Kristen Dowling's Babyshower

Our resident friends Nick and Kristen Dowling are expecting their first baby next month. I was happy to throw Kristen a babyshower to celebrate the coming of baby girl Alana! I had a lot of fun putting together the decorations...

I had a lot of great help with the food...THANK YOU Betsy, Stacia and Codi for all the yummy food you made!

This is the only picture I took of Kristen, but don't worry we will be doing a maternity shoot in a couple of weeks! :)

We had a great turn out from friends in the ward.

Thank you to everyone that came and supported Kristen!

It was pretty hard for Nash (and mommy) not to try and still the left overs! SNEAKY SNEAKY!!!

Spaghetti Face...

So most people have these types of pictures when their child is just learning to eat solid food. You know the ones where the kid smears the noodles all over themselves and everything else. Well we got cheated with Nash because he would NEVER touch noodles because of how slimy they were. We have been working with this texture and guess what we have a BOY WHO EATS NOODLES!!!! So it may be 2 years late but here are our spaghetti face pictures...

Thankfully this wasn't just a fluke and we have had several noodle dinners since and he is still eating them! YEAH NASH!!!

Annoying Trees...

Darin had his last vacation this week for 2nd year. Instead of going on a trip and spending money that way, we decided to spend the money on our house TO DO list. And believe me that list was SUPER long! :) The forecast was rainy on Monday and predicted snow on Wednesday, but Tuesday was a nice sunny day so we got outside and began sawing down the ugliest, most unruly tree and trimmed a tree that seriously poked your eye out if you weren't watching where you were going.

So basically if you came to visit us you would first lose an eye then as you turned the corner the unruly tree would attack you. If you tried to dodge the attack you would then fall in a random hole that formed in our lawn next to the sidewalk...we were losing friends quickly as they were scared to die in our front lawn!

I didn't get a picture of the hole but if you look closely where the lawn dips that is where it is!

Yes we both took turns hacking away at the beast!

But it is true, Darin did the most work!

Once the crazy limbs were gone, it was time to dig at the roots. Nash was the greatest helper with his little shovel. We gave him the job of filling in the hole.

This tree turned out to be a bigger beast then we anticipated! The neighbor came over and said "OH Thank heavens you are getting rid of that ugly thing!" Then she told us they had to have a truck come in and pull out the stump of their tree.

Nope not us we just need He-Man Darin!

And a cute little helper.

And wa-la you have an annoying tree free yard!!

YEAH now we can have friends again! ;)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I have never been one to get into holidays but I am realizing as Nash gets older I need to spice up our life and make more FUN! So I made green pancakes this morning, I was a little scared of doing this as Nash doesn't take change very much.

He seemed to like them. The only thing he didn't like was when I called them pancakes...according to Nash they are "wapples." This is wha the is explaining to me in the next picture. Notice his cute little hands, he is always crossing his fingers.

Nash learned his colors a while back but lately he has been confusing blue and purple, black and brown, and rarely tells me what yellow is anymore. So in an attempt to make this day fun as well as practice our colors we played a matching game with colored clovers.

Yes he has no pants or diaper on. We are in the process of potty training and I let him run free. If he wears underwear or pants he usually has accidents.

In Nash's world a game would not be complete if there wasn't animals, roaring, and running involved.

It's true my son ALWAYS has a dirty face. But isn't he oh so cute!
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!

Sandy the OT

I think this is our week of bitter sweet good-byes. On Wednesday we said good-bye to our Occupational Therapist. Sandy took us from Quasimodo crawl....

To a walking 19 month old...

Sandy started with us when Nash was 14 months old. She taught me some tough love over those months as she pushed Nash until he was at times angry and in tears.

She discovered some real fears that Nash had within the sensory processing area, and was able to give us some great tips on helping him overcome those fears. Such as taking baths. Seems like a simple task but to Nash it was over stimulating and he HATED it. He still dislikes swimming pools. There is just too much to take in. Sandy was able to help me realize that you start slow. Play with the water first with your hands. Then dunk your toes. Make sure there are no toys in the tub until he brings them in. Then when you are washing you wash down not up. (try rubbing your arms upwards vs. downwards and you will recognize a difference. Washing up causes a disturbance to the nerves...or something like that.) Sounds crazy. Well I would like you to try and bathe a terrified child and then we will see what you do to help the situation. Nash takes a bath like a champ now, but there are times that he would rather there be NOTHING in the tub but himself and I am okay with that. I wish bath time was our only hurdle but there are others...but those little quirks are just what makes Nash who he is!

Nash really loves Sandy and gets very excited when I say "Sandy's here!" We are grateful for the service she gave our family, and we will miss her. Sandy owns K&S therapies and is always trying to get me to come work for her as one of their Instructional Therapists. It would be so fun and really a good job for a stay at home mom, because you set your own hours. But I think I will stick with being Nash's mom...that is enough for me! Besides we still have Jennette the Speech Therapist and Kristina the Instructional Therapist still coming around, so I am sure we will hear from Sandy every now and again. :)

Here are some funny pictures of Nash at 19 months that I thought I would share. His hair has always been crazy especially right there in the front.

Oh how we love this boy!

PlaySchool Goodbyes...

Over the past year and a half I have been teaching a PlaySchool in my home. I was very excited when we moved to our new house because the basement was perfect for a small school. It some how fulfilled a small dream of mine of having my own school. I enjoyed it very much and Nash LOVED having kids over to "play" every Tuesday and Thursday. I had such a cute little class!
Here is my Tuesday class (minus Madden):

This is my Thursday class (plus Madden):

The children are from our ward as well as Club Mom that I was a part of last year.

Madden, Riley, Josh, and Will

Nash, Gwen, Cole, and Ada

The children in my PlaySchool were 2 and 3 year olds. I tried to make everything centered around "play" thus the reason for the name. I believe children learn more through play rather than drilling academics.It is amazing how much you can learn from a child by playing with them.I LOVE this picture, it shows how much they watch and mimic adults.

I started this PlaySchool to help a friend as well as spend more time with my sweet little boy. I lost the friend during this process, but I gained a knowledge of the type mom I want to be. I got to see Nash in a different setting and I saw what he was capable of doing. Nash learns very different then other children. He is a very smart little boy but struggles in communication and social areas. He is an anxious little boy. I have had him involved in so many activities with HIGH demand since we moved here, which we have seen put a high stress on him. This is why today was my last PlaySchool day. I have illuminated many things in our lives and have tried to go back to the basics. It was hard to say good-bye but the biggest break through came on Tuesday when I saw my little boy talking to his friends, and playing with them. Nash rarely did that. He always seemed nervous and was content being alone. On Tuesday, I wasn't there pressuring him to do those things I was playing with him and being his mom. Which is far more important then anything else in this world. Sorry to be so sentimental but it was big in Nash's life. I am excited for all the fun adventures ahead of us now!