Dawson is now mobile!

Here's the video to prove it!

24 days

That's all we have left of this school year. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
We're trying something new at our house. Dawson is asleep right now in the pack and play in our living room. I think the sounds of me tossing and turning were waking him up. Then, he'd sit up in his bed and peek through the bars with his cute little head and SCREAM his bloody head off until his Momma would pick him up. Of course he was not going to cry himself to while he was LOOKING at me.
We started our experiment last night, and he only woke up once at about 3:40 am. Maybe tonight he'll sleep through the night. Maybe tonight Nadia won't wake up and join us in the middle of the night. (That happens almost everynight, but I'm not even fighting that battle until my 24 day sentence is up.) This summer I'll get up and put her back into her bed everytime she gets up. Right now, I'd rather sleep.
I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook finding old friends and current ones. It's been so much fun reconnecting with high school people. We're even talking about planning a band reunion for sometime this summer. I hope it works out!
Nadia has been trying her hand at knock-knock jokes. Unfortunately, she really doesn't understand the concept. Here's her attempt today:
N: "Momma....Knock Knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
N: "Me!"
That girl is a laugh a minute. Really.
I've been reading the Twilight books, and quite honestly, even though I'm not a teenaged girl, I'm hooked. I read the first one in less than 10 hours, I read the 2nd one in about the same amount of time, and I'm anxiously awaiting my turn with the third one from the library or one of my students. If I don't find out soon what happens to Bella and Edward I'm going to lose it.
I wish I could come up with some brilliant idea for a book.
Dawson made an important announcement today. He's been babbling lots of sounds lately, but today he put two very important ones together: "Da Da" I actually got it on the video camera on my phone, so I'll be posting it here soon. He's sitting up really well, and will be crawling around and talking before we know it. He has changed so much since his birth. He actually has blond hair to go with those big blue eyes. His hair was black when he was born. I was so excited that I finally had a child who looked like me, and his hair all fell out! I thought brown was the dominant color???
I had an appointment after school today, and I was running so late that Baylor missed his tae kwon do class tonight. He was sad about it, and I feel really bad. We'll definitely make it next week. His teacher told him today that he was to have a certain amount of work done by the time May is over, or he will have to do some summer school with her. I'm pretty sure that was the extra incentive he needed to bust his butt to get his work finished. I'm anxious about his iLeap scores. I am so hoping that he did well. He says that he thinks he did okay on them.
I talked to an old band friend today, and he had the idea of maybe trying to get the band people together for a band reunion this summer. I am "friends" with about 25 former band members on facebook, and I have phone numbers for about five or six more.
Well, the kiddos are asleep, and I'm going to try to join them. Hopefully I'll get four or five hours of sleep in a row.

A few photos...

Dawson and Kiki at church. Dawson is wearing an outfit that was Baylor's when he was a baby.
Nadia with all her eggs at the zoo's Easter egg hunt

Nadia on the search for more eggs
Daddy with Nadia and Dawson at the zoo. We love our stroller.

Dawson in his new jumperoo. He loves the one at church, so we bought one for our house. Of course, he doesn't like it as much. So much for peace and quiet!

Don't bring a toddler to a Weight Watcher's meeting....seriously!

David has been working like crazy for days now, so I had to bring Nadia and Dawson with me to my weight watcher's meeting tonight. I knew she couldn't be quiet or still enough to stay for the whole meeting, so I had planned from the beginning to just go weigh in and leave.
In the 4 minutes we were there she managed to really embarrass me.
First of all, she notices a man standing against the wall, and while pointing at him says really loudly, "Momma, that man has a big, fat belly!" I grabbed her arm as quickly as I could and practically ran to the weigh-in line. While in line, she charming everyone asking them their favorite color and stuff, when she looks at me and announces to the room that she needs to poo-poo. Immediately afterwards she lets out the loudest and longest fart I've ever heard from a human being (including my brothers when we were growing up). She laughs and says, "I farted!"
The lady in front of us says, "That's okay, baby, we all do it."
I was mortified. I realized in the moment that it was a funny story, and I even chuckled on the way to the van, but I was still embarrassed.
Needless to say, we definitely headed straight for the van without staying for the meeting. If David ever has to work on a Thursday night again I'll just skip the meeting.
I lost 2.8 lbs...for a total of 22.8! Go me!

Baylor started Tae Kwon Do

Tonight was his first class. He seemed to really enjoy it, and his teacher seems like he knows what he's doing. (I, on the other hand, have no idea what it's supposed to be like!) He's been asking for about two years to take some sort of martial arts, and I just couldn't find any place that was astronomically high in the financial area. I discovered recently that UL has a Youth Tae Kwon Do class at Bourgeois Hall, and I signed him up today. He was so cute. He was a nervous wreck on the way to the class. It's only once a week, so I figure it's a great way to see if he really likes it before we look into a "real" class.
Pray for him this week. He starts his iLeap test tomorrow, and doesn't finish until Tuesday. I think he'll do okay. I'm hoping to see some radical improvement in his reading ability since last year. Well, radical isn't the right word. I'm hoping for any improvement. Ms. Elaine says he's really doing well with her, so we'll see!

We're pretty sure Nadia is a genius.

Baylor has his standardized test coming up this week, so we've been having him work on some practice lessons and quizzes. Tonight I sent him to the office in our front yard so that he could work on a section of the test without the distraction of Nadia and Dawson.
He came in to ask me a question. After a little moment of stalling, I told him to go do his school. Nadia commented, "Baylor's can't drive without you and you. Is he walking to school?" David and I both said, "Wow!" What a connection our girl made. Then she added, "Well, is he riding his bicycle to school?" David then explained to her that he was doing his work in the office in the front yard..."Ohhh" she said.
This weekend we were riding in the car when she said several times that her stomach hurt. "What would make your stomach feel better?" I asked her.
"Hmmm...Jesus. Jesus would make me feel better," she said.
So I reached back and grabbed her little hand, and we prayed for God to make her feel better. After a few minutes, I asked her if her stomach was better. She thought about it and said, "No, not yet!"
Then she said, "Hey, my stomach is better." I asked her what she needed to do, and she loudly exclaimed, "Thank you God!"
Baylor played his last soccer game this weekend. We've agreed to let him quit soccer since he really wasn't enjoying it anymore. It was a hassle to get him to games with him being at his dad's every other weekend. He wants to take Tae kwon do, and UL's Potpouri offers a class that we are going to look into for him. He's pretty excited about it.

Weekends...

can be great! This weekend was a wonderful one. (How's that for alliteration?)
Friday night we brought the little ones to my mom's house for her to babysit while we went out to eat with the Donham Computer Services crew. The food was good, the company was good, and sleeping all night was good. I actually slept from midnight until about 7:30 am, which is an eternity as far as I'm concerned.
We woke up Saturday morning, ate some cereal, and then got dressed. David had bought me a gift certificate for a water massage when Dawson was born. He's six months old, and I hadn't redeemed it yet. So we went and had massages, and then walked around the strip mall for a few minutes. Our morning ended at Southside Bakery where we each had an awesome cheeseburger with grilled onions. Perfection.
On we drove to Mom's to get the kids. (Baylor is at his dad's). Nadia was having a blast playing in the dirt and planting flowers, so we visited for a while. I even got to go in the house and take a nap. Mom took some pictures (of the weekend, not the nap), so I'll try to post some.
We left there and came home. We went next door so David could help Ms. Geri with her new TV. After that we came home and went to bed.
This morning we went to church, stopped at Albertson's for mac and cheese, and are about to take our naps. I think this was just the kind of weekend I needed. Easter break is rapidly approaching, and it is definitely time for it. I'm just worn out.
We planned our family's vacation this year. I wanted to go to Tennessee to see Ruby Falls and the Lost Sea, but it just wasn't in the budget this year. So we decided to go to David's nanny's house in Houston. Houston has something called a "City Pass" which allows you to get into six of the major attractions for one very discounted price. We're planning to go to Nasa, The Children's Museum, the Houston Zoo, the Downtown Aquarium, the Health Museum, and the Natural Science Museum. I can't wait! We'll have evenings to hang out at his Nanny's pool and visit.