The Davolts

Andrew is ten months! We are so close to his first birthday, I guess I better start thinking about it! At ten months and pushing 24 pounds, Andrew is an expert crawler and hardly sits still for anything, even meals. He is learning to lift his foot with the intention of walking. He loves to hold hands and walk around the room. Andrew will crawl up the stairs if you let him, but has yet to figure out how to get down aside from tumbling. In fact, whether it's a chair or bed or couch, he hasn't figured out that head first is not the best way to descend. He will crawl under a table or bed to explore the depths and then get frustrated after bumping his head. If you hold him, he wants to see and will try to stand on your lap for a better view.  Andrew has a mischievous smile that looks even cuter with his two bottom teeth. Of course, his beautiful blue eyes and subtle strawberry blonde hair are what makes him irresistible! Andrew will put anything and everything...

Business or Pleasure? Well, both. As part of a program I teach, I get an annual summer trip to California for training. We've gone to San Diego and Sacramento in previous years and this year was back to Sacramento. Our district sends close to one hundred teachers and administrators to this training which means there are lots of friendly faces among the conference of 2,800 people.  While I knew I'd miss my boys, I also looked forward to having a bed to myself (which I didn't use nearly enough), to socializing past 7PM and living the single life for three days.  A room with a Cathedral view. We were spoiled almost immediately upon arrival with accommodations at the Hyatt Regency Hotel which is directly across the street from the state Capital building and a great park, being offered a glass of champagne as we checked in. Evidently, the Hyatt was Arnold's hotel of choice while serving as Governor. My own bed! Packing a laptop in one's suitc...

 Andrew is now nine months old and busy as ever. When people ask about the differences between Nathan and Andrew, I usually joke that Andrew will be the one to give me gray hairs! He is on the go every waking minute. No joke! But I know that he will also bring a sense of adventure to our family.  After a month spent pulling himself across the floor on his belly, he mastered the art of efficient crawling just days before turning nine months. We now have make-shift barricades in the house to prevent him from entering or exiting specific areas. Likewise, Andrew loves to pull himself up on his feet using any drawer, table, or body that he can. He will let go for just a moment, raising his arms triumphantly at standing independently before falling back to the ground on his diaper covered bottom.  We visited Dr. Chrissie for his nine month check up at which we discovered he had not fully recovered from a recent ear infection and he had lost a pound of weight i...

The second of any month is a shared month-iversary for both boys, given that both were born on the second of their respective months. In this case, June meant a third birthday for Nathan and an 8 month milestone for Andrew. The month of June is a whirlwind with Nathan's birthday and the end of the school year for all of us, hence another late post and admittedly without much written content. My apologies! My morning commuting companion.  Adding the final touches to his birthday cake.  Cute cake and cute boys! Andrew loves yogurt! Celebrating his third birthday with Cousin JD. Andrew is on the go! He is now crawling everywhere he can get himself.  Andrew has learned to transition from his belly to a seated position. "Eight months? Me?" Boarding our flight to Boise for Memorial Day. Nathan takes after his mother and actually reviews the safety literature. The boys will stay home with us for the months of July and Augus...

My journey to be a FT teacher has been filled with many ups and downs over the past four years.  I'll let you read all about that journey here , here and here .  But I wanted to share great news with all our readers.  I already know where and what I will be teaching next year!  This is the earliest point in the year that I have ever had official confirmation that I have a job, let alone what I will be teaching. Next year I will be teaching full time at McLoughlin Middle School (Mac).  It is the same school that I taught one class at this year.  I'll be teaching two "Hula" blocks, Humanities and Language Arts, and an Intensive Literature class.  The Hula class is Ancient Civilizations along with Language Arts, and the Intensive Lit class is a reading, writing and SS class for students 2-3 grades behind grade level; it is the same class I taught this year at the Mac. I am quite excited about this change.  For the first time I will have my own c...

Like most young boys, Nathan loves trucks of all kinds, dump trucks, garbage trucks, and any other sort of heavy equipment.  He has multiple PJ's with both diggers and dumpers on them, and one of his favorite books is called Diggers and Dumpers.  One of our best purchases was $4 worth of beans that we placed in a plastic bin for Nathan to use with all his dump trucks and bulldozers. Last year friends of ours told us about Dozer Day, an event in Clark County where kids get to ride on heavy equipment.  In past years it was a small event and often sold out, so we scooped up tickets months ago, knowing that Nathan would love to take a ride on some large equipment.  We were pleasantly surprised to find out the event had expanded to the fairgrounds this year and increased their number of attractions. There really was quite a bit to do.  There were at least a dozen or more excavators, bulldozers and bobcats for children to ride on.  Each ride was about 2-3 min...

I can hardly believe we are already so far into the month of May. Andrew continues to grow and time continues to fly by! It's truly amazing watching him discover the world around him, now that he's sitting independently, rolling around and inching across the floor (though not truly crawling, yet). Andrew's teacher is often commenting that he'll be crawling before the older babies in the room and jokes that he'll need to teach the others.  He is really a happy guy and has a great giggle that I love to jumpstart. He's starting to grab painfully tightly to my neck and eagerly offers open-mouth kisses on my cheeks. Of course, anything and everything takes a turn in his mouth, whether appropriate to that purpose or not.  After another routine check up with Dr. Chrissie, Andrew's size is till on par with Nathan's at this age. Andrew weighed 21 pounds 12 ounces (+95th percentile) and measured 27 inches long (75th percentile). He is eating more and more the...