Happy Birthday, Dear Ella & Other Stuff in October

October was another busy one for the Dew family!

On Oct. 7, Emerson turned 10 months.  She is pulling up and testing her balance but still no indication that she will be walking any time soon.  I think she likes being carried better. 

 

 

October was also the month that we celebrated Ella's third birthday with her friends at an indoor playground in Raleigh.  This was the first party that Ella set the guest list full of her friends.  Slides and swings galore.  After the party, some guests headed back to the house for hot dogs and visiting, but Ella apparently felt bad and took a nap instead!  They are so unpredictable at this age.

 

 

What's a birthday party without a playground theme and poop in the sandbox?

 

 

 

I was also super busy with Junior League obligations in anticipation of the League's Shopping Spree!  I had to makes tons of samples for the cookbook table at Shopping Spree! But, it gave a great opportunity for Ella to help us do some of the cooking . . .

Just because she's making Mommy and Daddy wine slushies doesn't mean she isn't cooking?

 

 

An October isn't complete without a trip to Hillridge Farms for a hayride, pumpkin picking and tons of other activities.  With all the fun activities, Ella's favorite thing to do was apparently the swings.  We did manage to peel her away for some other fun, including Mommy's first time down the huge slide!

 

 

 

We ran into our friends the Smiths.  Ella drove the school bus for Ally and Ashley.











We also had to find time to squeeze in a Fall festival at daycare.  Al and I both  missed the fun event, but luckily the teachers captured a few pictures of all the fun we missed. 

 

And last but not least, we finished off the month with some trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood.  Ella definitely understood it much more this year around, but she got some candy and decided it was time to go home and hand out candy instead.  How adorable are they?

 

 

Until next time . . . 

Emerson is NINE months!

The common refrain, "I can't believe how fast they grow up" is alive and well in the Dew family. Emerson has recently celebrated nine months and we have a crawler. Emerson was a couple months behind Ella in the crawling department, but she is now our marathon, distance crawler. She's pulling up on her knees and it won't be long before she is pulling up and cruising. It looks like she is also finally getting in one more pair of chompers (for a total of 4 teeth).

 

Emerson is definitely a silly face maker.

Doesn't she look so pround of her new-found abilities.

Of course, Ella is always ready to get in on the action when the camera comes out.  Here, she is displaying proper crawling techniqure for Emerson.

 

Until next time . . .

in Dew's August Time (Part 2)

It has been an impossibly busy summer, but we finally made it to the beach for Emerson to first experience the sand between her toes. We stayed with Al's mom in Salter Path, but drove to the Oceanana in Atlantic Beach for the day. It's where I spent my first time at the beach so it holds lots of nostalgia for me. I was so glad that Ella and now Emerson made there first trip to the beach there too! They both enjoyed the sun and sand, can you tell?

 

That's a happy face, not a grouchy face!

The one drawback to our first beach experience was an unexpected pipe that burst in the beach house.  We think it had been leaking for weeks and did significant damage to the floors and walls.  Mold growing, yuck!  This is your house after 3 weeks of running water:

 

 

Anyone know a good contractor in Atlantic Beach?  We'll see what happens when we get the estimate.

It was an entire weekend of firsts. Including Ella's first shrimping experience and putt-putt.  On Sunday morning, one of the guys in a neighboring house was in the marina throwing a net trying to get shrimp.  There is an art to shrimping with a hand-held net and every time he threw it, Ella says "was that a good throw?".  Mutliply that about fifty times followed each time by "did you get any?"  Whew.  But, when Daddy attempted to shrimp, she couldn't care less.

We also played a game of putt-putt with Ella while Emerson stayed with Me-Ma.  We had to fish her ball out of the water several times, but the putter only had to be fished out once.  That's good, right? 

 
The month also brought Ella's first gymnastics lesson.  I think Mommy and Daddy were looking forward to it even more than Ella!  They don't want the parents in the gym so I didn't know how it would go, but she was so focused that she never even missed us when we snuck out to have a quick bit to eat at Chubby's next door.  I can't upload the video, but I'll download one so or you can check it out on Facebook.

We also managed to squeeze in Al's birthday with a couple GiGi's cupcakes and me doing BOTH baths instead of dividing the responsbility.  We really know how to celebrate around here!

Until next Dew time.

in Dew's August time (Part 1)

It was such a busy August that I didn't even manage to get a single post up, but here are some highlights:

Emerson turned eight months old in August.  She also took the crawling plunge and we can't stop her.  I like to say that she is a distance crawler since she will crawl through multiple rooms just to get where you are.  She's already trying to pull up too so I better get to child proofing again.

We also did some good old-fashioned pots and pans music this month while I was trying to get dinner on the table.  Ella was a great teacher for her little sister. 

 

Al and I continued our tradition of at least one race per month with the Rex Wellness sprint triathlon.  Al's been doing sprint triathlon's for a while and has gotten very competitive with them.  Watching him at the races piqued my interest and I decided to give it a try myself.  However, I just started taking lessons to improve my swimming so I stuck to the run and participated on a relay team with Al's boss, Beth and my personal trainer, Marcy.

I think Al had a great finish time at 1:04:07, but I know he'll say that he could do better.  He still finished 34th overall.  Great job, Al!  I've been frustrated with my run times after having Emerson, but I really wanted to set a great time for my team.  Of course, it had been overcast the entire morning and when it came time for my run, the heavens opened up and it was pouring rain.  It certainly made for an unpleasant run with heavy rain beating my face, running through huge puddles and of course, getting sprayed with water by a passing car.  Despite the obstacles, I finished the run leg in 28:09 (yay!) and our team finished in the middle of the pack.  We were an all-girl team and I bet we were the top female relay team (or at least top couple women team).  We have to work on our transitions and we would have jumped in the standings.  Next time!

No pictures of this event since we were both participating but you can find pictures at www.carolinasnapshot.com and searching the event for #211 (me) and #96 (Al).

That was just the first half of the month, stand by for even more Dew times!

Groceries and the Ball Park

What do the grocery store and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park have in common?  Nothing really, except that members of the Dew clan did both this weekend. 

I have set a Dew family goal to run at least one 5K race per month and that tradition continues with the July race:  Blue Points at the Ball Park 5K.  This is a fun race we did last year and repeated again this year.  It starts on the warning track of the ball park and travels along the American Tobacco Trail in Durham.  The whole family joined in the race with me pushing the double jogger.  Both Al and I had decent times and improved on our times from last year, but no prizes this year.  A couple post-race pictures:

Emerson completing some post-race stretches.

Now a trip to the grocery store isn't particularly interesting I know, but it WAS Emerson's first time sitting in the cart and not in the car seat!

Until the next Dew time . . .