Thanksgiving Weekend

Jason, Dylan and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for 16 people this year. Quite an event, and a fun one at that! We had my parents in town for 3 nights, and Jason's whole family came out from the 'burbs and even all the way from Iowa for the day itself. We had the whole traditional spread and Dylan was in heaven with her cousins and BOTH grandmas and grandpas there at once. WOW. Here are a few fave shots we savored from the weekend.

Thanksgiving Eve: Dylan watches her daddy's team, the Kenwood Broncos, from the bleachers. She is TOTALLY into the game right now. That lasted about 5 minutes, but those were awesome five minutes. Then she wanted to mainly crawl around the bleachers and get into trouble.


Michaela (Kaywah) and Dylan enjoy her Maisy flap book together after Thanksgiving dinner. Dylan still is talking about Michaela and wanting her to pick her "Up, Up!"


The Day after Thanksgiving we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo with Grandpa Clark and Grandma Cindy. Grandpa Clark takes Dylan on the carousel...a way to win her affection forever. She is OBSESSED with carousels and even cries when I stop showing her the video of this experience.


Grandma Cindy and I spot the tiger in the distance! Actually, I don't remember what they were looking at, but they look excited, don't they? We are somewhere in the zoo, enjoying ourselves. And Dylan is doing her favorite thing, touching "Hair! Hair!"

Backseat Driver

I have a backseat driver on my hands. She'll keep me in line I guess, no? Background info is that Dylan lately is a climber. And I feel like I'm telling her quite frequently, "Be Careful, you don't want to get hurt." She gets the concept and will say "caywful. hurt." herself when she is climbing into a situation that she thinks is potentially dangerous. It's quite helpful in knowing when I need to give her a hand.

Anyways, I was driving this week on the highway and we were only going about 30mph. The car in front of me stopped suddenly and I had to mildly slam on the brakes. I think I might have said, "Oh!" or something like that. Dylan pipes up from the backseat..."Careful! Car! Hurt!" I was cracking up. I think I said, "Yes Dylan, mommy needs to be careful so I don't hit that car, huh? We don't want to get hurt."

Then the next day I was pulling into the midwife's office and I slightly ran over the curb. (I'm sounding like a semi-crazy driver here...promise, I'm safe) Again, I hear a little pipsqueak voice..."Careful! Car! Hurt!" Ok little girl, I get it. Sooooorrrrryyyy!

Halloween Photos

happy to be sitting on the table, Dylan proudly shows off our freshly carved pumpkin

This look pretty much captured how Dylan reacted to trick-or-treating...that is, until we gave her her first ever M&Ms. Then she was running up and down the street making funny sounds.

AFTER the M&Ms...

Dylan and Caroline pose by a pumpkin after grabbing some candy for their parents...thanks girls!

Surprise Face

This is Dylan's surprise face - a face she'll do if you ask her for the "Surprise face." I personally think it's a classic. And I finally got her to do it for a camera - my cameraphone...hence the quality of the picture.

Halloween bumblebee!

What a good sport she was for this picture...so darling.

Distinguishable Dylan (pictures added)

So my sister did this great post entitled, "All About Anya" that was great to read cause it really gave you a sense of what she is like, and the stuff you don't know when you live a thousand miles across the country from one another. So, I'm going to copy her great idea and do one about Dylan so ya'll can have a sense of what she's up to these days. Enjoy!

Foods–we are very lucky in this area. Dylan is an eater and has been for life so far. Even though she'll try anything once, she does have favorites. She loves cheese in any form. She frequently asks for cheese throughout the day, and for breakfast for the last week or so she's eaten a piece of cinnamon raisan bread with cream cheese on top every day. She will eat vegetables (especially fond of frozen peas - don't even have to heat them up - just frozen!), but LOVES fruit. She will ask for peaches, pears, oranges or MANGOES a lot. Usually I don't just have a whole stock of mangoes lying around, so I have to offer her replacement options.

Drinks–she mainly drinks water and will ask for it once in awhile. The funny thing about her saying water is it used to sound like "wawa" and that was also what Lara sounded like. Now, she can say "wawer" and somehow she's also changed Lara's name into "wawer." I guess she didn't realize she was right on that one. She won't drink plain milk, period. But I do occasionally get her to have around 1-2 oz. of chocolate milk per day, if I'm lucky. When I'm watching Caroline, she always wants to drink juice, cause Caroline will always have a juice cup for the day.

Books–Dylan loves books. That is the one thing she will do by herself - read books. Last night I made dinner and for 45 min. she sat in her room and read books to herself in the corner by her bookshelf. I kept going in there to peak on her and she literally was sitting in a SEA of books...probably about 60 or 70 books strewn around her. Her favorite books at this moment (it changes a lot) are The Witch Casts a Spell (a halloween book sung to farmer in the dell tune), If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where's My Teddy, and It Looked Like Spilt Milk. Check them out. I tried to get her to read a book in front of the video camera, but she got really shy and was hiding her face from the camera and wouldn't blab on and on like she usually does. I'll have to sneak up on her sometime. Here are 2 photos from that sea of books experience yesterday...



Get You–This is Dylan's favorite new game in our new condo. She mainly does it with Jason, and whenever we speak of daddy throughout the day while he's at work, she almost always then asks, "Gitchu?" This game involves you chasing Dylan around the whole condo (mainly through the long hallway) saying, "I'm gonna get you! I'm gonna get you!" And she giggles and runs away as fast as she can and then eventually lets you catch her...followed by, "More! More gitchu! More gitchu!"

sitting on the front steps of our new condo building, on moving day 2 weeks ago

Ice Cream–Dylan really loves ice cream and thinks about it all the time. I've only personally given it to her maybe twice EVER, but she has had it a few times at grandma Karen's house and I know a couple times with grandma and grandpa Cindy and Clark too. She totally now associates ice cream with "grandma." The two words are basically synonymous. Whenever we speak of one, the other one is mentioned shortly after. We were reading a book where there was a picture of ice cream. I wait and let her say that word of the book usually, but yesterday instead of saying ice cream, she shouted "Grandma!" It was a hilarious exchange of words in the story, which had nothing to do with grandmas. :)

Colors–Dylan loves identifying colors. She occasionally does get them wrong, but most of the time, she is right on and it never ceases to amaze me. We'll look out the window and there will be a red car on the street below and she'll shout, "Red! Red car!" Or she'll identify your shirt, her shoes, colors of animals in books, just about anything she sees, the first thought to her is to say it's color. Then if she sees two of that thing in the same color, she'll say "two blues!"

Airplanes–If you've been around Dylan lately outdoors, especially where we live so close to Midway Airport, you'll know how much she loves finding airplanes in the sky. I swear, she can hear them, see them and shout out AIRPLANE! faster than you will ever have a chance. She can see the smallest pinpoint of a jet far far away, and we'll be looking in the sky forever just to try to say, Yes! There's an airplane! I wanted her to be an airplane for halloween, but with the move, no time to make a creative costume. So, she's another flying object, a bumblebee instead. Dylan and I are going on an airplane with my aunt Jeanie in about a week to go to Colorado and visit Lara, Steve and Anya...I'm so curious what she'll think of the experience at 18 months and since she's so obsessed with airplanes.

Well, that's good for now I guess. Thanks for reading and glimpsing what Dylan is like these days.

Where ARE you?

Dylan loves hiding and finding games. And now her latest sentence is, "Where are you?" She'll say it to just about anything and it sounds a little like this pronounced, "Wherw AWyooo?" We'll say something like, let's go find daddy, and she'll then say, "Da-da, Where are you?" Or when I say, Dylan we need to find your jacket so we can go outside, she immediately goes into the finding mode and starts, "Jacket? Where are you?" My favorite though is when we see an airplane in the sky, after it leaves our view, she'll say "Bye-bye airplane. See you later." Then moments after..."Where are you airplane?"

Ring around the rosy

I know all my posts are about Dylan talking, but that's her thing I guess. So, here's another. Dylan kept saying this phrase a lot that I didn't quite understand. Then it hit me one day as she tumbled to the ground as she said it....a little clearer this time..."Ashes, ashes, we all fall DOWN!" Now whenever anything falls down or she throws something down, it's at the minimum "All fall down!"

O. K.!

Today I noticed how much influence I have over this little being living with us, watching our every move, and eagerly imitating us. About 2 weeks ago, Dylan started responding to "yes" questions by saying, "O.K!" Now, it's really hard to share this hilarious emphasis in writing, but just believe me. She draws it out real long and has such passion behind it without yelling. I can only call it spirited. I wondered where she got this response from, until I noticed myself responding to her wants and needs by saying, "OK! We'll play with crayons." or "OK! We'll get you some cheese." I was using this same spirited OK to her and she had began to mimic it perfectly. It still (even after 2 weeks) cracks me up every time I hear it. Immediate smiles on my face and probably a giggle or two encourage her I'm sure.

Then today at lunch (Dylan and I are spending the day in Champaign with Gma and Gpa Breeze), she was eating some delicious baked beans and she started saying, "Nummm, so Good!" Her first 3 word sentence! Then I realized, hey wait a minute, I say that all the time when I'm trying to convince her how delicious something is so she will taste it. "Dylan, YUM! It's SO good!" How cool...what else should I teach her to say?!

Caroline!

Cayowhine! Cayowhine! That's what Dylan yells when Caroline goes out of the room and she can't see her. I just started babysitting yesterday for our downstairs neighbor and good friends Carson and Christy. Their daughter, Caroline just turned one and so she's 4 1/2 months younger than Dylan. They are becoming fast friends/sisters as they play together during the day WAY more than they are used to seeing another little peanut. They seem to be having a good time, and I know it's way more interesting than hanging out with boring mom all day long alone.

We were playing in Dylan's room and Caroline ran out of the room. I called out, "Caroline! Caroline, where are you?" in a playful tone. Dylan repeated me calling out pretty loud, "Cayowhine! Cayowhine!" It is hilarious and now whenever I call out her name, Dylan will repeat me, like she's the big sis helping out.

Right now they are both sleeping and it's awesome that they are doing that at the same time so I can relax for a bit. It's a lot MORE work and a lot LESS work watching two. It's less work cause they sort of play together, or at least are entertained by one another. It's more work cause you have to change 2 diapers, feed 2 mouths, keep 4 hands out of the garbage can, stop 2 little bodies from climbing up the toychest, etc. Ohhh...I hear one waking up now. The rest is over. Caroline and Dylan pics and more stories I'm sure are to come.

two word sentences and ray charles mimic

Dylan recently has decided to put together two words into sentences...amazing us and showing us what a true verbal kid she is. She has said, "Hi Bear, Hi Mama, Bye-Bye Dada, I know, and me too" to name a few. Yesterday I was at the park with her and she was getting super dirty. I told her, "We're going to have to wash your hands when we get home...they're dirty!" She immediately replied "No way!" and ran away across the playground. It was so funny.

The other funny thing she's doing lately is imitating Ray Charles. She has this shy routine that she goes through when strangers are talking to her, flirting with her, waving at her, etc. She looks at them and then crinkles up her nose, closes her eyes real tight and sways her head back and forth with a little tilt in it...just like Ray! We've called it that a couple of times when she's done it, and now we can say "Do Ray Charles" and she'll do it! Oh she is so eager to please.

lots of pictures!

Seriously, how adorable is that daddy/daughter combo?

I'm so long overdue for a post! So, I'm going to post a bunch of pics here to make up for lost time. (especially for you, Lara!) So, Dylan wasn't the total gem we hoped for during our roadtrip out to PA, but we still had a great time while we were there. A highlight was going to the beach - Ocean City, NJ with Matt and Emily and staying overnight at a hotel right on the Boardwalk, Ocean 7. It was so fun and something I won't forget. Dylan had an AMAZING time on the beach.

Before we went to PA, we also went to Iowa to visit J's family for a family reunion. We had an awesome time with everyone and really got to relax and enjoy the great outdoors, Iowa style.

Dylan LOVED the fountains at the Coralville, Iowa pool.

We put these on her as a joke, but she didn't want to take these goggles off! I don't know how she could see anything, but we thought it was hysterical.

This is when we realized we can't live in the city forever. She's so happy out here in the "wild!"

In between both of those trips we went to Lollapalooza, an amazing musical extravaganza in Chicago's Grant Park. We saw SO many fabulous bands and it really started to feel like pre-baby with all the time we had together as a couple. We did bring Dylan with us one afternoon and she had a fun time participating in a drum circle and just chillin in the outdoors.

She walked up and down these little mini "hills" under this tree about 60 times. So cute!

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for watching!

journey out east

Now is when I ask all you mothers and fathers for your advice. Traveling with youngsters. We embark on a 12 hour car trip to Souderton, PA this afternoon (broken up nicely in half with a stop at a motel with a pool in Youngstown, OH tonight). We are visiting college friends Matt and Emily Rittenhouse for almost a week, and I am having a girls weekend thrown in there with three other girlfriends from college too. I am slightly worried about a screaming one year old in the backseat with my whole back of tricks exhausted within the first hour. I wish she was old enough that we could all listen to a family book on CD, or I could give her a fun new coloring book and crayons and she'd be thrilled, but most likely she'd suck on the crayons and then just throw them on the floor. SO...any advice for entertaining a one year old on a long car ride? Anything you have for me will be much appreciated.

Here's what I'm planning so far:
lots of snacks to pass back
books to read from the front seat
good kids CDs to sing along to
a few favorite toys that might last 30 seconds each
????? I'm drawing a blank...

Write back soon if you read this and I'll be anxiously awaiting your help.

talking baby

Dylan has recently (the last few weeks) exploded with a vocabulary. It's amazing and I am constantly shocked at the words she spews out and her eagerness to try almost any word if you encourage her. I thought I'd include a short list of my favorite recent words she says (or at least has said once)...Dylan pronunciations are in parentheses

sleepy (seepee)
clock (cock)
ladybug/bug (bugga bugga)
blender (bendee)
santa (satah) - dylan on santa's lap is our desktop wallpaper on our computer
happy (hahpeee)
no-no-no-no-no - I guess we say this enough now that she points at something she's not supposed to touch and says this just like we do, with the same emphasis and everything...we need to come up with alternative ways to say no.

We also realized that she is listening to EVERYTHING we are saying. In the car, I yelled at the car in front of us, "Why are you going so SLOW?!?!" And Dylan immediately yells "SLOW!" It was hysterical and we were cracking up, which now causes her to crack up. She wants to be in on the jokes, so she always laughs when you laugh at something. Let's all take inventory of the words that come spewing out of our mouths now!

Dylan's new best bud

We all new that cousins were special. And when my sis Lara and I had little girls 3 months apart, we thought it was pretty cool. But no one knew how fast they'd become buddies! Dylan and I just spent 4 days down in Champaign with my parents and Lara and Anya. It was so fun to watch the two little girls start to actually semi-play together! We had to do a little mediating, but mostly it was just good fun. We didn't realize Anya liked Dylan so much, until we were leaving. They all came outside to see us pull out of the driveway (Anya has a need recently to see exactly where people are going), and Anya started crying as we were leaving. She totally got it, and was SO sad! It was the most touching thing. And then when they went inside, I later learned she was still crying pretty hard and they asked her, Do you want Grandma? "NO!" Then, Do you want Grandpa? "NO!" And, Do you want Mommy? "NO!" Last, Do you want Dylan? "YES!"

Unbelievable. They are little humans!

Ooh hee haw humph

This is the sound you hear from Dylan when you ask her a question she wants to respond "YES" to. It's an adorable sound in person, and I wish I could put a sound clip here to show you just how cute it is. But combine the ooh hee haw humph with an ear to ear grin and a little jump of joy, and you can really picture it, no? A few questions she will respond this way to:

"Do you want to eat _____?" (Yes, she will seriously eat anything at any time.)
"Do you want to swing?"
"Do you want to take a nap?" (Only when she's really tired will ooh hee haw humph be the response here, but it just happened 2 minutes ago, so I'm including it.)
"Do you want to listen to music?" (which usually means to her...we're going to dance!)
"Do you want to watch Signing Time?" (the only tv she is allowed to watch, it teaches her some american sign language through songs and such...)
"Do you want to take a bath?"

Here are a couple of pics of her lastest favorite things to get the "ooh hee haw hump" response...

Dylan loves to eat anything she can hold herself and take bites...hard to do with only 1/2 of a tooth, but she tries.

Daddy and Dylan have a blast together at bathtime. Can you tell?

Zoo friends

one of the many full-faced smiles we saw that day.

I don't know how it happened. I don't really like zoos. In fact, I've always thought going to look at animals in cages was pretty boring. But we checked out the Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo when we were in The Wayne for my cousin's wedding and I don't know if it was Dylan's enthusiasm (and that is putting it mildly) or the fact my whole family was there having a blast together, but I loved that zoo! It was incredibly fun and one of my favorite days in a long time. Dylan is an animal lover at heart and she couldn't get enough of the experience. We went on a safari ride where we saw giraffes, zebras, gazelles, an ostrich, and wildabeest! It was really, really cool, and I totally remembered riding in those zebra-striped safari cars as a little kid when our Aunt Jeanie would take me, Lara and my cousins Claire and Jonathan to this zoo. The cars were the same...just a lot smaller than I remembered! And I remember thinking the steering wheel actually controlled the car...such innocence.

Miracles do happen!

I'm proud to report that Dylan Simone Rhodes has a tooth poking through her bottom gums. Now, to most of you, this seems completely normal and nothing to boast about. In case you forgot, Dylan is 14 months old and toothless (until yesterday!). Jason felt it first with his hand and even though she wouldn't really let us see it (we tried repeatedly to get her to do her "fake yawn" so we could peek), we did catch a glimpse of the smallest bit coming through. SO EXCITING! All my worries of Dylan being in the Guiness Book for youngest human with dentures are now a fleeting memory. Can we get a round of applause around here? Yay Dylan!

Memorial Day weekend

Dylan makes her big debut in the new pink Cubs outfit.

Daddy and Dylan enjoy some outdoor fun at the Memorial Day BBQ.

Rachel Smith sent me some photos from Memorial Day weekend. Dylan went to her second Cubs game on Memorial Day and she was all decked out in cubby PINK! She was a trooper even though it was really hot. Luckily we had 7 people there together to pass her back and forth down the aisle when she got bored with one of us. Lately Dylan seems to tire of things rather quickly, minus 2 notable exceptions: swings and crayons. Dylan and I have been to park a twice in the last couple of days, and I apparently need to go more often. She enjoys swinging more than just about anything. She literally screams out into tears when you take her out of the swing. And when you ask her, do you want to get out? She shakes her head violently back and forth - NO NO NO!!! It's hysterical. She seems so melancholy in there sometimes, she doesn't seem to be having fun after awhile, but I guess it's just her Zen moment, and how dare I interrupt that...

new fun with blogging

So I love reading my friends' blogs, especially the ones about their adorable children, and I really need to get with the program and start one for Dylan. I'm not doing a good job of journaling for her like I intended, so this is my attempt to share some thoughts and let ya'll in on some of our fun. Hope you enjoy as much as I know I will. I'll try to be good about pictures, too, because I have seriously failed recently on that. If you have a blog I don't know about, send it my way! My new obsession is waiting...