The #41 Hat Trick Post

So, what does the #41 have to do with Julie and I this month? Well, it is quite interesting how the number 41 features so prominently in our lives during February of 2010. Here is some #41 trivia for you, first, I turned 41 this month, second, on the 23rd of this month, Julie and I celebrate our 41st month-a-versary (Yes, we still try to celebrate month-a-versary's) and on the 14th (41 backwards...hmm) we will be 41 days from the birth of our second son, Hudson. That is the #41 Hat Trick. Of course baby Hudson could be early... :)

Speaking of the baby, the pregnancy is going perfectly fine, no health issues, all the tests were great and despite morning sickness, heartburn, bouts with acid reflux and lots of vomit, Julie is doing marvelous! Dixon is all about the "baby," wanting to listen to the babies heartbeat on the computer, and calling every one of his stuffed animals a "baby" as he puts them to bed, or wraps them in blankets. Dixon just got a toddler bed, which he has been sleeping in for almost a month now, and he points at the crib and says, "baby!" in anticipation of his little brother's arrival. Of course, every time he is playing with one his "babies" and throws it across the room, or drops it on the floor and body slams it, I start to worry a little... lol... but Dixon will be a great big brother and we are looking forward in anticipation for Hudson's arrival!

As I write this, Team USA in Hockey just tied TEAM Canada to force overtime in the Gold Medal game. The Sun is out, it is close to 60 degrees out on the last day of February, Dixon is napping, Julie is packing baby clothes. We are blessed with jobs, blessed by our jobs, our ministry here in Keeler's Corner, and blessed by our friends and our family. We live life loving God with our hearts, mind and soul and loving our neighbor.

Life couldn't be better.

The 18 Month/18 Week Update!

Hey All,

So Julie will be 18 weeks pregnant this Monday, and Dixon just turned 18 Months old on the 16th. Hence the 18/18 Update. So how are things in our camp? Well, tiring. lol. Julie just got over a bout with some food poisoning, and Dixon has been teething (we think) for the last week or so and has had a low grade fever, and a constant runny nose and a "on and off again" cough... Then, to top it all off I caught a cold or something last weekend, which just started innocently with a sore throat, then after a couple of good days, I turned into a completely congested, stuffed up and sneezy mess of myself. I am feeling a tad bit better as I write this.

So, onto the updates:

First, Julie had her monthly baby check up last week and everything was ok. Baby Jellybean's heartbeat was great (somewhere in the high 150's) and everything is on course for a March 28th delivery. We have scheduled our ultrasound appointment for the 20th of November and then we will be able to find out (hopefully) if Baby Jellybean is a Boy or a Girl... I'm sure it is a girl, Julie wants another Boy, so let the betting begin... Remember November 20th we find out, maybe.

Second, Dixon had his 18 Month checkup and he is doing great as well. Except for one thing, which the doctor has more of an issue with than we do, which is that Dixon has dropped to the 8th percentile for his weight. He weighs just around 22/23 pounds now, and though WIC told us they thought that was good for his height, our doctor wants him to get his weight up. His height is in the 50th percentile for his age. Anyway, Dixon eats 3 meals and has snacks throughout the day, and this last week, really hasn't wanted to eat dinner at all, but gets his food without a doubt. The Doc also wants Dixon to drink more milk, but the boy doesn't really like milk at all, so we feed him cheese, yogurt and smoothies quite a bit to compensate. Though today, he drank most of his cup of milk. He really loves orange juice however... The Doc also checked Dixon's throat, ears and lungs (just because of his runny nose and cough) and all were fine, and since he has no fever currently, the Doc agreed with us and said it was more than likely just due to teething. He is just a few teeth away from having them all in... Gee, he should probably go see a dentist now...

Dixon is just a joy to watch right now. I swear he is an engineer in the making. He loves to take things apart just to try to put them back together. He loves to stack the boxes of kleenex up, take them down and then stack them up again. He takes the caps off of pens just to try and put it back on. He loves reading his books, he has started to draw and color, and his new thing is to point to your belly button and say, "baby" because Julie has been teaching him about babies in preparation for him being a big brother. The other day I handed him a old USB flash drive to play with, and he ran right over to the laptop and tried to plug it in to the USB slot. Who taught him that? I never did. The kid is a genius I tell you. He takes our keys and walks over to the door and tries to unlock it, luckily he can't reach, and Julie often has him help her put stuff away when she is cleaning and he is a great help as seems to know where everything goes, even if we do find some items in strange places later on. If you are reading a book with him now and he sees something in the book that he recognizes (such as a duck, a cat, a teddy bear, a ball, a horse etc...) he will immediately get up and go find his toy that matches the picture and bring it back to you to show you that it is the same as in the book... we were reading one of his sign language books and we came to "cracker," and he said, "coocoo" (which is how he says cracker) then did the sign for cracker, and if I didn't understand all of that, he went and pointed to the crackers on the table to show me as well... guess he was hungry :) Well that is enough about my brilliant son for the time being.

Third, hmm... what else? Lets see. Our work here at Keeler's Corner is going good. We are just starting to get the swing of things now and feeling comfortable in our "Community Team" shoes, though we aren't sure yet just how the new baby will change things. One thing for sure though, we will need a bigger apartment.

Work at Kenmore Camera has been busy to say the least. The "recession" hasn't hurt us at all, and we just finished our 4th annual 2009 Expo at the Lynnwood Convention Center this last weekend, where we doubled what we did the year previous and packed the center with people. How many I don't know, but 5000 wouldn't be a bad guess.. easily could have been more. We have some changes in store as we are adding a class room here soon (across the street from the store) and are looking to continue steaming ahead into the new year.

Julie and I are taking a vacation in December and flying down to Amarillo to spend Christmas with her parents. This will be the first vacation we have taken in close to 3 years and the first we will have taken with Dixon. He gets to fly on a plane! I pray that works out ok :) It will be a great time and I am really really looking forward to some downtime during the holidays.

Well, that is all for now. I think I will go have some Pumpkin Pie now...

WHAT A COUPLE OF WEEKS....

It has been awhile since Julie and I actually posted anything other than pictures of Dixon. If we did nothing else, the photos of our boy would be fine, however I thought we should maybe take some time to say a few words about how life has been lately. It has been an interesting last couple of weeks to say the least.

First, a little bit about Dixon :)

He is a little boy now. At 15 months old now he bares no resemblance to the infant he was just a few months ago. Now he walks. Yes, for almost three weeks now he has been toddling around everywhere. He is very independent and doesn't really want you to hold his hand as he walks. Like all of us when we first ventured out into the unknown on our own two feet, he started quite wobbly and had three major bumps to show it. First he smacked into the corner of the shoe rack and hit himself right behind his left ear, then the next day he fell backwards and landed on the metal strip between the carpet and the linoleum. His last major spill was when he fell face first and punctured his lip with his tooth. All major "Owies" I assure you. He has been much more stable since those, but we know that this is just the beginning and we are preparing ourselves for the scrapes and bruises to follow. Though I wasn't too worried about him, I was a little worried about whether Julie and I would survive this "learning to walk" stage. Yikes! I am pretty sure that my hair will be completely gray soon...

This last weekend he had his first hair cut. That changed him overnight. I swear we came home from Eastern WA, with a different boy than what we left with. He looks so mature it is scaring me. He expresses himself very well now, both in facial gestures and in voice. He is already more technically minded than his folks, has figured out how to use the iPhone and our MacBook, plus he can turn the Xbox 360 on, as well as the TV. Not only that but he can of course get into all the cupboards and drawers. He loves to help organize the towel drawer :) The other day he took my car keys and walked to the door and was trying to "unlock" the door so he could go outside I guess. I just had to laugh... so I guess I better watch him and make sure he doesn't try and take the car for a spin...

We love him! he is our little boy and he is growing up way too fast!


In other news, we lost someone who was very dear to us. Julie's grandma passed away on Saturday, June 27th. Grandma Violet is an amazing woman, who is now living life eternally with her savior Jesus Christ. We were blessed to have her in our lives, and we were blessed to have seen her just the week before and be able to tell her we love her.

I will always remember how, just 6 days after Dixon was born, Grandma Violet (with Aunt Launa and Aunt Kay) drove over the pass in the middle of the night just to come see Dixon, her new great grandchild. I was quite surprised when I received the phone call from Julie telling me we had visitors!

Here is a photo from that Visit in April 2008.

We will miss you Grandma Violet! Love You!

So for now, Julie and I are busy as always. Between my working at Kenmore Camera full time, our work for Community Northwest, which is our ministry here at Keeler's Corner, and our time with Church, we manage to fill most of the hours in our day. Though stressful and tiring at times, we stay faithful to the path that the Lord has laid out for us, knowing that seeds are being planted and that love is being given. We are extremely thankful for the blessings that the Lord gives us daily and hopefully soon we will find time to catch up with our friends that we miss dearly. We keep you all in our prayers and we thank you all for your prayers!

Rich, Julie and Dixon :)

DIXON, A SPOON AND A BOWL!!

He just picked up the spoon and started using it. We didn't even coach him. Of course he didn't use it very long... wished we could have filmed more but we were stunned at first... :)

Assume the Position

More Photos of the Boy!! Look Look Look!!

MORE VIDEO FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE!!

More Dixon, more Video...

THE DRIVER

He picked up on how to do this without any effort. He can't turn or stop but he can scoot...

You thought I was joking about the car keys didn't you?
Here is another one for your viewing pleasure

10 MONTHS AND TAKING ON THE WORLD!

Dixon is 10 months old (in a couple days but who is counting...) and he is growing up before our eyes in ways that we wish he wouldn't. Right now he is in the "Where did he go? He was right here a second ago" phase. He is playing on the floor, we blink and he disappears like an illusionist. You see he has started rolling. He is a master roller now. He can roll 12 feet in seconds flat, pivot on his stomach and keep rolling like the obstacle wasn't even in his way at all. And to add to that, he has started doing the "Army Crawl" as well. On his stomach, pulling himself forward using his elbows. I think currently his record, as of this writing, is 8 crawls. I am telling you though, our son is a genius and he will be crawling like a pro in no time. Much to our horror I am sure...

I am a mean, mean, Dad, so today I teased him by not letting him go to Mom when he was hungry and she was ready to nurse him. Instead I held him under the arms and stood him up on his feet and told him that if he wanted to eat he would have to walk over to Mom. Much to our surprise he took 2 steps right away, and then with a little coxing he took two more. Mind you he was giving me a piece of his mind the entire time, but wow, what a way to motivate the kid. Maybe I shouldn't do that... hmm..

Dixon loves electronics. Today he rolled/crawled over to the stereo and started pushing buttons, turning the sound off and back on again. He always wants my iPhone (to chew on mind you, not call with, but you never know, maybe he has some buddies to text I don't know about..) and one of his favorite toys (that his mom wishes he didn't play with) is the xbox controller. He is a guy all the way!

That being said, he loves books as well. They all taste delicious to him. Some he eats the pages right out of and others he chews on the edges and spine, but he loves all his books. One of his favorite books (that he hasn't eaten completely) is "pat the bunny" he knows all the moves and usually does them before you even have to say anything. I told you the kid is a genius.

He loves chewing on his toothbrush.. er, brushing his teeth I mean, and taking baths. If you know what is good for you you won't take him out of the bath. He will let you know what he thinks about that.

Right now he is in to pointing at everything. Often he will point at you, then point at something out of his reach, then back at you, then back at the object again. This means, "hey buddy, get that for me will you?" I find this very humorous, however if I am not fast enough at getting whatever it is that he wants, Dixon does not find it humorous. (He doesn't always get what he wants however.)

A couple of days ago he received his first "Flesh Wound." I like to call it "Battle Damage" to make it seem more manly, but he was just playing in the clothes basket when he toppled it over and hit his face on the wire rack in the hallway. He now has a shiner on his right eye. It didn't faze him a bit, but his mom was quite shaken by it. He is just preparing us for what is too come, I can just imagine... I don't want too, but I can...

Anyway, our little boy is growing up and I am floored when I think that his 1st Birthday is just around the corner. He isn't allowed to grow up that fast. We have rules here, are you listening to me Dixon? Dixon? Oh where did he go now, and where are my car keys?...

THE ROLLER!

Dixon turned 9 months old yesterday
and today we treat you with this video.
Shot by his mom, produced by his dad
and starring none other...

Plus we have new photos up on Flickr...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Dixon wishes all our friends and family a "Happy New Year!"

Dixon's 1st Santa Photo

His first Christmas, his first Santa... sigh, the time flies
Dixon's 1st Santa Photo
Originally uploaded by Rich & Julie's Photos

DIXON IN A MANGER!!

Sure, we could take the time to tell you what has been going on for the last month and a half but... nah, we will just show you pictures of Dixon instead...

FLICKR HERE

GIVE ME THE SPOON AND NO ONE GET'S HURT!!

Here it is in its unedited glory. For your viewing pleasure. Dixon trying solid food for the first time. Woo Hoo!

He Laughs! HE LAUGHS!!

Yesterday may not have started out good for Dixon, with a fever of 106 possibly due to his tetanus shot he had the day before, but by the end of the evening, feeling better and in good spirits, with his dad making funny faces at him, Dixon started laughing, which caused his dad to start laughing, and then Dixon kept laughing because his dad was laughing, because Dixon was laughing, and then his mom started laughing because Dixon and his dad were laughing, and we all just laughed and laughed and laughed. This boy can laugh! Too bad we didn't get that on video for everyone... oh well...

4 MONTHS OLD AND A GROWING BOY HE IS...

4 months old, 26 inches long and 16lbs 6oz, Dixon is doing great, and the doctor thinks he perfect! "You must get a lot of compliments," he told us concerning the charming smile and good looks of our son. Why yes we do, thank you doc. This boy is a winner. He got his first round of shots today and handled it like a champ, (compared to how his dad might have handled it, being stuck in the thigh 4 times with a needle,) cried for a few minutes, and then calmed down and was easy going until a few hours later when he decided to be really cranky about the whole thing. However, he took some tylenol, then a nap and woke up to find that he was being baby sat by Grantie, Nana and Aunt Betty, as his parents snuck out to a Aquasox game, and that made his whole evening! Let's see how much sleep he gives us tonight...

More Dixon and Family Reunion Shots!!

We have more photos of Dixon posted, as well as shots from his trip to "The Family Reunion" held at Deception Pass this last Sunday. He quite enjoyed himself and, of course, was the hit of the party if we say so ourselves... they all are on our Flickr page...

OVER HILL AND OVER DALE...

Dixon took a little trip (his mom and dad came as well) over the pass to see his great grandma, his aunts and his cousins. He had a blast, he loved to see them all, and they loved to see him. Photos can be found at our flickr site...

DIXON: THE AMAZING WONDER BOY!

While at work I was asked by a lady who had a nine week old, and just found out I had a 12 week old son, "do you find any time for sleep? we don't..." and all I could politely say was, "we do pretty good. Our son is doing good." But of course, I really wanted to brag about the fact that Dixon sleeps 6 to 8 hours a night and has pretty much since he was a month old. I think it pretty much runs 50/50 on whether Dixon wakes up himself or we have to wake him up. When he does wake up himself, like this morning, he just lays in his crib and talks and coos. He very seldom wakes up crying, not that he doesn't cry mind you. The other night Julie and the woman's group were hanging out at Greenlake and he cried pretty much all the way home. And it wasn't any piddly little whimpering either... no this was a torrential rage! Guess he liked hanging out at the lake...

Dixon is growing so fast (we unofficially have him at close to 25" in length and maybe 14 0r 15 pounds now) that he wears 6-9 months clothes for his length and 3-6 months in his torso. He will be 3 months old on Wednesday next week. He is too tall to fit in his bathing tub on the side that he should be on, yet when we stick him on the other side we have to hold his head up all the time because he doesn't quite have the strength for that yet. He is almost there. He still really doesn't like tummy time, he puts up with it, but he moves his arms and legs fast an furious when on his back and I swear that if I just flipped him over during one of these flurries, he would just scoot across the floor lickity split. His dark hair, which for the most part all fell out, now is growing in blond and light brown, though it is getting darker by the day one wonders if it will ever get as dark as it was at birth.

He eats his hands all the time now, they are his favorite toys. Actually he really likes to chew on one finger. Julie wonders if he is in early stages of teething, so she has started giving him teething toys, which he will hold and chew on for awhile but then drops them like the rest of his toys, so he can go back to chewing on his fist or his finger. Though he reaches out and grabs things quite often, he isn't quite into holding things yet.

He is all smiles and giggles now. He doesn't laugh quite yet, but he has managed a few chuckles. He loves it when you bounce him (thanks Grantie) and even loves it more when you make silly faces and noises. He even likes it when you take his photo. I am sure that he will be laughing up a storm here really soon.

He just had his morning bath and massage and now is sitting in mom's lap and just taking it easy being the amazing wonder boy that he is.

4TH OF JULY

Our 4th ended with what sounded like WWIII happening outside our apartments, but it started much calmer as we spent the day hanging out with Uncle Scott & Aunt Jen. We had great food, great fun and Dixon learned how to play Monopoly...





...which resulted in Uncle Scott having to change a diaper. Dixon didn't complain and he even let Uncle Scott play with him afterwords.

Chatting Away!

Hey, Hey everybody. Dixon is doing a little chatting and we thought we would share it with you all. This is pretty much a normal day for him now. Talking to us like this... by the way, his voice is the cute little one, the other voice belongs to his dad... look at how he just continues to swing his arms... love it!