Lolly's Visit

Over the weekend Dawson's Lolly (my mom) came down from Maryville for a visit, and we had a great weekend! We spent most of the time Lolly was here playing in Dawson's new playroom (more info on the new playroom later!), and Dawson was a showoff as usual. He showed his Lolly how to play with all of his toys, how he can crawl very fast, and how he can "cruise" around furniture and toys. While she was here we also went out to eat and went shopping at Bridge Street. Dawson had a great time with his Lolly and loved the extra attention. Dawson and I were happy she got to come down for a visit, and we hope she will get to come back soon with Dawson's Pop and Uncle Logan!

In other Zorio family news...

For the past two and a half weeks, we have been putting our schedule-resistant Dawson on a routine in hopes that it will help him to start sleeping through the night. Yes, that's right, he's 9 months old and doesn't sleep through the the night, but I'm determined that by the time he turns one in May that he will sleep through the night! :) Out of the past 16 days he has been on his new routine he has slept through the night 6 times which is WONDERFUL! Before the schedule he would sleep through the night about 1 time a week, so this is much, much better. Keep your fingers crossed that he continues sleeping through the night more frequently. John and I feel like real people for the first time in months now that we're getting uninterrupted sleep!

For the past week Dawson has been biting everything again, so we think he might be working on a tooth. Don't look for any pictures of his first tooth any time soon though because we've thought that he has been teething about 4 times before with no tooth ever showing up! We will keep you posted on the news of the possible first tooth, though.

Last week John and I decided our little speed crawler needed a room where he could play and crawl that had a lot of open space and was mostly baby proofed, so we decided to convert our guest room to a playroom for Dawson. I was very hesitant to give up our guest room because I enjoy having a space for guests, but I knew Dawson would get more use from a playroom. So, we now have a playroom! Note to guests: We still welcome company at any time, and we have an air mattress you can sleep on! :)

After converting our guest room into a safe play area, I decided to invite some of Dawson friends over for a play date. His friends Matthew (9 months), Caroline (3 years), Jack (15 months) and their moms came over for a play date. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures, but they all played together and had a good time! I am planning another playdate this week and will have to remember to get out the camera.

We are looking forward to this week because our friend, Lance, is coming to visit on Thursday. One of John's friends, Brad, who interned with Target when John did is coming in town from Minneapolis on Tuesday evening for business, but is planning to stop by for a visit. We're looking forward to seeing friends from out of town this week and having a playdate!

Enjoy the pictures below...

Above: Dawson happy to be with his Lolly at Atlanta Bread.

Above: Dawson enjoying bread at Atlanta Bread.

Above: Dawson and Bentley begging to get out of the pack n play!

Above: "The Grass Is Always Greener"

We put a baby gate on the door to the playroom,

and Bentley always wants in while Dawson wants out!

Above: A room full of toys and the most fun

thing to do is pull up on the baby gate (in

his pjs).


Above: The guest room before we made it a playroom.

Above: Guests can pretend they're staying here while

actually sleeping on an air mattress surrounded by toys. :)

Happy Engagement Day!

Four years ago today John proposed, so today is our "engagement day!" Below are a couple of pictures from the night he proposed!

Above: John and I at my parents house after getting engaged.
Above: John and I with the limo!

9 Month Report Card

9 MONTH CHECK UP

On Sunday, February 14th, Dawson turned 9 months old! It is so hard for us to believe that he's so big, but we are having a lot of fun with him at this age. Yesterday we took Dawson to his 9 month check up, and he got a great report! :) He now weighs 20 lbs 13 oz which puts him in the 50-75th percentile for weight, and he stands a handsome 2 feet 6 inches tall. Being 30 inches long puts him in the 90-95th percentile for height. His doctor said he's growing well and is doing well developmentally. This appointment was fun because no shots were involved and there were so many questions as to what Dawson can do like crawl, pull up, cruise the furniture, clap, play peek-a-boo, wave, and put food in his hand to his mouth. We, like every other first-time parent, of course, think Dawson is a genius. :) He did show off his ability to wave when half-way through the appointment he started waving bye-bye to the doctor which we all got a kick out of.

Now that we have introduced Dawson to such a large number of foods, which has been what I've put a ton of energy into in the past 3 months, he can start having a lot more things. We can even start giving him bites of food off our plates which is weird to me because I still think he's a little baby! We're on track for him at a year (goodness, just three months away) to be able to eat pretty much what we eat just cut in smaller pieces or mashed up a little more. Although, I can't believe it's possible for my little baby to be so big, I am excited about the idea of being done with making Dawson's baby food in three months or less. Also, at a year we will start him on whole milk out of a sippy cup, so the doctor encouraged us to really work with him on the sippy cup so when it comes time for him to drink milk out of it, it will be easier for him. Dawson got a good report card for his 9 month check up, and we don't have to take him back to the doctor until May for his 1 year check up (is it possible he could be so big?!)!

PLAYDATE

Last week Dawson and I were invited to a playdate with one of his friends from church, Matthew. Matthew's mom, Stephanie, was pregnant at the same time I was, and our boys are just three weeks apart (Dawson in May and Matthew in June). I got a few pictures which I've put below of them playing, but for the most part they didn't interact too much. We had a good time though, and we're trying to plan another playdate for the two again soon!

BUNNY

The other night our friends Steven and Kelly had us and some of our other friends over for a tasty chili dinner, and after dinner they got out their bunny, Fern, to show to Dawson and Connor (16 months old). The boys LOVED the bunny. Fern hopped around the living room while Dawson crawled full-speed trying to catch the fast bunny. We got a few pictures of Dawson with the bunny, and I've already made plans to take Dawson to have his picture made with Fern for Easter! :)

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day gift was our ski trip and we went out on a date while we were there too, so we didn't plan to do too much for Valentine's Day. Our Sunday School class had a Valentine's Day banquet at Cantino Laredo at Bridge Street on Friday night which we attended though. It was a lot of fun to get dressed up, go out to dinner with all our friends, and play a few games while we were there.

Other that these few things, we've been spending our time at home crawling around the house with Dawson, and watching some of the Winter Olympics. We've also had snow a couple more times here in Alabama. Enjoy the pictures below...

Above: Dawson in his "baby's 1st Valentine's Day" bib.
Above: Happy Valentine's Day, Love Dawson!

Above: Dawson couldn't get enough of the bunny named Fern!

Above: Dawson staring at Fern more. His
friend Connor is in the background.


Above: Dawson in one of his winter hats.

Above: Dawson with his friend Matthew at
their playdate.

Above: The boys playing on the floor.

Above: John and I at Cantino Laredo for our Valentine's Banquet.

Dawson Graduates from the Bugs & Alabama Gets More Snow

As I mentioned in our last blog, Dawson has started crawling. This means that it is time for him to move up to the next class in church nursery. So yesterday Dawson officially graduated from the Bugs Class and is now in the Crawlers Class! His new classroom is a lot bigger and has more floor space for all the kids to move around. Dawson's new teachers said that he was happy the entire time he was there and enjoyed exploring the whole room with his friends! He didn't have a cap or gown, so I made sure to take a lot of pictures of him after church yesterday to remember the day he graduated from the Bugs! :)

Today Alabama got MORE snow! This is the third winter we've lived in Alabama, and we've never seen this much snow in all of our time here. This morning Dawson and I got up to find it snowing. Within about two hours everything was covered. We got around 1 1/2 on our driveway and a little more on the grass. This is probably the most snow we've had this year (or our whole time in Alabama), but it's mostly gone already. Around lunch time it started raining and warming up, so the snow melted quickly. I was surprised to see that all of the roads were covered with snow, so much so they even had to close a couple roads for a short period of time. Dawson and I just stayed in where it was warm and crawled around the house!

Above: Our house in the snow this morning.
Above: View of our cul-de-sac from our front door.
You can see that the road is completely covered (which
is rare here!).

Above: Remember how I used to take all those
cute pictures of Dawson in this yellow chair? Well,
those days may be over. Now he squirms all over
the place, as you can see in the picture above. This
picture was taken yesterday after church.

Above: This was also taken yesterday after church. Santa
brought this truck for Dawson, and Dawson LOVES to walk
behind it.

Above: He also likes to ride on it.

Above: Action shot-crawling to his truck.

Our Ski Trip

John and I decided to take a ski trip to Ober Gatlinburg. I have been wanting to take John skiing for a while since he had never been before and since it has been about 9 years since I have snow skied. It worked out for us to go this past week up to Gatlinburg, and we were both very excited about a little vacation! On Tuesday when we got to Ober John enrolled in ski school while I went on a few different slopes to see how well I remembered what to do. Ober has eight slopes, and I went on all of them at least once (except for one slope). After John graduated ski school, we practiced going down CubWay, a green slope, for most of the rest of the day Tuesday. Then Wednesday when we went back to the slopes I convinced John he was ready to go down Alpine Way, a blue. After going down Alpine once together though he decided he enjoyed CubWay much better. We spent a lot of time on CubWay, but I did ski down a black diamond a few times along with several blue slopes. John did great for his first time skiing! We had a great time on the slopes. Since Wednesday was our last day to ski we decided to do twilight skiing that day too (which is when we took the pictures below), which was fun but the snow was slightly icy for night skiing.
Also, while we were in Gatlinburg for a couple of days we made time to go to a few outlets to shop, eat dinner at The Peddler on the river (yum! what a treat!), and relax! We had a great time in Gatlinburg, but we missed Dawson A LOT!
So if you're wondering what Dawson did while we skied (no, he didn't get to go skiing), he stayed in Maryville with his Nana and Grandad (John's parents). Between his Nana, Grandad, Aunt Emily, and Cousin Drew, I think he got undivided attention from the moment we left! I know Dawson had a good time and loved all the attention he was given. He did well being away from John and me for a little over 48 hours, other than completely refusing to take a bottle or sippy cup. We are very grateful for Dawson's Nana and Grandad keeping him so we could take a little vacation, and we knew he was in good hands. My parents kept Bentley for us while we went skiing. I think Bentley was happy to relax with Lolly who was recovering from the flu.
We returned home to Alabama late Thursday evening and are back to our usual routines, but it was nice to take a vacation in February!
In other Dawson news...
Friday, January 29th Dawson officially started crawling! He has been semi-crawling for a while, but on the 29th he actually started crawling moving his knees and hands...watch out Bentley! He loves the fact he can actually get to things that he has apparently been eying for the past 8 1/2 months, and it's funny to see the things he is interested in crawling around to check out! John and I are also quickly realizing that you can't take your eye off of him for more than a second because not only is he crawling, but he's FAST!
Click, click, click. Last Sunday Dawson started making a click noise with his mouth, and now he clicks constantly. John and I think it's funny and so we click back at him which he thinks is hilarious.
In the past couple of weeks Dawson has also started yelling, and I don't just mean he's talking loudly. He did it for the first time when we were visiting our friends in Asheville and has continued since then. It is like he has realized that he can control the volume of his voice, and he prefers to be loud. So in between clicking Dawson is yelling jibberish at the top of his lungs!
Dawson has now tried four meats (turkey, pork, chicken, and beef), and while he wasn't crazy about them at first due to the texture he now likes the meat. The beef is his favorite. He tried blueberries last week and alternates between liking them and hating them. Then last night he tried cantaloupe for the first time, and he didn't really like it but it was just the first feeding of that fruit. In the next few weeks he will be trying watermelon, kiwi, and honeydew.
In a couple of weeks Dawson will be going to the doctor for his nine month check-up, and John and I can't wait because we're interested to see how much he has grown since he hasn't been to the doctor since he was 6 months in November.
He still has a toothless grin, but continues to bite everything he gets his hands on, so John and I continue to think that his first tooth is just around the corner.
Enjoy the pictures below...

Above: John and I at the bottom of the slope during

Twilight Skiing at Ober Gatlinburg.
Above: Me skiing at Ober Gatlinburg.

Above: Dawson taking a break from crawling

at his Nana and Grandad's house.

Above: Dawson playing with a new toy he got while

John and I were gone. (Yes, he has a little scratch on

his face where I scratched him :( on accident.)

Above: He was happy to see us when we

got back to pick him up!

Above: Dawson playing with his Nana.

Our Trip to the White House

No, we didn't go to Washington, but to The White's House in Asheville, North Carolina! We left home early Tuesday morning for the longest road trip we've taken Dawson on so far (he did great!). We drove to Maryville where we dropped Bentley off with my parents and stopped for lunch at Something Savory, and then we continued the second part of our trip Tuesday afternoon. Since Interstate 40 is closed due to a rock slide we had to detour to North Carolina's scenic interstate which was very pretty and snowy at the top of the mountain (our Jeep looked like we'd been through a blizzard).
After a long day of traveling (over 7 hours actual driving time) we arrived at the White's house Tuesday evening. We had a great visit staying up there a couple of nights. Not only did we get to visit our good friends, Josh and Cassandra, we also got to see their house now that they've gotten settled. Cassandra and I talked baby stuff the whole time since she's expecting a little one this summer (yay!), and the guys talked sports and played Xbox Golf. While we were there we visited downtown Asheville, had breakfast at a great spot downtown called Tupelo Honey Cafe, played indoor putt-putt, played a movie trivia game, and raced go carts at the Asheville Fun Depot. We had a great time visiting, and we were more than happy to let Josh and Cassandra get all the "practice" changing diapers and feeding Dawson that they wanted. We were sad to go, but hope to see our friends again very soon. We made it back to Alabama Thursday evening.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of all of us...most of them include Dawson as usual.

Above: John and I at the White's.
Above: Cassandra finds a great place to rest
while putting. :) Carrying a baby is hard work!

Above: John and I racing go carts at Fun Depot. (I won!)

Above: The guys racing.

Above: Dawson loving all the attention he was getting.

Above: Josh playing with Dawson and their

dog, Layla, got in the picture too.

Above: You never know what these two

are up to!

Above: Again, Dawson LOVED the attention....Josh and

Cassandra will make great parents.

Above: Dawson relaxing on my lap.

Above: Dawson in Asheville.

Above: During a pit stop on the way to Asheville

we let Dawson pull up and stand in the back seat

and he thought it was hilarious.

Our Trip to the Flying Monkey

On Saturday Dawson and I decided to go to the Flying Monkey with one of my friends, Melanie. The Flying Monkey is in the old Lowe Mill building which was built in 1900 and used as an old textile mill to make yarns and shirts. Later it was also used as a cotton warehouse, then a shoe factory (when boots were needed for Vietnam), then a warehouse for heating systems, and then it was abandoned for many years. In the past few years there has been a lot done to change Lowe Mill, and now it has two main floor where local artists have studios. So it was a lot of fun to see the inside of this old Huntsville building. Now local artists have studios in this building, and it is open to the public to come in, watch the artists work, and you can purchase their work as well.
So when Melanie asked me if I would like to go to the Flying Monkey on Saturday while John was working, I was excited to see somewhere new. I was worried that Dawson wouldn't do well, but he did amazing. He rode through all of the studios looking at art and all of the people there and was generally happy. To get from one floor to the next you have to take a really old elevator. Instead of doors it has gates that the operator has to manually raise and lower each time you get to a floor, and you can see the pulley and the entire elevator shaft from inside. I was worried this might scare Dawson (especially the noise), but he was content and just watched everything go by when we could see the brick inside the elevator shaft. I was so happy that Dawson seemed to enjoy riding around the studios in his stroller!
Before we went to the Flying Monkey, we had lunch at the Blue Plate Diner, a restaurant we've been wanting to try since we have heard so many good things about it. The Blue Plate is only open for breakfast and lunch and is set up like an old diner inside. We had a great waiter who talked to Dawson the whole time we were there. He even introduced Dawson to a younger baby girl sitting nearby and asked if I wanted to take a picture of Dawson with him for his baby book for his first time at Blue Plate (I almost took him up on this, as I love to take pictures of Dawson). Needless to say, with all of this attention, Dawson did wonderful at the restaurant too. This was the first restaurant where I have put him in a high chair and used the cover his Lolly made for him, and he did great! When we were using his old car seat, we always carried it in the restaurant and placed it in a sling near the table for him to sit. Overall, Dawson did great on our little trip to the Blue Plate and the Flying Monkey.
As a general update on Dawson...He has had turkey and chicken so far of his meats to try and really would prefer not to eat either because of their texture. Last night I discovered that he will eat his chicken with no fight if it's in apples, so that's how he ate his chicken last night! Tonight he gets to start his four days of trying beef.
He still isn't officially crawling on his hands and knees, but he can get around by rocking and lunging or 'army crawling,' so it's only a matter of time before he's everywhere! He's pulling up on everything now and loves to walk holding our hands.
As for John and me, we are doing well. John has still been staying busy with work. This past week we were happy to have a couple of his coworkers over. I've continued to stay busy taking care of Dawson, making baby food, and going to the wellness center. Last weekend I made Dawson 511 ounces of baby food, so hopefully that will last a month. I've never made that much at one time, and our freezer looks fully stocked, but I have a feeling I'll be making more before too long! I also found a great recipe to make homemade biter biscuits that only requires juice, flour, and baby cereal. I made Dawson 30 biter biscuits some in the shape of hearts for Valentine's Day and with our Z-shaped cookie cutter. So he's been gumming his heart and Z biter biscuits this week and loving them! We are very much looking forward to our upcoming trip to Asheville, North Carolina to see our friends Josh and Cassandra. And then John and I are looking forward to a ski trip we have planned as well when Dawson will be staying with his Nana and Grandad for a couple of days.
I have posted a few pictures below...

Above: When Dawson wakes up in his crib, he has

learned to push the bumper pad down and watch the door

for us to come in and get him out of bed. As you can

see in the picture he thinks it's funny that he can do this.

Above: Looking toward the door.

Above: Pushing the bumper pad down more, waiting for
Mama or Dada to get him out.

Above: In the process of pulling it down.

Above: Please get me out!

Above: Dawson in a restaurant high chair for

the first time. Although, I didn't take the waiter

up on getting a picture with him, I did sneak a

couple pictures of Dawson in the high chair.

Above: He loved being free to look around

at Blue Plate!