MY BABY IS 5 !!!!!!!

how does a kid go from this.....

to this.....


in the blink of an eye?






happy 5th birthday, jax. you are such a great son.

you are so compassionate. anytime anyone is in need of some "loves" you are the first one to reach out to make them feel all better.

you are so smart. you can sound out lots of different words, write your name on paper, along with boomer, mama, daddy, nana, cat and numerous other words you sound out on your own! you can count to 100 by tens, and know LOTS about dinosaurs (which may or may not be thanks to dinosaur train on PBS)

you are a great teacher. you love to teach your little brother all the things you know. good and bad, but we will take what we can get.

you are a great helper. you are always excited to have a job to do. you can feed molly, help with the dishes in and out of the dishwasher, clean up a spill, wash windows, and get your own drink from the fridge.

you have a great imagination. you are a storyteller, you will rant about a made up past life when YOU were a baby kitty and daddy was your kid and you lived in the jungle. or play pretend with your stuffed animals (aka: team, friends, kids)

you are a great dancer. whenever mr.roboto comes on, you daddy and boomer bust out your robot moves. you love to "breakdance" which mostly consists of jump kicks and spins on your tush at this point.

you are a gentleman. so far daddy has taught you well. you open doors for mama, help out around the house, kill spiders and let bugs out of the house. say please and thank you most all of the time without being reminded, and know how to let a woman know she is beautiful.

you are like your mama in these ways... you are shy at first when meeting someone new, but once you are out of your shell WATCH OUT!! you are a bit of a homebody (we'll work on breaking that one together) you are cautious, you'd rather be safe than sorry, and it takes a little coercing to get you to try something you're leary of. you love animals. your snuggles, hugs and kisses are passed out freely.

you are like daddy in these ways... you are curious and a natural born engineer. you would take apart every toy you own if we let you, just to see how it works. you are very smart and catch onto things VERY quickly. you are a gentleman, good to all the women in your life. you are independent. you are super goofy, you and daddy have some GREAT faceoffs, and your not afraid to have fun and let loose.

you are a rough and tumble, not afraid to get dirty, bug catching, bike riding, train loving BOY.

i love you more than a fishy loves water, more than the stars love the sky, more than you'll ever know!!! you are growing into such a wonderful boy and i'm so proud to be your mama. happy 5th birthday my love bug!!

FUN DIP

things like this make me happy i have wacky little boys!!!

tiny rantings

i'd just like to note, that while i love when people are in the christmas spirit before christmas... keeping your lights on well into the new year brings out the scrooge in me!

Best Wife Ever

I always used to tell Crystal that she is the second best wife to ever walk this planet. Nobody specific was a better wife, but there had to be somebody a tiny bit more amazing, right? (That really makes me sound like a jerk when written out loud) Anyway, I am now sure that there has NEVER been anybody better at being a wife than Crystal. Tuesday night I had a Homeowners Board meeting right after work that I thought would only last for an hour. It lasted for 2 but she had still kept my dinner warm for me. But of course, as soon as I get it warmed up and sit down at the table I get a call from a customer who had no water. So i have to go out to work, but Crystal says to take it with me. I pack my dinner to go.......and forget it on the counter. I finally get home for good and enjoy my grilled turkey/cheese and tomato soup at 9:30.
Little did I know that she felt so bad for me, and was determined to not repeat that hunger episode. She calls me yesterday right before I left work, just to make sure I'd be home on time. I tell her I have to stop at Best Buy to get some wire colors for the remote start I'm helping Scotty with on Thursday, but then I'll be home. She calls me again on the way home just to see how much longer I'll be. To me it sounds like she's got the "I'm ready to not be the only parent here" tone in her voice, so I speed home (Like I wasn't speeding before). I walk in and am immediately told to sit at the dinner table. I'm all dirty so I have to change first, but after changing I am forced into my chair. And then she drops the bomb on me.
She is now the clearcut winner of the Best Wife Ever title.

merry christmas '09

Merry Christmas '09

we got these cute adidas pants for the boys for christmas jammies because jason and i already owned some, they went perfectly with the colts hats the boys got as gifts!

jax was really excited to get his "little drummer boy" skateboard. i think boomer's favorite gift from santa was his "superboomer". did you know they made a doll modeled after our son?!

this year was unconventional and special. jason was on-call for all of christmas weekend, but we made the best of it. here, you'll see pics of what we did right after opening gifts at home. breakfast was eaten at the water treatment plant, and the boys played with their toys there while daddy worked.

okay.. i've tried and tried, but i can't figure out what the whoozie happened to my font. why it is underlined or blue is beyond me...?! anyway...

all my boys were STOKED to say the least about

this gift from max and nana (my mom) can you tell?! it's a slot car race track. they played with it for hours after they left, even.

(oh, so nice of you to show up again!!)
this is one of my all time favorite pics. it's of jax and ma (ma is my stepmom, but i don't really like to call her that. the word makes it sound like we aren't connected as mother/daughter and we totally are!)anywho...i love this pic because it captures ma's sweet spirit. jax fell asleep in the formal living room, with the neon tree. i woke up to hear jax talking and freaked that he'd wake someone up, so i hurried in to find this. granny reading to jax by flashlight. i melted and then thought quick to take a pic of it to remember that moment and how i felt about it. we don't get to be with these guys as much as we'd like, so it's great to witness a bonding moment.

We're adding another Dahlstrom!!!!!

We've been talking about it for a while now; whether we could afford it, how the boys would react, do we really want more poop to clean up? After all was said and done, we decided to go for it. It only took about a month for me to come around to the idea of adding another little one to our brood. And just like that we're 5 strong!

Our little B-Boy

We got these suits as our Christmas pajamas this year because they are ridiculously cute. For example............