Dawson is 7 today!

Happy Birthday Dawson! Our Dawson turned 7 today! We spent the day as a family. Daddy made his famous pancakes for breakfast and Dawson got to open his presents. Since mommy won't let him have a real dog, we got him a care-for-your-own-puppy game for his Nintendo DS. He is now the proud owner of a virtual pug he named Harley. (that's my sister Dannon's pug's name, too. shocker.) :) He's been trying to get his pug to sit all day long--pretty cute. It's voice activated, so it actually responds to his voice. He keeps saying how hard it is to have a dog! Ahhhhhhh, I love the virtual dog......

We also went swimming at the rec center for several hours, ate at Dawson's favorite restaurant--the green noodle store. (Noodles & Co for the grown up name. His favorite dish is the pesto cavatappi, hence green noodles.) We then went to see Hotel for Dogs at the dollar theater. Overall it was a fun day!

We had his birthday party on Sunday at JetKids Gymnastics. I have video of the big party on my other computer so I'll edit this with the video later. It was a lot of fun! We invited the whole class and ended up with 24 kids showing up! I think he rang in the big 7 in a big way! Can't believe my baby is already 7. It goes so fast!

The Jones's Spring Break at the Cummings

Dannon and her crew joined us for a few days in March for their Spring Break. The big kids went skiing:

Donnie and the kids! Autumn, Treyton and Justin

Paul and Autumn

Autumn and Treyton

Justin on the Ski lift
The little kids stayed home and played in other ways:

Dawson and Dylan taught Zachary how to play on the Nintendo DS...

Zach got WAY into the game!

Such a cutie..

Eating supper in the BIG highchair!

And of course, the bath tub shot. Zachary thought he was way bigger than he really is while hanging with the big boys. Dannon thought he was going to drown himself several times! I think he had a blast.

Sleepy boy laid down on the floor and hung out with Aunt Michelle for a little bit. So adorable.

And we hit the park up the street as well!

Such a big guy!

We also went to the Denver Children's Museum and CasaBonitas while they were here. Check out my sister's blog to see more pics of the fun trip!

Dawson loses another tooth!

If you have been a Cummings Chronicles blog follower from the beginning, you will remember the multiple blog postings on the multiple teeth Dawson lost a few months ago. Well the tooth fairy strikes again! Dawson lost another tooth today while home for a snow day. Upper left tooth in the picture below. The tooth fairy will have to cough up another golden dollar again tonight.....

Doesn't he look so grown up with his new permanent teeth coming in? Can't believe he is going to be 7 years old next week!

Dawson is an author!

This last semester we enrolled Mr. Dawson in a writing class at school. Little did we know that he actually authored a book in this class! We are so very proud of him! Taking after his mom already. :) Here he is accepting his books.


Much to his parent's chagrin, it was about Pokemon.... but nontheless we are proud of him anyway! I pretty much lost it when I opened the front cover and in red crayon it says, "Dedicated to My Mom". So sweet. We are so proud.

And for some reason, even though the pics are orientated sideways when I upload them, the blogger site decides they need to be vertical. So turn your head and see a few pages of Dawson's book.


Authored and Illustrated by Dawson, age 6.

Februrary 2009 at the Cummings

Yes, February did happen at our house this year. It was a crazy, full month! I'll do a quick recap.

First off, my mom had hip replacement surgeryon Feb 4 here in Denver, so I played nurse for a good 2 weeks. She came through the surgery just fine, scared me a few times with all of the drugs she was on, but is doing better now. Here are a few pics of her big event!


Going in for the surgery...

Dad sleeping in the waiting room. We waited for 8 hours!


Recovering in her room.
And she's UP! They had her walking on the new hip the next day!


This definitely consumed our family for about 2 weeks. I was in the hospital everyday with mom. Paul was super dad while I was out. The boys came to the hospital to visit grandma a few days as well. She was at our house for about 4-5 days before she made the treck to Kansas to do physical therapy in Norton. Desiree went and stayed with mom for a week or so when she got the Kansas and then Dannon went after that and took a turn. It all comes full circle, eh? She cared for us then, we'll care for her now. :)


After that I have been on a cross country conference tour. In February alone I was in the following cities: Chicago, Houston twice, Orlando and Boulder, CO. Then in March I flew to Pittsburg, Portland, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, NJ, Dallas and Abilene, TX and Ft. Collins, CO all for work. I've already flown 20,000 miles in 2009 alone! It's been a crazy couple of months for work and family. I'm definitely tired and ready to slow the travel a bit. In April I'll be in Las Vegas, Houston, North Dakota and Los Angeles. Whew....


The BIG event of February though was Dylan's 5th Birthday! We had a very fun party at the House of Bounce. Our best buddy, Jimmy has a birthday the same day as ours, so we shared our party with him! Here are some pictures and a video from our fun day:

The 2 birthday KINGS in the throne!

some of our friends
Our big brother!

I can't get this picture to turn sideways, but here are more of the birthday guests! It was so fun!








February ended with our favorite confernce of the year in Boulder, CO. Paul and I both go to this conference and some of our dearest colleagues are there. We both enjoy this community of people so much and look forward to it every year. We host a costume party during the conference and this years theme was 'Prom'. It was hysterical! You could come in any prom outfit from any era. People were very creative and we laughed so hard our sides hurt! From men in women's dresses to velour jackets to a t-shirt that said 'prom'--we saw it all!

It was a crazy month! I'll post again for March....

~michelle

Fun Facts for Families

I picked up a deck of cards at a recent conference called Familiy Talk--Fun Facts for Families. It's a simple deck of cards with questions you can ask each other. Lately bath time has turned into pick-on-your-brother time, so I decided we needed a distraction during bath. While the boys are in the tub I'll ask them questions--it really was fun to hear their answers, and bath time didn't end with someone in trouble.

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Dawson: A Petkeeper, like at the mall. (he wants a dog)

Dylan: A Red Power Ranger with cards. (a superhero public servant!)

Daddy: I haven't grown up yet, I'll let you know. (I would agree.) :)

Mommy: I'm already doing it!

Q: What is your favorite food that mommy or daddy makes?

Dawson: Beefy mac

Dylan: Tuna Noodle

Daddy: His mom's chocolate chip cookies

Mommy: My mom's garlic rice. mmmmmm

Q: If you could have one wish what would it be?

Dawson: To have a pug like Harley. (thanks alot dannon!)

Dylan: To have a pug. (again, thanks alot)

Daddy: To win the powerball jackpot.

Mommy: To win the powerball jackpot. :)

p.s. Sense a theme here with the dog? When the kids ask when they can get a dog I tell them when they get a new mommy. ha! Mean......I know. I don't have time for a dog. I already have 3! I feed them, I bathe them and I pick up their......

Q: What is your favorite season and why?

Dawson: Winter--dawson likes to go sledding!

Dylan: Summer--dylan is a fish in the water! he loves to go swimming.

Daddy: Fall--daddy likes the smell of Fall and hot apple cider

Mommy: Sweatshirt and flip flop season, which usually translates into the beginning of Fall and early Spring.

Q: What ws your favorite game to play when you were a child?

Dawson: the game Diggity Dog

Dylan: the game of Sorry

Daddy: the Lord of the Rings role playing game, Middle Earth

Mommy: Fox and chickens--a fun tag game we played at night on the farm.

Q: What is your favorite color?

Dawson: Red

Dylan: Red

Daddy: Blue

Mommy: Purple

Those are just a few of the cards. There's 100 cards in the deck so we have a lot more to talk about! :) If you want to check out the deck there's a website on the cards: http://www.familytalkgame.com/.

Happy Birthday Paul!

OK, so I'm a little late posting Paul's birthday. It was Jan 1. But we celebrated in a very fun way this year. We started the afternoon at our favorite Irish Pub downtown, Fado's. We ate boxty's until we could eat no more. Mmmmmmmm, boxty's...... my favorite Irish food. Anyway.... Then we headed over to the Filmore Auditorium. There is an Irish Celtic Punk band named Flogging Molly and they are a favorite of Paul's. I found out they were playing in Denver at the Filmore so I bought tickets for the Dec 30 show. (babysitters are harder to find on Dec 31!). After I purchased the tickets I received a text message from Verizon saying I could win backstage passes to meet the band if I text XYZ to XYZ number. So I did......40 times......and I WON! I also won 2 extra tickets so we invited the neighbors, Rick and Melanie to go with us. Paul and I got to meet the band and go to the sound check party. We received autographed posters of the band and Paul has one hanging in his office now. It was pretty cool! They let Paul bring in his uber-pimped out camera and here are a few of the shots he took that night.

We definitely felt like we were the only people in the audience without facial piercings, tattoos and over the age of 35, but we had fun anyway. It was one of those concerts where there are no chairs, everyone stands and everyone jumps up and down throughout the entire concert. My calves hurt a little the next day. :) We had a blast and I'd go back and see them again in a heartbeat.

We also connected with our friend Mariah at another Irish Pub called the Irish Snug before the concert and got to meet her new husband and her brother. We've known Mariah for years and they had tickets to the same show!

Happy Birthday Paul.... I still love you with all my heart.

~psm