Moving On

So, as you can tell, I have given up on blogging. I find with life and 2 little kids, it just takes up way to much time. But I do really want to keep sharing pics of our little cuties, and the rest of us.

So I have set up an account at Flickr, that is a lot easier and less time consuming for me to upload photos to. I am keeping them set so only friends and family can see them. If you would like to be added to our contact list, go to flickr and create a user name then request to be our friend. Here is the URL for our flickr albums. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunlopfamily/

I have already downloaded two recent albums of the boys, with more to come.

So tata for now,,,maybe some day i will be back to commentate on life.

Happy Birthday Matthew

It is so hard to believe that as of thursday, Matthew is one year old!! This year has flown by, as I guess it does with a three year old and a baby. :-) I feel like I just turned around and there Matthew was, a one year old, Oh soooo cute. I put together a slide show for his birthmom of the past year, and the one thing that jumped out at me was how much Matthew smiles and laughs. In almost every picture, from 2 months old he is smiling or laughing really big. In spite of lots of spit up and being sick for several months, he always had an easy smile.


This past weekend has been a flurry of activities for his birthday. On thursday, his actual birthday, we had his birthmom and her sister over to play for awhile and then we all went out to dinner. It was so great to be able to spend time with her on that special day, and to let her share in it with us. Her love for Matthew is something that we cherish and that we know will be a blessing to him in the years to come.

We also had his doctor appt. that day, and the poor kid had to get tested for allergies. They tried to take blood out of one arm, but of course he squirmed and ripped the needle out, uck, it bled everywhere. So they had to do it in the other arm... then he had to get 3 shots. Needless to say he was not very happy after that and slept most of the afternoon away.

On Saturday Matthew experienced grass for the first time and loved it! He immediately was pulling at it and laughing, then of course eating it. It was so great to have such beautiful weather and be able to play outside.

Chris was able to finish the chicken coop and the chicks are now happily out in their house, or running around the backyard. (or running away from Isaac...hehehe)


That night we celebrated Matthew's "Gotcha Day", the day he officially became a part of our family. We went to Olive Garden for dinner, where we went on that day last year. I think he must have eaten at least 3 breadsticks, that kid can put it away for sure!


On sunday we had Matthews birthday party. It was such a nice day and we were able to relax outside. We had a bunch of bubble toys for the kids, and I think the adults had just as much fun with them. My deck will be cleaned when it rains for sure.


Matthew loved his cupcake! He shoved that thing in his mouth soooo fast, and his feet were kicking in delight. Thank you to everyone who came to make this such a special day for him.

Easter Chickens

Here are some great pics from Easter. We had all of Anne's family over for dinner and the kids had a great time hunting for eggs and eating candy!! Isaac could not keep his eyes closed while we hid the eggs, so my sister tied a dishtowel around his head, that just made him look arabian! :-)Matthew is so active now, crawling everywhere. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, you always know what he is feeling, usually through laughter luckily. He loved "taking a ride" on grandpa's belly. When dad would laugh, Matthew would bounce up and down laughing hard.

And now for a chicken update....we are getting ready to move them to the backyard! Yeah. They are soooooo big. With the wild weather we had this last week, I am glad I did not do it sooner, but I am ready for them to be outside, not in our basement. Chris and Isaac have been working hard to build the coop. Though as you can barely see in this picture, Isaac is actually up playing in the dirt!
Here is the coop without the roof or any doors or windows cut out, but you get the general idea...I am really proud of Chris for turning into a "home builder" :-)

Here are the chickens in thir box, peeking put over the top.

Matthew and Movie night

This is a pretty random post...basically so I can post some cute pictures from the last few weeks. Matthew is closing in on a year, I can hardly believe it...here are his 11 month pics that I took.

He is soooo smiley. He has finally started crawling and it has been an adventure. He basically has bashed his head into anything he can find and is currently sporting 3 big bruises. In one day he got two bruises and a bloody lip...poor little guy. That was the day after he fell and got a bloody tooth at the gym. Luckily he was fine and he didn't really seem to mind.

One of the traditions that we have at our house is Movie night. Isaac loves Movie night. Last week we rented "Peter Pan" because, of course, it has pirates in it. I love this pic of Isaac standing with his Popcorn box waiting for the Popcorn to be done. He gets so excited for popcorn.

All the boys settled down on the bean bag for the movie, and Bogey circled around waiting for the dropped popcorn, she was rewarded for her patience.

This is a picture of Isaac's St. Patricks day breakfast of green eggs, green honeydew melon and green milk....I think he thought I was weird for having him eat all this. :-)

I just have been hit lately with how big these boys have gotten. I am amazed that I can wake up in the morning and they both seem to have grown a foot overnight. Isaac is such a big 3 year old and amazes me daily with the things he says. Having him potty trained has been the best thing ever!!!!!

And now that Matthew is crawling he is so much more interactive. This morning he has been following me from room to room and talking up a storm. He says da-da and ma-ma a lot, but I don't think he knows what they mean yet.

First (2nd) Trip to the dentist!

Yesterday we took Isaac in for his first dental check up....but... Matthew yelled at him, Isaac got sad and cried, and then wouldn't let go of me to let anyone look in his mouth. Poor kid wouldn't even sit in the chair. So luckily they referred us to a great kid dentist and we were able to get an appointment for today. We had been reading books all week on going to the dentist and he was so excited. I was so suprised by his reaction yesterday.

So today we talked up the dentist a lot and how he could watch a video and play with toys. He was so excited to go. When we got there he enjoyed playing with the toys in the waiting area.

Once we got called back, he walked right into the room and asked where the toys were. The hygenist let him pick out a video, and he thought that was pretty cool. He explored the room, wandering around pointing things out. Once the video started he decided it was ok to sit in the chair if mommy sat with him. Sure! He was a great sport and pointed out the xray and the light to me.



When the dentist came in, he talked like a duck which made a huge hit with Isaac. Then he opened right up and let the dentist count his teeth and brush them.

No problems. Isaac has great healthy teeth, now if we can just get him to stop sucking his thumb so we keep them that way. (We will start working on that soon, but lets finish potty training first!)

Our cutie pie

I Can't get over how big Matthew is getting. Our friends have a 2 week old baby and seeing him makes me realize how fast this past year has been. In the last 3 weeks Matthew has finally been really healthy for the first time since November it seems. He has been really happy and laughing always. For the longest time he has not crawled, but rolled wherever he wanted to go. Just this past week, he has finally figured out how to crawl forwards. He still doesnt go far, and rolls around a lot, but he is definetly crawling.

He has also gotten 4 new teeth this week. That brings him up to a total of 12 teeth, before the age of 11 months!!!! Wow, he has a lot of teeth.

He has started trying to pull himself up to a standing position, but hasn't quite mastered it yet. But if you stand him up, he stays for a long time. He loves to stand at his "piano" and play music.

Here are the latest chic pics from Wednesday. They are now 2 weeks old and oh so big. We took them outside for the first time and they loved it, but were cold. Isaac's new fun job is to hunt in the backyard for worms to feed to the chickens. They go crazy for worms.

They have started to roost, and will jump to the top of their cage, or your shoulder when I take the lid off of their cage. While out in the backyard, Omelet took up permanant residence on my shoulder. So cute! I can't wait until they are able to be in the backyard permanently, running around and have more freedom. Soon, hopefully some time in April.

Mr. Funny and his brood of chicks

Week one chick update: The chicks are all doing great. I am amazed by how fragile they are, and yet how much they grow each day! Every morning I go down to clean their brooder and see that they have a bunch of new feathers. The black one (Omelet) is several days older than the other two and it makes a huge difference. She is bigger than them and has a lot more feathers. Isaac loves to go down and see them. They run and hide behind their food when they hear us coming, but the minute we put treats in our hands and say "here, chick, chick, chick" they come running and eat right out of our hands. Isaac loves to feed them.

Here is a picture I took yesterday after a week at our house (they are 10 days old now) and you can see how their loosing their down covering and getting new feathers. They seem to have tails coming in and along the top of their back. From yesterday to this morning the black one has gotten a lot more!

Isaac had a wal-mart gift card for his birthday, so we went down and let him pick out a new bike helmet. I liked the Cars one, but he insisted on the one that had Bert and Ernie on it (Sesame Street) He was so excited to wear it and the arm and knee pads that came with. He played outside all afternoon wearing the whole ensamble. His shirt fits perfectly...it says "Mr. Funny" on it. You can see his scissors in his hands, he was going around cutting on my bushes.

Sorry I have no pics of Matthew, we went to the duck pond yesterday and the camera was not working...ugh. I will get pics soon, he is so happy and healthy lately. For the first time in literally 3 months, we are all healthy at one time. It is soooo nice, I had forgotten what that was like. :-)

On a side note, potty training is going well, Isaac has stayed dry for 3 days now and is not wearing diapers during the day anymore, even when we go somewhere. YEAH!!!!!!