What Would You Do?

So I have a problem with Dallin, and I wanted all the Mom's I know out there (and even if you're not a Mom, you opinions are appreciated too.) to let me know what they would do. Dallin bites. Not to be mean or when he doesn't get his way. It happens when he's tired and wants to be held. You pick him up and he snuggles into your arms. You hold him, rock him, snuggle with him, kiss him, and next thing you know, he bites you. The Doctor said he is just over zealous when showing affection and I should be careful not to react and make seem like a game to him. How are you suppose to not react when he bites your chin and won't let go? Usually He just bits my shoulder or the inside of my elbow. Any ideas on how to break this habit? Should I worry or not? I don't want to end up with the Biter in the daycare. He only had bitten Russ and I, for now. Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks!

Faking Sick?

So I'm starting to wonder if Dallin is learning to fake sick already. I got a phone call at work today. It was the daycare. Dallin had been crying all morning. For those of you who have been around Dallin, you know this isn't normal. He didn't want to take his bottle. He was acting like he wasn't feeling well at all. I didn't question it because he had a fever on Monday. I just thought maybe it had come back. When I got to the daycare I could hear Dallin crying. As soon as I got into the infant room and sat down with him on my lap, he stopped crying and acted completely normal. I took him home and took his temperature. Normal. When we got home, he was giggly and silly and played in the front room with me. Not one cry. I think he was faking so he could go home. :) OK, so he has a bit of a runny nose, but the Doctor thinks it's just a small cold. After spending all day with him, I couldn't believe he was acting to ornery at daycare.

Not only was he happy today, he learned a lot of new "tricks" while we spent the afternoon together. He learned to open the china hutch cupboards. (Adding one more danger zone in our house now.) He learned that if he throws the ball at me, I will roll it back to him. (OK, so it's more like throwing the ball towards the ground and it bounces to me, but he had fun playing. We played for almost 20 minutes and he would giggle every time I would catch the ball.) And he took his first steps today. (He walked about 3 steps the first time before he got to me. We practiced a bunch more times too.)

Today was a lot of work for a "sick" kid. :)

Pumpkin Patches, Birthday Parties, and Trunk Or Treat

Here is a quick run down of the last week.

Dallin loved the hayride. This is him with his pumpkin.

Grandpa Clark, Dallin, Skylar, Grandma Tana, and Brynlee on the hayride.

This is Dallin's birthday cake from the Jenkins' party. It's really a bunch of cupcakes.

Dallin loved opening the presents. Skylar had to help him because it took so long for him to get them open.

Lots of candle because we were celebrating Dallin's, Brynlee's, Ty's, and Jason's birthdays. As for the lack of clothes, I know Dallin was getting ready to get messy with birthday cake. I don't know about Bryn and Sky. :)

First time Mom has let Dallin have more than a few bites of cake. And definitely the first time he has got to eat it on his own. He loved it.

This picture was taken after the trunk or treat at our ward. He had a blast. And didn't mind his costume. Yeah! Aly took some cute pictures of him on Halloween. I'll post it once she gets it to me.

We went out to eat with my mom, Ash, and her kids. All we could get Dallin to eat was an ice cream cone minus the ice cream.

And here are the cousins. That was a tough picture to take.

Family Photos

Well, Veronica Reeve, who took Dallin's 6 months pictures, took our family pictures a week ago. Here are the one's she posted on her blog. What do you all think. Russ and Dallin look great. I think she took so many of Dallin because she knows I'm a sucker for buying cute pictures of my baby. And if you are wondering why her post is lable the "J" Family, it's because I email her from my old account, Nicole Jenkins. I guess I never mentioned that my last name is now Richins. :)

What I Learned

So today I had a day off from work. I had already paid for daycare, so I thought I would make the most of this day. We all slept in about an hour. Once we got up, Russ and Dallin got ready for the day. I dropped Russ off at the train station, Dallin off at daycare, and I headed home. My plan---clean the house. I did jobs I have been putting off or just didn't have time to do when Dallin was around. I want to share a few things I learned today.

1. Baked on tomato soup is one of the hardest things to clean off. If it's not crusty and completely baked on, forming a hard and impenetrable outer shell, then it is this slimy outer layer that you must clean off layer by layer until you then reach the crusty shell below.

2. You can start your oven on fire when seasoning a dutch over. This leads me to....

3. It takes a good hour to get all the smoke to clear out of your house. In the mean time, your eyes burn and your nose runs and you are freezing because it snowed a foot yesterday and all your windows and doors are open at 9 am.

4. A sign of craziness is looking all over your house for the banana you where going to eat until you realized the oven was on fire, then eventually finding the banana peel in the garbage. I must have eaten it, but I have absolutely not memory of doing so.

5. Laundry multiples in the hamper.

6. The problem with deep cleaning is the more you clean, the more there is to clean.

This is today in a nutshell.

Update: Not long after I posted this, I got a call from the daycare. Dallin was running a fever of 101.9. That put an end to my cleaning day. On a brighter note, after picking up Dallin from daycare, we went to my mom's. Dallin took a long nap while I finished making the sorbet I started yesterday. It was yummy. Get the recipe here.

Cool Story Con't (Pictures)

Read the Cool Story first so you understand the pictures.



So here is the "other guy's" car. I can't believe he only had a broken finger and some bad bruises where his seat belt was. The cop from the scene called my mom tonight. I guess the guy was going 75-85 mph when he hit. He's lucky he didn't roll.

Here's a view of Dan's car from the driver's side door. Notice how the driver's seat is on top of the passenger's seat.

Another view of the driver's side door. We think that in the upper right corner, where the headrest of the driver's seat should be, is the backseat.

And here's a picture from the back end of the car. The back tire is somewhere in the location that the backseat passengers usually put their feet. I think everyone involved was very blessed. Dan told me when he pulled over originally, he didn't think he was far enough off the side of the road, so he decided to coast forward about 10 more feet. And I'm convinced that if the guy hadn't hit the car, he would have flipped, ended upside down, and his injuries would have been bad. And we are lucky my dad and Jay didn't decide to go change the tire when Jay got home after 11pm. They may have still been there when it happened. On a lighter note, when my dad told Jay that it was a good thing they didn't go that night or they might have been killed, Jay responded with, "Maybe that was the plan. Maybe we messed up the plan with our laziness." Count on Jay to have a sense of humor in every circumstance. Thanks for keeping us laughing Jay!

Cool Story (Or At Least I Think So)

So last night Dan was coming to Ogden from Logan with a date, when his Honda got a flat tire on the freeway near Willard. This was strange, since the tires were new last week. Dan got out of the car to see if he could fix the tire, but he didn't have a jack. He called my dad to come and help. Dad showed up in his truck and with a jack, but they could not get the jack to work. After a while, they decided to leave the car on the side of the freeway. Dan dropped Dad off at home and left on his date in the truck. My dad called his cousin Jay to go with him to get the Honda. Jay wasn't home and wouldn't be home till about 11 pm. They planned on going to get the car then, but once 11 rolled around, they changed their minds. They would get it in the morning instead.

This morning my mom gets a phone call around 8 am, before my dad had a chance to go and get the Honda. They caller was a lady in her Stake. She asked if my mom had a Honda that was on the freeway last night. My mom told her yes. The lady then informs her that it is no longer there. What had happened was her son was driving home from a date last night about midnight. I'm sure he was going about 75 mph, and he fell asleep. He crashed right into the Honda and totaled it. He woke up to the the air bags deploying. Her son was able to walk away with nothing more that a broken finger. If he hadn't hit the Honda, I'm sure he would have rolled and who knows how bad off he would have been. As my mom said, what are the odds that he would fall asleep at just the right time so he would hit the Honda and not roll off the freeway?

I thought it was a pretty cool story.

**If Dan or Dad read this story, please correct any info that I have wrong. This is how I understood it from Mom.