Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween! It truly is my favorite holiday. I have never missed a year of not dressing up. This year Dawson and I were devils, while J.D. was a REALLY UGLY hobo. Dawson really didn't do much trick or treating.
He doesn't look very happy here b/c he just woke up..but he was happy after he saw that everyone was dressing up.
...really ugly!

We went to Great Grandma Stevens' first to show off our lovely costumes. She gave us extra candy for looking so good. :-)

We were going to hit up some more houses, but it was time for the carnival. On our way out we ran into 'lucas' (which was parker dressed as lucas). If you don't know Lucas or Parker-they are J.D.'s brothers...Lucas is the oldest, and Parker the youngest.. Lucas looks like this..
We went to the carnival at the church and ate sloppy joes and played LOTS of games. J.D. won me and his Grandpa Stevens cakes for our birthdays. We left there and went back to Great Grandma Stevens' to eat our cake.

Here is Dawson and his cousin Destry. She was a fairy- and the CUTEST one at that!

Randomness

My little man can't hardly stand to not be in the same room as me. I was organizing his closet one day and I turned around to find Dawson putting the boxes I needed to 'better' use.
This is the outfit he chose for another day! He's so cute! He was so excited to have pockets on his shirt!

Dawson isn't really potty training right now..but we have taught him how it all works. Some days he wants to go, and MOST days he doesn't care. I'm not going to worry about potty training him- when he's ready I figure he can do it. BUT he feels the need to potty train his stuffed animals. lol! He will put them on the seat, and say, "Pussssssshhhhhhhhh..." Then he flushes, and tries to wash their hands.

Dawson is such a goof ball! Everyday I get a kick out of the conversations we have, and how smart he is. Yesterday for example, may not seem as funny as it did to me. He's too quick for me.

We had to go get his car seat out of the car that J.D. had at school. So I just buckled Dawson in the middle buckle of the truck and we were off. Dawson decided he didn't need/want to sit down when he can get out so easily...

Me: Dawson please sit down. I don't want you to get hurt.
Dawson: No sit down!
Me: Dawson if you don't sit down I will have to put you in time out when we get home. Please sit down.
Dawson: No sit down mom!
Me more sternly: DAWSON- sit down!
Then I tapped on my brakes a bit to have him see that he needs to sit down or he'll get hurt. (probably not smart of me, but it happened...) after he grabbed something and got stable again...
Dawson: GEEZ! GOSH! Stop it mom.
Me: (laughing inside seeing that it just made me look stupid and not him) Dawson, please just sit down.
Dawson: No sit down. no time out.
Me: (YELLING STERNLY) DAWSON SIT DOWN PLEASE!!!
Dawson: (with his finger to his mouth) ssshhh! No sit down.

By this time we were at the school, and I was trying so hard not to laugh! That's what we do to him if he's yelling at us. We say, sshhh please use your soft voice. He did the same thing back to me when I yelled. haha! I felt so dumb! He's such a smarty pants!

Deer Hunt

Here we are at the annual Stevens Traditional Deer Hunt. It was a little rainy this year, but I actually thought it was kinda of nice. We roasted smores, ate TONS of food, and just relaxed. All of the cousins had so much playing together.

I had fun taking some pictures of Dawson! Dawson loves his cowboy hats. He actually knows that his parents don't get him real cowboy hats yet, so he INSISTS on a real cowboy hat. We are lucky that Dawson has Grandpa's that are real cowboys. This hat is one of his Grandpa Stevens old hats-it's been worn down like a 'real' cowboy hat. :-)

My little man found himself a fort

He is too cute when he's sad! lol!

CHEESE!

Aren't leaves so interesting? They are more interesting when you see your child pondering about it..What is this? Look at how it crinkles? What a cool shape? Why is it outside? I've never seen something like this?

Dawson took this picture- I say he did a pretty good job for a 2 year old. He loves taking pictures.

When you get a pic like this I can't help but brag about how stinkin' cute they are!

Here's all of the cousins!

We had a blast no matter the weather. I wish we could have stayed longer, but I'll take what I can get right? :-)

Back from the Hunt

Well, like I mentioned earlier ..I definitely would rather have J.D. home than not home-even if it means more cleaning up to do. lol! Dawson was so excited for J.D. to come home. He would let go of him ALL night. He goes to J.D. for almost everything. It's just fun to have my own family all home.

They didn't get a elk...I don't even think they shot at anything. I do know they ate really well, and slept really well. I have officially cleaned everything, washed ALL the clothes from his adventures, and managed to cook a meal. We have yet to watch our netflix..but we will get there. It's a lot of catching up to do. I am extremely tired from the weekend, and finally feel a little better. I could use more sleep-seems like I'm the only one who lost sleep this whole time. But, this too shall pass once I get a little more sleep. haha!

PS-Just for the record...I'm am so glad they didn't get anything. I hate putting money into elk meat, or jerky especially since I hate it. I like it any time I save money. So ..yes, I pray they don't get anything. :-)

Bitter Sweet

Well, J.D. has left me to go on the spike elk hunt. This is a HUGE deal in my family. My brother and his kids fly in from Missouri every year to come. All the boys go on this same hunt, and have been doing it since I was born because I can't remember not ever having it. They used to allow the girls to come up for one of the days. I'm sure they still would, but we are all so busy and have a different lifestyle than we did 10 years ago. Even so, we are still not allowed to stay the night, it's a boys only ordeal.

Anyways, it's been really calm around here without J.D. I have found myself without anything to do. Dawson has cried every day since he's left. It is the hardest thing for me to see Dawson cry and want his daddy. Nights are little scary b/c I don't have someone here to protect us except neighbors (who were out of town). And I'm a worrier, so I thing of all the things that could go wrong and analyze a plan for each one...it'd be a lot easier if J.D. were just here. This is the bitter part of the whole thing.

The sweet part is the fact that my house actually stays clean...ALL DAY! I am so calm, and less stressed because my house is always clean. Even Dawson has been happier because I don't spend so much time cleaning up and can play with him more. I have everything to make all of my dinner meals! I don't have random things gone. J.D. just grabs what he can and makes something of his own out of it instead of what I make. The milk has lasted forever!! I hate going grocery shopping so I try to do a once a month big shopping day and then sometimes I have to go get small things because J.D. has eaten them, or the milk is gone. AND the gas in the car..well it's still full and has been since the day J.D. left. I know he has to go to school-I'm talking besides school.

Needless to say, it's a bitter sweet couple of days while J.D. is gone. :-) Even with the sweet part of him being gone, I would rather have him here because worrying takes a bigger toll on my life and sleep. I'm pretty sure my life line on my palm gets shorter every year because of all the worrying I do. lol! However, I will NOT admit any of this to J.D. in fear that he will know he is actually right and I'm wrong.. :-)

Fun with Grandma

I just wanted to include this pic to remind me of how funny Dawson is with his outfits. :-) It never gets old, and makes me laugh everyday. My mom came to visit Sunday night and Dawson was on cloud nine. He loves his grandma so much! I love it too! Who doesn't love it when there mom comes to visit? Some days you really just need your mom. Something about having your mom there makes life seem so simple. My mom is a pretty special grandma- she spoils ALL of her grandkids by actually getting down on her hands and knees just to play with them. She will crawl around, give them rides on her back, play hide and seek, or just even read to them. She has a way of making each of her grandchildren feel so special. She's also the kind of grandma that doesn't make you feel like you're walking on egg shells if your child breaks something, or ruins something in the house. She just says, "There are more important things in life." I had and still have the greatest example for being a mom and later on maybe grandma.

She always seems to bring the best treats too! This time it was dilly bars! Of course Dawson got all excited to see a suprise. He did get his own, which he downed in a short time. So he thought he'd go get more from his grandma....literally..MMMMMMM!!!!

Dawson is a pretty creative kid. He's extremely creative when grandma gives him silly ideas to do like try on mom's new sports bra...the hat to go with his outfit is 100% Dawson's idea. You can just see his personality with this face.

Dawson wanted to play cowboy with his new hat and guns. His face tells you how much fun this was. He would shoot my mom, and she died....he thought that was funny (kind of scary to think that it's funny...oh well!)

BUT he didn't let it end there! He would give her a big kiss to wake her up again! HAHA! This was repeated for 20 more minutes- shoot her, she dies, kiss her, she wakes up!

The next day we had Dawson play with our new neighbors! This is Lilly! We invited her over so her parents could get their house back together. They were gone all summer for an intern, and just returned. So they basically had to move in all over again. They had so much fun together.
Matching HATS!

Thanks for coming to visit mom!