First Day of Preschool

We saw a post on the local facebook page about spots opening in a preschool.... so after much thought we decided that even if we move during the semester, Dawson is ready for school and socially & emotionally we felt that he really needed to go to preschool. So we registered him and he's started. He was SOO excited!

And of course I had to get first day of school pictures! Here's Dawson and his daddy! J.D. was pretty emotional and had some tears because his little man is old enough for school. They grow up too fast!

Here's Dawson and me. Yes- I did dye my hair dark with some red.... which I love! I can't believe how proud I could be of him. He is so smart and couldn't be more happy about FINALLY going to school.

Dawson kept asking if 'it was school time yet?' and 'how proud he was of his mom and dad for being so excited for him to go to school.' He was kind of sad because he didn't have a backpack yet, but we did get one after he got out of school. He woke up and had no resistance of brushing teeth or doing his hair. He was ecstatic!

I dropped him off and he even gave me a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. He wasn't sad at all! His teacher was so sweet and when I picked Dawson up she said, "He was SO good! He was the best one ...literally." It made my heart melt and once again I was so proud of him. He showed me his papers and already knew the letter 'A'! 

When we went to get a back pack he picked out a cute little red and black backpack that he wouldn't take off. He is so proud of it! He loves the idea of going to school and is so open minded of learning. He has definitely stepped up in so many ways. 

Dawson we love you and are so proud of the person you are becoming. We are sad you are growing up so fast and becoming more independent, but it's okay. We are so grateful for you and the happiness your bring us!

The Igloo Incident

One of the many responsibilities of J.D.'s job is snow shoveling. He is lucky because they provide him with a 4-wheeler that has a plow on it. One snowy snowy night before Christmas I had just finished delivering cinnamon rolls to all our friends. When I got back J.D. asked if I'd help with shoveling entry ways while he drove the 4-wheeler and got the sidewalks. Of course I did because I secretly think its peaceful to be outside when it's snowing and no one is out at night. We got home and there it was... a snowman right in front of our stairs to our house! It was the cutest snowman and very well hand-crafted. It had a ship captain's hat on and from that we knew our good friends Doug and Megan were the pranksters behind this. It was cute, but pretty hilarious because we couldn't exactly get into our house. ALSO- it wasn't something Dawson was about to let get crushed and swept away.... he was SO excited and the snowman had to stay. 

As we managed to meneuver around this snowman, we finally made it out and were shoveling the snow. When I finished the studio entry ways I started on the 1st row of the 4-plexes...which is the row Doug & Megan live on. To get back at them, J.D. and I had discussed plowing snow high in front of their door with the 4-wheeler. I had a more grand plan. I had to make it cute, just like the snowman being cute. So I grabbed an empty ice cream bucket out of our house and began building. 

J.D. drove by on the 4-wheeler looking for me and found me working diligently on this awesome igloo for our friends. He just about crashed because he was laughing so hard. We took a pic, left the crime scene, and sent the pic to our friends. Their response, "No way!" Doug also managed to say, "I knew we should have built ours taller!" HAHA

 The funny part about all of this is that Doug had texted J.D. a couple of times asking if he was home yet because they were anxiously awaiting to hear about our reaction to their snowman. Little did they know, we had seen the snowman and were already creating a suprise for them. 

It was pretty awesome and one of the best snow days we've had in a long time. Thank- you Doug and Megan for our beautiful snowman, but our igloo was taller. :-)

Sleep Over with Andee M'lee

The other night Dawson was having a 'hard day.' That's what we call days when we are missing Andee. Dawson had 3 hard days in a row- he would constantly be asking for Andee, asking when he will get to play with her, why she can't come see him, when we can bring her home.... and along with all the questions he gets pretty upset about the smallest things that he normally wouldn't get upset over. 

The last 'hard day' we knelt down for family prayer and in the middle of J.D. praying Dawson whispered, "Don't forget to say we are grateful for Andee." Both J.D. and I just smiled and J.D. didn't forget. After we gave hugs and kisses goodnight. Before I left Dawson said, "Mom I just want Andee to be with me and sleep at my house." I was pretty emotional and said, "I want that too, but she can't. ..." Pause "You can pray to Heavenly Father and ask him if she can sleep on the couch with you. I bet he'd let her if you asked."

Dawson sat there for a moment. He had asked to sleep on the couch earlier and so he was already there, but there was room for Andee on the other half of the couch. So Dawson thought for a moment and said, "Will you help me ask him?" So of course I did and it was the sweetest prayer in the whole world. Afterwards I told him that he wouldn't be able to see her spirit, but he could feel it." 

As I was walking away Dawson said, "Mom! We need to make Andee a bed. Here's her blanket!"

So I laid the white blanket down on the couch. Then Dawson said, "Here she can use my pillow and my other blanket so she can be warm. Is that a good idea mom?"

Me: "That's a great idea. You are such a good big brother." So we made her bed and I said goodnight. 

 (The pirate patch he put on because he scratched his eye really bad and couldn't hardly open it. It was so sad! When we got home, he found his patch and put it on all by himself. He is seriously so smart because neither J.D. or I thought about a patch helping him.)

About 20 minutes later I came back into the living room to see if Dawson was asleep so I could turn off the TV. He noticed me and sat up quickly, "IS SHE HERE?" He looked at the bed we'd made for her.

Me: "um... I don't know. Can you feel her spirit?"

Dawson sat there for a moment and then said, "YES! I can! She's here mom! Can you feel her too?"

I started to choke up, but managed to stop and try to feel her spirit too. I could feel her there. It something that's unexplainable. Me: "Yeah I can."

Dawson was so excited and happy that Heavenly Father let Andee come stay the night with him. He went to sleep with the biggest smile on his face. 

In the morning Dawson woke up and said, "Andee had to go mom, but she said bye."
Me: "I'm so glad you got to have a sleepover with your sister. You need to say a prayer now and tell Heavenly Father thank you."
Dawson: "Okay. But I don't need help. I can do it by myself."
So he did and I was so proud of him for taking time to thank our Heavenly Father and learning the power of prayer.

Abra-Ka-Dabra

While putting our Christmas decorations away, Dawson found a new use for his New Year's party hat and the Christmas tree stand. . . .

 He would say, "Abra-Ka-Dabra......."

 "Suprise!" He pulled the bear out of his hat!!

 And again on the floor....

 "Abr-Ka-Dabra!"

 I'm not gonna lie- he is a pretty smart and creative kid! I love him so much and love how much he makes me and J.D. smile! He is getting so big and growing so fast! He is in the 98 percentile for height...but lacks a bit on the weight. He eats a ton and uses every ounce of it to grow taller. He can do so much by himself and loves thinking he is getting bigger and can do things by himself. Some things he still likes help with- which is fine with me because he won't always want our help. He says he wants to eat good so he can have huge muscles and be big like Uncle Parker. Dawson is pretty smart because Uncle Parker is probably going to be the tallest one in the Steven's family. He has the genes from both sides to be tall...so we will see! Plus he has the genes to have huge muscles like his daddy (J.D. is pretty muscular!)

Happy New Year!

We had been wanting to have a New Year's party to get together with all of our friends and play games....so I decided to really go through with it and invite everyone. It was AWESOME! We played Kent (which I found out that no one but probably Kanab people know what that is), and Buzz Word. The kids even played their own games in Dawson's room and watched movies. They all stayed up until midnight as well! We had tons of awesome yummy food, and drank virgin daquiri's! It was amazing!

The kid's party (L-R: Payton, Destry, and Dawson in the back)

 This was taken before the party- Our party hats were pretty festive!

 AND!!! The New Year finally came!! We counted down and blew our horns!

 I didn't get the kisses in pictures, but they happened. 

This is Andrea, baby Ruth, and Jeff!

 Here's Daniel, Destry, Loni, and new baby still in her tummy!

 Here's Jeff and Andrea! You gotta love all of our hats!

 I had to get a pic with little Payton in there! She was so happy to have a party! lol!

 Here is Megan and Doug! Doug is SUPER DUPER happy about the New Year!

 And here we are for the New Year! J.D. had to wear his Tommy Boy shirt too! lol

Thank you to everyone for coming and celebrating with us! 

It was definitely the way to start off the New Year!

The Andee Necklace

When we came home, some of our friends came to visit us. Jeff and Andrea Roundy brought us a necklace shaped like a heart. On the heart is says, "Andee M'lee" and on the back it is her actual footprints from the hospital. It is such a special necklace and continues to have more significance every day. Sunday, right before New Years we went to church. Dawson was brought to me by his amazing teachers. He said he was scared and felt alone. He just wanted to be with his mom because he was sad. It's so hard because I know Dawson has feelings and is still affected by Andee not being able to be with us. 

Me: "Daws, you really have to go to class because mommy needs to go listen in her class. What can I do so you won't be scared or sad?"

Dawson: "Well.....I have a great idea. (pause) Maybe I could wear your Andee necklace so Andee can be with me and I won't be alone.....?" 

Of course, I tried to hold back my tears, "That is a great idea. But you have to keep it a secret and wear it under your shirt so know one knows and it won't get broken."

So we put it on and tucked it under his shirt. He could feel the heart on his skin and said, "Mom! I can feel her heart on my heart." 

It means so much to me that he still has a bond with her, and thinks about her often. I don't want her to be forgotten and one of the biggest reasons we wanted another baby was for Dawson to have a best friend to always play with. Even though she can't physically be with us, we know he see's her and feels her. He doesn't just create the bond on his own, she really is with him and I'm so grateful for it. 

Merry Christmas!

Two weeks before Christmas we took Dawson to see the Temple in St. George, show him the Nativity they set up and all the lights. He absolutely loved it! He kept trying to touch the figurines- it was hilarious. He wanted to pet the camels too. Then he found the stairs and had to climb all the way to the top and then said, "Take a picture!"

 So we did. He is such a handsome little man!

This year we spent Christmas in Holden! We love going there for Christmas because the entire family gets together and sleeps in the same room Christmas Eve. It was so much fun! We had a pretty crazy adventure getting to Holden, but we did make finally in 6 long hours. 

First- we had to take the truck because there was no way we could fit everything in our car. This was a huge blessing in the end. We also were taking my dad's 4-wheeler and trailer up to Holden for my brother Choc to take to his place. We got about 1 mile before the paragonah exit and there was a guy on the side of the road with a thrashed tire. J.D. said, "Man, that guy has a thrashed tire." I didn't quite hear him, but thought he was talking about our own tire. I looked in the rear view mirror and said, "J.D.! The trailer tire is gone!" He didn't quite believe me, but thought we'd better check. So thank heavens the Paragonah exit was right there. We pulled off and onto the frontage road. Sure enough- the tire was completely gone! SO- we called my dad who had to go to Walmart to get a new tire on a rim, and drive it up to us. 

In the meantime, J.D. was working his mad negotiating skills on getting a discount on a tire with the Walmart Tire Center manager. You see, the tire that had blown completely OFF was the brand new tire J.D. had just bought not even a month prior. Mind you it was freezing outside and only getting colder as J.D. stood outside for over an hour negotiating, pacing (because he cannot stand/sit still while on the phone), and fixing the tire with my dad. Dawson was fast asleep and I accomplished winning several Solitaire games..... I passed winning over 1,000 since we'd had the Ipad, which wasn't even a month. My dad took the trailer home- second blessing even though it wasn't under the circumstances we'd prefer. 

Coming out off of the mountain down into the flats before Kanosh a HUGE drift of snow blew across causing the car in front of us to slam on their brakes. It forced the car we were passing off the right side of the freeway into the ditch, and swerved back into us, ramming into the truck, causing us to slide down into the median. We kept a good speed so we could try and get back up on the freeway. Needless to say, J.D. is the best drive (next to me) and we were okay. We backed up to the other vehicle who hit us and spoke with a guy who was in the driver seat. The police came about 20 minutes later telling us to drive down to the Kanosh exit. There we waited for another 1 1/2 hours waiting for the cop to come talk to us. He sent another cop because he was busy with other accidents. We saw 7 tow trucks with banged up cars while we waited. Not only had we waited, but the drivers in the other car switched....so we told the officer. Because we didn't actually see who was driving during the accident, the officer couldn't charge them.... however even their stories didn't match up with who was driving. They were Arabs from California driving a rental..... so since then we've been dealing with insurance trying to get our vehicle fixed. Everything should work out soon, and we were so grateful that we were in the truck with 4 wheel drive, and didn't have the trailer and 4 wheeler hitched up.

When we did make it to Holden, we were exhausted and ready to have a more 'Merry' Christmas. During our adventure i had talked to my dad several times, not just the trailer, but also because he used to be a cop and knew a little more on what we could expect from insurances, and the officer. He kept saying 'Have a merry Christmas..." At the end of the conversation before we got to Holden he just said, "I'm not gonna wish u a Merry Christmas until you are in Holden.... soooo goodbye." When we made it to Holden, my dad said, "So you are inside the house, warm, and safe?" I replied, "Yep!" And then he said, "Well, then you have a Merry Christmas!" haha! It was hilarious!

The next day J.D. woke up with a rash forming all over his body. 5 days prior to the day J.D. had gone to the doc and found out he had a sinus infection. So the doc prescribe ammoxacillin (sp?). 5 YEARS prior to this J.D. had been prescribed the same thing for mono and he broke out in a rash all over. They said it was because he was diagnosed wrong.... well we found out he is actually allergic to penicillins. SO- he stopped taking the medication, but it was too late. The medicine was in his system and it took 2 weeks for the rash to disappear on his skin and another 2 weeks for his insides to stop itching. 

Back to the fun side of Christmas....
Here is Dawson the night before Santa came.... sooo many presents already!

We all slept in Loni and Daniel's room upstairs on the floor. We woke up around 8:00 and made our way to see what Santa had left us. This is the grandkid line up from oldest to youngest (Taylee, Dawson, Destry, Kyson). Usually we do the kids and grandkids, but we are getting so many grandkids, we decided to just do them.

Bryant (J.D.'s dad) had started Andee's cradle, but she came 4 weeks early...so we never got to see it finished and I didn't know if he would finish it because we didn't have a baby. When we got downstairs, there is was- our baby cradle. We didn't want to make Christmas sad, but J.D. and I just couldn't stop crying. I tried to hold it together for Dawson and be excited for him and what Santa brought him, but it was the most sentimental and sacred gifts we have/ and probably will ever receive. In it were 3 baby blankets that were J.D.'s when he was a baby.

Dawson got a imaginext space ship set, a baseball tee, a puppet show, some books, a story with Grandma and Grandpa's voices recorded reading it, a dream lite pillow, a race car track thingy, and a remote control helicopter (which was my suprise to him and J.D.). 

I got a heated blanket, the cradle (for J.D. and I) some movies, a porcelain doll that has brown curly hair (just like Andee's), a Chi straightner and curling iron, necklaces, and again for J.D. and I a scentsy thing. 

J.D. got a clay pigeon thrower, the helicopter thing, Gospel Answers book by Joseph Fielding Smith, some movies, and a blu ray wi-fi player.

It was pretty awesome! We had a delicious breakfast! and later we went to play in the snow! Here is Dawson, Jetta, and Brant being pulled behind the 4-wheeler!

 It snowed all day Monday, and Tuesday! It was so awesome! Dawson just loved army crawling and laying in the snow. It covered him up!

 He was so happy to be with his cousins and outside. He absolutely loves the snow!

 More sledding on the 4-wheeler! Lucas was awesome and tipped them a couple of times into the fresh powder! It was so funny to see the kids go flying!

 Brant, Jetta, and Tilden got igloo snow brick molds to build forts and things! So they did! Brant and Dawson built there's while Jetta and Jessie built the girl fort.... we didn't make it for the snowball war, but the forts were pretty awesome!

As we leave Holden, we never fail to make sure we go see Andee's grave. We feel like we are leaving her everytime we leave Holden. We hope one day we can make it back and have a home there so we can see her grave more often. 

The snowmen are solar lights that turn on at night. Dawson says they keep her safe so she doesn't get scared in the night. I know this is just her body here, but we do feel like she is there with us when we go to her grave. 

Christmas was so much fun and we opened more gifts when we got back to Cedar with my family. The only bad part is that Dawson wants Christmas to be every day!....

Surgery

Unfortunately (some would say fortunately) I am not going to post pics of the back surgery I had after the funeral. A little history of why I got back surgery- well for many years I have had this lump on my back. I didn't think anything of it until after getting married and J.D. giving me lots of back massages and telling me that the lump was getting bigger. While pregnant with Dawson, our doctor said we could probably get it removed after the baby was born and that he didn't think it'd be a problem getting in the way of the epidural. I ignored doing anything about it because I didn't think it was a big deal. This time around with Andee though, I wanted it gone because even I could tell it was getting huge and it was causing me a lot of unnecessary uncomfortable pressure.

We saw a general surgeon before having the baby and he said the lump was a lypoma and definitely met the requirements for our insurance to approve getting it removed and paying for it. A lypoma is very common and basically is abnormal fatty tissue growing. It's usually caused by constant stress to the spot where the lypoma would grow. So it builds up protecting the spot that's receiving stress or constant pressure over time. For mine, it was probably caused from dance all growing up. I was pretty excited knowing this thing would finally be gone, but even more happy after the experience with the epidual in the hospital. The morning I got the epidural to deliver Andee the lypoma was in the way of getting the epidural in the right spot, so the anesthesiologist had to put it in a lot lower which really hurt. So after Andee was born, and after the funeral we scheduled the surgery.

It was an in office surgery and didn't take long at all. It was kinda painful, but only because my body metabolizes anesthetics really fast. J.D. recorded the procedure and in the end we couldn't believe how big that thing was! It had veins running through it and was feeding itself plenty of nutrients. GROSS! It was pretty sucky having to deal with stitches, but I can definitely say it was well worth it. There is still a large cavity in my back from where the lypoma used to be, but overtime it is supposed to go away.