I want to be a Cowboy

I'm writing this so I can log all of Dawson's cute things ...
Monday night, December 13th, 2010

Dawson was getting his night bath and just enjoying every minute of it. J.D. and I were watching him, and talking to him about what we'd done over the weekend. J.D. and I went to Cowboy Christmas in Vegas!! My sister Amy watched Dawson the entire weekend for us. She loved it and so did Dawson. J.D. came back to Cedar Sunday, and I drove to Kanab to stay the night and get Dawson. On Monday, before we left Kanab, we went and hung out with my dad and Matt. Matt said he'd let Dawson go for a ride on one of the horses. Dawson was SOOO excited! He kept sayin, "I need a hat mom! I need a hat!" So Grandpa found one for Dawson to wear and off we were. The whole way Dawson said, "I got my cowboy hat, my cowboy boots, my cowboy belt...where's the horse mom?" I just laughed the whole way.

We got to the horses and Dawson was on cloud 9. He just sat up there (no saddle) and Matt walked the horse around. It was one of those moments where Dawson was speechless. Nothing else mattered. He got off so willingly and didn't complain at all.

I drove home to Cedar and during Dawson's bath he said, "Mommy. Daddy." J.D. and I replied "What Dawson?" And Dawson said, "Mommy. Daddy. I want to be a Cowboy. Cowboy hat. Cowboy belt. Cowboy boots. Cowboy horsey."

Getting Ready for Christmas

After getting our tall and beautiful christmas tree up, I decorated it pretty quick. Well...our tree fell over 3 TIMES!! Once on me, once on Dawson, and once on it's own. So we re-decorated 3 times. LOL! We are pretty sure our stand isn't the best one ever because we had this issue last year and our tree was probably at least a foot shorter. We have gone 4 days with the tree not fall over and being completely decorated! YAY! It's a record!

Dawson is loving Christmas as much as us. He has watched the Polar Express over a million times because he can't get enough of trains and SANTA! He is getting the concept of Santa this year.
Anytime we see Santa-Dawson will tell him to bring him a train! AND a gun like daddy's!
I've explained how Santa brings toys to us and wraps them in the presents. He gets so excited.

I've explained how Santa will bring us candy in our stockings. So everyday Dawson runs to the living room to check his stocking and see if Santa has come yet. It's so cute! He will point to the stockings and say-Santa? Candy? Chocolate? He is the cutest little bug! We also explained how we will get to see Santa when we go see Uncle Parker. So anytime we get in the car Dawson will ask "Santa? Parker? Train?" I love it! He will get so excited over the lights all over town. Last but not least, Dawson helps me water the tree. He will put the aspirin in, then I pour the water and sprite in. Dawson loves this every night. I think he would do it 50 times a day if I let him.
Here is our Christmas tree! For the record, we have been done with Christmas shopping for about 1 1/2 weeks! All wrapped and ready to be opened!

My mom gave all of her kids and their families an early Christmas gift- a super cute Nativity Scene. I love this one because Dawson can actually play with it. He will point to each piece and say their name, except Mary and Joseph are Mommy and Daddy. We explained that they are baby jesus' mommy and daddy. It's so sweet! And my crafty Christmas tree on the right I made last year with Sam! Isn't it the cutest?

This is our table setting. I just did the seasonal blocks in October! I love them!

AND the count down!!! Another Super Saturday craft!

We love Christmas and it's even more fun when you get to start your own traditions within your own family. Last year I copied my mom's christmas story book. Each day we read a story. AND the best part is, each story comes with a christmas song, a picture to color, and scripture to go along with it. We all love reading it every night. Dawson especially loves to color the pictures. J.D. even gets in on the coloring. We also get pj's on christmas eve. I have a couple other traditions I want to do, but I think they will take place when we have our christmas at our own house. Right now with just the 3 of us we still switch holiday time with our families. We love it and it gives me more thoughts about more traditions I will be able to do. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanksgiving Shelley Side

This year we spent Thanksgiving last Saturday because most of my family works during the real Thanksgiving. It was a perfect meal. My mom slaved all day baking pies and cooking all the food. Thank you mom for the yummy meal!

On Sunday we went up on the Kiabab to get Christmas trees! It was FREEZING! We didn't leave til 1:00 ish..got up there around 2:00 and we left at 5:00. We found 3 way awesome trees so fast. We had fried chicken, and HOT HOT HOT chocolate, and lots of snacks. We built a awesome fire and went sledding. All the kids had so much fun! However it was blizzard cold. Snow was hitting you so hard, and the wind was blowing so fast. No one complained hardly at all, which made it made it funner. We were in the middle of a thick group of trees, so it wasn't as bad where we were at, but when we went tree hunting, it was hard to see. We were so lucky to find 3 good trees so fast. We got down the mountain, and we headed back to Cedar City.

It was a Happy Thanksgiving for the Shelley family this year! :-) We have so many things to be grateful for this year. I think recognizing all the good that has happened to you makes the holidays more enjoyable and special. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

No pants...

As stated once before, Dawson prefers no clothes ALL the time. :-) He gets that from his daddy who comes home and just takes off all his clothes. J.D. says its just more comfortable that way. So all my fresh sunshine coming in from the windows is closed off because J.D. wants to be more comfortable.... BUT that's another story.

No Pants #1: Dawson loves to help me with the laundry, more so because he gets a pop every time we go to the laundry mat. It was late last night we went to go fold and pick up the laundry. Dawson is running around and next thing I know he has his pants around his ankles! I said, "Dawson pull up your pants." (I was laughing though) He replied, "No pants mom." and he laughed. He kept running around with his pants around his ankles until he totally biffed it-face first! I just laughed and said "that's what you get!" He just laughed with me and continued running around with his pants around his ankles.

No Pants #2: Right now, this instant as I'm typing, Dawson has taken his pants off... taken his diaper off.. and is grinning ohhh so mischievously. So, just his cool sweatshirt and his cute bum hanging out. He is also dancing to the "Word World" song. LOL!

No Pants #3: I have some boots that are SOOOO soft on the inside. Dawson just loves them! So...without pants he wanted to wear the boots. It was so funny! He could hardly walk because the boots went clear up to his bum. But he managed and was determined to wear those boots.
Need I say more?

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? :-)