Fun

We have been having fun at our house as you can tell!!


Dallin loves to find big trucks and tractors. We have a huge field behind our house and now a tractor is usually going back and forth. Dallin found the tractor and found a good spot to watch it. He wouldn't get down.


Dallin LOVES ice cream cones. I think his favorite part is the cone.


Our Jacob is growing so fast. He now loves to pull himself up. He loves the tv buttons too. I had just got him down and he was following me into the kitchen to get Dallin some cereal. I got Dallin cereal and got his little table out when I found Jacob here......


What am I going to do? I have to keep my eye on this guy. Dallin never was this adventurous. Jacob still is working on his balance so I worry a little especially on tile. I now close the bathroom doors because he loves to pull himself up and look into the tub. He loves to splash in the tub.



This is a perfect picture of Jacob's 2 bottom teeth. He loves to smile too and has an even cuter cheesy smile he gives everyone that will look at him. He now has his 2nd top tooth breaking through. It just started so a few more days and hopefully we can get back on track. I know his teeth hurt him. Our poor Sunshine!!

Choo Choos and Up

Dallin is such a cute boy! We had to go to Snowflake yesterday and then went in to Showlow to do our Walmart shopping. On our way to Showlow, Ryan ran over those little bumps on the side of the road that tell you to be careful. Well, Dallin stopped and said "Mamma choo choo!" The look on his face said it all. He LOVES choo choos. I wasn't sure where a choo choo was at first. Ryan did it again and Dallin said the same thing. For some reason, hearing that noise made Dallin think it was a choo choo even though we never saw one. Ryan did it many times and we would just laugh. Dallin was for sure there was a choo choo.

Dallin is such a tender hearted, sweet boy. He loves to watch the movie Up. He hasn't watched it in a while. Just after the choo choo, the part in the movie where the balloons pick up the house always makes Dallin cry. Yes, cry. I don't know why. I haven't watched that part but Ryan says it's not really sad. Dallin has watched that movie about 5 times and everytime that part comes he whines and then tears come. I guess to him it's not good to have balloons pick up your house. Dallin has such a tender heart!

4 Amazing Years

Four years ago today I remember sitting next to Ryan in the temple and feeling like the luckiest girl. I was marrying my best friend and was going to spend forever with him. Today, I feel even more lucky, more blessed, more loved, and more happy all because of Ryan. He does so much for me and for our little family. He is the strength of our family. He loves me for who I am and helps me to be a better person. I hope to someday have as big a heart as Ryan has. He is always willing to do anything for anyone. I love Ryan so much always and forever!!!



Ryan came home from work yesterday with these beautiful flowers. I was totally surprised. My first response after thank you was that I didn't know St. Johns had a florist. Ryan is always so sweet and thoughtful! He even took today off from work and we are going to lunch just the 2 of us!

9 Months

This cute boy is 9 months today!! What a joy Jacob is in our family. This picture says right where Jacob is these days. His favorite thing to do is pull himself up. Whenever I am sitting on the ground he loves to pull himself up and stand next to me. He then loves to find the zipper on my sweater. He is getting better balance each day. Jacob is also the proud owner of 3 teeth. He has 2 bottom teeth and a top tooth has just broken through. The 2nd top tooth is so close but not coming through yet. He loves to follow Dallin around and he has to make sure he doesn't get ran over. He still does the Jacob crawl but has started to crawl correctly at times. He will do a few correct crawls forward and then goes back to what I'm sure is easier for him. We have been working on it with him so he will get better and faster. Jacob is also so social!! He will smile at everyone and anyone. All of the young women love when he comes with me to class. One Sunday Jacob wasn't happy and was crying in Ryan's arms. When they passed girls, Jacob stopped crying and smiled at the girls. Ryan had to laugh. We love this sweet boy so much!

Gross

I know every little cute thing has a fascination with the bathroom and the toilet but the toilet brush!!! I don't know how Jacob found it the first time. It is completely around a wall in a corner. The second time Dallin, Jacob, and I were playing in the family room. All of a sudden, Jacob takes off for our room. I gave him a minute to see what he remembered. Of course, he was going to the toilet brush. Well, that's all it took and it now sits on top of the toilet for now. I can't wait for him to find the toilet. That was fun with Dallin. I'm sure most of you can relate!!!

Dallin's words

So we have been working hard on words with Dallin. It truly amazes me at how well he is doing. We owe it all to SARRC!! It just melts my heart when I walk into the room and when Dallin sees me he says "Hi Mommy." He will also come up to us and say eat when he is hungry. We were all laughing when we went to feed the ducks with Grandpa and Grandma last week. Dallin was so excited to see the ducks. After a while he started to say "Eat quack quacks." We would just laugh. I couldn't get him to say feed. It was eat to him. And to top it all off, we weren't even working on this word but he likes to say "Poop." When I am changing Jacob's diaper he always says Jacob poop. I know you are impressed. He has also learned the fun word No. I love when I get "no Mommy." But, at least he is using his words. We still have more work ahead of us but it's neat to see the progress and huge steps forward. We love you Dallin!!!

Happy Birthday Dallin

Happy 3rd Birthday Dallin! I can't believe Dallin has just turned 3. We love this boy so very much. He has had such a fun, special day. Thanks to everyone that has made it an even better day. Some of Dallin's favorite things these days are big trucks, choo choos, Caillou, orange juice, and anything helping Daddy. He is all boy in every aspect and we love his cute personality. He is a great big brother and loves Jacob so very much. When I am making Jacob's bottle when he is getting up Dallin always beats me into his room and says hi in his cute voice. Jacob will always smile back. They already are best friends. We feel so blessed to have Dallin in our family!!!

Santiago, Chile

What a scary while at our house after hearing about the Chile earthquake. As many of you know, Scott, Marjorie, and their three boys moved back there last year. Marjorie is from Chile. I was the one that told my mom about the earthquake and we did everything we could to get a hold of him. We finally got an email from him Sunday morning saying they were all fine. His house was good too just they didn't have power, water, or electricity. What a relief!!! We are waiting for him to get power so we can skype him and hear about their end of all this fun. We love you Scott and your family!

8 months

Where is the time going?? Jacob turned 8 months last week! My little boy is growing up way too fast. He is such a sweetie and an active boy now. For the last 6 weeks, he does the Jacob crawl. Others call it the worm. But he gets where he wants to so the correct way to crawl will have to wait. He loves Dallin and smiles at him every chance he gets. Jacob also loves anything Dallin is playing with. We are working on Dallin liking this. He doesn't have any teeth yet but he has been working on that fun part of life for awhile. I think he might be working on cutting his 2 bottom teeth right now. He isn't a huge fan of baby food- I think he just wants all the yummy table food we are eating. I tell him soon enough. Jacob has the cutest cheesy smile and loves to shake his head no. We just love him so much!!!!

An Awesome Week

I know I have been a slacker at posting. We have so many pictures to post. I hope I get them all posted one day. I just wanted to tell you about this last week with Dallin to start with. We have been able to get help from the state for Dallin. One of the ladies we work with went to a seminar on the SARRC Center and thought of us. After a phone conversation, a 4 hour face to face play with more questions, Dallin got into this week long research and resource group. We came down a week ago and what a difference we have seen. First, SARRC stands for Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center. What an amazing place! We did find out this week that Dallin does have autism and the severity is low. We have always had concerns and worries about autism. But, hearing the news this week was kind of hard. It wasn't the autism part, it was more knowing that life is going to be a little tougher for our big man. As a mom, I don't want to see struggles. But with what we have learned this week, hopefully we can help Dallin to manage and bring down parts of his autism. He will always have autism but they hope we can help him to learn what he needs to do. This week was a very hard but rewarding week. We worked so hard on communication. They believe, and so do I now, in the Pivotol Response Theory. This is where I show Dallin a truck, say truck, he repeats it, I say it back and he gets the truck. Truck is a word he can say but doing this was hard. Dallin's autism was keeping him from understanding to say truck back. After 2 days of figuring out what we needed to do, we had our breakthrough. It started slowly and new words were even tougher. After a lot of work, Kristen, the amazing woman who worked with just us all week, and I saw a difference. Now, it is starting to click. I am so proud of our Dallin!!! We love him so much!! I wouldn't trade him or the struggles we have had for anything. Dallin belongs in our family and makes our family an even better one. I know I will get to post more and more successes we have with Dallin!