Patterson Family Pics

Our Thanksgiving Holiday.....

My dad, hunter, autumn & me after the TURKEY TROT!

Dakota eating his pumpkin pie (the only part of dinner that he ate)

What he was doing during dinner

It seemed like this week flew by with Thanksgiving in the mix, followed by Black Friday, followed by 2 days in a row of working!!!!

Scott and I were given a fun opportunity this week to have the boys sleep at my mom's house and have the night to just the two of us! My mom volunteered to have Dakota & Bridger sleep over Wednesday night because Thursday morning, Scott and I ran the Thanksgiving Day 4 mile Turkey Trot (along with Autumn, Hunter & my dad). This year I made a goal for me and Scott to go to the temple 1 time per month & we have done pretty good. So for our date night we decided to go out to dinner, to the temple and then to a movie. We got all dressed up and headed out just to find that the temple closed early and there was still hours until the movie. We then went home, changed and headed to the red box. It was so weird to just be able to change our plans and not have to worry about the kids. I can't believe that 4 1/2 years ago that was our life! I didn't think anything about it then, but it was really boring, and sadly we only made it through about the 1st 20 minutes of our movie before falling asleep. It was only 9 pm!!!!

We had a good Thanksgiving, starting with the Turkey Trot and then breakfast at my parents house. I sadly had to work from noon to 6 pm, so Scott went to his parents house and had dinner there. The day before Dakota and I went to Scott's mom's house to help make pies and he was so excited to get to eat his apple and pumpkin pies. Sadly he fell asleep on the way, so Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Scott, his parents and his brother Jason (& Bridger of course). Scott's parents do an amazing dinner, so I was excited for the left overs when I got done with work!

Friday morning me, my mom, Autumn & McKenzie headed to the mall for the big shopping day!!! There wasn't anything in particular that we wanted, but it is a fun excuse to get to go shopping, and there were some pretty good sales. But all the money I saved did not equal out to the money that my little shopping trip ended up costing me..... due to the fact that at some point during the day I lost my car keys, which wouldn't be the world's biggest deal other than the fact that they were my only set of keys!!! (Scott has been telling me forever to get a $2 spare key made!) Why would I do that? My life couldn't be complicated if I did something that simple! I called a lock smith and they said that it would be about $250.00 due to the holiday weekend to get my car re-keyed. If I wait until Monday it will still be around $150.00! I decided to wait the weekend out.... so here I sit at work, while my car sits at Target!!!

My new Blog look!

You have probably noticed my super cute new Christmas blog design!!! I got it, along with my old design from designerblogs.com. They do completely custom designs or they have premade ones (like my Christmas design) ready to install. I love it because after the holidays I can just have them reinstall my old layout. Any way, they are having a sale right now..... so check it out!!!

4 Years Ago.....

Today is Dakota's actual Birthday (which was very confusing to him since he has pretty much had 4 days of birthday.) This morning I told him that 4 years ago he popped out of my stomach. He of course thought that was the silliest thing he had ever heard (obviously only Bridger came out of my stomach, Dakota on the other hand, has just been in our family forever). The more that I thought about it "popped out" was not the case, in fact just the opposite! After a 48 hour induction & about 90 minutes of pushing, he did pop out. I told Scott that had I known how crazy Dakota was going to be, I might have driven a little slower to the hospital and enjoyed those hours of labor knowing that they were the last break that I would get!!!!

But really we are so happy to have him in our family. He has changed so much over the last year. He is now about 36 lbs. and 40 inches tall. His talking has improved greatly and a once very serious little boy.... he has gotten a hilarious sense of humor. His big thing now is to say "kidding". example: "mom, I peed in my toy room!" me, "you better not have!" "KIDDING MOM!!!!" (but don't think that I didn't go check just in case).

To finish the big birthday celebration Scott, Bridger and I took Dakota to Pirate Island Pizza. I told the waiter that it was his birthday and Dakota was so scared that he immediately denied it and then hid under the table while they sang to him. It was a fun end to the longest Birthday ever!!!

Here are some past Birthday Parties!!!!

3 years old

2 years old

the big 1 year old!

Birthday Party #2

On Friday, after Dakota's friend party he thought that he was set! He had no idea that a family party was coming!!!! My family came over for dinner, Dakota's favorite..... noodles and white sauce. We then had cake and ice cream. I was so sad to take apart his super cute treasure chest cake. I think that he had the best birthday ever and got tons of fun pirate stuff and hot wheels MONSTER TRUCKS. I seriously don't even now where we are going to put everything. He is so spoiled by his grandparents and aunts & uncles.

look who is starting to walk!

Dakota's party was pretty hard on Noah. Being only 7, it is hard not to be very, very jealous. Dakota finally agreed that Noah could open one of his presents, imagine Noah's disapointment and anger to find that it was just clothes!!!

the long awaited PIRATE PARTY!!!!

After much planning and anticipation, Dakota's "friends party" finally arrived! Originally he wanted a shark party, but after looking into it, I talked him into a pirate/ shark party just for my own convenience. Plus I told him that we could say "Arrgh, Happy Birthday", and he thought that was really funny. I had all of his birthday stuff set up when he woke up and he could barely wait the 2 hours until his friends started coming. I attempted a few games, but mostly 2,3 and 4 year olds just want to run around and be crazy. The next part of the party included pizza, cupcakes and ice cream, followed by presents (sadly i could not find matches so we had to skip that part). We then ended the party with a pinata, which took 10 mins of hitting before it opened andthen onto the treasure hunt. Eventhough I thought the whole thing was crazy and chaotic, all the kids seemed to have a great time and that is what counts. Thanks from me and dakota, to all the friends and moms that came!!!

maggie made the tops for these cupcakes, Dakota loved the shark ones!!!

dakota was in heaven with all of the fun presents that he got. he thinks that he turned 4 and his birthday is over. little does he know that he still has his family party on Sunday!

landon & laila

landon

eli

kenan

landen

asher

doing so much better!!!

Well, after a lousy weekend, we are doing a lot better at our house. Saturday was pretty rough for Dakota, but he hasn't had a fever since.... so that is good. The doctor says that they aren't contagious once they can go 24 hours without a fever, but I haven't really been taking him anywhere anyways. I think that he got spoiled too much being sick because now he is just being super demanding and mean. Plus his birthday is less than a week away and all day today he keeps saying that it is "hard to wait". Tonight I finally made him a chain and said that we will cut one link off everynight and when they are all gone then it will be his birthday!!! I have a feeling that the chain will not make it to Sunday.
On to Bridger.... on Sunday night he was already asleep when I home form work so I went into see how he was doing and he felt really hot to me. I took his temp. and of course it was 101.4!!! I was so freaked out. I called the Dr on-call immediately to find out the tamiflu dosage for a baby (since I had some for Dakota). He was the biggest jerk, he said that he didn't know the dosage and that he thought that Dakota should have never been given tamiflu (since he isn't high risk). Thanks for the help doc!! He threw up once in the night, and his fever came down easily with the Motrin. The next morning I called my actual Ped. and they said that it was probably best to start the tamiflu just because of his age and asthma stuff. He had a fever one more time, but other than that he has been perfectly fine. I am not sure if I just started treating him right away, or the fact that he had some immunity from the vaccine, or maybe he just didn't catch it. Either way he is getting treated. Pretty much since the H1N1 virus started I have been dreading that my kids would get it... and at least now I don't have to worry about it, at least for this year!

It is official.....

we have been SWINED!!!!!

I hate to even announce it because I feel that it is like my house has the plague or something and no one will ever want to be around us again.... but it is true, Dakota has the swine flu!!!!

It all started Thursday night, he had a minor cough, but nothing even remotely serious. He went to bed and about midnight he woke up crying and fevering. I knew right away what it was because I had heard that one minute you are fine and the next minute you are deathly ill. He threw up maybe once or twice through out the night, but his fever came down with Motrin. In the morning Scott took Bridger to be with my mom (thanks again mom) and I took Dakota to the doctor. I gave him more Motrin before we left so when he got there he was doing pretty good and didn't seem all that sick. The nurse practitioner who saw him thought that it might be the flu and decided that we should test him so that if Bridger started getting sick, we could treat him right away (since he has some asthma issues). Dakota did so good getting tested, but on the way home the Motrin started wearing off and he started to get whiny and wanted to go home.

On Saturday I had to go to work and while there I got his test results back, POSITIVE!!! The nurse said that I could treat him with Tamiflu if I wanted... heck yea! Between Tylenol and Motrin he has been feeling pretty good. Yesterday Scott took him pheasant hunting which is just driving around (and most important it gets him away from Bridger). Bridger getting sick is the big worry. He got the H1N1 vaccine this past week, but it is not good for 2 weeks (so basically no good at all right now). Scott is the other big worry, I really don't think that I can handle a super sick husband, every wife knows what I am talking about. Luckily I am vaccinated and it is nice to know that I can be around Dakota and don't have to worry about getting sick. Thank goodness for working in the hospital!!!!

So for now we are just waiting for Dakota to get better (he is contagious for 24 hours after his last fever) and hoping and praying that Bridger doesn't get it. Thanks to my mom and McKenzie who have helped take care of Bridger. McKenzie has stayed at our house basically the whole weekend while I have worked. Scott's parents are coming home from a trip early to take care of Bridger tomorrow and then hopefully we will be good.

So that is our fun story for the weekend, as gross as it sounds we did get swined!!!!

dakota randoms

These are just some random cute pics of Dakota.

Last weekend Scott went Duck hunting and ofcourse Dakota was sad, so we made these cupcakes as an activity to keep him busy. (scott is going to be so mad that i am telling this story, but i am going to anyway....)

Dakota was so proud of his cupcakes, he didn't even eat one, he just displayed them. On Sunday morning when we were headed out to church he walked by his cupcakes and said "thank you daddy no eating my cupcakes". Now you would think that this would make Scott realize how important they were to Dakota, YOU WOULD THINK!!!!

Scott brought his sunday school class home for the lesson and what do you think I found when I got home? an empty tray!!!! I was so mad that I started tearing up. Scott couldn't believe that I was crying, but he didn't spend the day making them with him and he is not his mom!!!

Luckily Dakota handled it okay. Scott says that I make the story sound worst than it was, but I just tell it exactly as it happened.... if it sounds horribly sad it is becaue it was! Scott took Dakota pheasant hunting the next day to make it up to him.

a little update....

The reason that I really wanted to start a blog is because I am horrible and writing in a journal and I never keep up on scrap books.... so I thought that this could be the best of both worlds. This week I decided to make the goal of doing a little journal entry every week. There are so many milestones that I don't remember of Dakota's because never wrote anything down, so the goal to catch every important event in both Dakota and Bridger's life from here on out...... HERE I GO!!!

Sadly, nothing is new with me lately. Just being a mom and working every other weekend. I am so glad that I have nursing (my job, not breastfeeding). As much as it is nice that I don't really have to work too much, it is also nice to get out of the house and get to chat with other moms and women. Plus, it is also a bonus for Scott to play mom for 12 hours and see just how much fun it can be. Actually, most of the time it just makes me feel guilty because when he gets home at night I just can't wait for him to take over, but when I get home I just want to have some quiet time. Really I think that my working helps us both to better appreciate each other.

Scott is super busy between work and school. Even though I had been going to school until last semester it is easy for me to forget all the stress of homework and be totally annoyed when Scott sits at the computer all night. I really can't wait for him to be done in December. We will probably be bored out of our minds at night though. There is a lot of stuff that I would like to start doing and I now that the boys will love having more dad time. Scott will most likely fill all the free time with hunting of some sort.

Dakota is crazy as ever. Maggie was so nice to let us borrow a bike that she had and he has slowly been learning to ride it. It is really frustrating to him when he knows that he could just jump in his jeep and go 100x faster. This week we are working on 2 things. Not sleeping with his boppy pillow and just using a "big kid" regular pillow. And we are trying to not use a sippy cup anymore. He is doing fine with both and not having the cup is making it a lot easier for him to not have to use a pull-up at night. He is always asking "kids do this???" Like do kids wear pull-ups to bed? If I say no then he is determined to wear underwear to bed. He just wants to be like all the big kids in the neighborhood. Even at 3 years old he is obsessed with friends and already experiencing peer pressure. Preschool is going really well, but I feel that his mind is being overloaded with new info. The other day I asked him to count to 5 and he said "1..2...8..9..10...Wednesday"!!!!
Last, but not least, BRIDGER. I think that he is getting pretty close to walking. He can stand all by himself and is trying to take steps on his own, but can't quite get it yet. His new thing this week is to pull everything out of all of the cupboards. He seriously goes from cupboard to drawer to cupboard. Before I even notice the whole house is a mess. He also loves to play in the toilet.... and he doesn't even care if Dakota has recently peed without flushing. It seriously is the worst.