getting a headache that quickly turned migraine, HUGE BUMMER! I took some pain killer, went upstairs and took a nice hot bath, then laid down for a while, luckily it went away.. but it was still too late to hit up a movie. Instead we put our kids down at 7:30 and had a nice quiet evening with just the two of us.
My mom offered to take our kids Monday afternoon instead, since Dave had work off. We went with my sis and her husband and saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Really long show, but really good.
We had a fun weekend! If anyone is interested in the Cache Valley getaway, they are doing it until April. If you want details, let me know! :) The restaurant we went to had a GREAT morning breakfast buffet! (included in the stay).

3 Problems

Landon woke up this morning and climbed into bed with me and said this:

"Mom, I have 3 problems. (while holding up his fingers and pointing to them)
1- I have a headache.
2- I've had a big booger in my nose all night.
3- I really need to go to the bathroom."

(Dave and I got a kick out of this..)

Dawson's 1 Year Stats and Landon's Paper Cutting/Hoarding Abilities.

I took Dawson to his one year apt. last Friday. I sure do despise well-child checks.. Dawson was a pretty happy kid pre-checkup, now.. he is a nightmare.. (to put it nicely). Dawson has a really hard time after he gets his shots, he is super grouchy and attached to my hip 24/7. I don't remember when Landon went through his "mom only" stage, but Dawson seems to have hit it earlier than Landon. He only wants me and it get's tiring, literally! My whole body throbs at the end of the night just from holding him all day. Good thing us women have hips, or I would never cope.

Regardless of his super clinginess, his personality is starting to shine. We are loving him more and more every day! He is walking everywhere now, it's so cute. He is accumulating quite the battle wounds to prove it!

I wanted to record some fun things about Dawson at this age, starting with his one year stats:
He is 30.5 inches long, 24.2 pounds. Which puts him in the 80th for height and 75th for weight. He is right where he needs to be developmentally.
Fun things to know about Dawson:
He loves, loves, loves Deer and Bears. He used to be able to clasify each one and say their names (and even growl when he saw a bear) but since learning the word, dog, everything has now turned into a dog. Which sounds more like "gog." He really loves balls also. When he sees one he gets really excited, points to it and says "BUH!" Right up there with his love for balls is his love for Balloons or "boon."
He gets really excited when I say "Dawson, do you want to eat?" He'll immediately go to his highchair and SCREAM until I put him in. He love's to feed himself, but hates when we try to feed him. If any other baby sits in his chair he gets very angry and will scream while trying to pull them out.
Dawson is also great at throwing temper tantrums. When he gets upset he'll pull himself on his knees in an almost standing position and throw his body backwards. He usually always hits his head on something, but it still doesn't stop him from doing it the next time.
He sleeps great at night now. He still wakes up at 5:20 most every morning. We've tried putting him to bed earlier and later, it doesn't matter, 5:20 is his time to rise and shine to start the day. Dave is usually the one to get up with him (thanks Dave).

Landon's Paper Cutting and Hoarding abilities

I was going to post on this a while ago and never got around to it. This is something some would find boring to read about, but I think he is so funny and I never want to forget this funny stage of life he is in.
He loves to have stuff. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as someone gave it to him and there's a lot of it. If there is anything that has lots of little pieces or a bag full of stuff, any type of stuff, Landon is all over it. He likes to save things FOREVER too. I sometimes think he would forget about something if it sat in his drawer long enough, but he will always ask me where whatever I threw away is, even if I haven't seen him with it for weeks! I swear, he doesn't forget anything. It can be something as simple as a grocery add I gave him.

His newest hobby includes paper and scissors. He loves any type of paper, he loves when the mail comes, in hopes that there will be some paper I don't need that he can cut! This kid can sit and cut for hours! He used to have the kid scissors, but likes to get a more precise cut. I let him graduate to these. I guess if he cuts himself we'll downsize. Church has come to be more enjoyable to us all, now that he can sit in sacrament and cut away! It's not uncommon to find piles like this all over the place, but usually they end up here:

I will seriously clean these two drawers out once or twice a week, always getting a full garbage bag. I always leave a few scraps of paper so he wont notice all his paper cuttings gone. Last week he got mad and came running down the stairs saying "Who cleaned all the crap out of my drawers!?" Funny boy.

His love for paper (quantity or course) became so important to him, and carrying all this stuff around, got too hard for him. My mom decided she would give him this binder. He loves to add all of his important documents to it. This usually ends up in the drawer for safe keeping as well.
Aunt Lori gave Landon her new wallet yesterday. Most kids would think this was cool, but it would soon be forgotten. Well, let's just say this has gone everywhere Landon has today. Could he fit any more cards in there? Thanks Lori!