Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A Life to Celebrate

This past Sunday, we celebrated Dawson's Great-Great Grandparent's 75th wedding anniversary. Can you even imagine that? A lifetime of love is such an understatement. What a testimony to love, faithfulness, commitment, marriage and soul mates. It was most definitely an occasion to celebrate.

Unfortunately just two days after our celebration ended, so did my Great Grandpa life. He was going to be 100 years old this October. I know it meant so much to him to have our entire family with him days prior as family was so important to him.

I am so thankful that he was able to meet Dawson several times. What a special and rare thing for Dawson to have 5 generation photos. I hope I live a life as long, full and family oriented as he did.

Celebrating 75 years of marriage: Great Grandpa & Grandpa with all Great (and Great-Great) Grandchildren.

Towns family with Great Grandpa and Grandma



5 Generations
First meeting of Great-Greats. <3

19 Months




So happy to see my little man tapping into his creative skills. :)


RUNNING. Always. And most of the time away from Mom and Dad.


D found the golden egg (with $5!). I believe he had a little help from Nana.

D rocked the Easter Egg hunt this year. He so enjoyed looking for eggs.

The Allen crew on Easter.

Our underwear model. Gotta fund the college education somehow, right? ;)

Our little fam. <3
Here we are at the 19 month mark. Dawson's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds each day as he learns new words, phrases, expressions. His sentences are also growing as well with "Thank you Mommy", "Dawson's ____ (cup, shirt, shoes, etc.)", "Hi Seni", " Bye Truck", "Wanna get out!", Want snack", etc.

He is also ALWAYS running. It never fails that when we set him down (outside, at the park, a store, etc.), he sprints away from Mom or Dad as fast as he can in the opposite direction. Daryn and I were talking the other night about how nice it will be when we play outside with Dawson (or go anywhere for that matter!) and he understands boundaries and stays in one place. I'm all about running around, but in the general area would be nice. ;)

We are outside as much as possible. Well on spring days when it isn't below freezing, hailing, snowing, raining or sleeting. Which unfortunately has greatly limited our time outdoors. But when we DO get outside it's running, walking in the stroller with his hands perched on the tray, at the park, blowing bubbles, etc. He doesn't through tantrums much (yet?), but you can almost always count on one when we can't go outside due to weather or when we have to come in. (Spring, if you are reading this, help a mom out and please stick around for a bit?)

Dawson was really fun for Easter this year. He LOVED dying eggs and looking for them as well. It was fun to see him get so excited. He didn't mind the candy that came along with Easter too. :)

At 19 months...
- Dawson weighs (to be determined at his apt next week, but I am guessing 27 or 28lbs?)
- Has 16 teeth. His eye teeth are through the gums but still in the process of coming up
- It showing some interest in potty training. I think he mostly likes to request to sit on the potty chair and read books. :)
- Feeds him self really well with spoons and forks
- Loves to push his trucks back and forth on the table
- Looks out the front window for hours each day (literally) calling out "Seni!", "Flatbed!", "Truck!", "Car!", "Buddy!". ("Buddy" started off as the garbage man that waves to him each Friday, but now it somehow became all UPS trucks, FedEx trucks and mailman)
- LOVES his Nana (my mom), Papa (my dad), Grandma (Alice) and Grandpa (Dan). And most certainly GG (my Mom's mom, Grandma Judy).
- Sleeps 7:30pm-7:30am (give or take) each night
- Naps 12:30 - 3:00 (give or take) each day
- Loves to "help" unload and load the dishwasher, sweep the floors, throw things away, etc.
- Is a little OCD about having doors open. Any time he catches a closet door, cabinet door, dishwasher door, bedroom door, refrigerator door open, he MUST close it. This is also an instance that he does a little angry dance if he can't close them because they are being used.
- Plays really well by himself. Looking at books, playing and setting up his train set, driving cars around. He is really independent.
- Will repeat anything you ask him too...this can be fun. And also dangerous.