Dreyton's 2nd Birthday Party

Our baby is now two, and growing so quick. You can go to the day he was born by clicking here. He loves to read, his favourite book right now is a toddler search and find book. His favourite shows are max and ruby or toopy and binoo or dora and diego. Since Dreyton is now in a toddler bed Zoë mostly gets him when he wakes up from his nap and Dreyton is so sad when she's not there sometimes, they are always following each other around at home. Dreytons favourite foods are perogies, and hot dogs.

My sister-in-law Erin and I made sports themed cupcakes the night before the party.

Dreyton trying to blow out his sparkler.

Dreyton was a pro unwrapping presents.



We set up my moms inflatable bouncer in the play room.

Cousins

Zoë and Jayden have lots of fun when they get together, even if they fight often over toys. These pictures are from a playdate earlier this week.



Zoë, Jayden, and Dreyton dancing. I really need to get Dreyton some boy dress-up stuff.


Playing with bendaroos

Playing a matching game with the cards they got from trick or treating.
Playing playdough


Zoë and Dreyton had a check-up this morning, Zoë is 39.4 lbs and 99cm (3'3"), Dreyton is 31 lbs and 89 cm (2'11").

My 21 month old baby boy

My baby boy is growing up way too quick. He started potty training himself a couple weeks ago and now today he decided he didn't want to wear diapers anymore. He kicked and screamed and when I finally got the diaper on he ripped it off, after going through two diapers I gave up and let him wear nothing. Luckily he had been really good and hadn't had an accident all day today.

Dreyton's also mastered opening doors within the last few days. He is pretty good with ones that I don't want him to go in, but his bedroom door had to get a childproof handle on it.

He is also getting to the point where he doesn't want to nap anymore. After 2 hours of playing in his room I give up and let him out. I took out his bookshelf today which he loves to climb on and he fell asleep right away, so im' HOPING that solves the no napping.

I got his 18 month shots done a week ago he weighs 30 lbs and is 35 inches long.

My Big Boy!

We took the crib down and replaced it with a toddler bed. We decided to switch him while I have Lee for the week before he starts his job. It takes Dreyton alot longer to fall asleep now but he hasn't really fussed at all which has been nice.

Of course half the time he falls asleep in a weird position. I should have taken a picture of the other day because he was kneeling on the bed sleeping. (Notice all his pants he took out of the drawers before he fell asleep).

In other news Dreyton went pee on the potty for the first time today. It will still be awhile till we start to potty train him but it is nice that he has an older sibling to understand the potty more.

Zoë started a playschool class today which she loves. It's 2 hours once a week and it's a variety class with a little bit of everything. We also have both of them signed up for a swim class which starts in a couple of weeks. Zoë is in an unparented class while either Lee or I will be with Dreyton in his class.

Dreyton, almost 16 months old

Dreyton is such a toddler and growing up SO quickly. His vocabulary is growing quick, some of his most common words are mama, dada, ooee (Zoë), juice, cheese, ball, bath, shoes, eat, book, uh sairs(upstairs), and dank you (thank you). He can point to body parts on his face if you ask them where they are, as well as lots of animal sounds.

Trying on Pampa's shoes, quite funny seeing him try to walk in those big shoes


His red-headed temper, has a COMPLETE meltdown if anybody says NO to him, shakes his whole body and fists in his tantrum.


We went to fish creek park today, just after he threw up all over Arby's (glad it wasn't in my vehicle).

This was taken the other day in Costco, it is such a RARE occurance for him to sleep while we're out.

Kids names

This is a post I put on my Uncle Jeff's blog as a guest post awhile back, I thought I should have it on my blog as well.


How we chose our kids names. The first name we wanted them to be different and unique. The second name is a family name with first boy and girl being named after there parents.

Zoë Michelle:

Zoë: I chose the name Zoë, it was a name I have loved for many years. I first heard it when my sisters friend was trying to name her baby and she was thinking Zoe and I said that sounded so funny and for some reason she had to keep repeating that name to me cause i kept thinking it was Ziggy. She never named that baby Zoe and after awhile I started liking it more and more. Lee also took quite a bit of convincing to get the name I wanted. We never found out what the baby's sex was until the day she was born so we had to figure out boy and girl names. After my whole pregnancy of saying the name Zoë for a girl Lee started liking it more each day as well. What made him give in was that he got to spell it the way he wanted which was having the french diaeresis ë. Lee served his mission in Quebec so was happy to bring some french influence into the name.

Michelle: This one is easy to explain, it's my middle name. I wanted my baby to be named after me but not my first name which I hear all the time.

Dreyton Leland:

Dreyton: this name was another name I chose, it took awhile to figure out a name for Dreyton. Lee and I had a hard time with choosing a name as the ones we wanted seemed to be very popular right now. Jacob, Ethan, and Preston were our top names at the beginning but they were too popular for our liking. One day I was just thinking about all the little boys I knew from daycare, and Dreyton popped in my head. Dreyton was a VERY cute boy, a little bit of a trouble maker but was such a cuddler too. I instantly loved that name for my baby as soon as I remembered it but again it took a bit of convincing for Lee to agree with the name. It wasn't because he didn't like it but because he wanted to name our first boy. An xbox360 (nintendo system) later the name was chosen.

Leland: well I hope everybody knows where this name came from, Lee's first name. Lee actually has two middle names James and Haines, Haines is Lee's mom's maiden name. After picking the first name Dreyton, Leland was a better sounding name to have as a middle name and I really liked that name more then the other two names.

If we had the ideal situation a boy and a girl next we already have the middle names picked out. I am not going to say what they will be until they're here but they are names from our grandparents.

Going Crazy

THIS boy is going to give me a heart attack one day. I REALLY hope I don't have another boy as I don't know if my heart can handle it. He is the BIGGEST monkey known to man, such a daredevil. He thinks it's SO funny to make me gasp in horror, earlier he was putting his legs on the top of the slide and dangling upside down while holding on to the sides as well.

Dreyton standing on top of the slide bouncing up and down while not holding onto anything

Update

So we have finally moved to Calgary and unpacked most of our stuff. It's so nice to be back with close friends and family, and to have a dishwasher and 3rd bedroom, and a bathroom on the main floor. I haven't taken any pictures lately as we have been so busy, so that is my next thing on the to do list. Now that we are settled down for a little while we are going to work on getting Zoë potty trained, and Dreyton off a bottle which has pretty much disappeared already.

My 11 mos old Monkey

I have never had to deal with a climber until now. Zoë was never interested in climbing on couches, or tables etc but Dreyton sure is. The first time I noticed he was going to be a climber was when I was on the computer and looked over in the playroom and see him flying down our huge slide at 10 mos old. The instant I pick him up he's squirming away to climb up me, and I always spot him climbing on the small table and chairs or climbing up my couches.

This is the age where it's near impossible to change a diaper or change there clothes since they're squirming so much, near to impossible to read a book since they're trying to rip all the pages or climb on you to get behind the couch, and near to impossible to not have food smeared in every place they could possibly imagine during meals. On the other hand it's also the best age as they have so much to see and play with and nothings boring, and they're learning many new things. Also with my two kids this is the age where they sleep through the night.

Zonked Out

Zoë decided she was too big to have a nap today. I had her in her room for 1 1/2 hours in which she decided to play, read, and jump around until eventually I came and got her. After awhile of her playing and watching some cartoons I found her like this..

...luckily for me her naps are not over yet

Dreyton on the other hand will fall asleep anywhere, we didn't want him to sleep after our car ride one day so we had him sleep in the living room while his sister ran around him trying to wake him up and we were shuffling around. Apparently he can sleep through anything as he never woke up until after awhile.

Dreyton's new haircut

Only time I was able to get a video of him taking a few steps was while he was fussy


Dreyton double wave hello, my kids always seem to have a wave of there own.

Back to normal, sorta

Dreyton is starting to let go of things and stand for a few seconds on his own


What kid doesn't like to climb on there dad

I had to do an impromptu wash in Zoë's hair even though she had one earlier, so I washed her hair in the sink like my mom would do to me sometimes. Zoë LOVED it.

Eating

Dreyton has been growing like a weed, he only eats foods that he can feed himself now. He can sure make a mess but its so cute to watch him scarf it down.

Dreyton only ate his pasta and threw the peas on the floor, so Zoë finished her meal and came running to eat his peas.

Feeding himself gets a bit tiring I guess

Fall Cleaning

I just realized I have barely touched my camera in the past week. I have been very busy doing my "Fall" cleaning. Yes, I know its usually Spring cleaning but I would rather do it in Fall as that's when its getting colder to go outside with kids and happy to be home after a busy Summer. I have organized under my bathroom sink, changed the Living room around, organized my whole basement, and going to be doing my pantry in a couple of days. Zoë is growing like crazy, she is no baby anymore, she can talk and put quite a few words together and understands pretty much everything you say. She is just getting her 2 year old molars in right now as well. Dreyton is VERY active and loves to bug his sister and take everything she's playing with.

My now uncluttered living room, this picture is a few days old as I have now retired the intellitainer as Dreyton is getting to big for it.

Update on Dreyton

Dreyton was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon, so nice to be home! The stollery is such a nice hospital, they have all the supplies for baby, and the nurses are really nice and helpful. Dreyton got a really nice quilt at the hospital, a donation from a quilting club. Zoë is still in Calgary till Sunday so we can have a few days with just Dreyton and to get some rest from a long week. Right now Lee and I are VERY cautious with every move Dreyton makes, and I am sure it will be hard to loosen up.
Right now we're just getting Dreyton healed as quick as possible and having to prove to child services that we are fit parents. I know it has to be done but you feel like criminals having to go through the whole process. It will be nice for Lee to go back to school and Zoë to be back with us to get back to regular life from a busy fun summer and a hectic week.

My baby boy's trauma

So most of you already know that Dreyton has been admitted into the hospital yesterday evening. Lee first noticed something was wrong with him when he was giving Zoë and Dreyton a bath at 7pm on Monday night. He noticed a huge lump on the right side of Dreytons head and when you touched it, it felt all soft like liquid instead of hard like a skull should be. So Lee rushes to me and tells me if I had noticed it before and of course I hadn't so I rushed to the phone and called 911. The paramedics got here a few minutes later and they said it doesn't look like anything serious and we should maybe go see our family doctor the following day. I didn't believe a word they said as there was a massive softball lump on my boys head and I shouldn't be worried? So instead of having them drive Dreyton to the hospital for a few hundred dollars we left to the Children's hospital in our vehicle as soon as the paramedics left.
We get to the ER and get ready to sit for hours as it was a packed room, but instead we get rushed ahead of people who have been waiting over 10 hours and get a room right away. We had a couple of nurses, and resident doctors look at him and none of them could figure out what it was so they went and got some advice from a more experienced doctor and he ordered some tests to be done. I then had Lee go home with Zoë so she could go to bed as it was almost 10pm while Dreyton and I waited for tests. The first test was going to be a catscan to get a closer look inside, they said he would have to be put asleep and we would have to wait a couple of hours after taking his bottle before we could do it. Dreyton fell asleep not too long after so one of the nurses said we should try do the catscan while he was asleep. He was perfectly still the whole time and they were able to do the scan without him getting put asleep.
When the results came in the doctor told me that he had a fracture in his skull in two place and in the middle of those two places his skull had been pushed in a bit. I was in absolute shock when he told me this as Lee and I could not figure out how he had gotten a fractured skull. There had been no big trauma at all, just small ones that are normal for a 8 mos. old active baby. He was happy all day and nothing seemed to be indifferent. The brain surgeon told us that he doesn't think the brain was damaged at all but we would have to wait a few weeks to make sure once the swelling had gone down. Dreyton has been amazing through all of this, he's still extremely happy and smiley. He will be in the hospital for at least another day until they can get x-rays done and other tests and consultations. Lee met his dad and sister in Red Deer to bring Zoë to Calgary for a couple of days so we are able to take care of just Dreyton and get some sleep in the next couple of days.

If you look on the right side of Dreyton's head you can see that it is all puffy and sticks out quite a bit

Dreyton playing with all the bandages covering his IV

Each time Dreyton fell asleep last night it seemed like a doctor came in a few minutes later to wake him up again, he was exhausted after we finally had gotten a room for him out of the ER.

Dreytons first haircut

Dreyton Leland Stanford

I went into the hospital on December 27th for a repeat c-section and had him at 1:29pm, he was 8 lbs 13 ounches and 20 1/2 inches long. I got home earlier today and recovering alot quicker then the first time.