Happy 1st Birthday, Sweet Boy :)

(On the day of his birthday!)

Des turned a year old on May 31st... I can't believe he's officially a year old. He started walking a few weeks before then, was completely weaned from "booby juice" (as Tim and Aislin liked to call it) a few weeks after, and had his first real dose of sugar the day before.

Since May 30th was a holiday that Tim got to observe, we celebrated Des's birthday on that day by going to Dairy Queen and letting him try three different desserts: the free ice cream cone he was given, Tim's Brownie Batter Blizzard and my Oreo Brownie Earthquake. Sounds delicious, right? Well, Tim and I thought so!

Yeesh, he was quite the dessert critic! And this is a kid who's not typically shy around food. At his 12-month checkup he weighed 25 lbs...he'll eat just about anything (although he has an aversion for foods with tomato sauce) and usually twice as much as his nearly-3-year-old sister. The one day he got to pig out on chocolate ice cream, brownies and whipped cream galore...he took one lick/spoonful of each and said, "Quit shoving this stuff in my face, Dad, I've had ENOUGH!!" So the rest of us just ate in front of him :)

We also went to a couple of parks that day but our poor little guy passed out before we even got to the second one :)

This kid is a pretty thick and solid little boy, but he's absolutely...squishy :) He smiles all the time (except when he's staring at people he's not used to being around), loves to play and giggle, and loves being chased! If I brush his cheek or nose with my nose, he'll lean his face into mine and then rest his head on my shoulder...and sometimes he'll give me kisses. And when we pick him up from Grandma and Grandpa's after a three-day separation (i.e. vacation), he'll limit his walking adventures so that I'm always in sight and he can walk back into my arms :)

We love our little boy and are thankful to have such a sweet and affectionate child. He makes even dull days pleasant, and no matter how many times we've seen him smile this past year, we never get tired of it!

Des

I've realized two things as of recently: #1) I haven't blogged about Desmond since he was born and #2) Des has a ton of video clips that have gone unseen because I never blog! So, before I riddle this post with video clips, here's an update on our little boy:
He had his 9-month check up earlier this week and he's now 23 lbs and 28 inches! He has 8 teeth, is getting better at walking while holding onto furniture or a wall, and loves to crawl down the hallway and into his sister's room when she's supposed to be in bed. He has a special connection with his grandma, and he has my deepest appreciation for being able to sit quietly in a shopping cart for almost an hour :)


This was one of the first videos we got of him giggling/grunting (yep, he's a grunter). You can hear Aislin in the background, too, who clearly didn't know Daddy was just tickling her brother hehe!


Grunt grunt!


Okay, this is kind of mean hehe...but it's so FUNNY!! He loves being bounced and leaning back as far as he can while being carried...but he does not like being thrown in the air!


This one's just cute!


Okay, this one's kinda mean, too :P


Last but not least--my favorite Des video :)

A Day at the Park

Since the weather decided to grace us with blue skies and sun, and even a little heat, we thought we'd take advantage of it! We really needed to get out and move around a bit, too, and not just at a grocery store. So we went to McCollum Park in Everett, just down the street from our home, pet a friendly dog whose owner was parked next to our van, walked part of the trail and then ended at the playground. I'm so glad the parents/grandparents there were super nice because Aislin was playing with everyone's stuff, from one kid's bike to another kid's stroller! They just looked on her and smiled, waived it off and told me it was okay :)

Life in Everett

We moved yet again just a couple of months ago, but this time we only traveled about 45 minutes south. My parents, of course, are happy as can be because we're getting closer and closer to Kent! We already miss Mount Vernon's beautiful landscape but, on the plus side, the condo we moved into is pretty comfortable since it's only 5-years-old and one story, and spacious enough for our family of four; and being closer to Kent means trips home at least every other week :)
Tim's still working at Microsoft (for a vendor company called Insight Global) and doing really well, and his commute is a whoooole lot better! On busy days he takes his car, but on regular days (and when he wakes up early enough) he just drives to a nearby park-n'-ride and vanpools with other Microsoft employees. The driver is even part of our ward ;) So, even though he still has his late nights when he doesn't get off from work until 9 pm, his commute gets him home by 9:30 (as opposed to 11) so that we still have some time to spend together before going to bed.
Our ward is pretty friendly and super busy! We have a lot of investigators and, for our ward alone, four missionaries. We had heard from the missionaries in Mt Vernon that a lot of work was being done here, and now we know what they meant!
I've also met a few stay-at-home moms so far but a lot of the women in our ward work. It's a hit-and-miss thing. Funny thing is that I do most of my socializing in the Mother's Room these days, and sometimes even in the hallways. It's a cycle, and now I'm back to strolling through the hallways while trying to burp a child in my arms.
Aislin is just as energetic as ever. In fact, she's so energetic that I sometimes forget to breathe when she's jumping up and down in front of me. That's right--I forget to breathe. So I'm thankful for Netflix and all the children's shows/movies that she can watch instantly on the TV. On the other hand, all her jumping and jibbering seems to fascinate her baby brother, and watching the two of them play together fascinates me!
Desmond is at that age (3 1/2 months) where he smiles and giggles easily. I think when it comes to his dad, he likes to hear him make funny sounds; and when it comes to me, he just likes to hear me talk. He had a doctor's appointment last week (not a well-baby checkup, just a follow-up appt for his arm) and he weighed 17 lbs and measured 24 inches. We used to be so surprised by how big he was getting but at least he's growing in inches, too!
We have yet to update our family picture but here are some recent pics and a video of Desmond. He gets camera shy, so the only way we could catch him smiling is if we took a video!

Goofy girl!

Tim was "moo-ing."

@a library playgroup

@the mall

my favorite time of day--naptime :)

Sweeeeet :)

Welcome, Desmond Jay

Desmond Jay Sweet was born on May 31st, 2010, at 5:28 p.m. His due date was June 14, but he thought he'd beat out his sister in arriving earlier than she did (he was 2 weeks early whereas Aislin was 11 days ahead of schedule)! Thankfully I had already reached full term and it was Memorial Day, so my family was able to drive up and meet him the day he was born :)

Now for the labor story! According to my labor nurse, I wasn't really in labor. I could've finished out the early stage of labor from home, and it could've been days or weeks before anything changed, but this is how it happened:
My contractions started coming every 3 minutes for about an hour and then about every 2 minutes the following hour, so we called the doctor-on-call (it was near midnight) and she said, If this is your second child, you need to get to the hospital. So off we went with our little suitcase and Aislin, who was happy as can be to get out of the house.
When we got there, we learned I was indeed having contractions every 2 minutes and was 4 cm dilated. Since 4 cm was kind of the minimum requirement for being in labor, the nurse wanted to check me again an hour later to see if I progressed. At that time she said I had gone to 5 cm (although my labor nurse said it might've just been 4 1/2 at most), which was all the proof she needed to admit me. After that, my contractions reeeeeally slowed down. They had me walk around to get them back up again, but they were still very erratic. It was only because my contractions lasted a long time (in spite of being 8-10 minutes apart) that the doctor saw fit to start me on petocin.
Petocin goes up to level 20, which was what I ended up with after hours of sitting around and waiting for my contractions to hold onto some sort of pattern...but when that didn't happen, the doctor came in and explained that I could go home and let my body do its thing naturally or I could have my water broken--either one being perfectly fine with her; but first she needed to check me for dilation. Apparently I had gone from 4.5/5 to 6, which ruled out going home...so we broke my water!
About two hours later the contractions were grrrreat. It wasn't just back labor this time, it was all-over labor--back, front and even legs! So when squeezing Tim's hand and staring at the hospital floor stopped being effective, I requested the epidural...which turned out to be a total failure until the very last minute! Instead of removing the pain, it just relocated it. I ended up feeling sore under my left leg and a burning on my right hip. After they upped the dosage a bit and the numbness finally kicked in, it was time to push! I could still feel the contractions in my lower abdomen but it felt more like dull pressure, so I pushed as hard and for as long as the doctor asked me to and, about 12 pushes later, Desmond popped out and was placed on my chest :)
Thus was the birth of our second child!