Dobbs Days

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Dear Everett,

Your mommy and daddy are both second children and it has been fun learning what our parents must have felt when we were born. You are no less loved than our first born. :) We love you both more than we can express. Mommy's just learning how to juggle a little more and things like taking pictures and having time to share them just get prioritized under making sure you get loved on as much as you deserve. You are so sweet and easy and get to live under the benefit of mommy and daddy having gained a little experience before you came along and learned that "this too shall pass." We are more relaxed with you and you will probably feel a little less stress than your big brother does over trying live up to his parents expectations, as we learn along the way that our expectations for him may not always be fair. Hopefully our love for both of you trumps our learning process and we thank God for his grace that children don't remember much before the age of 4. That may be one of the greatest extensions of grace God grants parents. So long as we can keep our mistakes from becoming patterns, we hope you're childhood memories will be full of JOY. We cherish these first six (and a half) months of life we've had with you and can't wait for the next! You are a BLESSING! While we haven't gotten your pictures posted in here weekly, we've taken them more weeks than not, and you are cherished!

You are a happy, happy, easy, easy baby! At 6 months:
- You prefer to be on your tummy all the time and push WAY up getting your chest off the ground.
- You scoot backwards, and we know it's only going to be a matter of time before you're crawling! (Probably because you spend more time on the floor than your brother did, as you want to be down playing with him, but also because mommy has to do things like run a two year old to the potty!)
- You sit up for a few seconds before tumbling over, but have gotten a taste for sitting up and cry when I don't sit you back up again after a fall.
- You have yet to care about who's holding you. You'll go to anyone, anywhere and smile at them!
- You've only been waking up about once a night for months now and nap like a champ!
- Unlike your brother, you put EVERYTHING in your mouth and are enjoying trying real foods.
- You love bouncing in the bouncer.
- You ADORE everything about your brother and Mommy's absolute favorite thing right now is watching you laugh and laugh and laugh at him, and him enjoying entertaining you and taking care of you!
- You babble and laugh and smile and so very rarely cry!
- I am sure there are many more things I could say, but I here you waking in the other room. :)

As for Asher, he will be THREE in November, and I can't believe how big my baby is getting! Time flies and we are doing our best to cherish every moment! We love you so much buddy! Mommy's having so much fun teaching you letters and sounds and numbers and exploring, and I'm in awe of you and your imagination, everyday!

We love you boys more than words can describe!!!!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Our life in review

Sooo.... it's been a while. Turns out having two children shakes life up a little bit. I can't count the number of posts I've started and not finished over the last month and a half because someone needed me to do something... you know feed and sustain them, keep them from peeing on the carpet, kiss their bruised head after unnamed two year old's feet went right out from under him on a huge puddle of water in the kitchen right after HE dumped it out of his cup. (lesson learned btw... kind of). Okay, okay, turns out I CAN count the number of posts I've started in the last month and a half. That was a lie. It was only 2. Yes that's how often I've been able to sit down and write in my online scrapbook/keep grandma up to date sort of blog... but I promise there were a whole whole bunch more started in my head. :) You know, Easter, business trip with daddy to Kansas City, our camping vacation, Everett turning 3 months... um Everett turning 4 months..., my garden (which not unlike this blog will be lucky to survive the summer.... probably should be watering it right now instead of typing... I'm super excited about it, by the way! (It was my Mother's Day/Birthday present from Eric, and it's AWESOME! :) Long story short, you know it's been a long time since you've blogged when... your husband would rather you blog than unpack the van and suitcases from the vacation we got home from 4 days ago....

So for starters here's our life as of late in review with a few photos:

Eric turned the big 30 in April!

Soo glad for warmer weather! And my hard working men!

First popsicle ever! :)

My birthday in K.C. on Eric's business trip we got to tag along on!

Digging for dinosaurs at Science City in Union Station. :)

Fritz's restaurant where our food was delivered by train!

Found a fun park with a splash pad!

My handsome boys!

Camping near Omaha this past week!

Nap time! Successful and fun but sooo hot. New rule for Dobbs camping: In summer months, camping is only allowed at higher altitudes or more northern latitudes!

1st S'more! Hard to enjoy in the heat! :)

Air and Space Museum!

Enjoying a patch of shade in the campground!

Loving the animals at the Henry Doorly Zoo!

And the train ride!

Keeping cool at the pool at our campground!

And let me tell you! This kid does not hold back on his smiles! He smiles and babbles ALL the time!!! I almost CAN wait until he talks because I'm afraid that he's going to talk even more than his brother... and that folks is saying something! :) We sure do love our boys!

It's been a fun summer so far, but as most days we're drowning in laundry, and up to our eyeballs in dishes... we're definitely counting our blessings when vacation days break the daily monotony of life with little ones at home. :)

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

10 weeks

Everett is continuing to grow, smile, and 'talk' to us. Here's his 10 week picture. Caught a smile :)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

ASHER just typed his name all by himself. :) And this following video makes the educator in his mommy proud. Not that he's the first 2 year old ever to do it, but it's still fun for us to see and thought his grandmas might like to see it too. :)

Thursday, May 1, 2014

May Day Flop

So I grew up celebrating May Day (May 1st) with May baskets that we made, simply, and delivered to friends in stealth mode (dropping them off outside the front door, ringing the bell, and RUNNING!). Because if they caught us they could kiss us or pinch us, or something like that. :) Regardless of what they got to do when they caught us, I have fond memories of the day and the activity.

Now being a stay at home mom to a two and a half year old (and a newborn) life, as much as I love it, can get a little repetitive and long some days. So with May Day this week, I thought to myself, let's make May baskets this year for something fun and different to do. It was an innocent thought.

Turns out May Day to a two year old looks something like this:

Making Baskets = that was fun for five minutes, but now I'm just upset that you're still working on those and not playing with me

Delivering baskets in stealth mode = distraught that we're going to ALL my friends houses and not going inside to play with any of them (he is SUCH a social two year old, it's insane! I genuinely felt bad for him at every stop.)

Driving away before getting to see anyone receive their basket = confusion why no one is saying thank you (pure innocence "They didn't say thank you, mommy.")

Upset, distraught, confused... not exactly what I was going for. :) It was a SUPER FUN day. not really.

SO I feel like I should have some 'lessons learned' here, but I'm not sure what.

The most important thing to my child right now is meaningful time playing with him... absolutely.
I need to invest more time planning play dates than projects... sure.

My mom in the wisdom of age and experience suggested that next year we have a May Day party where we invite all of his friends over and give them May baskets when they arrive.... fantasitc idea that I'll probably do next year.

But as I write this post that I intended to just be a humorous recounting of our day (the missteps of a new parent) and to share my mom's awesome idea for next year, my thoughts turned serious. Because the blaring lesson here is just simply that he was too young to understand the activity with too short of an attention span to enjoy it. But where I'm getting stuck is... too young to understand what? The fun of giving in secret? 'Cause I want my son to learn that lesson, even if it isn't so fun for him the first time. Even if he's throwing a tantrum because the candy isn't for him. 'Cause life isn't all about him.

We celebrate Christmas, and Easter, and Thanksgiving with our kids far before they understand those too. "It's easy to give gifts at Christmas when I'm getting them too"... but to give when I'm not receiving, and not get thanked or even have them know it was from me? I think today was worth it, but I think next year, I'm going to have a MUCH better idea of what I'm trying to teach my son, which will hopefully make it more pleasant day for both of us. Because those are the lessons worth teaching. And when there's a purpose, even the tough days are worth it. Who knew May Day was so deep? Not me! :)

P.S. There were moments of fun today, many in fact, and several of our friends did thank us. Just so that's understood. :) Though I think we erred from tradition this year by putting our name on them. Oops. There's just a good lesson in there somewhere in giving just to give, not for recognition or to get something in return.
The lessons we learn as parents....