The Dawson Family Blog!

Haley can swim, Colby can crawl!

2009-06-24T08:13:00.002-04:00

Well summer is officially here. It's HOT! But that means pool time for Haley and she is having a blast swimming this year. Just this past weekend she started swimming without any vest or floaties. She puts her head underwater as well and of course jumping in the pool is now a favorite thing to do. Click the picture below to see more pictures of her swimming.

Haley isn't the only one that enjoys the water. Colby loves it too! His baths at night are filled with joyful screams and splashing. But he also likes hanging out in the pool, where he splashes some more!

When Colby isn't in the water he is now crawling all over the place. He hasn't mastered crawling on all fours yet, but he gets around pretty quick.

Pre-School ends, more soccer, Colby's ready to move

2009-05-27T14:53:00.002-04:00

I guess it is time for my monthly post!

Since the last post Haley turned 4. She had a fun day. Started out playing soccer, then had her My Little Pony party with lots of friends and family over to share in the fun. It is hard to believe she is already 4! Time flies. Here birthday pictures are here.

Pre-school has also come to an end for the year (and forever at this particular school). On the last day of class the kids put on a program for the parents. They were so cute. Haley did a terrific job! They shared their daily prayer and sang "We Are the Dinosaurs". I got a few pictures, but my camera was acting up so not as many as I would have liked. Click the picture below for more.

Speaking of soccer she only has one more game left in the season. She has done OK. She has her moments. The past few weeks have been better. She has been more active in the drills. Still has lots to learn. She likes to go about half speed all the time. Click the photo for more.

Colby is now 7 months old, weighs over 20 pounds, and is ready to start crawling all over the place. He spins around like crazy and can move forward a little right now. He rocks really well on his hands and knees, but doesn't quite have it down that he has to move his hands forward before his knees. He has two teeth, both on the bottom. The doctor told us he could start eating table food. He has tried refried beans, some potatoes and recently we gave him some pears. We put the pears in this holder that allows him to chew on the food and get the juice, but no large pieces as it acts like a strainer. He was soaked, but he liked it.

See you next time!

Teeth, swing sets, and Easter Bunnies!

2009-04-20T14:07:00.001-04:00

Well Easter has come and gone. But spring is definitely here! Haley had a blast on Easter. Her and Drew played all day in our backyard. They played with bubbles, animals and especially the new swing set! Both sides of the family came over to enjoy the day and it was beautiful! Great weather, not too hot, not too cold. Good food, ribs were the order of the day. And of course great people! The little ones enjoyed a couple of Easter egg hunts and eating the candy.

Speaking if swing sets, Haley is playing on her's just about daily. She loves to go between the glider and the "big girl swing", then play in the little house area and of course go UP the slide! That's right, UP the slide. Colby enjoys the swing set too though. We got him his own swing and he just sits there quietly as he glides back and forth. We know he likes it because he isn't screaming! He is just content and happy.

On Saturday Aleisha discovered that Colby cut his first tooth! His front lower tooth on his right side has broke through. He hadn't really shown any signs that he was about to cut one either. But since the tooth broke he has been drooling and chewing like mad.

Haley's birthday is this weekend, hope to see you there!

Soccer, rolling over, a swingset, and a new mower.

2009-03-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

Well it is official, Haley started playing sports! She has started with soccer, playing in a small instructional league. There are 5 other players on her team 2 other girls and 3 boys. She had fun the first day despite it being cold. I took some pictures but wasn't happy with them so I didn't post them. Now thinking that was a bad idea! so I will try to get a couple up soon. Her first "game" was rained out this past Saturday, but hopefully she will get to play this weekend.

Colby has been rolling over like a pro. First he just did it in his crib from his stomach to his back. But now he rolls from his back to his stomach and only does it when he is playing on the floor. He practically spends all his time on the floor on his stomach now. He pushes himself up really high, almost like a full pushup. He also spins around to find his toys or see what sissy is doing.

We bought a new swingset for Haley. It is similar to her other one, just a few changes. I am still going through all the parts and hope to start building this weekend. All the rain we have been getting should have the ground nice and moist for easy digging (yeah right!).

I also just bought a new lawn mower. The push mower has been struggling lately to cut the grass. I have cut it 3 times this year and it has taken me between 2.5-3 hours each time! Way too long. It won't bag the grass, it just gets clogged up. So I searched around for a commercial walk-behind that should last us a long time. I found a company in Winston Salem that sells their mowers directly to the customer so they are less expensive but deliver the same quality. I picked out a 36" model that should cut my yard in about 20 minutes. I am picking it up from their factory on Thursday to save on shipping charges.

Hope everyone is doing well and we will talk to you soon.

Spring is here.

2009-03-09T09:37:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was wonderful. We had great weather; temps in the 70s, sunshine, and slight breeze. We were glad to get out of the house and spent most of the time outside. Haley and I played all sorts of games, including soccer, catch, and of course, chase. Colby spent some time is his bouncy seat and his exersaucer. Rowdy chased the neighbor's dog through the fence and Gizmo just liked to hang out in the cool grass. I put up a few of the pictures from the weekend here.

The new computer is amazing. It is fast and quiet! My photography software runs so much better. I am looking forward to finally getting back into the swing of things.

Haley will be starting soccer soon. She is going to be playing in an instructional league through a local church program. I am familiar with the program and the league director as I take the pictures for the league. Haley showed a lot of interest last fall when she went with me to hand out pictures so I think she will have lots of fun.

Colby has been trying out lots of baby food. He didn't care for squash, bananas seem to give him an upset stomach, he LOVES pears and last night he gobbled up some sweet potatoes. He is pretty funny when he eats. He makes a lot of faces and noise. There are some pictures of the faces he makes here. He has also started rolling over. Right now he can only seem to do it while in his crib, which, of course, means that we have to roll him back over to go back to sleep. This is lots of fun at 3 a.m.!

Aleisha has a few tests this week to make sure that her fainting episodes are not something serious. She has an EEG on Tuesday and a tilt table test of Friday. I have to go with her on Friday since she can't drive afterwards.

Colby starts eating food.

2009-03-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

So last week was Colby's 4 month checkup. He weighed in at 17 pounds, 9 ounces. We checked Haley's 4 month checkup and she was only 2 ounces lighter! So Colby is not growing quite as fast. He is also a little shorter than she was and his head measures larger.

His Doctor told us to start feeding him food, starting with fruit and yellow vegetables. Aleisha had already picked up some vegetables and squash was the first one he tried. He didn't like it very much. He takes a few bites, but that is all. After a couple of days (to make sure he isn't allergic to anything) we switched to bananas. He likes those much better.

I uploaded a few pictures from the last month or so. You can see them here.

I also bought the parts for a new computer and it is now up and running. Our other computer was too slow for editing pictures and I hated using it. So maybe I can get back on track with photography.

OK, new pics are up!

2009-02-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

I finally got to get some pictures loaded. There are not a ton of pics, but lets face it, Colby pretty much does the same thing everyday!

So here are some pictures of the boy from January and February.

And here are some pictures of the kitchen.

Other than that, not much going on. Hoping to have a nice Valentines day with Aleisha, but we'll see how that goes. Haley is going to pass out valentines on Friday in preschool. I think she is excited.

WOW! I have been slack!

2009-02-05T10:42:00.001-05:00

OK, so it has been almost 6 months since the last post. SORRY! But I do have a good excuse! Or is it excuses?

So here is what has been going on since August.

- We finished Colby's room.
- Colby was born, October 24, 2008. He was 9 pounds 15.5 ounces and 21" long.
- We put up some shelving in the garage to get everything off of the floor and we now park two cars in it (the S-10 and the van).
- We had Thanksgiving at our new house. Everyone had a good time.
- Christmas came and went. Santa visited our house and read Haley and Colby a story. Haley got tons of toys, some clothes, books, and a new big girl bike!
- We have remodeled the kitchen; new paint, crown molding, under cabinet lights, tile back splash, and some decor. Pictures to follow once we do a few touch ups.
- Colby is getting big! He smiles a lot, gets quite vocal too. He grabs a few of his toys as well. He got to use his new exersaucer that Santa brought last night. We used a blanket to help support him a little. He seemed to enjoy it. Oh yeah, the best part, he sleeps through the night (and has for a few weeks) going down around 8 at night and getting up around 7 in the morning.
- Aleisha's dad passed away a few weeks ago. He was ill from cancer and spent his last few weeks in the hospital on life support. She spent as much time with him there as she could.

So that is what has been going on here. A little nuts to say the least, but we are getting through it. I will try to get some new pics up of Colby, Haley and the kitchen some time this weekend.

Just another typical Tuesday!

2008-08-12T11:47:00.000-04:00

What a rotten day!

Our garage door broke on Friday and we had put in a call to the company that installed it to come out and fix it. They called this morning and were supposed to come out between 2-4 pm. I got a call shortly after the first one asking if we could move it up to between 9-11 am. "Sure, no problem. Just call me before you come out so I can meet you there."

Phone rings

"Mr Dawson. My installer is at your house and says that he can't get anyone to answer the door."

No **** Dick Tracy!

So we rescheduled for tomorrow between 8-10.

We also had to take my dog Gizmo to the vet due to a limp in his left hind leg. We knew he was going to have to have surgery on it similar to the other one but he had been doing so well that we thought it might hold out for a while. Nope. It won't stay in the socket so he has to have surgery today.

On a better note we started working on Colby's room last night. We got the crown molding installed and hope to primer the room tonight. We picked out the color for the room as well.

Panthers, hummingbirds, and our entertainment center.

2008-08-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

So it has been a while again I see. Sorry!

Today's episode features the Carolina Panthers, some really small birdies, and a new addition to the family...room.

On Sunday July 27th I went with a friend of mine, Clayton, to the Panthers' training camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. It was hot, but a lot of fun. Not too far of a drive, we got there in about 1.5 hours. We found a spot and parked it next to a fence beside one of the practice fields and I set up my new lens for the event. I got a lot of nice shots, but the press and team staff always seemed to get in my way.

Last weekend I set up our hummingbird feeder, not expecting much action but to my amazement we had our first hungry bird in under 15 minutes. We have had a lot of fun watching them the past few days and they have already gone through the first batch of nectar. There are 3 that seem to rotate, and play. I have been trying to get some photos of these guys but they are fast and small. I still need to practice but I have been having fun. Some of my favorites are here.

We bought an entertainment center a few weeks ago and have been working on running some wires to prepare for the delivery. I finished up everything on Friday and the unit was supposed to be delivered Saturday morning. Well Rooms To Go decided to overload the truck and couldn't fit our stuff on it so they moved us to Saturday night. We finally went to bed at 10:20 PM after hearing nothing from them. We got a call Sunday asking for directions and they showed up about 9:45 in the morning. The crew immediately made things worse by cutting the box open with a knife and adding two fresh new grooves into the front of the bottom section! Then they somehow chipped the top piece as well. Our replacement is supposed to be delivered on Thursday. We'll see.

That is all for today. Check back later for another episode.

Got my new lens!

2008-07-18T09:48:00.000-04:00

My new lens arrived Wednesday. I have been trying to shoot with it ever since. It has been hard though as the light has not been great and all the wildlife seems to have gone into hiding. I have managed to get a few shots that I like though and they can all be seen here.

Vacation, 4th of July, and my new camera lens!

2008-07-11T16:43:00.000-04:00

So a lot has happened since my last post. I didn't realize that it was over 3 weeks ago. Oooopppsss!

Aleisha is doing well. She is having a hard time getting into the bed at night so we borrowed some steps from her mom. She has pretty bad heartburn at night and is tired, as expected, but she is hanging in there.

Haley has been sleeping in her big girl bed. She is also getting us up during the night to use the bathroom. We still have a few things left to do in her room, but it looks very nice.

So we went on vacation to Holden Beach a few weeks ago. We stayed at a house that John and Cindy rent each year. We can walk to the beach from the house and we usually have lots of fun. This year was no different, but Aleisha was a little uncomfortable due to the heat. And it was hot! We had a breeze the last few days but our first day down there was quite warm. For the first time since we started going down there it did not rain. Usually we would get at least one afternoon thunderstorm. There are pictures from our trip here. One of my favorites is this one.

I was also able to go and get some sunrise shots and those can be seen here.

For the 4th of July we went over to John and Cindy's to spend the day in the pool. It was very nice. We had BBQ and just enjoyed the day with family. Haley loved eating the cupcakes that Mary brought.

After the food was served we went to Pine Lake Country Club to watch some fireworks. It was a nice show, but Haley was done after about 15 minutes. She ended up falling asleep in Aleisha's lap and we left early. The shots from the 4th are here.

When we were at the beach I was able to go down to the waterway to try and photograph some water birds. I spent about two hours taking pictures and had lots of fun. But after getting back and reviewing the pictures I was disappointed that they were still too far away. So after selling some other camera gear I have bought a new lens. It should be here next week and I can't wait to try it out.

Until next time!

Haley's room update, beach trip, new pictures up.

2008-06-22T22:42:00.000-04:00

We are still working on Haley's room but we are getting closer. I finished the closet Friday night and mom came over Saturday and mom and dad both came over Sunday to help with the painting of the new furniture. We are just about done with the bed and dresser. We will still have to work on the chest of drawers and then add a few decorations, but we are getting close. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet but as soon as we are done I will.

We are going to the beach this week. John and Cindy get a house at Holden Beach for a week and we go down for the second half of the week. We leave Monday and will be heading home Saturday or Sunday. Should have a bunch of pictures of the trip.

I have been trying to put up some new pictures. Got some posted the past couple of nights. Here is one of my favorites, Haley riding her bike.



The rest can be seen here.

Thanks for reading.

Haley's getting a "Big Girl" room.

2008-06-13T16:35:00.000-04:00

Well this weekend Haley is off with Grandma and Grandpa visiting Bruce and Mary in Raleigh. So Aleisha and I are taking the time to paint her room and try to get some new furniture ready as well. She keeps telling us that she wants a black room! Why? I don't know. But she isn't getting one. We are going pink, a light shade on the walls with a slightly lighter shade on the ceiling. We are also adding some crown molding to help break up the change in colors as well as to hide some drywall imperfections. For furniture we are taking some furniture that was in our guest room and sanding it down to paint it white. We are going to buy her a full mattress and boxspring for when she is ready to leave the crib. I'll post some pictures when we are done.

Aleisha and I also "celebrated" our 6 year anniversary last weekend. We didn't do anything though. We are going to dinner tonight while Haley is gone, but that is about all.

We spent some time at John and Cindy's pool last weekend and will be trying to get those pictures up soon too.

Hope everyone is doing well.

It's a BOY!

2008-05-30T13:46:00.001-04:00

So as you know Aleisha is pregnant. She is 18 weeks as of yesterday, due on the 30th of October. Today we were scheduled to have an ultrasound. This time around I told Aleisha that it was up to her whether or not we found out what we are having, since I pretty much got to decide last time. Well she had to know, of course!

So not too long into the ultrasound today the nurse says "Well that is pretty definitive, it's a boy!" We were not expecting her to tell us so soon since they were doing a lot of measuring and taking pictures to verify that everything was looking good. So we both looked up and saw that it was pretty obvious.

We are both very excited and Haley is too. She has been changing her mind everyday as to whether she wanted a brother or sister, but last week she assured mommy that it was a boy and the past few days she has wanted a brother. She likes to get to listen to his "choo choo" (heartbeat) when we go to the doctor.

We will most likely use the name we decided back when Haley was born, Colby Reed. And good thing we kept all those baby clothes! Time to start clearing out that part of the attic, haha!

I will try and scan some of the pictures from today later and post them tonight.

Here are the pictures.

The Whole Family is Sick.

2008-05-15T21:57:00.000-04:00

This week has not been fun. The whole family is sick. Haley has an ear infection and horrible cough. She is on medication and is doing breathing treatments again. She doesn't seem to care though. She plays all day anyway. Kids!

Aleisha has had a horrible cough for several weeks now. It went away for a short time, but is back. Her visit to the doctor hasn't helped much, nor has mine. I feel like I am in an airplane and my ears won't pop. Tomorrow marks 5 straight days of this crap! I am ready for it to take off without me.

On a better note we got our desk put up and the computer set up so updates should come a little more frequently now. I should also have some new pictures up soon.

See ya next time.

Hello! Anybody Home?

2008-05-06T13:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, we are alive.

I know it has been awile since we posted, but things have been rather chaotic around the Dawson household lately. Between moving, redoing Brian's kitchen, and Aleisha being pregnant it has been hard to really do any extra things like updating a blog!

But I plan to try and keep up with it a little better from here on out.

Moving

We moved! On Thursday March 20 we closed on our new house. We are excited, but there is so much to do still. We have unpacked just about everything and now we are just trying to organize things a little better. We have several projects that will need to be completed over the next several months so stayed tuned for any updates. If you haven't seen the pictures they are here.

Aleisha is Pregnant

Hopefully the forth time is the charm. She miscarried 3 times last year but so far so good with this one. She did have to take some hormone treatments and she was not fond of those at all, but now she is free from that burden. We have an appointment today and plan to take Haley so she can see the baby for the first time on the screen instead of pictures. Aleisha is around 16 weeks right now so we have about 1 month to determine if we will find out the sex of the baby.

We hope everyone is doing well.

Now to see if I can post again before 3 months are up!

It came, it went. So much for snow.

2008-01-21T14:05:00.000-05:00

We were so excited. SNOW! It was coming and we had big hopes of getting to play. So much for our hopes.

It started to snow around 1:30 pm and continued through about 9pm, sometimes heavy and sometimes light, but nothing really stuck. We had a mere dusting, but a big mess. I went to a photo shoot with some mombers of a local photography group, so Aleisha took some photos of Haley during the "snow". You can see them here. Maybe we will get lucky yet this year and get some real snow.

Gizmo's surgery was a success!

2008-01-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

Gizmo had his surgery yesterday. The vet said it was a success. He was able to create a new socket for the knee to fit in and once it was in place he could not pop it out. He also said the knee has about 174 degrees of motion out of 180 which is really good.

He didn't sleep well last night and consequently neither did we. He moans and whines a lot. Hopefully he will start to feel better soon.

I took the picture above with my phone but we have some better shots I will post up later.

UPDATE:

We took Giz back to the vet this afternoon because he wouldn't move around at all, wouldn't go to the bathroom, and wouldn't eat. They removed his "cast" to see how he would fair. He went outside, walked around some and went to the bathroom. So they decided to leave it off. There are some more pictures here.

We went to the zoo.

2008-01-14T16:22:00.000-05:00

Friday night we had dinner with some friends, Chris, Kristina, and Caleb and we all decided to head down to Columbia, SC on Saturday to go to the zoo.

We all went to breakfast and then made our way south, arriving at exactly 11 a.m. The weather was great, considering it is January, and the crowd was small, a perfect day for the zoo. We had a blast and took tons of pictures. You can see pictures of Haley enjoying the trip here and pictures of some of the animals here. Haley went on her first pony ride and really liked it although there isn't a smile to be found on her face in those pictures, she was a little tired. She crashed as soon as we left the zoo but woke up for dinner at Cracker Barrel. She got a new toy turtle, as if she doesn't have enough animal toys, but she was really good at the zoo. She stayed dry all day!

Gizmo goes in for surgery tomorrow so I will keep everyone updated when he gets out.

Gizmo needs surgery!

2008-01-10T17:51:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I left Gizmo's situation in limbo. Here is the short story:

Gizmo's hip and knee displaysia (spelling?) is back and much worse. He needs surgery on both rear legs and hips. He pretty much just lays around all day. He won't walk much at all. We have to carry him outside to go to the bathroom and pick him back up to bring him in. The doctors want him on medicine for ten days before they do his first leg and then there will be six months between legs. The medicine doesn't seem to help much right now so they have upped his pain meds. I will let you know more as we know.

I also found out today that somebody has been using a fake debit card linked to our account. State Employees Credit Union called yesterday to talk to me so I got back with them today to find that over $450 had been charged to my debit card in stores on South Carolina and Georgia. Luckily I am not liable but I had to fill out some paper work and get a new card issued to me.

Hope everyone else is doing well. Talk to you soon.

Mike

Haley read her first word!

2008-01-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry to wait so long between posts. Things have been a little busy around here.

Gizmo will be heading to the vet tomorrow to have his back and hind legs looked at again. He pulled up lame after coming back into the house last night. He has been laying around most of the day, without trying to move too much. I hope it is nothing serious.

Haley read her first word tonight: Up! Aleisha was reading one of her new Dr. Seuss books and asked Haley what one of the words was. Aleisha then helped her sound out the word and Haley told her it was Up! We were all so excited. She is also still fighting off a cold, with a little runny nose and some coughing. Hopefully it will go away soon.

I also posted some new pictures from today. We mainly just hung out around the house taking a few photos when we could. The photos are here.

Talk to everyone soon.

Still not finished with Christmas decorations!

2007-12-10T11:01:00.000-05:00

You would think that with this 70 degree weather we are having that we would have finished putting up our Christmas lights. Well, not entirely. With Christmas parties and photography classes being rescheduled, not to mention just being worn out, we still have yet to finish our decorating. We made some strides this past weekend though, putting up the icicle lights around the house. We still have the bushes left outside and some things inside which we hope to get done this week and weekend.

Hope everyone else has theirs done and can concentrate on other things.

Mike

Family Update

2007-12-07T09:23:00.000-05:00

I think I should use this time to give everyone a family update.

We are still trying to get all of our Christmas decorations up. We have only put up the tree and village in the house and a few things outside. We hoped to work on it this weekend, but between my make up photography class and a Christmas party for my work, things will be tight.

As you know Haley is growing by leaps and bounds everyday. She is almost completely potty trained, having just the occasional accident here and there. She has even gone to the bathroom on her own and then comes running out telling us about it. She is learning her letters and sounds so well that she is spelling out the words she sees on TV, signs, and store fronts. The other day I took her to Target and she spelled out O-T-A-R-G-E-T! The O is the bulls eye. I thought it was rather cute.

Aleisha is doing well. Things have been rather hectic for her at work since one of her employees has been out sick. She has been doing my photography assignments with me since we now have two cameras. She took this beautiful picture of Haley that is on our Christmas cards this year.

I have been busy lately as well, which is why we don't have too many new shots up on our website. I will try to get some new ones up soon. Between my softball season and photography I didn't get to spend too much time with Aleisha and Haley. Now that most of that is over we can do some family stuff. We got to make cookies last weekend. I think Haley enjoyed it quite well. Of course she was more interested in eating them than making the cookies.

See you soon.

Mike

Success, I think!

2007-12-05T09:45:00.001-05:00

If you are reading this post then I have successfully started our first blog. I will be honest with you I never thought blogs were necessary. I always thought people that had them were self centered, egotistical, spoiled teenagers, who needed another way to communicate with their friends outside of phones, IMing, and texting. But recently I thought it might be a good idea to use as a way to share information to friends and family about what is going on in the Dawson family. At this point I am still not sure what might show up everyday here, but I guess that is what keeps people reading. So with that in mind I will keep this first post short to keep you interested. Until tomorrow (or whatever day I post again!).

Mike